While the history of the Irish jury service is singularly lacking as a medium of any romantic tales, the Ring College inoculation case, which took twelve days at hearing recently in the High Court, recalls at least one cause celebre which was productive of quite a spot of romance in the jury box.
That particular case took fifteen days at hearing, and the jury spent many hours anxiously deliberating on what their findings would be; for there was a very great deal of human happiness, not to mention money, at stake. At the conclusion of the case one of the senior jury men, who had been struck by the shrewdness and clear-headed judgment of a very young colleague, invited him to celebrate the end of their ordeal by having dinner at his house.
The young man gladly accepted, and there and then began a friendship between the two men which was sealed by nothing less than the marriage of the young jury man to his friend's daughter two years afterwards.
That happened almost thirty years ago, and it is only two years since the eldest son of the marriage became a barrister!
The Irish Times, March 3rd, 1939.