Donal Barrington
Leading legal figure in Ireland and expert in constitutional law
DONAL BARRINGTON, who has died aged 89, reached legal eminence as a judge of the European Court of First Instance and of the Irish Supreme Court; but his most enduring achievement lay further back as a leader of opinion in the 1950s, and as a human rights barrister helping to create a distinctive constitutional jurisprudence in Ireland.
Born on February 28 1928, Barrington was only two in 1930 when his father, a senior civil servant, died. There was no widow’s pension and the family of five children were reared in straitened circumstances in the north Dublin suburb of Glasnevin. The Jesuits waived the school fees at Belvedere, from which the young Donal went on to take a First in Legal and Political Science at University College Dublin. He was called to the Bar in 1952.
It was a time of stagnation and disillusionment in the Irish Republic. The generation of politicians who had come to power with independence in 1922 were still in the ascendant, treasuring their ideal of an isolated Catholic Ireland and berating the British for the partition of the island.
Barrington, whose practice at the Bar had not taken off – he did not receive his first brief for 15 months – was the moving spirit of an influential body for the ventilation of new ideas called Tuairim (Gaelic for Opinion). It was open only to those under 40.
A large, slow-moving man, who concealed firmness of purpose beneath a benign, gentle manner, Barrington displayed impressive moral courage in condemning the Irish government’s refusal to recognise the legitimacy of Northern Ireland. He also led protests against a boycott of Protestants initiated by Catholic clergy in a Wexford village.
He lectured on constitutional law at University College Dublin and built a practice in it. He led in cases persuading the Supreme Court to invalidate laws exempting the state from liability for acts of its employees, banning the importation of contraceptives and exempting women from jury service. Calm gravitas rather than forceful rhetoric was his hallmark as an advocate.
Informally he advised the Taoiseach Jack Lynch in the late 1960s to abandon the crude anti-partitionism of his Fianna Fail party in favour of a more nuanced approach to Northern Ireland. John Hume, the Northern nationalist politician, also sought his counsel. “Don’t crow,” Barrington warned at the time of the 1973 Sunningdale Agreement establishing power-sharing; he realised that it went too far for most unionists.
Lynch’s government appointed Barrington to the High Court in 1979. Judicial review was coming into vogue, and Barrington was so receptive to inexperienced barristers presenting often hopeless cases on behalf of victims of injustice that his court was known as “Pets’ Corner”.
In 1989 he was nominated to the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg. He enjoyed the conviviality of life there but found the court’s diet of rather technical law unexciting. He was glad to accept an offer to join the Irish Supreme Court in 1996.
One of his early judgments opened the way for residents of Ireland to sue for injuries occasioned by the leakage of nuclear fuels in Sellafield. His judgments were well argued but, in general, he proved more conservative than expected. He was a stickler for high standards.
In 2000 he became the first president of the Irish Human Rights Commission set up under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. It was beset by disputes, and he retired after a year.
In 1959 Barrington married Eileen O’donovan, whose family were antibritish republicans. It had to be concealed from them that Barrington’s mother was the half-sister of Winston Churchill’s most loyal henchman, Brendan Bracken. But political differences did not blight a long and happy marriage.
He is survived by his wife, their two daughters and two sons.