O’Higgins is described at his removal as a great Christian gentleman whose secular activities were outstanding both to his country and to Europe.
The chief mourners in St. Patrick’s Church are joined by the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, and many representatives of the judiciary and politics. The mourners are led by his widow Terry, his children Tom, Geraldine, Michael, Barry, Kevin, Derval and Shane, his thirty grandchildren, his brother Michael and sister Rosaleen.
The parish priest, Father Maurice O’Moore, tells many hundreds in the congregation that O’Higgins and his wife had been regular worshippers at the church.
“Tom was a man of deep faith and his demeanour at prayer was an inspiration to me personally and to parishioners. I think of him this evening as a man of faith, as a man of prayer and a great Christian gentleman. His secular activities through his legal expertise were outstanding both to his country and to Europe,” he says.
Father O’Moore adds that many tributes had been paid to O’Higgins in the media, and everybody can be proud of the contribution he made as an Irishman through his religious faith, his sincerity and love of his country.
Father Bruce Bradley SJ, a friend of the family, gives a reading from the Gospel.
Also attending is Harry Hill SC, retired master of the High Court, Feargus Flood, chairman of the Flood Tribunal, as well many Supreme Court and High Court judges and barristers. The director-general of the Law Society, Ken Murphy, is also present, as are many solicitors.
The world of politics is well represented, particularly by members of the Fine Gael party, for which O’Higgins was a Teachta Dála (TD) and minister in the 1940s and 1950s.
Two former taoisigh, Garret FitzGerald and Liam Cosgrave, attend. Also present is the leader of the Fine Gael party, Enda Kenny, and Tom Hayes, chairman of the Parliamentary Party, as well as many party TDs and former deputies.
(From: “A great Christian gentleman’ whose secular activities served State, Europe,” by Christine Newman, The Irish Times, http://www.irishtimes.com, February 27, 2003)
Mary Irvine, Irish judge who is the President of the Irish High Court between 2020 and 2022, is born on December 10, 1956, in Clontarf, Dublin. She first practiced as a barrister. She is a judge of the High Court between 2007 and 2014, a judge of the Court of Appeal from 2014 to 2019 and serves as a judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland from May 2019 until becoming President of the High Court on June 18, 2020. In addition to being the first woman to hold that position, she is the first judge to have held four judicial offices. She is an ex officio member of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal.
Irvine is born to John and Cecily Irvine, her father once being deputy director of RTÉ. She is educated at Mount Anville Secondary School, University College Dublin (UCD) and the King’s Inns. She is an international golf player, winning the Irish Girls Close Championship in 1975.
Irvine’s practice also extends to constitutional law. As a junior counsel, she represents the plaintiff in Cahill v. Sutton in 1980 in the Supreme Court with seniors Niall McCarthy and James O’Driscoll. The case establishes the modern Irish law of standing for applicants to challenge the constitutional validity of statutes. She appears with Peter Kelly to argue on behalf the right of the unborn in a reference made by President of IrelandMary Robinson under Article 26 of the Constitution to the Supreme Court in 1995 regarding the Information (Termination of Pregnancies) Bill 1995.
Irvine is appointed as a Judge of the High Court in June 2007. She is in charge of the High Court Personal Injuries list from 2009 to 2014 and subsequently becomes the second Chair of the Working Group on Medical Negligence and Periodic Payments, established by the President of the High Court.
Irvine is appointed to Court of Appeal on its establishment in October 2014. Some of her judgments on the Court of Appeal reduce awards given by lower courts for personal injuries compensation. She writes “most of the key” Court of Appeal judgments between 2015 and 2017 which have the effect of reducing awards arising from subsequent actions in the High Court.
Irvine is appointed to chair a statutory tribunal to conduct hearings and deal with cases related to the CervicalCheck cancer scandal in 2019. However, following her appointment as President of the High Court in 2020, she is unable to continue with the position.
On April 4, 2019, Irvine is nominated by the Government of Ireland as a Judge of the Supreme Court. She is appointed by the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, on May 13, 2019. She writes decisions for the court in appeals involving planning law, the law of tort, intellectual property law, judicial review, and chancery law.
Irvine is appointed by Chief Justice Frank Clarke in 2019 to chair the Personal Injuries Guidelines Committee of the Judicial Council. The purpose of the committee is to review the levels of compensation issues in court cases arising out of personal injuries. Minister of State at the Department of FinanceMichael W. D’Arcy writes a letter to congratulate her on her appointment and outlines his views that personal injuries awards in Ireland should be “recalibrated.” She responds to the letter by saying it is the not the committee’s duty to tailor its findings “in a manner favourable to any particular interest group.”
Following a cabinet meeting on June 12, 2020, it is announced that Irvine will be nominated to succeed Peter Kelly as President of the High Court. A three-person panel consisting of the Chief Justice Frank Clarke (later substituted by George Birmingham), the Attorney GeneralSéamus Woulfe and a management consultant, Jane Williams, reviews applications for the position, before making recommendations to cabinet. The President of the Law Society of Ireland welcomes her appointment, describing her as an “outstandingly able judge.” She is the first woman to hold the role. As she is previously an ordinary judge of three courts, her appointment as President of the High Court makes her the first person to have held four judicial offices. She is appointed on June 18, 2020, and makes her judicial declaration on June 19.
Irvine takes over as president in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland. She issues guidelines for lawyers to negotiate personal injuries cases outside of court due to the backlog formed by delays in hearings. She issues a practice direction in July 2020 that face coverings are to be worn at High Court hearings. She criticises barristers and solicitors in October 2020 for not wearing masks in the Four Courts.
In Irvine’s first week as president, she presides over a three-judge division of the High Court in a case taken by a number of members of Seanad Éireann. The plaintiffs seek a declaration that the Seanad should sit even though the nominated members of Seanad Éireann have not been appointed. The court refuses the relief and finds for the State. In 2021, she also presides over a three-judge division on a Seanad Éireann voting rights case, where the plaintiff argues for the extension of voting rights to graduates of all third-level educational institutions and the wider population. The court finds against the plaintiff.
Irvine continues to sit in the Supreme Court following her appointment.
In April 2022, Irvine announces her intention to retire in July 2022. She retires on July 13, 2022, and is succeeded by David Barniville.
Irvine is formerly married to retired judge Michael Moriarty, with whom she has three children. Her only known son, Mark Moriarty, dies suddenly on August 19,2022.
(Pictured: Justice Mary Irvine with the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, on her appointment on the Supreme Court in 2019)
George Bernard Francis Clarke, Irish barrister who is Chief Justice of Ireland from July 2017 to October 2021, is born on October 10, 1951, in Walkinstown, Dublin. He has a successful career as a barrister for many years, with a broad practice in commercial law and public law. He is the chair of the Bar Council of Ireland between 1993 and 1995. He is appointed to the High Court in 2004 and becomes a judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland in February 2012. Following his retirement from the bench, he returns to work as a barrister. Across his career as a barrister and a judge, he is involved in many seminal cases in Irish legal history.
Clarke is the son of a customs officer who dies when he is aged eleven. His mother is a secretary. He is educated at Drimnagh Castle Secondary School, a Christian Brotherssecondary school in Dublin. He wins the Dublin Junior High Jump Championship in 1969. He studies Economics and Maths at undergraduate level at University College Dublin (UCD), while concurrently studying to become a barrister at King’s Inns. He is the first of his family to attend third level education and is able to attend university by receiving grants. While attending UCD, he loses an election to Adrian Hardiman to become auditor of the Literary and Historical Society (L&H).
Clarke is called to the Bar in 1973 and to the Inner Bar in 1985. He has a practice in commercial, constitutional and family law. Two years after commencing practice he appears as junior counsel for the applicant in State (Healy) v Donoghue before the Supreme Court, which establishes a constitutional right to legal aid in criminal cases.
Clarke represents Michael McGimpsey and his brother Christopher in a challenge against the constitutionality of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which is ultimately unsuccessful in the Supreme Court in 1988.
Clarke appears for the plaintiff with Michael McDowell and Gerard Hogan in Cox v Ireland in 1990, where the Supreme Court first introduces proportionality into Irish constitutional law and discovers the right to earn a livelihood. He represents Seán Ardagh and the Oireachtas Subcommittee formed after the death of John Carthy in a constitutional case which limits the powers of investigation of the Oireachtas, which leads to the unsuccessful Thirtieth Amendment of the Constitution. In an action taken by tobacco companies to challenge the legality of bans on tobacco advertising, he appears for the State.
Clarke is Chairman of the Bar Council of Ireland from 1993 to 1995. Between 1999 and 2004, he acts as chair of Council of King’s Inns. He is a professor at the Kings’s Inns between 1978 and 1985 and is appointed an adjunct professor at University College Cork (UCC) in 2014. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Trinity College Dublin (TCD).
Clarke acts as a chair of the Employment Appeals Tribunal while still in practice. He is also a steward of the Turf Club and the chairman of Leopardstown Racecourse. He was due to take over as senior steward of the Turf Club but does not do so due to his appointment to the High Court.
Clarke is appointed as a High Court judge in 2004. He is chairman of the Referendum Commission for the second Lisbon Treaty referendum in 2009. As a High Court judge he gives a ruling on the Leas Cross nursing home case against RTÉ, that the public interest justifies the broadcasting of material that otherwise would have been protected by the right to privacy. He frequently presides over the Commercial Court during his time at the High Court. He is involved in the establishment of two High Court lists in Cork, Chancery and a Non-Jury List.
Clarke is appointed to the Supreme Court on February 9, 2012, and serves as Chief Justice from October 2017 until his retirement on October 10, 2021, required by law on his 70th birthday. In March 2021, the Cabinet begins the process of identifying his successor. Donal O’Donnell is selected to replace him. His final day in court is October 8, 2021, where judges, lawyers and civil servants make a large number of tributes to him. Mary Carolan of The Irish Times says that under his leadership the Supreme Court is “perhaps the most collegial it had been in some time.”
Following his retirement from the judiciary, Clarke resumes his practice as a barrister and rejoins the Bar of Ireland. Under the rules of the Bar of Ireland, he cannot appear before a court of equal or lesser jurisdiction to that on which he sat as a judge. Given that he was the most senior judge in Ireland, he cannot appear in any court in Ireland. He can appear in the European Union (EU) courts. However, he indicates his intention to focus on mediation and arbitration work.
Clarke has been married to Dr. Jacqueline Hayden since 1977. They have a son and a daughter. He is interested in rugby and horse racing, at one point owning several horses.
Cowen is exposed to politics at a young age. His grandfather was a councillor in the Fianna Fáil party, and his father, Bernard Cowen, held a seat in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas (Irish parliament). He is an exemplary debater in school and often speaks at his father’s election rallies. He studies at University College Dublin and at the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland, where he is trained as a solicitor. His father’s death in 1984 prompts a by-election for the seat he had held in the Dáil. At the age of 24, he captures the seat, becoming one of the youngest members ever to sit in the Dáil.
Cowen’s political mentor is Albert Reynolds, who becomes Taoiseach in 1992 when Fianna Fáil is in a coalition government with the Progressive Democrats. He is an outspoken critic of the coalition, famously stating about the Progressive Democrats, “When in doubt, leave them out!” He serves as Minister for Labour (1992–93), and in 1993, after the breakup of the Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrats government, he helps to negotiate the short-lived coalition of Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party. He then serves as Minister for Transport, Energy, and Communications (1993–94), leaving office after Fianna Fáil is forced into opposition by the formation of a Fine Gael–Labour–Democratic Left coalition.
During Fianna Fáil’s years out of government, Cowen serves successively as opposition Spokesperson for Agriculture, Food, and Forestry (1994–97) and Spokesperson for Health (1997). Following elections in 1997, Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern forms a coalition government with the Progressive Democrats, and the party once again returns to power. Cowen serves as Minister for Health and Children (1997–2000), Minister for Foreign Affairs (2000–04), and Minister for Finance (2004–08). In June 2007 he was appointed Tánaiste.
Cowen is known for his sharp tongue and sometimes rough-hewn manner, but he is also recognized for his fierce intelligence, wit, and jovial demeanour. A combative politician and loyal party member, he is for many years seen as an obvious successor to Ahern. In April 2008, amid an investigation into possible past financial misconduct, Ahern announces that he will resign as Taoiseach and Leader of Fianna Fáil the following month. Cowen, who had remained supportive of Ahern throughout, is elected Leader of Fianna Fáil in April 2008. He becomes Taoiseach the following month and is faced with leading the country amid the global financial crisis that creates Ireland’s worst economy since the 1930s.
Cowen’s government oversees the bailout of Ireland’s banking system, which had been thrown into crisis by the collapse of the housing market, but the rescue comes at the cost of a skyrocketing deficit. As the country’s economic difficulties deepen, he seeks a cure that he hopes would obviate the need of foreign intervention, proposing an increase in income taxes and cuts in services. In November 2010, however, as concern for Ireland’s financial stability grows among its eurozone partners, he agrees to accept a bailout of more than $100 million from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. There is concern in Ireland that one condition for foreign aid might be an increase in Ireland’s comparatively low corporate taxes. The Green Party, Fianna Fáil’s junior partner in the governing coalition, responds to the situation by calling for early elections.
In mid-January 2011 Cowen’s leadership of Fianna Fáil is challenged by Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin, partly in response to rumours that had swirled of a golf course meeting that had taken place between the Taoiseach and the former head of the Anglo Irish Bank before the government’s bailout of the Irish banking industry. He survives a leadership vote, but about one-third of the party’s parliamentary bloc votes against him. In a rapid succession of events that occur over the course of a few days, an unsuccessful reshuffle of the cabinet follows the resignation of six cabinet ministers, after which Cowen calls for an election to be held on March 11 and then announces that he will step down as party leader but continue as caretaker Taoiseach until the election. The Green Party then withdraws from the ruling coalition, forcing an even earlier election. Waiting until the parliament passes a finance bill that is necessary to meet the conditions of an International Monetary Fund–European Union loan but which imposes austerity measures that had proved very unpopular with much of the Irish public, he officially calls the election for February 25. Martin takes over as the Leader of Fianna Fáil, which suffers a crushing defeat in the election at the hands of Fine Gael.
In May 2014, Cowen becomes part of the board of Topaz Energy. He is appointed to the board of Beacon Hospital in February 2015. In July 2017, he is conferred with an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland. During his 50-minute acceptance speech he criticises the EU for its behaviour towards Ireland during the financial crisis and expresses regret that so many jobs were lost during the recession. Following the conferring ceremony, the NUI faces considerable public criticism for deciding to make the award to Cowen. Former (and founding) President of the University of Limerick, Edward M. Walsh, announces that he will hand back his own honorary doctorate in protest, and does so on November 14, 2018.
On July 5, 2019, Cowen is admitted to Beacon Hospital after suffering a major brain hemorrhage. He is then transferred to St. Vincent’s University Hospital where he spends five months before transferring to a physical rehabilitation facility. As of late 2020, while he is still in hospital following a stroke the previous year, he has been making steady progress.
seamus dubhghaill 