FROM THE ARCHIVES:Isaac Pimley described his experiences as a juror in Belfast in the early years of the Troubles. – JOE JOYCE
The next day, “put forward Brendan So-and-So and Malachy Something-else”, called the clerk of the Crown and Peace to the warders lolling in the dock. And so began almost a roll-call of Raparees, Northern Resistance fighters from long before the time of troubles and O’Hanlon.
No need to ask which camp these Maguires, O’Neills, Quinns and M’Kennas came from even before the charge was read. The court officials displayed a complete incuriosity whether the names called were ancient Celtic or Lowland Scots, but the rest of us leaned forward a little to get a better look at the lads who were planting the bombs (“you’ve half an hour to get put”), holding up the bank cashiers. Here they were, men of violence in fact not just in theory. Everything I had ever read about Ireland jumbled into my mind. Bits and pieces of history, legend, ballad. The indimitable [sic] Irishry.
Maybe they did not look indomitable, but curiously unformidable, and, at the same time with an air of not being or feeling defeated.
The clerk went on, impassively, to explain that some jurors would be called down to the jury box from which 12 would be selected for the trial, and explained to the accused that they, as well as the prosecutor, had the right to challenge up to 12 jurors without giving cause, and so on. They ignored him.
The “draw” commenced and 24 of us were called down. The accused seated in the dock paid no attention to the swearing-in of the jurors, but the solicitor for the prosecuting counsel sat with the list of names and jury numbers in front of him, and, as the juror’s number and name was called skimmed quickly over his lists to find the address.
In Belfast one’s address like one’s name is an almost infallible indication of one’s religion and almost inevitably one’s political sympathies.
I sat in the jury box with a friend whose name was as English as mine, but without the tell-tale address. He lived, one of the minority, in a country town. As I listened to the Crown call “stand by”! to the O’s and the Mac’s I whispered maliciously to my friend, “you’ll be on” and he whispered in reply “you too with a name, like that.”
“The address will save me,” I replied. And I was right.
So it continued throughout the whole sitting of the Assizes. When it was a political case I was inevitably “challenged” by the defence when the accused was a Protestant, and “stand by” was the cry from the Crown when the accused was a Catholic.
On the last day I had reached such rapport with the Crown solicitor that when it came my turn to be sworn-in I did not even stand up, but merely smiled in his direction, he smiled in return and nodded to the clerk, “stand by”.
And so the sectarian divide makes its ugly appearance in our courts of law. Can anyone visualise a time when it will be otherwise?
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