Born: May 16th, 1938
Died: July 7th, 2024
As a barrister and judge of the Superior Courts, Hugh Geoghegan, who died after a long illness aged 86, added lustre to his family’s long history in the legal profession and lived to see two of his children become successful barristers.
That history went back to his mother’s grandfather John Baldwin Murphy, called to the Bar in the 1840s, who became one of the relatively few Catholic Queen’s Counsel in Victorian Ireland. Geoghegan’s own barrister father, Westmeath man James Geoghegan, was a reassuring, stabilising presence as Minister for Justice and Attorney General in Fianna Fáil governments of the 1930s. He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1936, two years before Hugh’s birth on May 16th, 1938.
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His father’s poor health and premature death in 1951 cast a shadow over Geoghegan’s early life and that of his younger brother Ross. Their parents moved house from Bray to live in Rathmines; Hugh then changed school from Willow Park to Clongowes, exchanging, he would recall, the warm spontaneity of the Holy Ghost Fathers for the more cerebral ways of the Jesuits. In time, he settled into life at Clongowes, forming valued lifetime friendships, and went on to try his vocation for a year at the Jesuit novitiate in Emo.
Entering University College Dublin in 1958, he studied law and got a first in the LLB degree. A keen debater, he became auditor of the college Law Society; his inaugural meeting to which he gave an address on toleration, was one of the best of its time. He spoke for a King’s Inns duo that was runner-up, and was the leading Irish team, in a The Irish Times trophy debating competition open to all Scottish and Irish universities - Donald Dewer, later First Minister of Scotland, starred on the victorious Glasgow University team.
Called to the Bar in 1962, Geoghegan “devilled” with future High Court judge Kevin Lynch and joined the Midland Circuit where, as was the way with circuit-going barristers, he got experience in every branch of practice. On a circuit whose formidable membership included Garrett Cooney, Harry Whelehan, Jack Fitzgerald and James Nugent, Geoghegan was counted the most expert on questions of law. Among a succession of beginners who devilled with him was the future Chief Justice Susan Denham. He was a painstaking master to his pupils, stressing above all the importance of high professional standards and the principle, fundamental to an independent Bar, that a barrister’s duty to the court overrides even that to their client.
Geoghegan became a Senior Counsel in 1977 and was much in demand in cases before the Superior Courts where difficult points of law had to be argued. Companionable and humorous as well as being a keen observer of his fellow humans, he loved the camaraderie of colleagues in the Law Library, not least for the gossip and colourful characters to be found there. He was ever willing to place his wide knowledge of the law at the disposal of fellow barristers seeking assistance. As a member of the Bar Council, he was sceptical about proposals for sweeping reforms in a profession that he saw as having served the country well through difficult times; he viewed with astringency changes that blurred the division between barristers and solicitors.
From 1984, he combined a busy practice with service as Public Service Arbitrator; as such, he displayed such courtesy and respect for all contending parties that he left even the unsuccessful feeling they had got a fair hearing. Although this marked him out as ideal judicial material, his refusal to align himself to any political party precluded his appointment to the High Court until December 1992 when his Midland Circuit colleague, Harry Whelehan, had become Attorney General and was able to commend him on his merits to the Fianna Fáil government of Albert Reynolds.
Geoghegan’s instinctive kindness and preference that cases seldom get to court unless there is some merit on each side made him a popular judge. One of his early judgments, subsequently endorsed by the Supreme Court, upheld the right of Oireachtas members not to reveal their sources of information when giving evidence to the Beef Tribunal. He led the way in the judiciary holding that the State had a positive duty to vindicate the rights of the child. He condemned as unconstitutional the then untrammelled power of the Minister for Justice to deport aliens, insisting that it must be regulated by legislation.
Appointed to the Supreme Court in 2000, Geoghegan was one of the majority who upheld the right of Portmarnock Golf Club to exclude women from membership; judges must, he believed, exercise restraint in imposing their view of what is right over the letter of the law.
However, he showed himself capable of cutting through legal niceties in O’Keeffe v Ireland when, as a lone dissenter on the Supreme Court, he refused to accept the argument that the State could escape liability for the misconduct of a teacher in a national school because such teachers were formally employed by the parish, not the State. His view was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights.
Feted on his retirement in 2010 as one of the most respected and well-loved judges of his time, Geoghegan told the members of the profession assembled in the Supreme Court to bid him farewell that he believed he had had a charmed life. “Whatever else I am guilty of,” he added, “I may be guilty of talking too much, not listening, not absorbing the facts, all sorts of things, but I do not think I can be held guilty of disregarding the Bar. I have always felt that I was a barrister fundamentally.”
Post-retirement, he chaired the Barristers’ Professional Conduct Appeals Board and was the Independent Appeals Commissioner for the College of Surgeons. He was active in the Irish Legal History Society and wrote several ground-breaking essays on the early legal history of independent Ireland. He maintained a keen interest in controversies, both political and ecclesiastical; ever a loyal practising Catholic, he prided himself on being liberal and progressive in his views.
Geoghegan had been a devoted son to his widowed mother with whom he lived until her death. In 1981 he married barrister Mary Finlay, the daughter of High Court President Tom Finlay. As a couple they shared a love of travel and of classical music, opera and theatre. She became a High Court judge in 2002 and was later promoted to the Court of Appeal and to the Supreme Court.
Retiring in 2019, she nursed her husband lovingly at home through years of debilitating illness. In his last months he was moved to the Cherryfield Nursing Home in Milltown, which cares for ailing Jesuits. He was still sufficiently aware, a few days before his death, to smile in appreciation when his barrister son James visited him, attired in the chain of office as Dublin’s newly elected Lord Mayor.
Geoghegan is survived by his daughter Caren, a Senior Counsel, and Sarah, a consultant paediatrician as well as by his wife Mary and son James. His brother Ross lives in the United States where he has had a distinguished career as a mathematician in American universities.