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GAZETTE
AUGUST 1976
AN INTERIM ASSESSMENT OF THE
LATE MR. JUSTICE GEORGE GAVAN
DUFFY AS ADVOCATE AND JUDGE
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).
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.
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