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True Stories of an Irish Upbringing and Other
lies by Dan Daneen
Price $ 17.00>> 
 Justice
I remember the law courts of my youth as one of the most
entertaining places I ever visited. They were monuments to
the fine art of perjury, demonstrated at the doctoral level with
the lawyers and magistrates showing the most amazing ability to
divine the truth from the alternate. Often these were divided only
by how the witness saw the case or who were the witness’ friends
and relatives. The administration of justice in Ireland was based
on the skill and experience to know truth when it was heard.
Eloquence had a terrible ability to appear more important than the
truth. Honesty is always in short supply and eloquence appears
to be a God-given gift to most of the Irish. An example of this
eloquence that would have needed a little investigation would be
a statement like, “Sure, I killed him with a good blow to the head
that he will remember until his dying day.”
Court was convened on a monthly basis called the assizes. The
assizes involved the appearance of the district judge, who visited
most towns to hand out justice based on the evidence as he saw it.
Often in Ireland the major problem for the courts was trying
to assess just how much justice the public would stand for.
Judgment was a measure of divining the perjury by the witnesses,
and figuring out who really were witnesses and who were giving
evidence to fulfill a debt. The evidence presented by witnesses
had to be considered on the premise that a person who knew little
often wanted to share it, and the witness who knew a lot thought
that it was someone else’s job to tell the court...
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