The prosecution barrister is summing up the State’s case and she’s going through Honor like a pregnancy rumour through a nunnery.
She’s like, “Members of the jury, whatever your politics, and wherever your sympathies lie in this case, these were not – as the defence would have it – victimless crimes. Honor O’Carroll-Kelly, acting coldly, calculatedly and with malice aforethought, slashed the tyres of scores and scores of hard-working people who rely on their cars to go about the business of their daily lives.”
Honor is just, like, glowering at her. She has her middle finger extended and she’s pretending to scratch her nose with it – something I do whenever a Munster player is being interviewed on TV.
“She did it,” the barrister goes, “in full understanding of the gravity of her actions, which was evidenced by the photocopied letter she left on each car windscreen, signed by the SUV Avenger, lecturing her victims – yes, victims – about the damage they were doing to the environment.”
Sorcha is standing at the island with a boning knife in one hand and an espresso in the other, grinning at us like a serial killer
The old dear goes, ‘I don’t want my vital work on the campaign Move Funderland to the Northside to die with me’
‘I remember Past Ross thinking, you need to stort being nicer to Future Ross. He’s a genuinely good bloke’
‘Sorcha, I’m wondering is climate justice maybe a bit above Santa’s pay grade?’
Honor pretends to sneeze then, but instead of “achoo!” she goes, “fock you!” – another trick she learned from me.
“Honor O’Carroll-Kelly,” the woman goes, “is not the victim in all of this, despite what you’ve heard over the past three days. She is a highly intelligent young woman from a privileged background – ”
Sorcha, beside me, whispers, “Please don’t mention Mount Anville! Please don’t mention Mount Anville!”
“– who has had every opportunity in life, a highly educated and – as we saw from her success in eluding capture for seven months – a clever and resourceful person, who chose to express herself through acts of vandalism against hard-working people and that’s why I would urge the jury to find her guilty on all counts.”
How many of us know what it’s like to be raised by a half-crazed mother, a woman who, by her own admission, has voted for the Green Party, not in every second election like most normal people, but in every election since she was eligible to vote?
Now it’s Honor’s barrister’s turn to sum up. The dude gets to his feet.
Sorcha grips my thigh and squeezes it very tightly.
I’m there, “Sorcha, he’s got this. Hennessy played rugby with the dude, remember.”
She’s like, “That’s what your confidence is based on?”
“Hey,” I go, “this is Ireland.”
The dude’s big, booming voice suddenly fills the room.
He goes, “We’ve heard money mentioned. We’ve heard education mentioned. We’ve heard privilege mentioned. Well, what is privilege? Privilege is a perceived advantage that supposedly accrues to someone by virtue of their birth or social standing. But how many of us in this courtroom know what it’s like to grow up in a home like Honor O’Carroll-Kelly’s? How many of us know what it’s like to be raised by a half-crazed mother operating on the lunatic edges of environmental activism?”
Sorcha really digs her fingers into my thigh now.
I’m there, “Just hold it together for a few more minutes.”
“A woman,” the dude goes, “who, by her own admission, has voted for the Green Party, not in every second election like most normal people, but in every election since she was eligible to vote.”
There’s quite a bit of muttering in the court at that.
The dude’s like, “What does it mean to be a child of privilege when your mother – not just your role model, remember, but all points on your moral compass – has an arrest record that would rival that of most career criminals? In 1993, aged 14, she was arrested for throwing a bucket of red paint over a woman leaving a furrier’s on Grafton Street.”
I have a good chuckle at that one. The woman was my old dear. She never found out that it was Sorcha.
The barrister dude looks at the jury, then at Sorcha, then back at the jury, as if to say, “I rest my case”. Literally. Because he doesn’t say anything else after that
“In 1995,” he goes, “aged 16, she was arrested after spray-painting the words, ‘Shell Oils the Wheels of Nigeria’s Dictatorship’ on the wall of the Nigerian embassy in Dublin.”
Sorcha suddenly shouts, “I didn’t spray-paint it! It was, like, a banner?”
The judge goes, “You will control yourself or I will have you removed from this court.”
Honor’s barrister sad-smiles the jury and goes, “Honor O’Carroll-Kelly is a victim in all of this, despite what you’ve heard to the contrary. She is a victim of her mother’s overweening compulsion to be seen as a good and virtuous person, which she presented as concern for the fate of the planet. The message in the photocopied letter that was left on those car windscreens – this stuff was drilled into Honor day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute. Could a child raised in this manner be anything other than what she is – a sort of environmentalist Manchurian Candidate, brainwashed by her mother, then weaponised –”
After three days of this, Sorcha suddenly can’t listen to any more.
“Oh! My God!” she goes – at the top of her voice as well. “You are, like, totally mischaracterising my relationship with my daughter!”
The judge goes, “This is your final chance. One more outburst and I will jail you for contempt.”
The barrister dude looks at the jury, then at Sorcha, then back at the jury, as if to say, “I rest my case”. Literally. Because he doesn’t say anything else after that.
The jury heads off to deliberate and we head for the Chancery Inn, a pub I’m far more familiar with than I should be? It’s where I waited for the verdict in my old man’s corruption trial (guilty) and my old dear’s trial for the murder of her second husband (not guilty) and I honestly thought I’d seen the last of the place.
We’re some family, in fairness to us.
Sorcha goes, “They’re looking directly at Honor!” and I’m trying to remember from previous O’Carroll-Kelly trials whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing?
I order a pint of the obvious and Sorcha and Honor ask for water. But then Hennessy bursts in and goes, “Cancel that order! Champagne! Bottle of my usual!” because – yeah, no – his face wouldn’t be unknown in here either.
Sorcha goes, “Is that not a bit premature?”
Hennessy’s there, “The jury pitied her! I could see it in their faces! What a performance!”
Honor smiles. She loves positive feedback – she didn’t lick that up off the floor either.
We’re in the pub for, like, three hours and I’m on my sixth pint when word filters through that the jury has reached its verdict. We sprint back to the court and arrive just as they’re filing in.
Sorcha goes, “They’re looking directly at Honor!” and I’m trying to remember from previous O’Carroll-Kelly trials whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing?
I’m actually shaking when the judge looks at the foreman and goes, “On the charge of causing criminal damage to 150 cars, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty.”
And I end up nearly keeling over when the dude goes, “Guilty.”
