Twenty-five years of court reporting across Mayo recalled

by Tom Gillespie

IN my 46-year journalistic career as a reporter, and later as editor of The Connaught Telegraph, my favourite 25-year period was as a roving court reporter.

In that time I had responsibility for coverage of the sittings of the district courts in Castlebar, Balla, Ballinrobe, Claremorris, Kiltimagh, Westport, Newport and Achill.

Back in those days district courts were held in 19 different venues in Mayo.

Today, under the Courts Service, there are now just four venues remaining - Castlebar, Ballina, Belmullet and Achill.

In the past sittings were held in two districts - Achill, Balla, Ballina, Ballinrobe, Ballycastle, Ballycroy, Belmullet, Castlebar, Crossmolina, Foxford, Killala, Kiltimagh, Newport, Swinford and Westport; and the second Mayo district in Ballyhaunis, Charlestown, Claremorris and Kilkelly.

The venues back then included hotels in Crossmolina and Claremorris and a family sittingroom in Killala.

Balla courthouse was a tiny, cold building and I often arrived at it minutes after the starting time of 11 a.m. to find that all the business had been completed by Justice Hugh McGahan, who resided in Balla.

On one occasion the key of the door to Balla courthouse was misplaced, and local Garda Frank Vaughan had the task of ‘breaking’ into the building so proceedings could proceed.

Likewise, the Newport venue was again a tiny, pokey place and could accommodate all but a dozen or so people.

Now the vast majority of the county sittings are held at a centralised courts service at the courthouse in Castlebar. This, I believe, presents difficulties for defendants and witnesses who may have to travel long distances to attend.

Likewise, the legal profession and members of the gardaí may be inconvenienced, but then again they are paid to be there. Heretofore, justice was dispensed locally, as seen by the above courts venue list.

I would have spent most of my court time in the old Castlebar Courthouse, attending both District, Circuit, High and Central Criminal Court hearings.

Castlebar Courthouse, which was designed by George Papwort in the neoclassical style and built in ashlar stone, was completed in 1822.

The building was originally used as a facility for dispensing justice but, following the implementation of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, which established county councils in every county, it also became the meeting place for Mayo County Council until 1989. By then the courthouse had fallen into a state of disrepair and, after an extensive programme of refurbishment works, it was reopened in 2004.

In the old District Court, which doubled for meeting of Castlebar Urban District Council, the Press bench was located facing the witness box.

When the Press bench was demolished copies of The Connaught Telegraph were found in the rubble. In the new building we sat in front of the court clerk, with the Justice behind him, and we faced the solicitors and the public.

On one occasion, gardaí had a defendant in custody who was eating an apple. I was taking notes when something flew over my head - the apple butt - aimed at, but just missing, Justice Brennan.

This resulted in future defendants in custody being handcuffed before their cases were called.

As accredited court reporters we had access to court documents to get details of charges and addresses.

For this we are most grateful to the court clerks - in my case they were Michael Fadden, John Healy, always a gentleman, along with Gerry Needhan (now practising as a barrister), Peter McGauran and Alo Filan.

In the circuit court office, Bernard Daly, Patsy Murphy and Fintan Murphy were the county registers with whom I worked.

Meanwhile the members of the Fourth Estate with whom I shared the press benches were John Anderson, Larry Long, Carol McHugh, Aiden Henry, Christy Loftus, Chris Lavelle, Bernie Gillespie, Martin Curry, Sean Rice, Sean Staunton, Tom Kelly, Tom Rowley, John Melvin, Denis Daly and Tom Courell.

Back in February, 1979, I reported in The Connaught Telegraph that Justice Minister to be, Deputy Padraig Flynn, had called on the then government to grant a reprieve to the ramshackle courthouses in Mayo.

He complained that most of the then 19 centres where justice was dispensed were ‘most unsatisfactory’ and asked for sufficient funding to keep them up to a reasonable standard.

He wanted the Department of Justice to take over the responsibility for the courts from Mayo County Council (which they later did).

Over the last months of 1978 many complaints had been made over the poor heating and acoustics in many of the centres by Justice Patrick Brennan, Claremorris, who sat in the above 15 centres. Justice James Gilvarry from Killala sat in the other four.

Justice Brennan stated: “The majority of the courthouses are totally unsatisfactory. It is a disgraceful situation that there is no proper heating or acoustics in many of the centres.”

He added: “The whole system is wrong whereby the county councils have charge of the courtrooms. This should be the function of the Department of Justice.

“Nobody should be expected to sit in cold conditions while sitting in court. I have been complaining about conditions in courts for years but it seems nobody cares any more.”

The then Mayo county manager, Michael O’Malley, conceded the courtrooms were in a bad condition.

He said: “A lot of our courtrooms do need to be brought up to a reasonable standard as far as hearing and acoustics are concerned. A certain allocation is provided in our annual budgets for the maintenance of courthouses. But this is not designed for the replacement of such buildings.

“With the available finance we do what we can. But very, very often these courtrooms are situated in old buildings and we do not envisage replacing them. If certain developments are being undertaken by the council in an area where there is a courthouse then we will include modern facilities where courts may be held.”