Frank Griffin: First presiding head of the Special Criminal Court

Frank Griffin, who has died aged 98, was a long-serving judge of the Supreme Court and the first presiding head of the Special Criminal Court when it was re-established in 1972 by then minister for justice Des O'Malley.

In his memoir, Conduct Unbecoming, O'Malley said that at the time he was concerned about the intimidation of jurors and witnesses.

“There was great difficulty in getting judges to serve, however, on the new court. Several who declined told me the position was too dangerous, fear of the Provisional IRA and other republican terrorists groups had reached such a level. Threats against judges, and the fear that thugs would picket their homes, were taken very seriously. Frank Griffin of the High Court, and Charlie Conroy of the Circuit Court, agreed to sit after many of their colleagues refused,” O’Malley wrote.

From the time of his appointment in 1973, Griffin travelled everywhere with an armed guard. Gardaí were also placed at his home in Dartry, Dublin, and the family had to put up with the imposition that came with being constantly protected.

Griffin, according to those who knew him, believed the Provisional IRA constituted a threat to the State and that it was his duty to accept the position.

The most high-profile decision made when he was serving related to the RTÉ journalist, the late Kevin O’Kelly. Griffin sentenced O’Kelly, a prosecution witness, to three months for contempt when he refused on grounds of conscience to identify the voice on an interview he had recorded with then IRA chief of staff Seán Mac Stiofáin.

Part of the recording was used to convict Mac Stiofáin of membership of an unlawful organisation. O’Kelly’s prison sentence was later commuted to a fine.

Griffin was born in Limerick in March 1919. His father was an insurance agent and the family moved on occasion for work reasons. They eventually settled in Drogheda, where Griffin went to school.

On graduating, he followed his father’s footsteps into the insurance business, but developed an interest in law. When studying it in University College Dublin, he met his future wife, Dubliner Helen Walsh, who was to go on to become a solicitor. Griffin was called to the Bar in 1946.

Noted for his work ethic, Griffin soon built up a substantial practice working the eastern circuit, mostly in Co Louth and Co Meath (which his son, Judge Gerard Griffin now covers as a judge with the Circuit Criminal Court). He was called to the Inner Bar in 1961.

There was no let-up in the workload when he joined the High Court in 1971 and then the Supreme Court in 1973.

Among the cases he gave judgments on over the course of his lengthy career on the Supreme Court bench were the 1973 Magee case, which concerned the right to marital privacy in the context of Ireland’s contraception laws, and the 1987 Crotty judgment, in which the court ruled that Ireland had to hold a referendum if it were going to ratify the Single Europe Act. Griffin wrote a dissenting judgment in that case, as did then chief justice Tom Finlay.

Griffin retired from the court in 1991, having reached the retirement age of 72.

A keen golfer, he had an active retirement that involved travelling, ongoing work involving the law, in particular in relation to Europe, and being grandfather to his 19 grandchildren.

Griffin was pre-deceased by his wife Helen in 2012 and by his son Michael in 2009. He is survived by his five other children Gerard, Mary, Fiona, Fran and Peter, and other family members.