to decide, which they have absolute power to do, that the case shall be tried by "summary jurisdiction"; that is to say, by a paid magistrate, always a mere tool of Dublin Castle, without any jury or any right of appeal to a jury.
Only one man charged under the Defense of the Realm Act has been accorded trial by jury in Ireland. The history of his case is instructive. John Hegarty was a post-office official with long service and an excellent record. When the war broke out he was stationed in Cork. He was ordered, without any accusation being made against him, to leave Cork and take up a position in the postal service in England. He refused, pointing out that his home and friends were in Cork, and that there was no justification for arbitrarily turning him out. The answer of the postal department was to dismiss him from the service without pension or compensation. Immediately thereafter he was ordered by the military authorities to leave the city of Cork. He obeyed, and retreated to a remote spot in the Cork Mountains, in Ballingarry, where he proceeded to support himself by agricultural labor. Within a few weeks the military ordered him to leave the County of Cork, still without making any charge against him or giving him any chance to defend himself in court. He went to Enniscorthy, in the County of Wexford, and stayed with friends there. Last February he was arrested in Enniscorthy, dragged from his bed in the middle of the night, brought to Dublin, detained in a military barracks for a month, then transferred to the civil authorities and allowed trial by jury, but not by an Enniscorthy jury, which would have been his right under the ordinary civil law. A long series of charges was brought against him, including the writing of seditious notices and the possession of arms, ammunition, and explosives. He was tried three times (between) April and June by three different juries; in each case the Crown and the judge made great efforts to secure a conviction. Two of the juries acquitted him on two different charges, the third disagreed. Then the military authorities sent Major Price to Hegarty in Mountjoy Jail (I was in the same jail at the time, and Hegarty told me the facts in the exercise yard) and offered to release him if he would agree to go to America. Hegarty refused. Then Major Price offered to release him if he would agree to remain in some spot indicated by the military authorities, and never leave it. Hegarty replied that he was willing to go to Ballingarry, from which the military had driven him; and he was
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