Attorney General (Fahy) v Bruen (No. 2)

JurisdictionIreland
Judgment Date31 March 1937
Date31 March 1937
CourtSupreme Court (Irish Free State)
S. C., I.F.S.]
Attorney-General (Fahy)
and
Bruen (No. 2)

Sale during prohibited hours - "Bona fide traveller" - Meaning of term - Person who travels minimum statutory distance with a purpose other than to obtain drink - Whether an exhaustive definition - Meaning of the terms "traveller" and "bona fide" -Statute - Rules of construction - Grammatical meaning - Term of art - Use of term in former statutes - Interpretative decisions given thereon -Subsequent use of same term in consolidating statute - Legislature presumed to know and adopt decisions - Case stated - Points not raised before District Justice - What points open on hearing of case stated - Intoxicating Liquor Act, 1927 (No. 15 of 1927), ss. 2 and 15.

Whether any given individual is or is not entitled to the status of a bona fide traveller must depend on the facts proved in his particular case and upon the conclusion arrived at by the tribunal of fact as to the object with which he made the journey. But a man who has arrived at the end of, or at a definite halting place in, a journey does not necessarily and in all cases retain the status of a bona fide traveller for twenty-four hours, or until he has spent a night at the place. All the circumstances are to be taken into consideration in arriving at a conclusion of fact as to whether a traveller has so conducted himself, or the circumstances of the case justify, the determination that he no longer possessesthe status or is entitled to the privileges of a bona fide traveller. So held by the Supreme Court (Sullivan, C.J., FitzGibbon, Murnaghan, Meredith and Geoghegan, JJ.). The defendant was the proprietor of a dance hall and of licensed premises adjacent thereto, at Rosses Point, County Sligo, over five miles distant from Sligo town. At 12.5 a.m. on a Monday morning, during the progress of a dance which lasted from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., thirty persons, who had left the dance hall, entered the licensed premises, presenting, as they did so, the "pass-out"checks they had received at the dance hall, and were served with intoxicating liquor. The defendant was summoned for, amongst other counts, selling intoxicating liquor during prohibited hours. At the hearing it was proved that buses left Sligo town for persons attending the said dance, and the prosecution was satisfied that the persons on the defendant's premises had "pass-out" checks and were bona fidetravellers "in so far as they resided over five miles from Rosses Point," but contended that they...

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4 cases
  • Shadowmill Ltd v an Bord Pleanala
    • Ireland
    • High Court
    • March 31, 2023
    ...same word or phrase is subsequently used in a statute in pari materia, and a fortiori in a consolidating Statute”.— AG(Fahy) v Bruen #2 1937 IR 125. 300 On Statutory Interpretation §8.48 et 301 AG (Fahy) v Bruen #2 1937 IR 125. 302 Bennion, Bailey and Norbury on Statutory Interpretation/Par......
  • DPP v Philip O'Brien
    • Ireland
    • Court of Appeal (Ireland)
    • October 28, 2021
    ...Judge was entitled to consider this issue. The appellant refers to the following passage from Attorney General (Fahy) v. Bruen (No. 2) [1937] IR 125:- “An appeal by way of Case Stated under this statute is left entirely at large so far as concerns questions of law, and not alone may questio......
  • National Transport Authority v Granaghan
    • Ireland
    • High Court
    • April 21, 2020
    ...was free to determine points of law other than those actually raised by the learned District Court Judge: see Attorney General v. Bruen [1937] IR 125. However, when exercising this jurisdiction, it was submitted that the Court should be careful not to substitute its own view of the evidence......
  • O'Shea, Cork County Council on
    • Ireland
    • Supreme Court
    • December 20, 1947
    ...94. (2) 91 L. T. 310. (3) L. R. 6 Ex. 25. (4) 15 T. L. R. 224. (5) [1937] A. C. 826. (6) [1898] 2 Q. B. 402. (7) [1911] 2 K. B. 149. (8) [1937] I. R. 125, 138. (9) [1914] 1 K. B. 641. (10) 12 Ad. & E. 460. (11) L. R. 6 C. P. 365. (12) 2 D. & Cl. 480. (13) [1926] 2 K. B. 315. (14) 23 Q. B. D......

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