First woman solicitor to become Circuit Court judge

Katherine Delahunt-O’Byrnes, who has died aged 58, was a brilliant lawyer who made history by becoming the first female solicitor to be appointed a judge of the Circuit Court in 2001.

But among her colleagues in the legal profession, she was probably far more prominent in the previous 22 years, during which she became, in the words of Mr Justice George Birmingham of the High Court, "without doubt … the leading commercial litigation solicitor of her generation".

Qualifying in 1979, she was made a partner in the firm she joined a year later, the Dublin practice of Vincent and Beatty, at the age of just 25, an almost unheard of rate of progression in such a relatively large firm. Thereafter she quickly made her mark in a number of different areas, not only in law, but in law-related social activism.

Delahunt developed a strong expertise in employment law, and in 1986 became one of the vice-chairpersons of the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT). She also served also a term as chairperson of the Society of Young Solicitors (SYS).

Her contemporary and sometime fellow chairperson of the society Ken Murphy, now director-general of the Incorporated Law Society, recalls "a very sweet person socially, but with a combative style" as a solicitor. Recalling a case before the EAT in which he was acting opposite her, he remarks that "I would describe Katherine as formidable, bordering on the ferocious" in advancing her clients' interests.

Formidable

A senior member of the judiciary who worked with her on several cases as a barrister used similar language to describe her talents: “She was very formidable; I knew solicitors who feared her. She was very proactive and wasn’t a solicitor who settled cases easily. She was known as a ‘go-to’ solicitor for people for whom she mightn’t have been a ‘natural’ [choice]as their solicitor.

“She was a very good strategist, very good at giving the impression to those against her that the case would go to court, and would be fought, and wouldn’t be settled for a small sum.”

Defamation was another speciality, and she acted for, among others, Pat Rabbitte and Eamon Gilmore against Siptu, the well-known businessman Sylvester Rabbitte (no relation) and a Cork farmer who took an action against the RTÉ current affairs programme Today Tonight.

Her versatility was partly due to what another senior judge described as her ability “to apply herself to new areas of law, and to immerse herself quickly” in these areas.

Described by a cousin, Cliona Fox, as “passionately interested in history and politics”, Delahunt took active roles in the 1980s in both the campaign to introduce a divorce law in Ireland and in the Anti-Amendment Campaign against the 1983 referendum to insert a clause in the Constitution prohibiting abortion.

Her elevation to the bench surprised some, as it almost certainly involved a substantial drop in income for her, but here too she quickly made her mark, being appointed to manage the Circuit Court’s case list, a task which fellow practitioners say she peformed “superbly well”.

A long-time colleague, solicitor Jim McCourt, said her work as a judge “went unremarked upon – she didn’t hit the headlines, and that’s a sign of a good judge. She was as tough as teak, and consistently of the highest calibre, solid and consistent in her judgments - I have no doubt that [had she not become ill] she would have been elevated to a higher court.”

She was also notably compassionate. Her close friend Redemptorist priest Fr Gerry O’Connor, who works in the Cherry Orchard parish in Dublin, one of the capital’s most deprived areas, told the congregation at her removal service that a young man from the parish who had appeared before her as a defendant remarked to him that “she slaughtered me, but she seemed to believe in me”.

In another case in 2011 she spared a defendant who had impersonated gardaí a jail sentence as he clearly had psychological problems, sending him instead for assessment for community service. In another case she gave a defendant in a drugs case the lowest sentence possible under the law as he “came close to the bottom of the ladder” in the drugs supply chain.

Katherine Mary Delahunt was born in Wicklow, one of five children of Tom Delahunt, a director of the home decor firm SV Delahunt and Co, and Annette Doyle, originally of Enniscorthy.

Her childhood home was "Seafield", a beautiful late Georgian house near Brittas Bay. Educated at the Dominican Convent in Wicklow, she studied law at University College, Cork and the law school of the Incorporated Law Society in Dublin, and then spent a year as a stagiaire at the European Commission's headquarters in Brussels, before joining Vincent and Beatty.

Married just five weeks before her death to her partner of 16 years, Stephen O’Byrnes, she is survived by him, her sisters Mary, Aisling and Anne, her brother Sylvester, two stepdaughters, Ruth and Emily, and by nephews and nieces.