Former High Court president Joe Finnegan remembered for contribution to Irish jurisprudence

The former president of the High Court, Mr Justice Joe Finnegan, was remembered as a “serious player on that important stage” at his funeral mass in Co Wicklow on Saturday.

In his contribution to the jurisprudence of this State it was his humanity that above all showed through, Mr Justice Finnegan’s son-in-law, Barney Quirke SC, said in his eulogy during the service in the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in Bray.

President Michael D Higgins was represented by his Aide de Camp, Col Stephen Howard, in a packed church where members of the judiciary and the legal profession gathered with family, neighbours and friends of the late judge.

Mr Quirke recalled how Mr Justice Finnegan’s father ran the family business in the vegetable market behind the Four Courts in Dublin and that it was while helping out there that the late judge learned many of the skills that served him so well later in life. “Anyone who underestimated him generally only did so once.”

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Mr Justice Finnegan’s commitment to the law and the knowledge and skills he brought to his chosen career, including his problem-solving nature, were remembered by Mr Quirke as was his late father-in-law’s love of family, his talent for hospitality, and his ability to get on with people.

When practising as a solicitor and later as a barrister, people trusted Mr Justice Finnegan, he said, “because he was trustworthy”.

A “teddy boy” in his youth, who dressed sharply, he would drive his motorbike past his future wife, Kay, in order to impress her, Mr Quirke said. The couple had met when they were twelve years of age.

They later travelled extensively together in France and Spain on Mr Justice Finnegan’s large motorbike. On one occasion in Spain when he got into conversation with a man who had stopped to admire his motorbike, it was only when Mr Justice Finnegan asked the stranger what he did for a living “that he realised he was talking to Juan Carlos, the King of Spain.”

A “biker at heart” he was also passionate about rugby, which he continued playing up to his mid-fifties, and also played soccer, once kitting out for St Patrick’s Athletic, Mr Quirke said. Mr Justice Finnegan also had a great interest in horse racing and “struck fear into the hearts of many bookies that knew him.”

Mr Justice Finnegan served as a judge of the High Court from 1999-2006 and was president of the court from 2001 until 2006 when he was appointed to the Supreme Court. He qualified as a solicitor in 1966, was called to the bar in 1978, and was appointed a judge of the High Court in 1999. He retired in 2012.

Among those in attendance at the mass were the Chief Justice, Donal O’Donnell, the president of the Court of Appeal, George Birmingham, the president of the High Court, David Barniville, the Attorney General, Rossa Fanning SC, and Supreme Court judges Mr Justice Gerard Hogan and Mr Justice Séamus Woulfe.

The former Chief Justice Ronan Keane and former Supreme Court judge Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan were in attendance. The president of the Law Reform Commission and former judge of the Supreme Court, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy, and former Attorney General Paul Gallagher SC were also in attendance.

Mr Justice Finnegan, who died in Dublin on December 16th after a short illness, kept his good humour up to the end Mr Quirke said, and sought to make his passing as easy as possible for his family.

He is survived by his wife, Kay, his children Gerald, Yvonne, Hazel and Charlotte, his grandchildren Joe, Ally, Charlotte, Rosamund and William, his sister Marie Bailey, and extended family.

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