748 / 822
It will not be imputed to me as invidious if I
refer especially to two of these deceased members.
Thomas H. R. Craig was one of the oldest members
of our profession.
He had retired from active
practice for some years. He was a Vice-President in
1931-32. If I mistake not he was a founder member
of the Dublin Solicitors' Bar Association, then
the City and County of Dublin County Court Bar
Association. For many years he was its Honorary
Secretary and a model of what an Honorary Secretary
should be. He was distinguished by his public spirit
and devotion to the interests of the profession and
always ready to do battle to secure its dignity
and its rights. He was also my predecessor as
Honorary Secretary of the Faculty of Notaries
public here. I have the happiest recollections of the
help and guidance he afforded me and all his juniors
in practice in Dublin.
How shall I speak in fitting terms of our recent
ex-President, Scan B. 6 hAmaill, who was struck
down so suddenly while we were holding our last
Council Meeting ? His ability and his energy as a
practitioner, not only in his office but also as a dis
tinguished and formidable advocate in the public
Courts were only equalled by his services to this
Society on its Council. We shall not soon forget his
devotion to duty when he attended, I believe
without a single exception, every Council and every
Committee meeting during his Presidential term of
office, neither his precarious health, or the threat
of sudden death dogging his footsteps, nor the
difficulties of transport, could keep him from
fulfilling the obligations of the office to which we
had elected him. At times hasty in his temper, he
never bore any man malice, and all of us saw and
admired the way in which he performed the duties
of President with impartiality, with dignity and with
patience. Over and above all this he shewed an
example to the profession as a good citizen in his
services to our National Culture, to the Red Cross
Society and to the establishment and building up of
important industries in his own county. His place
will not easily be filled and in him, as in Tom Craig,
I personally mourn an old friend.
Out of 1,382 solicitors practising in the Twenty-
Six Counties, 1,084 are members of our Society.
Like, I think, all my predecessors I must express
disappointment at the fact that we are still short of
100 per cent, organisation of the profession. The
remedy, as my voice can only reach those who are
present, or at most those who receive and read our
GAZETTE, is an intensive drive by all our members
to recruit every active solicitor as a full participant
in our corporate activities. A sense of professional
pride ought to urge anyone who has the qualification
to pull his weight in the team. Above all now,
when we are endeavouring to obtain legislative
sanction for our autonomy as a body, we are entitled
to demand the loyalty and co-operation of the whole
body.
Surely our annual subscription is not pro
hibitive and the facilities, including the Library,
available to members repay this nominal sum over
and over again.
What I have said as to membership of this Society
applies equally to
the Local Bar Associations.
Wherever they have been established they have
proved their value to their members. They can deal
with many things which are not in our sphere.
They can deal promptly with local and temporary
grievances. They can also fight against any anti
social or unprofessional acts or outlook in their
districts.
I urge our members in any area where
there is no Local Bar Association to set about the
establishment of such a body and in any area in
which the Bar Association exists, but is not suffi
ciently active, to strive to bring it at once into the
fullest activity.
Your Council has sent some of my colleagues and
myself on a deputation to the Revenue Commis
sioners to urge the repeal of certain of the new
stamp duties, which we feel are militating against
the interests of our clients and the profession, and
also to ask that the proceeds of the heavy taxation
en apprentices and solicitors which has no parallel
in the case of other vocational bodies, be handed
over to us for professional education and
the
provision of legal text-books. Such books are now
often unprocurable in editions which suit our Law
and, without assistance in the form of a subsidy, no
Irish publisher can be found who under existing
circumstances will take the risk of publication.
The growing divergence between our Laws and
those of the neighbouring countries renders the
provision of such books, of Irish provenance, more
and more necessary. We were received with courtesy.
All the facets of the subjects I have mentioned were
exhaustively discussed and we must only hope that
our representations will eventually prove fruitful.
Incidentally on the stamp duty issue we have been
especially exerting ourselves in the interests of the
general public, and in this we are doing something
I would wish this Society to do in an increasing
measure. We can do more to justify our position
as a profession and to earn and obtain the recogni
tion and support of the public for our claims if we
follow the good example of our sister institutions
elsewhere, by initiating reforms in the laws wherever
this can be done without implicating our Society,
made up as it is of persons holding different views,
in anything which could be called party politics.
In this connection perhaps I may be permitted,
before a wider audience, to repeat something I said
to successful candidates at our last Final Examination.
I think our younger members, especially in the
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