People, Place and Power – The Grand Jury System in Ireland

29 98 Bottles of Champagne 37 Bottles of Claret 28 Bottles of Port 68 Bottles of Sherry − Spring Assizes 1872 Donegal Grand Jury Dinner Account  23  21-22  19-20  17-18  13-16 Fig. 11. Number of grand jurors attending at 218 assizes sittings in Westmeath, spring 1727 - spring 1853. Fig. 12. Donegal Grand Jury Dinner Account, spring 1872. The assizes as a social gathering A party atmosphere may have prevailed at the spring 1760 assizes in Westmeath, with only 13 jurors attending and the Chief Baron Mountenay turning up drunk. 29 Perhaps Mountenay was reflecting the ‘merriment which sometimes prevails in an Irish court of justice’ which Edward Wakefield observed. 30 ‘Merriment’ was a feature of grand-jury gatherings. A ‘Dinner Accounts’ book for Donegal (1867 – 1899) gives the expenditure on dinners, lunches, wine and spirits. In the twenty assizes sessions between spring 1868 and summer 1877, the smallest quantity of drink consumed was 122 bottles. The largest consumption occurred in spring 1872, with 236 bottles drunk, including champagne (98 bottles), claret (37), and pale sherry (43) (Fig. 12). It is important to note, however, that the jurors had to pay for their food and drink.