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‘Unlimited drink in every village’
A.M. Sullivan rose to present the defence case on behalf of the sitting councillor. J.K. O’Connor, he said, was not defending himself against about eighty charges of bribery, undue influence and procuring personation for the sake of his county council seat; rather, he was defending his own person against such charges. Denis Reidy was indulging in unlimited personal accusations against his client, forty of which had been absolutely disproved by the evidence produced by the petitioner himself. It was a catalogue of crime of which J.K. O’Connor was ‘absolutely innocent’. O’Connor never ordered free drinks for his supporters in public houses, he never went into a public house during the election and where he learned of treating, he did all he could to prevent it:
The candidate was not the leader. He was used by every faction and party and his name was used as a weapon to best their own opponents. In this constituency at the time the election took place there were innumerable factions, political and personal, each of whom took up one of the candidates and used him in conducting his campaign against his enemy.
As soon as O’Connor heard of what was going on, he went to publican Richard Shanahan and said there was no justification for it: ‘I can beat that fellow (Reidy), three to one, and if the election is to be won by porter, I would prefer not to win it at all.’ The barrister continued, according to the Kerry People, in ‘convincing tones’:
Mr O’Connor could not stop it. In view of the provocation of Reidy himself it was impossible to stop it, and with the example before them of open houses it was impossible to expect that his friends would stand aside, and consequently this campaign of competitive treating commenced by Reidy, waxed hotter and hotter, culminating on polling day with unlimited drink in every village and where there was no village an unlimited supply of drink was served to all-comers. Competitive appeals to corruption.
‘A very ordinary episode in this country’
O’Connor, his defence counsel insisted, had never gone about ‘ladling out drink’ when canvassing votes. No evidence had been produced to place the successful candidate in a public house with any voter. One publican, Mrs Nolan, had admitted to charging drinks at election time to whatever candidates were contesting, with or without their approval. Nobody had done so with J.K. O’Connor’s sanction, O’Sullivan contended. As for the large crowd enjoying refreshments at O’Connor’s on the evening of the Brosna meeting, there was nothing in the law that said a man couldn’t treat friends and supporters in this way after a day of electioneering. And what was wrong with offering somebody a drink? ‘Will you have a drink?’ was as common as saying ‘Good morning’. His client, Sullivan continued:
met many people, and they spoke … about the crops and weather, and eventually the election came down. After a friendly conversation with a man, when one had his luncheon basket besides him, what was more natural than that he should ask the man to take a little sup of whiskey. That was a very ordinary episode in this country.
Rejecting all charges of bribery, Sullivan dismissed some of the sworn statements of witnesses, which incidentally hadn’t been produced in evidence, but had been procured in that ‘great, grogging, affidavit factory, Hussey’s public house’. ‘You might imagine,’ Sullivan continued, ‘the inducements there held out for people to sign their names to affidavits.’ As for Mrs Hanoria O’Connor, who admittedly ‘talks a little much’, she had been accused of bribery despite simply offering a friend clothes in an act of Christianity a full twelve months before the election.
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‘Without the slightest foundation’
When John Kerry O’Connor was finally called to the stand on the eighth day of the hearing, he strenuously denied all charges. He had no knowledge of drink being supplied to voters at polling stations. On the canvass, yes, he treated friends who travelled with him to ‘a nip of whiskey’, but he never entered a public house in order to influence his constituents and never engaged in bribery at election time. He also rejected that he had anything to do with damage caused to Denis Reidy’s home on 3 May by a group who had been plied with drink. He had ordered some refreshments for his supporters on the evening of the Brosna meeting, but denied knowing anything of Dan ‘Spud’ Murphy’s acquisition of another tierce of porter for those present. He was upstairs with friends on the evening in question. When the respondent concluded his evidence, it was left to E.J. McElligott, O’Connor’s junior counsel, to summarise his client’s denial of all charges:
Mr J.K. O’Connor came into this court not for the purpose of retaining his seat but for the purpose of vindicating his character, and vindicating the character of his wife, who was dear to him, from the shocking, gross and malignant charges heaped and piled up against him without the slightest foundation, and he has succeeded, in vindicating his wife’s character, his own character, and in doing so he had achieved everything he had to achieve.
There followed much applause in court.
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‘Holding the crowded court spellbound’
‘The “judgement day” in the now famous Castleisland election petition,’ wrote the Kerry People correspondent, ‘brought an immense crowd to and around the precincts of the Courthouse, and the decision was awaited with the keenest interest. The language in which the decision was given was worthy of the best traditions of the Irish bar, Mr Commissioner Maxwell holding the crowded court spellbound.’12 Maxwell noted that over the course of nine days, J.K. O’Connor had faced over 100 distinct charges in a case of ‘magnitude’ and ‘gravity’: forty-five charges of treating, eleven of public houses alleged to be open for the free distribution of drink to voters, two cases of undue influence and duress, seven of illegal hiring and five of personation. The hiring of transport for taking voters to the polls, with the knowledge of the respondent, had not been proved. The charges of personation at the polling stations had not been proved. Two charges of undue influence had failed. In relation to the bribery charges, it was the view of the court that ‘personal bribery’ had not been proved. Charges of bribery against Mrs Hanoria O’Connor were ‘groundless’. However, the allegations that J.K. O’Connor had treated voters by ‘keeping an open house’ had been amply proved against the respondent and several others too. The commissioner recalled a reference by the successful candidate to his belief that he would prevail by a margin of three to one, but the closeness of the result, a margin of just thirty votes, ‘showed it was a nearer matter than he thought’.
‘Shameful and shameless corruption’
Commissioner Maxwell did not find the evidence in relation to treating in public houses to be credible. While O’Connor claimed he had cautioned publicans like Richard Shanahan and Dan Murphy not to supply drink to voters in his name, at least £100 worth of drink had been given out in the councillor’s interest. Maxwell ‘did not think the amount Mr O’Connor would have to pay (had he had to pay for it), would influence him in warning publicans not