Джордж Гаван Даффи: Ирландиялық саяхатшы, заңгер және судья

Irish politician, barrister and judge

George Gavan Duffy (21 October 1882 – 10 June 1951) was an Irish politician, barrister and judge who served as President of the High Court from 1946 to 1951, a Judge of the High Court from 1936 to 1951 and Minister for Foreign Affairs from January 1922 to July 1922. He served as a Teachta Dála
(TD) for the Dublin County constituency from 1921 to 1923. He served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Dublin South constituency from 1918 to 1921.

George Gavan Duffy was born at Rose Cottage, Rock Ferry, Cheshire, England, in 1882, the son of Charles Gavan Duffy and his third wife, Louise (née Hall). His half brother Sir Frank Gavan Duffy (1852–1936) was the fourth Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, sitting on the bench of the High Court from 1913 to 1935. He was sent to Paris to join Seán T. O'Kelly as an envoy of the newly declared Irish Republic. Gavan Duffy published articles and pamphlets urging recognition of Ireland as a sovereign nation at the Paris Peace Conference, which caused increasing embarrassment to the French establishment, who believed his publications were damaging Anglo French relations. Gavan Duffy and O'Kelly sought France's help against Britain when the treaties ending the First World War had not yet been signed; Britain had been France's main ally for most of the war, in which France had suffered enormous losses. In January 1919, the Irish Republican Army had also started the Irish War of Independence against Britain, and the new Dáil had declared independence from the United Kingdom. Further, the British position was that it was preparing a revised system of Irish Home Rule which would be effected after the Peace Conference, and that it had tried to solve the Irish Question at the Irish Convention in 1917, which Sinn Féin had boycotted. Sinn Féin had joined in the campaign against conscription in 1918. In consequence, all the Allies of World War I saw the Sinn Féin movement as more or less hostile. A final letter of June 1919 demanding recognition and addressed to the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, the chairman of the Peace Conference, was not replied to. Finally, after publishing a letter he had sent to Clemenceau in protest against the former mistreatment of Terence MacSwiney in prison in 1917, Gavan Duffy was banished from Paris. He was declared persona non grata in December 1920. He then went to Rome and from there travelled through Europe on behalf of the Ministry of the Irish Republic, without securing its recognition.

This prompted him to resign but he was compelled to remain in office, serving as Minister for Foreign Affairs from January 1922 to July 1922. On the outbreak of the Irish Civil War he resigned when the Provisional Government refused to effect a court order for habeas corpus in favour of George Plunkett (a son of Count Plunkett), who was detained without charge with other republicans. His tenure in office was cut short by his decision to resign again when the Executive Council of the Irish Free State abolished the Republican Courts and executed his good friend Erskine Childers. He stood in the 1923 general election as an independent candidate but failed to be re elected.

Gavan Duffy returned to the Irish Bar and built up a large practice and was engaged in some notable constitutional cases such as the Land Annuities controversy in which he claimed that the Irish Free State could not be bound either in honour or in law to hand over annuities to Britain. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 1930 and Judge of the High Court in 1936. He acted as an unofficial legal advisor to Éamon de Valera during the drafting of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland and was consulted on many issues pertaining to it. He was also a member of the commission to set up the second house of the Oireachtas, Seanad Éireann, in 1937. As president of the High Court, he issued the ruling in State (Burke) v. Lennon that was upheld by the Supreme Court of Ireland. In 1946, at the height of his legal career, he was appointed President of the High Court, a position he held for the rest of his life. He heard the controversial Tilson Case in 1950, one year before his death. His judgement applied the ne temere decree to the letter, as de Valera's 1937 Irish Constitution gave the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland a "special position". The Supreme Court of Ireland concurred but Gavan Duffy was criticised in some quarters for his ruling. At the time of his death, Gavan Duffy was writing a judgement in favour of Ernie O'Malley in a property case brought before the court of equity by O'Malley's estranged wife Helen Hooker. Although Gavan Duffy died before he could deliver judgement, Hooker decided not to pursue the case further. He was a longstanding member of the Catholic organisation An Ríoghacht.

George Gavan Duffy died in a nursing home in Leeson Street, Dublin, on 10 June 1951.