TRIBUTES WERE paid yesterday to the late judge Con Murphy, when fellow judges, barristers and solicitors filled the Washington Street courthouse in Cork to remember him at the opening day of Michaelmas term at Cork Circuit Court.
Judge Patrick Moran, flanked by Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin and Judge Leonie Reynolds of the Circuit Court and Miss Justice Elizabeth Dunne and Mr Justice George Birmingham of the High Court, led the tributes to the judge, who died on July 31st last.
Judge Moran described judge Murphy as “a close friend”, and said he had approached his work as a judge with great tolerance and generosity, applying sound common sense and his great understanding of people and deep knowledge of the law to the cases before him.
The “father of the Cork bar”, barrister Don McCarthy, said the measure of judge Murphy was that he never took offence or felt affronted when he was challenged on a legal point. “He was big enough, man enough and judge enough not to be offended,” said Mr McCarthy.
Dr John O’Mahony SC said judge Murphy was a remarkable man with a great passion for GAA but also for literature, music, politics and history and he had an insatiable appetite for knowledge and a mastery of detail which stood to him in his work.