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Petitioning the courts to have the result of an election declared void was nothing new in Kerry or elsewhere – though none of the previous cases involved such a catalogue of porter-induced skulduggery at the polling stations. At the 1910 general election, for example, John Murphy, who was strongly supported by J.K. O’Connor, petitioned to unseat the winning candidate, Eugene O’Sullivan, the East Kerry MP, alleging vote rigging, personation and intimidation and the election was declared void. The 1911 local elections saw a former chairman of Kerry County Council, St John Donovan, petition for the unseating of Tralee publican, Thomas Healy, who had beaten him to the seat in the Ardfert division. The court heard charges of ‘an orgie [sic] of perjury’ as allegations of treating voters on the roadside and supplying drink to voters at a dance were made against Healy. Healy’s barrister was the Irish Parliamentary Party MP Timothy Healy, who said that there had been a ‘collusion of perjury between Mr Donovan’s relatives’ and remarked that ‘in this instance, it was not Satan reproving sin but Bacchus reproving booze’.5 The court declared Thomas Healy’s election, however, to be null and void.
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‘Intimidation of the greatest character’
The Castleisland case opened on Tuesday, 25 August 1908, at Castleisland courthouse before Commissioner Maxwell. Denis J. Reidy, the petitioner, was represented by his solicitor, David Roche, instructing Serjeant John Francis (J.F.) Moriarty, King’s Counsel – from Mallow and well known in political circles – and junior counsel Bernard Roche. J.K. O’Connor, the respondent, was represented by solicitor R.C. Meredith, who instructed A.M. Sullivan, King’s Counsel (later a member of Sir Roger Casement’s defence team when he was tried for treason in 1916) and E.J. (Ned) McElligott, his junior (later a Circuit Court judge; his family owned the Listowel Arms Hotel). The returning officer for the poll was Maurice Moynihan, who was represented in court by Joseph Mangan, solicitor. The court heard allegations that J.K. O’Connor had won his seat on the county council by bribing voters, supplying them with drink and intimidating them into supporting him. Barrels of porter had been placed at polling stations and Reidy’s election rallies were disrupted by personation and ‘gross rowdyism’. O’Connor’s wife, Hanoria, was one of his principal and ‘most active’ agents. She had distributed whiskey to voters on the canvass and had driven many voters to the polls on polling day. One voter alleged that she had received a shilling from Mrs O’Connor in return for a promise to vote for her husband. A few days before polling, witness Jeremiah McMahon described being canvassed by the O’Connors:
J.K. and his wife went into the house. He asked for a vote, and witness said he would give it to him. ‘He asked me on the road would I take a drink of whiskey … and I said I would. Mrs J.K. was there. I drank out of a tumbler with a handle on it. Mr O’Connor filled out the whiskey and I drank it.’ (Laughter). That was about the 26 May.
‘Terrorism’ of O’Connor’s supporters
The second day of the case opened with the sensational claim, made by Denis Reidy’s counsel Serjeant Moriarty, that on leaving the courthouse the previous evening, ‘three witnesses for the petitioner were beaten’ and subjected to ‘terrorism’ by O’Connor’s supporters. A man had been arrested and the commissioner warned that there could be no repetition of such behaviour. The long line of witnesses continued. Before voting at Knocknagoshel, witness Timothy Warren claimed to have been offered a ‘quarter of ground free for the year’ by an associate of O’Connor’s. Another man, Thomas Leane, claimed to have been offered a free return ticket to America. Several witnesses reported receiving but not paying for drink on the day of the election:
Michael Culloty deposed, in reply to Sergt [sic] Moriarty, that he lived about a mile from Castleisland. He voted at that election. He remembered the Sunday Mr Reidy was holding his meeting. On that day witness was in Mr J.K. O’Connor’s yard in the evening. Before he went into the yard, he was in the kitchen. He got whiskey from the servant girl. The kitchen was full and they were all getting whiskey … He had two pints of porter in the yard … It was taken from a barrel … Witness did not pay for the porter or whiskey nor did he see anybody paying for it. They all got porter.6
Culloty claimed he was told by Mrs O’Connor that she ‘would leave a pint for me every day for six months’, whereas Denis Reidy had only ordered one pint for him at some point before the election. Michael Brosnan told the court that he voted at Curranes and that prior to polling day, Mrs O’Connor came to his house to ask for his vote. There was drink available at the polling station:
Did you get drunk there? – There was drink all over the place [laughter]. I got drunk there anyway [more laughter].
In further examination, he said he got drink from Thomas Griffin, a son of Patrick Griffin’s, Mr O’Connor’s personating agent. He didn’t see Maurice O’Connor, high nor dry, at the barrel of porter [laughter].
Mr Serjeant Moriarty – Nobody was dry that day [laughter].
Witness – The day was dry, sir. [loud laughter].7
‘A gallon of whiskey’
A Mrs Murphy was working in the O’Connor’s kitchen on the Sunday evening prior to the election. She said Dan Murphy, a local publican, was there and was in charge of a barrel of porter which had come from Hartnett’s bar nearby. ‘She could not tell what time it [the barrel]was brought. She was in and out of the house during the day. How did it come in, “it didn’t walk in”’, questioned counsel.
Witness said she did not know.
Did you see whiskey given out in the kitchen? – Yes.
You had a bottle of whiskey? – Yes.
Did you know everyone you gave whiskey to? – I knew them at the time.
How many did you give whiskey to, thirty or forty? – Yes, the people that came from Brosna.
The porter came from Hartnett’s; did Hartnett come with it? – I could not tell you.
Who told you to order it? – I ordered it myself (sensation in court)
Who authorised you? – I know the men were coming in on Sunday and I went to Mr O’Connor and asked him what would I get. He told me to get whatever I wanted.
What did you order? – A half tierce8 of porter and a gallon of whiskey … I knew Mr O’Connor was holding a meeting in Brosna. There were a number of supporters with him. It was for the purpose of giving refreshments to the people that went to Brosna that I ordered the porter and whiskey in.9
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‘Seventy-three gallons of porter’
It wasn’t just in Castleisland establishments that alcohol was allegedly used to influence voters. Knocknagoshel, in which there were ten public houses in 1908, was targeted not only by O’Connor, but also by Reidy, the court heard. Daniel O’Connor, a publican in Knocknagoshel, supplied drink worth £7 17s to voters on Reidy’s orders, while his neighbour Simon Keane had a bill for £7 16s in the name of J.K. O’Connor and £2 9s in the name of Denis Reidy. Among the recipients of free porter on Keane’s books was ‘Dan the Bird’, who was described in court as a ‘local character’. Two other local men, Edward Devane and Cornelius McAuliffe, went to vote at Curranes and got drink at the polling station, they said. One of O’Connor’s agents, Bryan O’Connor, had taken porter, whiskey and port wine to the polling station – he tapped one of the porter barrels and ‘let them drink and be damned to it’. A bottle of special whiskey was reserved for the polling clerks on duty. As Justice of the Peace, J.K. O’Connor was in the advantageous position of being able to swear in the polling clerks in his own electoral division, which had five polling stations. One of those clerks was John Fitzgerald, who told the court that when he made his declaration of secrecy before O’Connor, he was told,