Irish legal history went up in smoke on 30 June 1922. The explosion of munitions and resulting fire at the Irish Public Records Office at Dublin’s Four Courts marked a tragic end to the first act the Irish civil war. One eyewitness to the explosion , the author Ernie O’Malley, described legal documents that dated as far back as the thirteenth century "gyrating in the upper air like seagulls". Partly burnt documents were blown all over the city of Dublin.
