CEREMONIAL ROBES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 855, 26 December 1929, Page 6

CEREMONIAL ROBES

REPUBLICAN IRELAND RETAINS THEM Ireland under the new regime shows an unexpected desire for ceremonial clothes, says a United States exchange. When the Government reconstituted its whole legal system it wanted to abolish wigs and gowns of the Bar and the Bench. But public opinion was against it, and so all Judges sit in robes with horsehair wigs and the lawyers who address them wear their old costumes of stuff or silk, according to rank. That this love of formal costume is not confined to the capital is proved by recent experience in Waterford. The Mayors of the ancient city from time immemorial used to wear a red robe trimmed with ermine. In 1920 a new Mayor did not like the red and changed it for green, white and gold. But the city was soon placed under martial law. A contingent of the British Devonshire regiment one day invaded the council chamber with a cry of “Hands up,” searched the councillors, and ordered the Mayor to take off his robe. If* colours annoyed the British soldiers, for they were then those of the Republican Government and are today officially the Free State's. The soldiers seized the robe, and nobody has seen it since. But the Mayor just elected refuses to sit without a robe, and after ten years will renew the old regalia.