The Gazette 1976

GAZETTE

AUGUST 1976

AN INTERIM ASSESSMENT OF THE LATE MR. JUSTICE GEORGE GAVAN DUFFY AS ADVOCATE AND JUDGE

Mr. Colum Gavan Duffy, M.A., LL.B., a son of the Irish Judge, has carried on the legal, literary, and educational traditions of his family by practising for some time as a solicitor; contributing articles to a number of learned journals; lecturing in University College, Galway; and for many years has been Librarian of the Incorporated Law Society. The Irish Judge, who was a son of the third marriage of Charles Gavan Duffy, at first practised as a success- ful solicitor in London. He defended Sir Roger Case- ment at his trial in 1916. The unpopularity of defend- ing, what the British called a traitor compelled him to leave England. He consequently settled in Ireland and was admitted to the Irish Bar. Having been elected a Member of Parliament in 1918 he voted in 1919 to establish Dail Eireann. and was sent to France and Italy as an Envoy of the Dail. For publicity purposes on behalf of Dail Eireann he contributed articles to the French, Italian and Scandinavian news- papers. He was selected as a member of the Irish Delegation which negotiated and signed the Anglo- Irish Treaty of 1921; and was made Minister for External Affairs in the Irish Provisional Government which was set up under the terms of the Freaty. After six months he felt it necessary to resign from the Provisional Government over a fundamental dis- agreement about policy. From then on he concentrated on practising at the Irish Bar. Like his father he was endowed with superhuman powers of work, and this factor, coupled with his forensic aptitudes, enabled him to forge his way rapidly into the front rank of the Bar. As time went on he acquired a reputation for being especially good in claims involving abstruse, or complex, or obscure law. When the Fianna Fail party first obtained office in 1932 he was retained as one of their State Counsel, and proved himself highly capable. Subsequently, he was promoted to the judicial bench in 1936 and ended his career as President of the Irish High Court in 1946. Messrs. James O'Connor & Co., Solicitors, in Dublin where I served part of my apprenticeship, frequently briefed the Judge when he was a Senior Counsel. Since I knew that he was a signatory to the Treaty of 1921, I looked forward with interest to doing business with him as part of my duties. Physically, he was a thick set man of middle height, with a small well trimmed beard, fastidiously dressed, and had a cosmospolitan appearance. If seen without his wig and gown, he looked more like a wealthy savant of a continental university than an Irish lawyer. In the discharge of business, he was slightly formal in manner, but kind and, indubitably, of high mental calibre. I was very glad that Ireland was represented in 1921 on her first appearance on the political international stage for nearly a century by a man of such patent intellectual ability and distinguished hearing. As an advocate in presenting a case to a Court he spoke plainly and fluently with measured even paced delivery, never having to pause in search of a word. To the onlooker it was evident that he was able to display abundant, ingenious, perspicuous arguments with irrefutable logic from a well stocked store of legal knowledge, reinforced by the clarity of ordered thought. While soft voiced and dispassionate in his address, he was always careful to drive home his thesis by emphasising at some little length the distinctive features in the evidence on which his polemics de- pended. His graceful and perfectly phrased sentences, with delicate shading of tone and effect, appeared naturally more suited for a judge sitting without a jury or in the Supreme Court. 129

by Frank Connolly, formerly Solicitor to the Dept. of Posts and Telegraphs.

Twenty five years have passed since Mr. Justice George Gavan Duffy died. Now he is little more than a name which is only brought to mind when the law reports are consulted; and his achievements are almost forgotten. This is a meloncholy thought for not only was he a successful Senior Counsel and one of the best known judges in his day, but he also played an eventful part in the foundation of an independent Irish State. He belonged to a family which in each of its last five generations has thrown up members which rendered services to education, journalism, politics, and jurisprudence; and which helped to write brilliant pages in Irish history. Although short accounts of the work of some individual members of the Gavan Duffy family have been published, a comprehensive description of the contributions to Irish and Australian life made by the Irish Judge and his kith and kin is badly needed. But such a book would require lengthy research, and the present writer has neither the time nor the equipment for such a task.Neverthe- less, the following personal impressions, and a tentative appraisal of the Judge as an advocate and a jurist may be of interest to solicitors who were not in practice when he was alive. To understand what kind of man he was, particularly since he was dogged by controversy in political life, it is desirable to review briefly his ancestry and family connections. For the very marked traits which con- stituted strong motive forces in his life were equally prominent in all the other Gavan Duffy kindred. The Gavans and the Duffys were two Catholic families long settled in County Monaghan who, notwithstand- ing the rigours of the Penal Laws against the Catholics, had by the exercise of diligence acquired a modest prosperity by about the year 1790. The earliest known progenitor of the Judge was John Duffy, a small house property owner and business man in the town of Monaghan married to a Gavan. Charles Gavan Duffy, was the son of John Duffy. After working as a journalist, and later studying for the Irish Bar, he founded in association with Thomas Davis as one of the Young Ireland leaders, the famous weekly journal entitled 'The Nation' with the object of educating the Irish people, and inculcating Irish nationalism — two objects which were always dear to the heart of every Irish member of the Gavan Duffy family. Because of the failure of the Young Ireland movement and a breakdown in his health, Charles Gavan Duffy emigrated to Australia where his talents and gargantuan capacity for unremitting toil secured for him eminence in politics, and the Prime Minister- ship of the State of Victoria. Mr. Frank Gavan Duffy, a son of the second marriage of Charles, did well at the Australian Bar and was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria and later Chief Justice of the Commonwealth of Australia. (Miss Louise Gavan Duffy, who was a full sister of the Irish Judge, taught Irish in Pearse's School; helped the Irish Volunteers in the 1916 Rising; afterwards established her own secondary school in Dublin, and was a noted educationalist).