Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Joyce in Court: James Joyce and the Law
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: -2016
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: Irish
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born May 21, 1951, in Dublin, Ireland; died March 7, 2016, in Dublin, Ireland; married Yvonne Murphy; children: two.
EDUCATION:Graduated from Belvedere College, Dublin.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author and barrister; judge, Supreme Court of Ireland, 2000-16.
WRITINGS
Also author of forewords for John Healy, Irish Laws of Evidence, Thomson Round Hall (Dublin, Ireland), 2004; Claire Hamilton, The Presumption of Innocence in Irish Criminal Law: ‘Whittling the Golden Thread,'” Irish Academic Press (Portland, OR), 2007; Eamonn G. Hall, The Superior Courts of Law: ‘Official’ Law Reporting in Ireland, 1866-2006, Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for Ireland (Dublin, Ireland), 2007.
SIDELIGHTS
The late Adrian Hardiman was a justice of the Supreme Court of Ireland when he died suddenly in March of 2016. The author of an obituary appearing in the London Telegraph called him “the intellectual giant of the Irish Supreme Court, producing elaborate, well-reasoned judgments replete with rhetorical flourishes as well as a formidable output of scholarly work on law, history and literature. Catapulted in 2000 on to the Supreme Court straight from the Bar, where he had been a deadly cross-examiner, he was so quintessentially a partisan advocate that many wondered if he could adjust to a judicial role. In the event he made few concessions, remaining something of an enfant terrible.” “During his long career in the courts and in tribunals, he appeared in many of the leading cases of the day,” stated an Irish Times contributor. “He represented Pat Rabbitte and Des O’Malley during the beef tribunal, where his cross-examination of then taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, was widely admired.”
Memorialists—colleagues and government officials–found much to praise in Hardiman’s life and work. “Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald … described Mr Justice Hardiman as ‘a fearless defender of the constitution and a man of extraordinary intellectual ability,’ saying ‘he will be very, very much missed by so many people in the justice family,'” declared an RTE writer. “Tánaiste Joan Burton said: ‘Adrian Hardiman was a significant figure in Irish public life, and one of the country’s leading legal brains. He had a close association with Irish politics and was a liberal voice on many social issues. I know that his sudden passing will come as a great shock to the wider legal community.'” “At heart, Adrian Hardiman lies in the tradition of Edmund Burke, the great 18th-century polemicist – the only difference being that Burke turned to conservatism and towards a pessimistic outlook in recoil from the French Revolution and its nasty after-effects. The young Hardiman never dabbled in revolution in the first place,” said a Village magazine contributor. “He is a staunch believer in the separation of powers and an independent judiciary untainted by experimentation. He is appalled by the Government’s moves to cut the judicial pay and pensions bill, in part because it would appear in his view to threaten the status of the judges.” “Above all else, Adrian Hardiman was a proud and patriotic Irishman, who made it his life’s work to defend the Irish Constitution,” concluded a memorial proclamation from the President of Ireland. “His loss … will be enormous.”
Hardiman’s Joyce in Court looks at the legal case surrounding the banning of Ulysses (it was forbidden importation into the United States on the grounds that it was obscene) and about the ways in which Joyce himself referenced famous early twentieth century legal cases. “In October 1899, James Joyce, aged seventeen, attended all three days of the trial in Dublin of Samuel Childs for the brutal murder of his brother,” stated Colm Tóibín in the London Guardian. “This allowed him later to stitch references to the case throughout his novel Ulysses, including a moment when his protagonist Leopold Bloom and others are on their way to Paddy Dignam’s funeral in Glasnevin cemetery and pass Bengal Terrace, where the murder occurred…. This, as Adrian Hardiman writes in his fascinating, painstaking book on Joyce and the law, ‘is the first mention in Ulysses of the Childs murder case.'” “The spectre of two political trials and subsequent executions also haunts the novel,” said Tóibín. “Hardiman misses no chance to connect what happened legally with the fictional characters.”
Critics found Hardiman’s analysis of Joyce a fitting exercise for a man who made his reputation for legally upright behavior. “It should be said that Hardiman has thoroughly scoured the work – not just Ulysses but Joyce’s journalism as well, and Finnegan’s Wake also – for material that has a bearing on his major concerns,” said Terence Killeen in the Irish Times. “In writing about these, he imparts a wealth of information that will be new to most readers: information about forgotten court cases, forgotten barristers, agrarian outrages, insurance and suicide, and much else. The essay ‘Law, Crime and Punishment in Bloomsday Dublin’ is a masterly summary of the principal legal themes in Ulysses.” Hardiman’s research, wrote Frank MacGabhann in the London Independent, amounted to a “coup in gaining access to the original, internal office file of the law firm of Morris Ernst, who fought a brilliant case, tactically and otherwise, in Federal Court in 1932 to allow Ulysses into the United States and, in doing so, to modernise the law on obscenity. Hardiman gives the reader a unique opportunity to see how a great lawyer runs his case, from preparation, to setting up the seizure of the book by US Customs, to ‘forum-shopping’ … for the most receptive judge to hear the case and to the main arguments all the way through to the appellate court.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Guardian (London, England), July 6, 2017, Colm Tóibín, review of Joyce in Court.
Irish Independent, July 2, 2017, Frank MacGabhann, “Joyce in the Eyes of the Law.”
Irish Times, June 17, 2017, Terence Killeen, review of Joyce in Court.
ONLINE
Village, https://villagemagazine.ie/ (May 3, 2013), “Profile – Adrian Hardiman: Edmund Burke and Antonin Scalia meet Friedrich Hayek.”
OBITUARIES
Irish Times, March 7, 2016, “Supreme Court Judge Adrian Hardiman Dies.”
President of Ireland website, http://www.president.ie/ (August 29, 2018), “Statement from President Michael D. Higgins – Death of Judge Adrian Hardiman of the Supreme Court.”
RTE, https://www.rte.ie/ (March 7, 2016), “Tributes Paid to Supreme Court Judge Adrian Hardiman after Sudden Death.”
Telegraph (London, England), April 26, 2016, “Adrian Hardiman, Judge – Obituary.”
Justice Adrian Hardiman was a judge of the Irish Supreme Court and generally acknowledged as the most brilliant lawyer of his generation. He died suddenly in 2016. His funeral was a major national event and he was mourned by thousands of people.
Profile – Adrian Hardiman: Edmund Burke and Antonin Scalia meet Friedrich Hayek
by Village 3 May, 2013, 2:29 pm 0 Comments
The Supreme Court’s scourge of the state, tribunals and political correctness – Kyran Fitzgerald
Few forelocks these days are tugged when top politicians, professionals or churchmen pass by. The recurring theme of the age is one of loss of respect for the lofty. Yet, for a number of reasons, the judgments issued by our higher courts apparently continue to command popular respect.
True, many consider our judges to be overpaid and part of a remote elite, presiding over a flawed justice system, yet there is a pretty general acceptance that the individuals occupying high judicial positions are people of substance.
Scant popular sympathy is on hand for those who display contempt towards the courts.
In part, this may stem from a recognition that our judges have played a major role in papering over the cracks left by a dithering legislature unwilling to implement reforms that could cost them in the ballot box. Irish judges are viewed as incorruptible, notwithstanding an unfortunate recent case, that of former Judge Perrin. Their work rate is viewed as being high. Above the District Court level, judges have, by and large, avoided the temptation of wading into controversy.
More recently, the senior courts have been forced to cope with the fallout from the wave of insolvencies. Judges have however, sought to iron out the flaws in the current system, often using creative means. Overseas, the US Supreme court has, in the past, served as a beacon.
Politically promiscuous, he was a strong backer of the Progressive Democrats, having previously been both a member of Fine Gael and, later, a Fianna Fáil candidate
In the 1950s, Earl Warren presided over a Supreme Court that helped to transform American life. In 1954, in ‘Brown v US Board of Education’, the Court outlawed segregation in the school system and it later sanctioned an overhaul of the country’s State legislatures in a move designed to stamp out political gerrymandering.
The Irish Supreme Court, at times, has been highly creative. For strong believers in the right to individual freedom, the dissenting judgment of the late Mr Justice Niall McCarthy in ‘Norris v Attorney General’ stands out.
McCarthy in favouring the application to have laws banning homosexual acts declared unconstitutional, questioned how bans contained in Acts dating back to 1861 and 1885 could be deemed to be consistent with constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression.
He cited the US Supreme Court judge, Louis Brandeis, to the effect that “the right to privacy is the right to be left alone”.
McCarthy had a long, distinguished career as a barrister and was unusual in that he stepped straight from private practice onto the Supreme Court. He was popular and witty.
Adrian Hardiman also moved straight from practice at the Bar onto the highest court in the land. As a counsel, he stood out by dint of his eloquence and the sheer size and breadth of his legal practice. A brilliant advocate, colleagues recall that as a junior counsel, he was involved in so many cases that it was the Senior Counsel who was ‘holding the fort’, awaiting the arrival of the star advocate.
As a senior counsel he acted for the former MEP, Social Welfare Minister and Democratic Left leader, Proinsias de Rossa, in a libel action taken against the Sunday Independent and its columnist, Eamon Dunphy. In July 1997, a jury awarded de Rossa £300,000 in damages after it decided that the journalist had wrongly alleged that de Rossa was involved in, or tolerated, serious paramilitary activity, among other things.
State oppression: Hardiman’s nightmare
The size of the award was upheld by the Supreme Court on appeal by a majority of four to one – the latter, Ms Justice Susan Denham, now Chief Justice, favoured cutting the size of the award in half. She also called for a direction on the quantum of an award to be given to a jury – a view rejected by the then Chief Justice, Liam Hamilton.
The Court decison was later appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. Hardiman was, in those days, a bundle of energy. Politically promiscuous, he was a strong backer of the Progressive Democrats, having previously been both a member of Fine Gael and, later, a Fianna Fáil candidate.
He served as legal advisor to the PDs’ first leader, Des O’Malley, and found himself embroiled in controversy over remarks made – in the informal atmosphere of the Shelbourne Bar- relating to the Beef Tribunal by a colleague, Gerry Danaher, then acting as legal advisor to Taoiseach Albert Reynolds.
Educated by the Jesuits at Belvedere College, his father was a school teacher. His family background was respectable, but not particularly privileged.
He arrived in UCD determined to make his mark.
A lot of sweat went into manufacturing his seemingly effortless brilliance as an orator. He later recalled that he arrived to make his maiden speech at the College Literary and Historical Society “clutching three thousand words of frenzied handwriting in a sweaty fist”.
What cannot be denied, however, is that his judgments are eminently readable, and accessible to most laymen. Hardiman is certainly clever and erudite
Possessed of a baritone voice that belied his modest frame, Hardiman became a star debater, befriending future legal colleagues such as Michael McDowell, fellow Jesuit boy, and Mary Finlay, now a High Court judge.
Many students viewed the L & H crowd as pretentious twits, but the debating society proved to be a good training ground for life in the lucrative legal ‘killing fields’.
Hardiman, while honing his advocacy skills, and testing his larynx to near destruction, met his future wife, Yvonne Murphy.
They married early, settling in a flat in Merrion Square before moving to a property in Palmerston Park, Rathmines.
Yvonne later moved from a career in social services, journalism and political advice to became a barrister on the north west circuit and latterly a Circuit Court judge.
In 2006-7, Judge Murphy chaired the Commission of Investigation into child abuse by the Catholic clergy in the diocese of Dublin, producing a well-regarded, searing, report.
The youthful Adrian favoured a formal style of dress as part of a young fogey reaction against the anorak-and-denim dress-code of the era.
His opposition to the College Left was in part born of a contrarianism, but it had deep libertarian roots, gut feelings which persist today and are apparent in many of his judgments.
At times, his contempt for state bodies and for public officers erring from the path of justice is visceral.
On occasions, his opposition to ‘political correctness’ can appear almost curmudgeonly, no more so than in his decision in the case brought by the Equality Authority against Portmarnock Golf club.
What cannot be denied, however, is that his judgments are eminently readable, and accessible to most laymen. He avoids the nitpicking, equivocation, and tortured reasoning, that characterise so much of today’s judicial output. Hardiman is certainly clever and erudite: he can recite reems of poetry and constitutional articles and has given entertaining talks on James Joyce and Flann O’Brien, well outside the curtelage of the Four Courts.
Early in 2005, after five years on the bench, he ruled in proceedings initiated on behalf of a Donegal businessman, Frank Shortt, who had been framed by members of the Gardaí and imprisoned for three years. Hardiman did not mince his words. Mr Shortt had been “perjured into prison” by policemen keen to advance their careers at his expense, with consequences that were “nothing less than life blighting”.
“That the perpetrators were wearing the uniform of the State aggravated the wrong giving the affair a public as well as a private dimension”.
The judge sanctioned an award of over €4.6m in damages to Mr Shortt.
The decision stands out as a rare case where the Supreme Court actually raised a High Court award, from €1.9m – an increase of almost 250 per cent.
Last December, Hardiman took another swipe at a state authority, affirming the decision of the High Court to quash a decision of the Minister of Justice to refuse a certificate of nationality to a baby boy, Faisal Sulaiman. He put it bluntly: “I simply do not understand why so great an effort has been made over so long a period to deprive a small boy of citizenship. If there is a point to the pain and anxiety caused to the child’s family, the expense to which they have been put and the taxpayers money that has been spent, it entirely eludes me”.
In the earlier decision of ‘Lobe v Minister of Justice’ he adopted a different stance. He concluded that the state could force the family concerned to leave the state provided that the Minister of Justice was satisfied that the interests of the common good justified an interference with what is clearly a constitutional right.
Being born in Ireland, the child plaintiff had automatic citizenship. What was at issue was the capacity of that child to ‘anchor’ the remainder of his family to the state.
He quoted with approval from the 1982 judgment of Seamus Henchy in ‘The People v O Shea’.
“It may be said of the Constitution, more than of any other legal instrument that ‘the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life’ No single constitutional provision ( especially one designed to safeguard personal, liberty or social order ) may be isolated or construed with undeviating literalness”.
Hardiman let loose, describing how appalled he was by the length and cost of the Tribunals
In the Equality Authority v Portmarnock Golf Club case, the key point at issue was whether Portmarnock, which did not allow (full) membership to women, was a “discriminating club” within the meaning of Section 8 of the Equal Status Act, thereby attracting sanctions such as the loss of a licence to sell alcohol.
Ruling with the majority in the Club’s favour, Hardiman indulged in some provocative baiting of feminists, including quotes from an Irish Times article entitled ‘Wanted : Single Sex zones for our sanity’. He cited the example of the ICA, founded in 1910 “to bring women together in fellowship”.
“There are said to be only two all men golf clubs in Ireland, but almost any directory provides pages of women’s associations”.
Hardiman thought Portmarnock more a club for men than a club for golf.
NUI Galway academic, Donncha O Connell, was moved in Village Magazine to describe the judgment as being “laced with the rhetorical flourishes of a once great advocate”. By contrast, Judge Fennelly in his dissenting judgment, applied the ‘ordinary and plain meaning’ of Sections 8 and 9 of the Act, concluding that Portmarnock did not cater only to the needs of men playing golf ,and therefore could be held to have discriminated against women players in the application of its rules.
Some will have drawn parallels with Hardiman’s comments at the annual Law Society Justice Media Awards some years ago when he equated journalists to “cowgirls”. The Supreme Court judge was later challenged on some of his remarks by a woman reporter. Quoting the musical Oklahoma, the judge said “the farmer and the cowman should be friends” – the farmer being lawyers and the cowman, reporters. His beef was largely the well-directed one that media coverage of court cases was “inadequate and uninformative”.
Hardiman has ruled in many landmark commercial cases heard by the Court since his appointment in 2000.
In March 2011, the Supreme Court allowed an appeal brought by the ‘reclusive’ property developer, Paddy McKillen, against an attempt on the part of the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) to take over €2.1bn of his loans from Bank of Ireland.
The High Court had found for NAMA in what was seen as a pretty definitive ruling. McKillen had deployed the services of the leading US economist, Joseph Stiglitz.
In Hardiman’s view, the effect of such a loan transfer would be to extinguish the borrower’s equity of redemption, leaving NAMA in the position where it did not have to account for the excess of value in the assets over the debt.
Hardiman concluded that NAMA would, in effect, be exercising a right of foreclosure, something not seen since the early 19th century.
He contrasted the NAMA business plan, and its seven-to-ten-year life, with the strategy deployed by McKillen – to hold prime assets over a long term.
In his view, McKillen was entitled to a hearing before such a handover of loans was put into effect.
Hardiman noted that all the McKillen loans were performing, providing a “significant stream of income over and above his (McKillen’s ) obligations to the banks”.
There was a real concern that NAMA would in taking a short-term view, maximising its return, could have a ‘devastating effect’ on McKillen: “in Ireland and other common law jurisdictions, the scope of the requirement of fair procedures has expanded considerably”.
“At the very minimum”, McKillen “had a right to a fair hearing by an unbiased body”.
In the case brought by Comcast (joined by Persona Digital Telephony and by Sigma Wireless Networks, the other unsuccessful 1996 bidders), an unsuccessful bidder for the mobile phone licence won in 1996 against the galaxy that is the Minister for Public Enterprise, Michael Lowry, Esat, Denis O Brien, and Ireland and the Attorney General, the Supreme Court was asked to rule on a motion by the state to have the proceedings struck out on the grounds of delay.
Hardiman was having none of it. He noted that Comcast had indeed issued its original plenary summons as far back as October 2001, alleging breach of statutory duty, misfeasance in public office, breach of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1907, fraud, deceit, etc.
“These submissions (by the State ) are wholly lacking in reality. The corruption alleged was covert, devious & concealed”.
He mocked the notion that the same limitation period applied in a ‘simple running down action’ to a “case of such complexity with the subject matter allegedly characterised by concealment and deceit”.
The way has been opened to litigation that is likely to put the taxpayer and, potentially, private business interests associated with the licence-holders on the hazard for huge sums.
But the Court felt it must keep open the route to justice, as Hardiman the libertarian was only happy to make clear.
This distrust of the state and its agents is never deeper when it comes to Tribunals of Inquiry. One of his last acts as a senior counsel was to secure a victory for the late Liam Lawlor over the Flood-Mahon Tribunal in 1999.
In July 2011, Hardiman let loose, describing how “appalled” he was by the length and cost of the Tribunals, when commenting on an attempt by the Director of Corporate Enforcement, Paul Appleby, to secure the disqualification of Tom and Mick Bailey as directors of Bovale Developments.
In Hardiman’s view, the expense to individuals of participation in tribunals has been “nothing less than grotesque”.
He has arguably been less willing to dwell on some of the breakthroughs engineered by the Tribunal system – in large part because, at heart, he is a traditionalist, a believer in the Common Law and in the basic tenets of the 1937 Constitution.
His concerns about the treatment of people, including ordinary witnesses, by Tribunals is well grounded, however.
At times, these star chambers acquired a life of their own, bestowing untold riches on some of its long-serving staff, and counsel.
In July 2010, speaking at the McGill summer school in Donegal, close to his holiday home, he stoutly defended de Valera’s creation, Bunreacht na hÉireann, against reformers interested in substituting for it a document along the lines of the 1916 Proclamation.
In his view, the demand for simplicity could result in the loss of basic constitutional rights.
In some ways Hardiman resembles Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court who is against affirmative action and Federal interference with the States. He too is charismatic, writes well and dissents often. Scalia, however, is too religious and patriotic to be a libertarian.
At heart, Adrian Hardiman lies in the tradition of Edmund Burke, the great 18th-century polemicist – the only difference being that Burke turned to conservatism and towards a pessimistic outlook in recoil from the French Revolution and its nasty after-effects. The young Hardiman never dabbled in revolution in the first place.
He is a staunch believer in the separation of powers and an independent judiciary untainted by experimentation.
He is appalled by the Government’s moves to cut the judicial pay and pensions bill, in part because it would appear in his view to threaten the status of the judges.
Of relations with the reforming Justice Minister, Alan Shatter, the less said the better.
All of which suggests that while Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman will no doubt produce many more searching and stimulating judgments, he will not be interested in challenging the deep flaws of a legal system which permits fraudsters to dampen down public comment on their activities by adroit use of draconian libel laws and which permits them to evade justice with the assistance of highly-remunerateed legal consiglieri once their dubious activities have been unearthed. Because hallowed traditions have their cost.
Adrian Hardiman
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The Hon. Mr. Justice
Adrian Hardiman
Judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland
In office
7 February 2000 – 7 March 2016
Nominated by
Government of Ireland
Appointed by
Mary McAleese
Succeeded by
TBD
Personal details
Born
21 May 1951
Dublin, Ireland
Died
7 March 2016 (aged 64)
Dublin, Ireland
Nationality
Irish
Spouse(s)
Yvonne Murphy
Alma mater
Belvedere College, UCD, King's Inns
Occupation
Judge, Barrister
Adrian Hardiman (21 May 1951 – 7 March 2016) was a judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland from 7 February 2000 until his death on 7 March 2016.[1] In a tribute following his death, President Michael D. Higgins said Mr. Justice Hardiman "was one of the great legal minds of his generation", who was "always committed to the ideals of public service".[2] He was described as a "colossus of the legal world" by Chief Justice Susan Denham.[3]
One commentator wrote that "Hardiman’s greatest contribution ...was the steadfast defence of civil liberties and individual rights" and that "He was a champion of defendants’ rights and a bulwark against any attempt by An Garda Síochána to abuse its powers".[4]
Hardiman received the rare honour of being appointed directly from the Bar to the Republic of Ireland's highest court.[4] Prior to his elevation to the Supreme Court, he had a successful practice as a barrister, focusing on criminal law and defamation,[4] after being called to the Irish bar in 1974.[5]
Contents [hide]
1
Birth and education
2
Family
3
Political career
4
Legal philosophy
5
Key judgments
6
Books
7
Death
8
See also
9
References
10
External links
Birth and education[edit]
Adrian Hardiman was born on 21 May 1951 in Coolock, Dublin.[1] His father was a teacher and President of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI).[1]
He was educated at Belvedere College, Dublin, and University College, Dublin (UCD, where he studied history), and the King's Inns.[1] He was president of the Student Representative Council at UCD[4] and Auditor of the Literary and Historical Society (UCD)[4] and won The Irish Times National Debating Championship in 1973.[6]
Family[edit]
Hardiman was married to Judge Yvonne Murphy,[1] from County Donegal,[7] a judge of the Circuit Court between 1998 and 2012, who conducted important inquiries relating to sex abuse including the Murphy Report and the Cloyne Report.[8] She has been chair of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby homes.[8]
Mr Justice Hardiman and Judge Murphy had three sons,[7] one of whom, Eoin, is a barrister[7] and has been a member of the Mountjoy Prison Visiting Committee[9][10]; Hugh, who was a personal assistant to Michael McDowell, when McDowell was Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform;[7] and Daniel, who was a Medical Student in 2009.[7]
Political career[edit]
After being involved with Fine Gael,[4] he joined Fianna Fáil in college[7] and stood (unsuccessfully) for the party in the local elections in Dún Laoghaire in 1985.[4][1] Along with other Fianna Fáil dissidents, he became a founder member of the Progressive Democrats,[4] but left the party when appointed to the Supreme Court.[7] He remained very friendly with the former party leader and ex-Tánaiste, Michael McDowell,[7] who was a friend at college,[4] a fellow founding member of the party,[1] and best man at his wedding.[7]
Legal philosophy[edit]
Politically, Hardiman supported the liberal side in Ireland's debates over abortion, being active in the "anti-amendment" campaign during the 1982 Abortion Referendum and later represented the Well Woman Centre in the early 1990s.[11] After his death, he was described by Joan Burton as a liberal on social issues.[12] But he could be an outspoken opponent of Political Correctness, such as when he rejected the Equality Authority's attempt to force Portmarnock Golf Club to accept women as full members.[4] He also believed that certain decisions, such as those involving public spending, were better left to elected politicians rather than unelected judges, regardless of how unpopular that might sometimes be in the media (which he tended to hold in low esteem) and among what he described as the "chattering classes".[4]
One commentator wrote that "Hardiman’s greatest contribution ...was the steadfast defence of civil liberties and individual rights" and that "He was a champion of defendants’ rights and a bulwark against any attempt by an Garda Síochána to abuse its powers".[4] His concern for individual rights was not confined to Ireland: in February 2016, he criticized what he described as the radical undermining of the presumption of innocence, especially in sex cases, by the methods used in the UK's Operation Yewtree inquiry into historical sex allegations against celebrities, and he also criticized "experienced lawyer" and US Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton for allegedly declaring in January that "every accuser was to be believed, only to amend her view when asked if it applied to women who had made allegations against her husband", former US President Bill Clinton.[13]
Key judgments[edit]
Hardiman wrote a number of important judgments since joining the Court. He also presided (as does each Supreme Court judge on a rotating basis) over the Court of Criminal Appeal. The following is a selection of judgments delivered by Mr Justice Hardiman, in reverse chronological order:
2007
O'Callaghan -v- Judge Mahon:[14] dissent; holding that Tribunal of Inquiry should be prevented from further inquiring into the applicants; cites R -v- Lynch (1829) – the Doneraile Conspiracy case – in which by skilful cross-examination Daniel O'Connell secured acquittals on capital charges; concluded that the contrary approach "would represent a very marked coarsening of our standards of procedural fairness."
Shortt -v- The Commissioner of An Garda Síochána:[15] one of two judgments, in which the Court more than doubled (€1.9m to €4.7m) the damages granted to a man wrongfully imprisoned for over two years after two members of the Garda Síochána concocted evidence against him
P.H. -v- D.P.P.[16][17]
2006
D.P.P. -v- Anthony Barnes:[18] discusses and restates the criminal law of self-defence in the case of burglary
McK. -v- Homan[19][20]
N -v- Health Service Executive:[21][22] one of five judgments given by the Court; this case concerned the circumstances in which a parent may exercise the right provided for in Irish law to rescind initial consent to adoption.
A. -v- The Governor of Arbour Hill Prison:[23] one of five judgments; the case concerned a "collateral" challenge by a prisoner to the lawfulness of his detention following the judgment in C.C. -v- Ireland (see immediately below).
C.C. -v- Ireland:[24] striking down as unconstitutional part of the law on statutory rape, due to the absence in any circumstances of a defence of honest mistake as to age.
2005
O'Callaghan -v- The Hon. Mr. Justice Mahon[25]
2003
Gough -v- Neary[26]
Lobe -v- Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform:[27] one of seven judgments in a case concerning whether the State could deport the parents of Irish citizens who were still minors; the Court by a majority (5–2) dismissed the appeal and allowed the deportation of the family.
2002
Dunne -v- D.P.P.:[28] one of a series of cases, beginning with Braddish v D.P.P., in which the Court considered the contours of the Garda Síochána's duty to seek out and preserve evidence relevant to a criminal trial.
Ardagh -v-. Maguire:[29] this case concerned the procedures to be applied by a parliamentary inquiry into an incident in which members of the Garda Síochána shot dead a civilian, John Carthy.
Books[edit]
Hardiman, Adrian (2017). Joyce in Court. London: Head of Zeus. ISBN 9781786691583.
____ (2003). Gandhi in His Time and Ours: The Global Legacy of His Ideas. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231131148.
Death[edit]
Hardiman died on 7 March 2016 at the age of 64.[1]
Adrian Hardiman, judge - obituary
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Adrian Hardiman
26 April 2016 • 1:42pm
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A
drian Hardiman, who has died aged 64, was the intellectual giant of the Irish Supreme Court, producing elaborate, well-reasoned judgments replete with rhetorical flourishes as well as a formidable output of scholarly work on law, history and literature.
Catapulted in 2000 on to the Supreme Court straight from the Bar, where he had been a deadly cross-examiner, he was so quintessentially a partisan advocate that many wondered if he could adjust to a judicial role. In the event he made few concessions, remaining something of an enfant terrible, playing the advocate in court and among his colleagues. He criticised the arguments of counsel and other judgments more trenchantly than was the norm.
He was sometimes compared to the late Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court. Like Scalia, Hardiman distrusted the intrusions of the state and its agents into the lives and liberties of individuals and waxed eloquent on “weasel words” such as “justice for victims” used to justify such intrusions. He was merciless in condemning the malpractices of the police and other officials.
Last year, in a powerful minority judgment, he expressed himself horrified that his colleagues would water down the rule making inadmissible evidence obtained by infringing constitutional rights. “The rule of law,” he warned, “threatens to become rule by law enforcers.”
Commenting in a book review on recent much-publicised police inquiries in Britain, Hardiman doubted “whether the presumption of innocence can survive in a legal system that permits the police and media to destroy a person’s reputation in advance of any trial”.
Like Scalia, he disliked political correctness and viewed with scepticism arguments based on equality. He marshalled a majority on the court to frustrate a bid to open the historic Portmarnock Golf Club to full female membership; it was, he held, a club for men and not for golf and so outside the Equal Status Act.
He was unreceptive to arguments that the courts should expand social and economic rights to protect the marginalised. It was not, he opined, the business of unelected judges to make decrees imposing financial obligations on the Exchequer.
“Human rights law has become too big, too boundless, too unitary,” he exclaimed after the European Court of Human Rights had over-ruled a judgment of the Irish Supreme Court. Significantly, he was the sole dissenter on the court insisting that a referendum amending the Constitution was necessary for Ireland to become party to the ESM Treaty – under which it had to pay €11 billion into a bailout fund for distressed states in the eurozone.
Born in Dublin on May 21 1951, the son of a teacher father and shopkeeper mother, Adrian Hardiman was educated by the Jesuits at Belvedere (James Joyce’s alma mater) before reading history at University College Dublin. Hardiman was something of a young fogey in an era of student revolt. With his baritone voice and eloquent use of language, he was a star public speaker. He was elected head of the college debating society and won the Irish Universities championship. He was called to the Bar in 1974.
As a young barrister, he found time for politics, joining the Fianna Fail party, for whom he ran unsuccessfully in local elections. Finding intolerable the puritanical restraints of Irish life, however, he championed the liberal agenda in family law and was a leading opponent of a proposal the party originated that inserted in the Constitution an article protecting the life of the unborn.
Finally, in 1986, he defected to the new Progressive Democrat party, which favoured a more secular society and less state interference in the economy.
As a barrister, he was the champion of the small man, often briefed by unimportant solicitors to take on the state or powerful institutions. But neither as a criminal defender nor in other cases did Hardiman serve only those of whom he approved.
“He was,” said one rival, “always ready to represent the damned.” He got record libel damages for the leader of an extreme Left-wing party accused of conspiring with Russian communists.
Extra-judicially he wrote and gave lively lectures. He was an authority on the lawyers in Trollope, a favourite author. A book of Hardiman’s on the treatment of the law in the works of James Joyce is with the publishers.
Appropriately, he was elected by the Royal Irish Academy to the category of membership reserved for scholars. He was also one of the few Irish judges capable of hearing a case in Gaelic, which is the first official language of the state. Highly sociable, he was fun and without side; he remained boyish into middle age and young people warmed to him.
Hardiman married Yvonne Murphy, a fellow barrister who later became a judge. She survives him, with their three sons, one of whom is a barrister.
Adrian Hardiman, born May 21 1951, died March 7 2016
Supreme Court judge Adrian Hardiman dies
‘A man who made great and courageous efforts on behalf of those who sought justice’
Mon, Mar 7, 2016, 09:06 Updated: Mon, Mar 7, 2016, 12:44
Supreme Court judge Adrian Hardiman. File photograph: Cyril Byrne/The Irish Times
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The Supreme Court judge Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman has died, the Courts Service has confirmed.
Chief Justice Susan Denham said she “received the news with great sadness and shock and her immediate reaction was to be mindful of the needs of his wife and family”.
She described Mr Justice Hardiman as “a man who had made great and courageous efforts on behalf of those who sought justice.
“He neither favoured nor feared any interest - and went about his work with great integrity, grit and dedication."
Involved in a succession of high-profile cases, Mr Justice Hardiman was one of the most prominent lawyers in Ireland when he was appointed directly from the Bar to the Supreme Court in 2000, aged 49.
Mr Justice Hardiman was due to give an address at NUI Galway on Monday questioning the State’s commitment to the Irish language.
Describing him as “one of the great legal minds of his generation,” President Michael D Higgins paid tribute to Mr Justice Hardiman, saying he was above all else “ a proud and patriotic Irishman”.
Career highlights of Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman
President leads tributes to Mr Justice Hardiman
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Mr Higgins said the Supreme Court judge had made “a unique contribution to Irish history, Irish literature and the Irish language”.
Mr Justice Hardiman was born in Coolock, Dublin, in 1951. His father was a teacher and president of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland.
He was educated at Belvedere College, Dublin, and studied history at UCD, where his friends included future Supreme Court colleagues Frank Clarke and John Mac Menamin, before attending the King’s Inns.
He was called to the Bar in 1974 and practised as a barrister for the next 26 years, taking silk in 1989.
During his long career in the courts and in tribunals, he appeared in many of the leading cases of the day. He represented Pat Rabbitte and Des O’Malley during the beef tribunal, where his cross-examination of then taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, was widely admired.
He used to write and broadcast regularly on legal and political topics.
He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2000.
Mr Justice Hardiman was a bencher of the King’s Inns, a Master of the Bench of the Middle Temple, London, and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy.
He had a passion for history, spoke fluent Irish and published on James Joyce.
He was involved in student politics and stood unsuccessfully for Fianna Fáil at the local elections in Dún Laoghaire in 1985.
Later, along with another of his UCD contemporaries, Michael McDowell, he was a founding member of the Progressive Democrats.
Pugnacious in court, trenchant, stylish and occasionally polemical in his judgments, Mr Justice Hardiman was the closest the court had to a 19th-century liberal.
He was progressive on social issues, protective of civil liberties and individual freedoms and hostile to any attempt by the State to over-extend the limits of its role.
He is survived by his wife retired Circuit Court judge Yvonne Murphy and three children.
Tributes paid to Supreme Court judge Adrian Hardiman after sudden death
Updated / Monday, 7 Mar 2016 22:25
Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, who was born in 1951, died this morning
Supreme Court Judge Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman has died suddenly at his Dublin home.
Born in Dublin in 1951 and educated at Belvedere College, Mr Justice Hardiman studied at University College Dublin and at King's Inns.
He was called to the Bar in 1974 and practised as a barrister for the next 26 years, taking Silk in 1989.
During a varied and distinguished career he wrote many books, was a founding member of the Progressive Democrats and a member of the Royal Irish Academy.
Justice Hardiman was appointed to the Supreme Court 16 years ago.
Commenting on the death, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said: "Adrian had a long and illustrious legal career and was one of the great minds of our time.
"As well as his enormous contribution to our judicial system, he had a love of our language, a huge interest in history and politics and was also a published writer and broadcaster."
Mr Justice Hardiman is survived by his wife, the retired Circuit Court judge Yvonne Murphy, and three sons.
The Supreme Court sat briefly this afternoon to commemorate Mr Justice Hardiman.
All nine remaining Supreme Court judges were on the bench along with President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice Sean Ryan and High Court President Mr Justice Peter Kelly.
The seat Mr Justice Hardiman would normally occupy was left vacant.
The Chief Justice, Ms Justice Susan Denham, said the State had lost a colossus of the legal world and his colleagues on the court had lost a good and true friend.
She said Mr Justice Hardiman had had a successful career as a barrister.
He was a leader at the Bar and was renowned for his extensive practice and great skill, including in cross examination.
She said he was appointed directly to the Supreme Court in 2000 after 26 years of practice.
Since that time she said he had added greatly to the legal jurisprudence of Ireland in many important judgments.
She said he had written expressing the view of a majority of the Court and had written trenchant dissents.
Ms Justice Denham described him as a Renaissance man.
She said he was a historian who spoke and wrote on many topics including the trial of Robert Emmet and the 1916 Rising.
He was due to give a lecture on Easter Monday in the Four Courts on the 1916 Proclamation. She said he was also a remarkable and engaging Joycean scholar.
She said however it was a colleague and a friend that the members of the court would miss him, and they would sorely miss his eloquence in conference, his depth of knowledge, his humour, but most of all his friendship.
Ms Justice Denham said they were sending his deep regret to his wife and sons.
She said there would be other opportunities to reflect on Judge Hardiman's profound contribution to Irish public life but she said at this difficult time, the court would limit itself to this statement.
President Micheal D Higgins earlier paid tribute, saying: "Always committed to the ideals of public service, Adrian earned the honour of being directly appointed to the Supreme Court from the Bar at an exceptionally young age.
"On the Supreme Court, Judge Hardiman has made an immense contribution to the development of Irish law. The depth and rigour of his legal analysis has been matched by the eloquence and clarity of his judgments.
"A strong voice on the court, he has been rightly recognised as a particularly passionate defender of civil liberties and of individual freedoms."
In a statement, Chief Justice Susan Denham described Justice Hardiman as "a man who had made great and courageous efforts on behalf of those who sought justice".
"He neither favoured nor feared any interest - and went about his work with great integrity, grit and dedication."
The Council of The Bar of Ireland has also paid tribute.
Council Chair David Barniville, SC, said: "It was with great sadness and shock this morning that we learned of the sudden death of Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman.
"Mr Justice Hardiman was a colossus at the Bar and on the Supreme Court and was highly regarded and deeply respected by all who knew him. He was arguably the leading advocate of his generation at the Bar and one of Ireland’s finest jurists.
"While at the Bar he practised across a vast range of specialist areas including crime, defamation, Constitutional and commercial law. While on the Supreme Court he sat on nearly every significant constitutional case heard by that Court, leaving an indelible mark on Irish history."
In a statement, the Law Society of Ireland said with the passing of Justice Hardiman "the Irish people have lost a fierce protector of their rights against any overreaching by the power of the State".
"As one of the most brilliant barristers of his generation, he was a powerful, punchy and highly persuasive advocate. Fearless, fluent and articulate, he could think on his feet to handle with ease whatever was thrown at him," the statement added.
Progressive Democrats founder Des O'Malley has said he was devastated to hear of the sudden death of Justice Hardiman.
Speaking on RTÉ's News At One, Mr O'Malley said that Justice Hardiman was a man with a wide variety of interests. He said that as a member of the RIA, modern Irish history his field, but he was also a great Joycean scholar who appreciated literature very acutely. Mr O'Malley said this made him a very complete man.
He said Justice Hardiman was a man who was repulsed by injustice and that his great quality was advocacy.
He added that he did not have pre-conceived notions and came to conclusions that, he felt, were the most just.
Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald extended her "deepest sympathy" to Mr Justice Hardiman's wife and their sons on the "sudden and tragic" death.
She described Mr Justice Hardiman as "a fearless defender of the constitution and a man of extraordinary intellectual ability", saying "he will be very, very much missed by so many people in the justice family".
Tánaiste Joan Burton said: "Adrian Hardiman was a significant figure in Irish public life, and one of the country's leading legal brains.
"He had a close association with Irish politics and was a liberal voice on many social issues.
"I know that his sudden passing will come as a great shock to the wider legal community, and our thoughts are with his wife and two sons at this time."
Statement from President Michael D. Higgins - Death of Judge Adrian Hardiman of the Supreme Court
“It is with great sadness that I have learned this morning of the death of Judge Adrian Hardiman of the Supreme Court.
Adrian Hardiman was one of the great legal minds of his generation. Excelling as a debater and student leader at UCD, he immediately established a reputation as a gifted advocate and orator from the very earliest stages of his career at the Bar.
Always committed to the ideals of public service, Adrian earned the honour of being directly appointed to the Supreme Court from the Bar at an exceptionally young age. On the Supreme Court, Judge Hardiman has made an immense contribution to the development of Irish law. The depth and rigour of his legal analysis has been matched by the eloquence and clarity of his judgments. A strong voice on the Court, he has been rightly recognised as a particularly passionate defender of civil liberties and of individual freedoms.
Above all else, Adrian Hardiman was a proud and patriotic Irishman, who made it his life's work to defend the Irish Constitution, but who also made a unique contribution to Irish history, Irish literature and the Irish language. He was committed to the public world and the world of ideas and always gave generously of his time to debate and discuss matters of public importance. His loss to Ireland and to law will be enormous.
Sabina and I want to express our deepest sympathy with his wife Yvonne Murphy, their children and wider family. Our thoughts are also with those in the legal profession where Adrian was held with great affection and who will greatly miss his presence.”
Joyce in Court: James Joyce and the Law
Publishers Weekly. 265.9 (Feb. 26, 2018): p78.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Joyce in Court: James Joyce and the Law
Adrian Hardiman. Head of Zeus, $35 (352p) ISBN 978-1-78669-158-3
Hardiman, a lawyer and onetime member of the Irish Supreme Court who died in 2016, sheds new light on James Joyce's Ulysses--which he calls "the first great monument of modernist literature"--by way of the 18 civil cases referred to in its text. Spanning several decades and ranging from an obscure case of breach of promise for marriage to a trial for cattle maiming whose unjustly convicted victim was exonerated with the help of Sherlock Holmes's creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, these historical cases, as Hardiman shows, reflect Joyce's epistemological concern with "how the law resolved the uncertainties of a case" and, more importantly, "the need for philosophical and judicial doubt as a proper, moral, and humane reaction to the inadequacy of evidence." The bulk of the book concerns Joyce's interest in the legal system, and the rest with the prosecution of Ulysses for obscenity in the U.S. and U.K. (Hardiman notes wryly that "interest in the work was so slight" in Joyce's native Ireland that it was never banned there.) Hardiman provides an insightful consideration of Joyce's masterpiece from a refreshingly different angle. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Joyce in Court: James Joyce and the Law." Publishers Weekly, 26 Feb. 2018, p. 78. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A530637471/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=30fc5434. Accessed 27 July 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A530637471
Joyce in Court and The Ulysses Trials review – the law, murder and obscenity
Two books, one by Adrian Hardiman and one by Joseph M Hassett, consider famous legal cases, either within or involving James Joyce’s celebrated novel
Colm Tóibín
Thu 6 Jul 2017 08.59 BST
Last modified on Wed 29 Nov 2017 09.28 GMT
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Murder in mind … James Joyce in 1904, the year in which Ulysses is set. Photograph: C. P. Curran/Getty Images
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n October 1899, James Joyce, aged 17, attended all three days of the trial in Dublin of Samuel Childs for the brutal murder of his brother. This allowed him later to stitch references to the case throughout his novel Ulysses, including a moment when his protagonist Leopold Bloom and others are on their way to Paddy Dignam’s funeral in Glasnevin cemetery and pass Bengal Terrace, where the murder occurred: “Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one: gloomy houses.” When one man says: “That is where Childs was murdered … The last house,” Simon Dedalus replies: “So it is … A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him off. Murdered his brother. Or so they said.”
This, as Adrian Hardiman writes in his fascinating, painstaking book on Joyce and the law, “is the first mention in Ulysses of the Childs murder case. In one way or another the case or its protagonists are referred to more than 20 times in the text, sometimes very plainly, at other times obscurely. The case thus emerges as just one of the numerous threads, often submerged but constantly recurring, that form the fabric of the novel.”
Is James Joyce's Ulysses the hardest novel to finish?
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Hardiman takes us through a number of law cases that are referred to in this way in Ulysses with such clarity and vivid use of detail that it is easy to imagine how they preoccupied the characters as they wandered in Dublin on 16 June 1904.
Joyce took pains to make his novel topographically and historically accurate, but was careful not to force his characters to do the same. Thus protagonists often forget names or get a detail wrong. The Childs murder, for example, did not happen in “the last house” on Bengal Terrace, but, as Hardiman points out, the second to last. And, while Seymour Bushe was involved in the case, another lawyer, Tim Healy, was more influential in achieving the acquittal.
As Hardiman explains, Joyce may have left Healy’s name out because he actively disliked him. But there may have been another reason. Hardiman offers us a pen picture of Bushe, making clear that he was a man intriguing enough to appear in other parts of Ulysses. Joyce may simply have found Bushe’s antics and colourful reputation more useful in his narrative than Healy’s. It may be that the needs of the book always came first.
In connecting Joyce’s imagination to the Childs murder, Hardiman also points out that the day before the murder, a relative of Joyce’s, who lived in the house next door to Childs, had died. His funeral, which Joyce probably attended, happened on the same day as the Childs inquest, when the jury went to the house to view the body. Also, one of the jurors in the trial, Alexander Keyes, formerly a publican, “is referred to frequently in Ulysses under his own name”. Indeed, keys as a symbol occur throughout the book, thus integrating Mr Keyes and the Childs murder further into the intricate texture of the novel.
The spectre of two political trials and subsequent executions also haunts the novel. The first was the trial of Robert Emmet, whose execution in 1803 offers Joyce a subject for immense mirth in the Cyclops chapter. The other is the trial of the Invincibles in 1882 for the fatal stabbing of the chief secretary for Ireland and the Irish Office’s permanent undersecretary in Phoenix Park.
Hardiman misses no chance to connect what happened legally with the fictional characters
One of the men, known as Skin-the-Goat, who drove the cab that got the murderers away is mentioned in Ulysses a number of times as having “that cabman’s shelter, they say, down there at Butt Bridge”, which Bloom and Stephen Dedalus visit in the Eumaeus chapter. One of the actual murderers is also invoked in Cyclops. His erection (“standing up in their faces like a poker”) when he has been hanged is described to the assembled company in Kiernan’s public house. (“That can be explained by science, says Bloom.”)
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With forensic care, Hardiman takes us through the trials of Emmet and the Invincibles. His advantage is that he knows the book as well as he knows the law, and so misses no chance to connect what happened legally with what enters the minds and conversations of the fictional characters. The narrative he offers is thus a sort of undercurrent in Joyce’s book, one of the essential ways in which the novel contains the world and dramatises what people were thinking about in Dublin in 1904. Joyce in Court helps us to notice things in the novel that are hinted at, casually referred to, but are subtly and often powerfully present and remain oddly significant.
The other story of Ulysses and the law is what happened in the UK and US when the book was published. Once more, Hardiman, who was an Irish supreme court judge until his sudden death last year, writes with clarity and with a lawyer’s eye as he describes what the authorities did to prevent the book being published.
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He is scathing and scrupulously mean about the English: “To a reader in the early 21st century, what is very striking about the English official correspondence concerning Ulysses is the total self-confidence of politicians and bureaucrats who were still expounding and enforcing high Victorian values in the 1920s and 30s.” And on the objections to Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, he writes: “Equally striking is the elitism they manifest: what possible value could the ‘memoirs’ of ‘an Irish chambermaid’ have?”
He also takes us through how the book was finally published in the US, providing a useful context for the landmark judgment by Judge John Woolsey in 1933 that is perhaps more perceptive than much writing about Ulysses by literary critics. “Joyce,” Woolsey wrote, “has attempted – it seems to me an astonishing success – to show how the screen of consciousness with its ever-changing, kaleidoscopic impression, carries, as it were, on a plastic palimpsest, not only what is there focused of each new observation of the actual things around him, but also in a penumbral zone, residua of past impressions, some recent and some drawn up by association from the domain of the subconscious.”
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Joyce in Zurich in 1915, where he began working in earnest on Ulysses. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Joseph Hassett is a US lawyer who has written widely on the work of WB Yeats. His book on the American trials of Ulysses for obscenity is, like Hardiman’s, distinguished by its knowledge of the novel’s text (and indeed by Hassett’s talent as a literary critic) as much as by a familiarity with the niceties of the law and personalities of the lawyers.
Like Hardiman, Hassett deals with how the final victory was won. But his book offers much more detailed and sharper analysis than Hardiman’s of the earlier, disastrous US trial of Ulysses when chapters of the book were serialised in the Little Review.
He writes about the complex Irish-American lawyer and collector John Quinn, who owned the draft of The Waste Land with Ezra Pound’s emendations, most of Conrad’s manuscripts, many Yeats manuscripts, plus the manuscript of Ulysses, as well as 2,500 drawings and paintings, including 12 Picassos and 20 Matisses.
Quinn, as Hassett points out, had also collected some rich and very conservative Catholic Irish-American clients and associates, and had prejudices of his own against sexually explicit material and independent-minded women. Since he was energetic and enthusiastic about art, he might have seemed the perfect lawyer to represent the Little Review when it was prosecuted. Instead, as Hassett recounts, Quinn could not have been a worse choice, and emerges with little honour from this riveting account of his work on behalf of the magazine’s two editors, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap.
When Anderson read the first chapters of Ulysses, which Joyce began sending in December 1917, she commented to Heap: “This is the most beautiful thing we’ll ever have … We’ll print it if it’s the last efforts of our lives.” Hassett’s reading of what happened next is groundbreaking, going against the general view – in Richard Ellmann’s biography of Joyce, for example, or in other, more recent versions of the story – that Quinn, under the circumstances, did his best in a case that was unwinnable.
Instead, Hassett establishes that Quinn disliked the novel’s more sexually explicit passages, and was not willing to argue the case for its literary merit, one that might have succeeded in an appeals court. Hassett shows that Quinn was not merely incompetent but cynical and almost malevolent as he argued the case. He offers evidence, too, that Quinn was a misogynist who had nothing good to say of the Little Review’s two female editors (who were fined and ordered not to publish any more chapters), and that he confided to Pound that the magazine was “a sewer that covers” its contents “with the common stench and filth”.
Joyce, in the meantime, was busy finishing his book in Paris. As the trial went on in New York, as Hassett writes, “in a fascinating example of the relationship between law and literature”, the novelist used phrases and images from the law reports about his early chapters to add spice to his work in progress, and to anchor it further in life in all its variety, particularity and strangeness. The law, like everything else that came Joyce’s way, had its uses.
• Colm Tóibín’s House of Names is published by Viking.
• Joyce in Court is published by Head of Zeus. To order a copy for £21.25 (RRP £25) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
• The Ulysses Trials: Beauty and Truth Meet the Law is published by Lilliput. To order a copy for £21.25 (RRP £25) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
Joyce in Court and Irish Divorce/Joyce’s Ulysses reviews
Adrian Hardiman and Peter Kuch bring astute legal insights to the era of Joyce’s writing
Sat, Jun 17, 2017, 06:00
Terence Killeen
James Joyce: Adrian Hardiman imparts information about forgotten court cases, barristers, agrarian outrages, insurance and suicide, while Peter Kuch investigates the divorce landscape on which Molly and Bloom exist. Photograph: Culture Club/Getty Images
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The late Adrian Hardiman’s first intellectual passion was history, not law: he used fondly refer to his study of “pure history” while at UCD. Only later did he gravitate to the law, having dabbled in politics as well, not an uncommon course for legal eagles.
A person of wide-ranging, capacious interests, he found in the work of James Joyce an ideal conjuncture where his chief preoccupations – history and law – could be brought together. And, it should be added, his preoccupation with literature as well – he was keenly aware of Joyce’s importance as novelist, as stylist, as innovator, though, as he often made clear, he greatly disliked the way some of Joyce’s academic exponents talked about the work.
But it is a feature of Joyce’s work – one of its most engaging features – that it does indeed serve as a locus where some many different interests can converge - and few indeed are the topics that are without relevance to it. Thus Hardiman’s twin concerns find ample ground for expression in the very wide field that Joyce’s work provides. Ulysses is explicitly meant to be an encyclopaedia, after all.
Hardiman began to give public expression to this interest relatively late in his all too short life. This book is a very welcome, and very substantial, testimony to it. It brings together the major essays and lectures that Hardiman devoted to Joyce over the last 20 or so years. As its editor, Neil Belton, says, it may not be quite the book that its author would probably have produced given more time, but it comes as close to it as is possible in the circumstances.
Wealth of information
First, it should be said that Hardiman has thoroughly scoured the work – not just Ulysses but Joyce’s journalism as well, and Finnegans Wake also – for material that has a bearing on his major concerns. In writing about these, he imparts a wealth of information that will be new to most readers: information about forgotten court cases, forgotten barristers, agrarian outrages, insurance and suicide, and much else.
The essay “Law, Crime and Punishment in Bloomsday Dublin” is a masterly summary of the principal legal themes in Ulysses. It covers murder cases, civil actions, drunken and adulterous barristers, eminent and not so eminent judges, libels, writs, bequests for masses, crimes and punishments in all their guises. It really reads as a preliminary sketch for what could have been a much fuller work about this topic, in which Hardiman could have delved into the backgrounds of so much of this material.
Two subsequent essays, “A Gruesome Case” and “The Mortgaged Life”, show what Hardiman could do when he allowed himself that greater detail. The first concerns the once-notorious Childs murder in Glasnevin, near the cemetery, which figures quite strongly in Joyce’s work. Hardiman’s exposition of the case is as full and as fascinating as anyone could wish. It is worth quoting his conclusion, because it sums up very elegantly – and he is a very elegant writer – what he does in this essay and in many others: “The Childs case, saved from utter obscurity only by Joyce’s mention of it, is like a time capsule preserving accurately, because incidentally, some of the texture and details of life in the years 1899 and 1904.”
Original and learned
“The Mortgaged Life” is perhaps the most original, and most learned, piece in the book. This concerns sudden death, life assurance, mortgages and the legal position of suicides. Although somewhat technical in nature, it contains much of relevance to the way Ulysses works – and it includes Molly Bloom’s characteristically devastating comment on the late lamented Paddy Dignam.
As well as trials in Ulysses, Hardiman turns his attention to the trials of Ulysses: the court cases taken against it in the US, and a very entertaining excursion on the incredible attitudes of the British Home Office. Although much of this material has been covered recently by Kevin Birmingham and Joseph Hassett, it is good to have Hardiman’s particular angle – born of an experience not directly available to the other two authors – on the judicial dilemmas posed by Joyce’s work. As he indicates, the outcome – complete freedom to publish – was historically preordained but the saga of how the judges got there has its own fascination.
Indeed, the particular experience that Hardiman brings to bear in general is what gives this book its unique quality. He approaches the whole issue of Joyce, the law and history with special authority. While he has his limitations as a Joyce critic – his blanket dismissal of the academic Joyce world is far too broad-brush – in his own field he has the gifts of clarity, expertise and a deep knowledge of what he is talking about, not always the case in this area. This book is a worthy tribute to a person of many talents who fortunately chose to devote a lot of them to a body of work which was ideally suited for him.
Divorce options
Peter Kuch’s Irish Divorce/Joyce’s Ulysses is the work of a pro. Its central thesis is quite simple: contrary to what had been thought, divorce in Ireland was “a realistic option” for Bloom or Molly should they have chosen to seek it. He also raises interesting questions about Bloom’s financial stability as it is generally understood. It might be thought that Kuch, professor of Irish studies at the University of Otago, New Zealand, is engaging in speculation about mere what-ifs, since of course the couple do not divorce in the course of the work, and evidence that they even may is scanty (though not non-existent).
But this is not his point: his point is that it is a genuine possibility, and that this changes the balance of forces in the relationship, and in the whole concept of marriage in Ireland also. Kuch pursues this theme through a labyrinth of legal cases, and throughout Ulysses, in a hugely impressive way (although he can slip up in this winding trajectory: he is wrong about the “recent war” – actually the Boer War, and “granados” is an archaic term for “grenades” – mentioned in the Holles Street episode, falling prey to the familiar affliction of forcing a case too far).
The main sense the book leaves is confirmation that the relationship between Bloom and Molly is as nuanced, as subtle, as complicated as anything in the work of, say, Henry James and that it is often still grossly over-simplified. A worthy outcome.
An essay by Terence Killeen, The Law in/of ‘Finnegans Wake’, will appear in a forthcoming collection from the University Press of Florida
Joyce in the eyes of the law
Law: Joyce in Court, Adrian Hardiman, Head of Zeus, hbk, 372 pages, €32.99
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Law and order: the late Adrian Hardiman makes Joyce's Ulysses more accessible by explaining the legal references in the epic novel
Frank MacGabhann
July 2 2017 2:30 AM
The late Supreme Court judge Adrian Hardiman has made an immense contribution to our understanding of the Ulysses author and his fascination with the legal system.
The life of the law, wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, has been, not logic, but experience. The life of the law in Ireland from the turn of the century until his much-lamented death last year was, to a large degree, the logic, experience and written words of Adrian Hardiman in the Supreme Court.
One of the few non-professional historians to be admitted as a historian to the Royal Irish Academy, he was also one of the few judges who was a public intellectual. His essay 'Shot in Cold Blood', published in 2007, is the première legal exposition on the illegality of British actions in the aftermath of the Easter Rising in 1916.
The publisher notes that Hardiman had only completed the first draft when he died and Hardiman's lifelong friend, tutor in history at UCD and literary executor Professor Ronan Fanning, who was to edit the book, himself became gravely ill and died last January. The book fell to be edited by the publisher without the benefit of the author or his literary executor. The book must always be read with the caveat that the author had no opportunity to correct his draft.
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Adrian Hardiman
That having been said, the book is an immense contribution to the Joycean canon, in particular, to enable the reader not only to make sense of the legal references, and therefore, to make sense of the book as a whole, but also to understand why Joyce considered it necessary to pepper Ulysses with these references.
Hardiman opens with Joyce's own words, "In Ulysses, I tried to keep close to fact [...to] reality which always triumphs in the end".
Hardiman states that the reader of Ulysses ignores this epigraph of Joyce at his peril. Facts and reality lie behind Joyce's fascination with the law, which takes them as its starting point and its finishing line.
Hardiman makes it clear that he would have agreed with Patrick Kavanagh that Joyce is being killed by Harvard PhD theses and, like Declan Kiberd, he is attempting to rescue Joyce from pedants and return him to the Dubliners (and by extension, to all of us) about whom Joyce was writing. He is passionate about the need to contextualise the book for people, which allows the reader today to understand the legal references in the book that a Dubliner in 1904 would have readily understood.
In Ulysses, 32 legal cases are mentioned along with 35 named judges and lawyers. Joyce attended law lectures for a short time and was urged by his father to become a lawyer. When he was 17, he attended the celebrated murder trial in Dublin of Samuel Childs in its entirety. There he saw first-hand how the Crown used its power to build a seemingly impregnable case against an individual, only to see that case "crumble to less than nothing" due to the skill of defence lawyers on their feet.
Worse yet, Joyce would have realised by the end of the trial that the Crown had known beforehand that its case was deeply flawed, but had nevertheless put this man on trial for his life.
While Richard Ellman in his celebrated biography of Joyce accords this case one paragraph, Hardiman's treatment of it runs to nearly 40 pages. In it, he uses Holmes' famous dictum about "felt history".
Hardiman also delves into other notorious trials commented on in Ulysses, including the disturbing Maamtrasna murder trial, which has strong echoes of Kafka's novels. These cases moved Joyce as early as 1907, while living in Trieste, to write an article in Italian where he sounds more like The Citizen than Leopold Bloom.
Other legal themes treated in Ulysses include contracts, defamation, life insurance, marine collisions, suicide, swindles, divorces, bills of exchange, garnishee orders as well as ordinary Dubliners simply threatening to sue. Joyce, due to the peripatetic nature of his own family life in Dublin, portrayed particularly well the precarious life of many of its citizens, who found themselves mortgaging what little they possessed. In this manner, Joyce brings to vivid life the Dublin of 1904.
The obscenity trials and banning of Ulysses have been the subject of legal and literary scholarship for many years. In dealing briefly with the original 1921 obscenity trial in the New York "police court", as Hardiman calls the Court of Special Sessions, he is perhaps too dismissive of the two brave women who were prosecuted for serialising Ulysses and not harsh enough on their lawyer (more art collector than lawyer) John Quinn. Hardiman might have mentioned that Quinn's defence of Ulysses in court included the argument that, to readers who could understand it, the book was so filthy and disgusting that it would deter people from committing immoral acts.
Hardiman apparently had a coup in gaining access to the original, internal office file of the law firm of Morris Ernst, who fought a brilliant case, tactically and otherwise, in Federal Court in 1932 to allow Ulysses into the United States and, in doing so, to modernise the law on obscenity. Hardiman gives the reader a unique opportunity to see how a great lawyer runs his case, from preparation, to setting up the seizure of the book by US Customs, to "forum-shopping" (not allowed but all lawyers try to do it) for the most receptive judge to hear the case and to the main arguments all the way through to the appellate court.
The reader is indeed fortunate that the book includes Hardiman's essay on the show trial, as Hardiman puts it, of Robert Emmet in 1803 and new information about his fiancée Sarah Curran. Hardiman finds that the Crown's case against Emmet was weak, even despite the treachery of his own lawyer, Leonard McNally, who was in the pay of the government.
After dispatching journalist Kevin Myers' startling proposition that Emmet's speech from the dock never happened at all or as handed down, the author ends the essay with a demonstration of, in Hardiman's words, "the extraordinary blind spot" of historian Roy Foster on Emmet which, of course, ties in with, in this reviewer's opinion, Foster's blind spot on Ireland's struggle against colonialism during the 1916-1921 period. The essay is a tour de force that will be the standard against which future treatments of Emmet will be judged.
This tremendously well-researched and marvellously insightful book is a delight for lawyers and lovers of literature alike.
Indo Review