The Tyrone Constitution of 12 May 1893, contains a colourful description of proceedings at the Lucan Petty Sessions of several days earlier, on 09 May. Setting the scene of the proceeding incident, the correspondent describes Lucan as ‘one of the show places of Dublin’ declaring there is ‘no prettier spot than Lucan Demesne, through which the Liffey flows, between mossy banks shaded with beautiful and stately trees’.
The author explains; ‘Lucan House and demesne are the property of Colonel Vesey, who let them some time ago to Mr. Chas. Warden Sergison, a lieutenant in the Scots Guards, now lying at the Richmond Barracks’. We are further informed ‘Mr. Sergison is a D.L and J.P for the county of Sussex’.
We learn that ‘Colonel Vesey for many years had allowed the people who visited Lucan the privilege of walking in the demesne, and Mr. Sergison has not curtailed that privilege, but rather extended it’.
Our story begins on 18th April, as Mr Sergison, his wife, and several guests were walking in the demesne grounds when they spotted a ‘Roman Catholic clergyman riding on the footpath alongside the river – a place that is considered dangerous for such exercise’. Mr Sergison noted he had previously seen the same man there despite no permission ‘given to anyone to ride in the grounds, or to drive in them, unless the persons so doing were proceeding right through from one end to the other by the carriage road’.
The ensuing interaction between the two men ultimately brings us to the Petty Sessions hearing. It is reported that Mr Sergison, ‘accosted the priest and asked him if he had leave to ride in the demesne. The reverend gentleman, it was deposed, astounded the English officer and his friends by the unexpected counter-question “What the h___ is that to you!” Mr Sergison then informed the priest that he was Colonel Vesey’s tenant, and had the whole right to the demesne. The rev. gentleman retorted – “I wouldn’t ask leave to come here from a puppy like you, and I have a right to ride here.” It is reported he also called Mr Sergison “a foreigner,” and became ‘so coarsely abusive that the latter, being accompanied by ladies, had to move away, leaving the rev. gentleman gesticulating and threatening him’.
Perhaps the matter would have ended there, but for the following letter written that evening and sent to Mr Sergison:
A postscript to the letter: P.S. – This letter had to be written in haste : the author claims indulgence only for the penmanship. – T.E.J.
And so we find our complainant and defendant on oath before ‘the full bench of magistrates at Lucan’ as Mr Sergison ‘charged the Rev Mr. Judge with trespassing, and refusing to leave when called upon to do so, and on a second summons with having used threatening language’.
Lucan Petty Session record excerpt, via findmypast.ie
Transcription of Petty Session summons:
‘You the said defendant did unlawfully & trespass in the “Lucan Demesne” and refused to leave when warned on the 18th of april 1893’
and
‘You in the “Lucan Demesne” in said County on the 18th day of april 1893, did unlawfully make use of threatening language towards complainant whereby he has just cause to fear that you will do him a corporal hurt or procure others to do so. And you are to show cause why you shall not be bound over in solvent securities to keep the peace and be of good behaviour towards Her Majesty and all her subjects’
Facing these charges the Rev Mr Judge ‘swore that he had often ridden in the demesne, and had never been stopped before’. He accepted that he ‘thought that Mr. Sergison had accosted him insolently, but “now that he had again heard the English gentleman’s accent, he knew that there could not have been anything special in it for the purpose of offending him.” He solemnly denied that he had ever said “What the h___ has that to do with you.” ‘Thrice he repeated this denial’ and would only admit to regretting the trespass but would not accept the language attributed to him. Mr Sergison expressed a wish to leave the matter at that and asked the Rev Mr Judge to ‘give an undertaking not to ride there again without leave’, this appears to have irritated the defendant who replied that “it was surely enough for a priest to say he regretted the unintentional trespass.”
At this point, both summonses were withdrawn by consent. The editor however, seemed intent on giving his own view on the matter with this conclusion: ‘The foregoing case suggests most unpleasantly the coarse, overbearing, and vulgar tone which our Roman Catholic masters of the future are putting on. If a ‘Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy’ in the head Irish College of the Priesthood can be guilty of such un-philosophic and brutal conduct and demeanour as was deposed to, what kind of teaching can be expected from the raw C.C.s who, as the Irish Daily Independent or Herald, once put it, perpetuate the idea amongst their peasant flocks that if they are disobedient in anything to their clergy they will “burn in hell to all eternity.” The case hints at the simmering religious and political tensions of the time, during which period Gladstone was to attempt to pass the second ‘Home Rule Bill’.
Elaine Hurley, SOL 06/07/2020
All quotations and letter from an article in The Tyrone Constitution of 12 May 1893, via The British Newspaper Archive, accessed via findmypast.ie
Petty Session records accessed via findmypast.ie
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