Beautiful writing but what does it say?!

[Yvonne Donnellon]

I wish I was better at this!  I've got 5th May and attacked and abused ? 

[heywood]

Not sure about the 1st word but
‘Deft (defendant) on the 5th May Inst. (instant) attacked and abused the Compt (Complainant)’

[Ruskie]

5 May Inst
 http://www.history-sites.com/cgi-bin/bbs62x/arcwmb/arch_config.pl?md=read;id=12009

[Yvonne Donnellon]

Brilliant, thank you! It's amazing how understanding one or two words, then helps you make more sense of the rest of the text.

[josey]

Is first word 'S[ai]d'? The 'd's at ends of 'attacked' and 'abused' are different.

[Colin Cruddace]

I think the first word is a form of address followed by the event.

Sir etc.

Colin

[heywood]

I am assuming that this is in the column headed ‘Cause of Complaint as set forth in Summons’.

Often the statement begins:
‘That the defendant ....’ and then explains the circumstances.
Or even just, ‘Defendant did ...’

Looking at my ancestor’s records they are set out like that and each of the different pages use the same format but the one posted is none of those.

Are the other complaints set out the same?
Are they more understandable with that first word?

[Yvonne Donnellon]

This comes from the Ireland, Petty Session Court Registers, 1818-1919 for Mathew Sweeney
Kerry,Tralee, 1859-1860.
 
Now that I know Def is defendant and Comp is complainant and the meaning of Inst, it's easier to understand what's happened.  The long and short of the story is my 3 x GGF Matthew and "his arch ememy" Henry Shea had regular dust ups as there are many records when they make complaints against each other in court. 

I strongly suspect they were related, I have strong DNA matches to the Shea's in Tralee but haven't made the connection yet.

[josey]

Could the first word be 'Im' = Item often used to distinguish things in a list?

ADDED: Having looked at several of the pages of these records, first word maybe says 'For'?