The Case Of Stephen Jordan: Hissing the King and his allies 1915 by Ronan Killeen

Picture: Mr. Quinn, Frank Hynes and possibly Stephen Jordan on the right.

Photo from The-Quinns-of-Athenry.

On the 27th November 1915 in the Irish Times a Unionist paper at the time it was reported...

In the King's Bench Division; Dublin before Mr.Justice Gibson and Mr.Justice Kenny, in the case of Stephen Jordan, Shoemaker, of Darla (Davis) street, Athenry, who on prosecution brought against him on summons by District Inspector Collins under the Defence of the Realm (consolidation) Regulations, 1914-1915, fir hissing photograph's of the King and his allied crowned heads, and cheering for the Kaiser and his allied crowned heads at a cinematograph exhibition in the Athenry Town Hall on the 12th of June last.
   He was sentenced to one month's imprisonment, with hard labour, by the magistrates at Athenry Petty Sessions on the 25th June last, and also in the cases of in which Leo Egan, John Cleary and Michael Regan were convicted at the Petty sessions for aiding and abetting Jordan's hissing the photograph's mentioned, and cheering the Kaiser and his crowned heads, and were ordered to give bail for good behaviour in twelve months, or in default to be imprisoned for one month.

Mr. T.F. Ward (instructed by Messrs. John C.Conroy and Son) applied to have the conditional orders granted by Mr.Justice Ross quashing the convictions made absolute on the ground that if the petty sessions court was illegally constituted, in much as one of the magistrates adjudicating of the High Sheriff County Galway, Mr.Frank Shawe-Taylor, of Moor Park, Athenry.*
    The other magistrates were Messrs Kildare, R.M. Samuel Taylor, and W.G. Moriarity. The statute 7 William IV. c.13 prohibited a High Sheriff from exercising the office of the justice of peace for the county of which he was High Sheriff during his term.
   It appeared that the objection was not taken at the Petty Sessions proceedings, as the fact referred to was not known to the defendants’ representatives until afterwards. The conditional orders had been already absolute in the King's Bench office. The court granted the application, making the conditional orders absolute, and quashing the convictions.

I will be talking about Frank Shawe-Taylor when I get to the Irish War of Independence in a couple of months.