To Quaxar,
Thanks once again for all the valuable info. Most of it is new to me, and as the details are not complete, I'll have to try to acess the Irish Times site. I'll open
a subscription to gain access. Can you give me the address of the site please ?
I knew about the police incident from 1866. An item about Dr. Mark appeared in the British Medical Journal of 13 October 1866:
"CONVICTION OF A DOCTOR FOR PROTECTING HIS WIFE.
Dr. Sweeny of Dublin was brought up in custody, charged with having assaulted a police constable. It appeared that Dr.Sweeny was walking home with his wife at one o'clock in the morning, and the policemen, acting under orders recently given to the metropolitan force with respect to
unfortunates, looked curiously at him and his wife, at which he was irritated. A policeman darted out of a laneway, and caught him by the shoulder and his wife by the breast, and asked him what business he had to be going with that young woman at that hour of the night; he then struck the policeman, and told him to begone, saying that the lady was his wife. Dr.Sweeny was ordered to pay a fine of £1 for the assault."
Sweny was not repentant; at the trial, he said: “If I’d had a sabre, I would have run him through !” Another version claims that the officer was subsequently charged with assaulting the doctor.