Remarks by The Hon. Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness

Date01 January 2019
126
HIBERNIAN LAW MEDALS 2019
Remarks by
THE HON. MS JUSTICE CATHERINE MGUINNESS*1
First of all, I must thank the Hibernian Law Journal for the very great honour
that they have given to me this evening. I am particularly thankful to be here in
the company of Dr Mary McAleese and also in the company of last year’s Medal
recipients, Ms Justice Susan Denham and e Right Hon. Beverley McLachlin.
ere was, I should add, a man awarded a medal last year as well. You have to
see that of the ve people who have received the Hibernian Law Medal thus far,
four are women – so I think we women are beginning to win. Of course, I was a
colleague of Ms Justice Denham in the Supreme Court. I also met Justice Beverley
McLachlin at a splendid legal conference in Salzburg many years ago. I went to
Mozart operas with her there and got to know her quite well. So it was very good
to see that she too had benetted from the very great honour given to us by the
Hibernian Law Journal.
I would also like to thank Senator Ivana Bacik, who of course is an old friend and
colleague, for her introduction and to thank Siobhán Power for her very generous
citation.
I think it is also notable that both recipients this evening are from the North, and
from the two communities in the North as well. As they say, I am a ‘prod’, she is a
pape’. On the other hand, my own origin is somewhat mixed, as my father was from
West Clare and my mother was from Tullamore, so I am really what is known in the
language you have from the peace process as a ‘cross-border body. I was educated
rstly in Northern Ireland and subsequently in Clergy Daughters’ School, which
was attached to Alexandra College and was a grand way for the impoverished
daughters of the Church of Ireland clergy to g et a good education in a school that
was dedicated to the equality of women from the very time of its foundation. is
really meant that those of us who had no money could have an education normally
only available to those who had ample resources.
As both Ivana and Siobhán have said, I have had a number of dierent developments
in my career. I started o at a young age as a parliamentary assistant to the Labour
Party in Leinster House, under the leadership of a man named Brendan Corish, a
man who in my opinion gets a lot less credit than he deserved as a political leader in
this country. is job was a great way to understand how the law works in its origin,
* Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland.

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