Will Ian Paisley bid for his hero Edward Carson’s court uniforms now coming up for auction? Edward Carson famously defended the Marquis of Queensbury against (h/t Hurdy Gurdy man below for the correction) Oscar Wilde’s libel action in a London court. The court uniforms will come under the hammer in Whyte’s Auction in Dublin on November 14. Ian Paisley has already got a sizeable volume of Carson memorabilia.
Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year… We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans… I’ve [...] read our review »
Great little review of Listening to Van Morrison by Griel Marcus… It’s a short book, not a biography or a career survey, but an attempt to follow those moments in Morrison’s music, as he’s made it from his first records with Them, from Belfast in 1965 to the present day, when something happens that breaks [...] read our review »
[i]Edward Carson famously prosecuted Oscar Wilde [/i]
Surely he defended the Marquess of Queensbury against a prosecution brought by Oscar Wilde?
He won’t be bidding on Lot No 8, anyway.
Corrected. Thanks.
Surely the Ulster Museum should put in a bid?
Lot 8 is fairly uncontroversial, Dave. More problematic would be Lot 5:
Pope Paul IV (1476-1559) – A Very Rare Manuscript: Appointment of a Cardinal, signed by The Pope and 28 Cardinals, 1557 (manuscript on vellum with lead seal)
But he might be very interested in Lot 14:
King William at the Battle of the Boyne
Oil on canvas, and a snip at only €2000-3000.
Well he certainly is not short of a few bob what with the various positions he has held plus the lucrative pensions they give themselves.
Would it be impolite to mention the gargantuan expenses that the poor(sic)unfortunates have awarded themselves.
They might be value at half the price or maybe just the old half nothing.
Eamonn Mallie: Edward Carson famously defended the Marquis of Queensbury against (h/t Hurdy Gurdy man below for the correction) Oscar Wilde’s libel action in a London court.
The actual story isn’t nearly as famous as the apocryphal version though, is it? I am sure the persecution/prosecution version has appeared on Slugger almost regularly whenever Carson is mentioned.
The devil is always in the detail… It’s a lot better known now than before I’d wager…
Edward Carson – a proud Dubliner…I pass by the house on Harcourt Street where he was born every day on the way to work.
I’ll bet he got a bit fed up with that, Greagoir. I’ve heard of those being ‘Born Again’, but every day of the week seems a wee bit excessive to me.
Gréagóir
Edward Carson – a proud Dubliner…I pass by the house on Harcourt Street where he was born
Interesting. Both he and Wilde were born in 1854. From my knowledge of Dublin they’d have lived within a brisk twenty minutes’ walk of each other. Could they have been boyhood companions?
Wilde’s accusation was criminal libel which could have ended with the Marquess being jailed, if convicted, so Carson’s defence of Queensbury had to be good.
His son Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) became his father and was later jailed for a criminal libel against Churchill during the 1st World War.
Indeed, Carson and Wilde grew up within a stone’s throw of each other in Dublin city centre.
Carson is always portrayed as the villian of the court case but it was Wilde who first brought the charges against Queensbury, which detrimentally backfired on Wilde. Two Dubs slogging it out in English courts.