The Chief Justice and Attorney General led warm tributes to Court of Appeal (COA) president George Birmingham as he retired on Friday after a career spanning almost five decades.
Called to the Bar in 1976, George Birmingham’s legal career was interrupted by politics for some years from 1981, when he was first elected as a Fine Gael TD for Dublin North Central, and appointments as a minister of State in three government departments.
On his return to the law in 1989 after losing his Dáil seat, it was “a case of starting from scratch”, aged 35 and with a young family, Chief Justice Donal O’Donnell said. His colleague’s response was to work “prodigiously” to build up a substantial practice in civil and criminal law – “he could, and did, do anything” – and he became a senior counsel in 1999.
His work ethic, ability and personification of “grace under pressure” contributed to his appointment as a judge of the High Court in 2007. He became a judge of the COA in 2014 and guided its criminal division, which became a “model of efficiency”.
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He was appointed president of the COA in 2018 at a “particularly fraught” time when the court was overwhelmed with work but “firmly” pressed the case for more judges and got them.
His strong sense of duty always prevailed, even in returning to work after experiencing a serious illness and against advice, the Chief Justice said. The words “fairness, balance, affability and equanimity” described the judge, who “deserves our good wishes but, more than that, our gratitude”.
Attorney General Rossa Fanning said, on his return to the Bar in 1989, Mr Justice Birmingham quickly became one of the leaders of the criminal Bar and prosecuted some of the most complex and sensitive cases for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
He did preliminary scoping for what became the inquiry into clerical sex abuse in the Roman Catholic diocese of Ferns; chaired the commission which examined how the late Dean Lyons, a heroin addict, had confessed to two murders he did not commit; and chaired the 1996 advisory group on criminal law and procedure.
The Attorney General outlined several of the judge’s important judgments, including one described as the “guideline” judgment for sentencing in burglary cases. The judge had upheld a refusal of permission to Gemma O’Doherty and John Waters to bring proceedings over the State’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, saying an arguable case must, “at minimum, be based on reason and common sense”, and not be such it can be “fairly and non-controversially be categorised as absurd and nonsensical”.
The judge, the Attorney General told him, would be remembered “for your erudition as much as your compassion, leadership of the COA and your common sense”.
Tributes were also paid by the DPP, Catherine Pierse; and on behalf of the Bar Council, Law Society, Courts Service, Judicial Council, An Garda Síochána and court staff.
In reply, Mr Justice Birmingham, who turns 70 next week, thanked his wife Myra and family, colleagues and all who had worked with, and for him, over the years, including his long-serving usher Joe Glanney.
The “most rewarding” area of his judicial work was dealing with High Court cases concerning the most troubled teenagers in the State, he said. He hoped he had brought “reality” to the constitutional obligation to hear the voice of the child.
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