Mr O'Higgins agrees to get juror to the church on time

IT ENDED with a whimper rather than a bang.

The sound and fury of earlier exchanges were missing on the last day of the Proinsias De Rossa libel action. It was back to the quiet rustle of handwriting analysis as the defence put its own man of letters on the stand.

The issue of an "inner circle" was raised repeatedly, but this was not a reference to either the democratic centralism of the Workers Party or the features department of the Sunday Independent. No, it was merely a circle which occurs in some of Mr De Rossa's Ds, and it was not the stuff of which riveting court drama is made.

The most dramatic moment of the final day came during an exchange about whether the same Ds were constructed with a clockwise or a counter clockwise movement. At one point, three of the four senior counsel were making clockwise and counter clockwise circles with their hands, looking rather like participants in a conductor's masterclass.

It wasn't always as exciting as that, however, and some people in the court sneaked the occasional look, clockwise, to find that time was passing at about half the normal rate. But on this occasion, at least, we had both judge and jury on our side.

Mr Justice Moriarty - not a man to tolerate unnecessary delays - had an extra motivation yesterday, when he was called upon to make a calculation between four barristers and a wedding.

During the afternoon he interrupted a line of questioning by the plaintiff's counsel, Mr Paul O'Higgins, with the preamble: "I'm certainly not suggesting that a juror's commitment to get to a wedding in West Cork comes before you, Mr O'Higgins ..." But his demeanour suggested that the issue was a close call, and Mr O'Higgins took the hint. "I'm almost finished," he said.

Much of the evidence of the handwriting expert, Mr Jim Nash, had already been aired in one way or another. The former head of the Garda document section told the court he believed the signatures on the Moscow letter to have been written by Mr De Rossa and Mr Sean Garland respectively, and explained why.

One significant difference was a signature obtained from Mr De Rossa only last month, which added to the debate about the plaintiff's D. It was not stated exactly how the signature had been arrived at, save that it had been "after a lunch" and Mr De Rossa had been "standing up" at the time.

When Patrick MacEntee re examined his, witness, there was one final objection, that he was inviting new evidence rather than merely re examining. At this, the judge summed up the weariness of everyone involved in a long trial:

"One reaches the point where another question or two, if not grossly prejudicial, is preferable to another wrangle about it." And so Mr MacEntee concluded, with a cryptic comment that "in view of the manner in which the case has developed," the defence would be calling no further witnesses.

Demonstrating again his mastery of the elegant euphemism, Mr Justice Moriarty then warned the jury that after a case which had not been marked by "economies of scale" the closing speeches by counsel would not be "notably laconic."

This being a civil action, he said, he could not offer them the luxury of hotel accommodation, so he proposed to stagger the losing process over two days: the counsels summaries next Tuesday and his own charging of the jury on Wednesday.

And to sustain them in their last few days, he promised the nine women and three men he would be giving them an exemption from jury duty "into the long distant future."