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Justice stated:
“We are naturally much impressed by the long continued and uninterrupted practice
of so many Irish judges who, prior to 1921, exercised jurisdiction over the whole of
Ireland, and who since that date have exercised two distinct jurisdictions in Northern
Ireland and Eire respectively. While it is impossible for us in Northern Ireland to
trace back the origin in the statute law, or to ascertain such origin in records which
we do not possess, and whilst we are accordingly unable to assign to it an
immemorial character, yet is the practice certain in itself and salutary in its
operation”. (p.128)
While earlier he stated:
“It is further a matter of considerable importance that such recorded sentences have
also frequentlybeen imposed bycircuit judges and other members of the judiciaryin
Eire, including the Court of Criminal Appeal; and no question has every been raised
there as to the legality of the procedure, just as, until the present case the issue has
never been raisedin Northern Ireland”. (p.128)
Osborough argues that if the practice of suspending sentences had its origins in the early
19 th century, it is not credible for it to have remained so hidden from official discourses
(Osborough 1982:227). However, he does acknowledge that the practice of imposing
suspended sentences had been fashionable among certain Judges of the King’s Bench in
Ireland before 1920. A number of senior Judges and barristers from both sides of the
border whose careers had started before 1920 attested to the regular use of the suspended
sentence by W.H. Dodd, a Judge of the King’s Bench in Dublin from 1907 to 1924
(Osborough 1982:226). Osborough’s search for the elusive beginnings of the suspended
sentence forced him to conclude that there are no printed references to the suspended
sentence at all prior to the mid-1920s, but he locates an address by the Lord Chief Justice
of Ireland, Sir Thomas Molony in 1927, which called for the introduction of the
disposition in the jurisdiction of EnglandandWales ( Molony1927).
Another source ascribed the commencement of the suspended sentence to Sir Thomas
Lopdell O Shaughnessey K.C., Recorder of Dublin 1905-1924 but for the same period.
The latter is credited with introducing the suspended sentence system at the Green Street
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