[The Land-War In Ireland (1870) by James Godkin]@TWC D-Link bookThe Land-War In Ireland (1870) CHAPTER IX 5/24
At Lifford, the county town of Donegal, a jury was empanelled for the trial of O'Donel, consisting of twenty-three Irishmen and ten Englishmen.
Of this jury Sir Cahir O'Dogherty was foreman.
He was the lord of Inishowen, having the largest territories in the county next to the Earl of Tyrconnel.
The bill being read in English and Irish, evidence was given, wrote the attorney-general, 'that their guilty consciences, and fear of losing their heads, was the cause of their flight.' The jury, however, had exactly the same sort of difficulty that troubled the juries in our late Fenian trials about finding the accused guilty of compassing the death of the sovereign.
But Sir John laboured to remove their scruples by explaining the legal technicality, and arguing that, 'whoso would take the king's crown from his head would likewise, if he could, take his head from his shoulders; and whoever would not suffer the king to reign, if it lay in his power, would not suffer the king to live.' The argument was successful with the jury.
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