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.
***
‘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.
***
‘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 to give drink in his name … He did not want to be plainly and conclusively identified with the treating’. He concluded:
If Mr O’Connor then wanted to prevent this, the wise and proper course for him would have been to publicly denounce the practice; and, if by doing so he lost the election, he would have gained the respect of all honourable men in the place. The excuse offered by some of the respondent’s agents was that he was not to be drowned in a flood of porter, that there was open treating by the other side – in fact, it was aptly described by counsel as ‘competitive treating.’ There was, undoubtedly, competitive and indiscriminate treating.13
‘It is no part of my duty,’ Maxwell concluded:
to deal with this case from the point of view of enforcing sobriety, or preaching a sermon to the voters, nor to persons who are present here in court. I think Father Matthew himself might be daunted by the task in Castleisland [laughter]. But I will say this. The law is very jealous of electoral purity. An election is not an election unless it is the free uninfluencing choice of the voters, and the serious question to my mind from a moral point of view about this case is the state of public opinion in this question of treating … There has been, so far as treating, both specific and general is concerned, shameful and shameless corruption in this constituency, and it is a matter for tears rather than laughter that such a thing would occur. And I would appeal to the people of Castleisland, for their own sake, for the sake of this beautiful county of Kerry, where every prospect pleases, to recollect that the purity of election is essential to the success of Local Government … it makes any man who loves his country sick and sorry to hear the evidence that has been given in this court.
The commissioner hoped that the people of Castleisland, and of Kerry generally, would ‘exercise self-control’ and would learn how to use local government for their own good and for the good of their county and country. Finally and most importantly, he found that J.K. O’Connor was guilty of ‘corruptly supplying drink to voters for the purpose of corruptly influencing such voters’. He said he would report O’Connor’s agents and those publicans who supplied drink to voters to the High Court. He added that Denis J. Reidy was himself guilty of a similar charge. The election was declared void and he ruled that the respondent and petitioner should incur their own costs in the matter. He listed the names of the many individuals who would be reported to the High Court and, as the Kerry People correspondent concluded, ‘the protracted proceedings terminated’.
***
Despite all his efforts to unseat his opponent, Denis Reidy did not take up the seat now left vacant by J.K. O’Connor. John Laurence Quinlan of Bridge Street, Tralee, previously a member of Tralee Urban District Council, who had lost his seat on that body, was co-opted to the seat. Quinlan was a member of a Castleisland family and a cousin of Patrick and William Quinlan, who were both secretaries of Kerry County Council. In November 1908, J.K. O’Connor appeared before magistrates in Tralee for the offences alleged to have been committed in and around Castleisland in the weeks before the county council election. However, by a majority of eleven to two, informations were refused and the matter would not be heard. The result ‘was received
