The Kellys and the OKellys | Page 2

to be
equally abominable.
The whole Irish bar seemed, for the time, to have laid aside the habitual
sang froid and indifference of lawyers, and to have employed their
hearts as well as their heads on behalf of the different parties by whom
they were engaged. The very jurors themselves for a time became
famous or infamous, according to the opinions of those by whom their
position was discussed. Their names and additions were published and
republished; they were declared to be men who would stand by their
country and do their duty without fear or favour so said the Protestants.
By the Roman Catholics, they were looked on as perjurors determined

to stick to the Government with blind indifference to their oaths. Their
names are now, for the most part, forgotten, though so little time has
elapsed since they appeared so frequently before the public.
Every day's proceedings gave rise to new hopes and fears. The
evidence rested chiefly on the reports of certain short-hand writers, who
had been employed to attend Repeal meetings, and their examinations
and cross- examinations were read, re-read, and scanned with the
minutest care. Then, the various and long speeches of the different
counsel, who, day after day, continued to address the jury; the heat of
one, the weary legal technicalities of another, the perspicuity of a third,
and the splendid forensic eloquence of a fourth, were criticised,
depreciated and admired. It seemed as though the chief lawyers of the
day were standing an examination, and were candidates for some high
honour, which each was striving to secure.
The Dublin papers were full of the trial; no other subject, could, at the
time, either interest or amuse. I doubt whether any affair of the kind
was ever, to use the phrase of the trade, so well and perfectly reported.
The speeches appeared word for word the same in the columns of
newspapers of different politics. For four-fifths of the contents of the
paper it would have been the same to you whether you were reading the
Evening Mail, or the Freeman. Every word that was uttered in the
Court was of importance to every one in Dublin; and half-an-hour's
delay in ascertaining, to the minutest shade, what had taken place in
Court during any period, was accounted a sad misfortune.
The press round the Four Courts, every morning before the doors were
open, was very great: and except by the favoured few who were able to
obtain seats, it was only with extreme difficulty and perseverance, that
an entrance into the body of the Court could be obtained.
It was on the eleventh morning of the proceedings, on the day on which
the defence of the traversers was to be commenced, that two young
men, who had been standing for a couple of hours in front of the doors
of the Court, were still waiting there, with what patience was left to
them, after having been pressed and jostled for so long a time. Richard
Lalor Sheil, however, was to address the jury on behalf of Mr John
O'Connell and every one in Dublin knew that that was a treat not to be
lost. The two young men, too, were violent Repealers. The elder of
them was a three-year-old denizen of Dublin, who knew the names of

the contributors to the "Nation", who had constantly listened to the
indignation and enthusiasm of O'Connell, Smith O'Brien, and O'Neill
Daunt, in their addresses from the rostrum of the Conciliation Hall;
who had drank much porter at Jude's, who had eaten many oysters at
Burton Bindon's, who had seen and contributed to many rows in the
Abbey Street Theatre; who, during his life in Dublin, had done many
things which he ought not to have done, and had probably made as
many omissions of things which it had behoved him to do. He had that
knowledge of the persons of his fellow-citizens, which appears to be so
much more general in Dublin than in any other large town; he could tell
you the name and trade of every one he met in the streets, and was a
judge of the character and talents of all whose employments partook, in
any degree, of a public nature. His name was Kelly; and, as his calling
was that of an attorney's clerk, his knowledge of character would be
peculiarly valuable in the scene at which he and his companion were so
anxious to be present.
The younger of the two brothers, for such they were, was a somewhat
different character. Though perhaps a more enthusiastic Repealer than
his brother, he was not so well versed in the details of Repeal tactics, or
in the strength and weakness of the Repeal ranks. He was a young
farmer, of the better class, from the