Remarks by The Hon. Ms Justice Catherine McGuinness
Date | 01 January 2019 |
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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 benetted 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 dierent 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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