Women in the Law

First woman to practice at the Bar of Ireland.

Averil Deverell was born in Greystones in 1893 to William Deverell, Clerk for the Crown and Peace in Wicklow, and Ada Kate Statter. She studied law in Trinity College Dublin and later in the King’s Inns. She was the second of two women called to the Bar on 1 November 1921, alongside 18 men, one of whom was her twin brother, Captain William Deverell, and the first woman to practice at The Bar of Ireland.

At the Bar, she became a campaigner for gender equality and worked tirelessly to promote the view that women were equally competent to carry out the same work as men. 

She remained active in her career, practicing for over 40 years, appearing in many cases, and giving numerous written opinions on tangled legal subjects.

She is mentioned in the Irish Times in 1931 as having a reputation among her colleagues for witty repartee and later became known as ‘Mother of the Bar’, mentoring a number of women lawyers and continuing to advocate gender equality in the profession.

Picture courtesy of Bar of Ireland

First woman appointed as a Circuit Court Judge.

Catherine Isobel Bridget Ellis was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1934 to Canon Robert Ellis and his wife, Sylvia Craig. She attended primary school in Belfast, and was later educated in Alexandra College, Trinity College Dublin, and the King's Inns. She was called to the Irish Bar in 1977 at age 42 and in 1989, she was called to the Inner Bar.

In 1994, she became the first woman to be appointed as a judge of the Circuit Court. In 1996, she was appointed to the High Court and remained there until her appointment to the Supreme Court in January 2000 until her retirement in 2006. In November 2005, she was appointed adjunct professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Ireland, Galway. She was also appointed President of the Law Reform Commission in 2005 and held that position until 2011.

In addition to her judicial career, Judge McGuinness had a successful career in Seanad Éireann, representing the University of Dublin (Trinity College) panel from 1979 to 1987. She has served on the Employment Equality Agency, Kilkenny Incest Investigation, the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, the National Council of the Forum on End of Life in Ireland, and the Irish Universities Quality Board.

First woman appointed to the Roll of Solicitors.

Dorothea Heron was born on 19 August 1896 at 68 Harcourt Street,Dublin, the home and solicitor’s office of her maternal grandparents, William and Dorothea Jameson. The Heron family moved to Dillon, Ardglass, Co. Down, when Ms. Heron’s father, James, was appointed county surveyor for Down in 1899.

She took the entrance examination to Victoria College on 5 September 1911, receiving the first Drummond scholarship and graduated with a BA in classics in 1918 and receiving a first-class honours Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree in 1921. On 23 December 1919, the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act was passed, finally allowing women admission to the legal and other professions. Forty-six days later, Dorothea Heron became the first woman to be apprenticed as a solicitor in Ireland on 7 February 1920. 

The partition of Ireland into separate legal jurisdictions in 1921 was of immediate concern to Ms. Heron as she approached her final solicitor’s exam the following year. She was allowed to sit the final examination of the Dublin Law Society on 3–5 January 1923 and excelled in it, obtaining second place and a special certificate.

She was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors on 17 April 1923, becoming the first woman solicitor in Ireland and one of the last cohort of solicitors entitled to practice in both jurisdictions.

Picture courtesy of Law Society of Ireland

First woman appointed a District Court Judge.

Eileen Kennedy was born 30 May 1914 in Dublin, daughter of Patrick Kennedy, solicitor, and Delia Kennedy (née Blood). Educated at St Louis convent, Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, where her father had established a legal practice, she qualified as a nurse in 1935 and served in the army nursing service from 1940 to 1943, when she left to study law. 

Qualifying as a solicitor in 1947, she joined her father's practice, P. J. Kennedy & Son, Carrickmacross, and served as coroner for south Monaghan from 1960 to 1964. 

In April 1964, she became the first female district judge in the Republic of Ireland, when she was assigned to the Dublin Metropolitan District. She was given responsibility for the children court, to which she was attached permanently from 1967. Judge Kennedy was also appointed chairman of a committee established in 1967 by the then Minister for Education, Donogh O'Malley, to examine the reformatory and industrial schools’ system. Its report in 1970 was highly critical of the system then in operation and was instrumental in the replacement of industrial and reformatory schools with foster care and residential homes. 

From 1970 to 1972, she was also a member of the first commission on the status of women, the report of which resulted in significant improvements in the legal status of Irish women. 

Picture courtesy of Law Society of Ireland

First woman called to the Bar of Ireland.

Frances Kyle was born in Belfast in 1894, the daughter of a prominent Belfast businessman. She was both the first woman to be awarded the John Brooke Scholarship, for coming first in the Bar examinations, and the first of 2 women called to the Irish Bar on 1 November 1921. 

As there were now two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland, she was called to the Bar of Northern Ireland in Belfast the following day.

Ms. Kyle only practiced in Dublin for a short time but was elected a member of the Northern Ireland circuit in 1922. She is reported in the Dublin Evening Telegraph in 1922 as having received eight briefs. She told a Daily Mail representative: “I’m not at all certain that the first women barristers will succeed in making a living at the Bar. Legal friends advised me to devote myself to conveyancing, which does not require attendance at the courts, but I felt that the first woman barrister should practice, if possible, to prepare the way for those who will follow.”

Picture courtesy of Bar of Ireland

First woman appointed a Petty Sessions Clerk.

Georgina Frost was born on 29 December 1879 in Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare, one of the five children of Thomas Frost and his wife, Margaret Kett. Thomas Frost was the petty sessions clerk for Sixmilebridge and Newmarket-on-Fergus. 

In the six years prior to his retirement, Ms. Frost assisted her father in his duties and often performed these duties herself. At his retirement, the local magistrates appointed her to succeed him. However, under the Petty Sessions Clerk (Ireland) Act 1881, her appointment required the final approval of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and, following advice, he rescinded her appointment because of her gender and the provisions of the relevant statute. 

She appealed this decision to the High Court, to the Court of Appeal and to the House of Lords, where it was scheduled for a hearing on 27 April 1920. However, the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919 had become law and the legal bar to her appointment no longer existed. Lord Birkenhead, the Lord Chancellor, decided it was pointless in going into the old law. 

Consequently, she was appointed in April 1920, making her the first woman to hold such public office in the UK. Her triumph, however, was short-lived: the Free State government abolished her job in 1923.

First woman to practice as a solicitor in Ireland.

Helena Mary Early was born in Dublin in 1888 and was one of five children of a farmer. She completed her apprenticeship in the office of her brother, Thomas Early and was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors on 23 June 1923. 

She was elected first lady auditor of the Solicitors’ Apprentices’ Debating Society of Ireland in 1921 and became the first woman Commissioner for Oaths. She practised with her brother at 63-64 O’Connell Street, Dublin and was a familiar figure in the courts, particularly the District Court. 

During the mid-1940s she was actively involved in the Woman’s Social and Progressive League and was also active in the Irish Soviet Friendship Society, serving as its President for a period. In 1946 she attended at the arrival of Mrs Eleanor Roosevelt, former First Lady of the US, at Baldonnell Airport and took advantage of a gap in proceedings to welcome her to Ireland on behalf of the Woman’s Social and Progressive League. 

Helena Early continued in practice until the mid-1970s and died in 1977.

Picture courtesy of the Law Society of Ireland.

First woman appointed a High Court Judge
First woman elected chairperson of the Bar Council

Mella Carroll was born 6 March 1934 in Dublin, second among four children of Patrick Joseph Carroll and his wife Agnes Mary Carroll (née Caulfield). Her father had been an officer in the national army in the early 1920s, joining in 1923 the Garda Síochána of which he was ultimately Commissioner. 

She was educated in Dublin at Leeson Street convent and at UCD, where she graduated in French and German. She studied at King's Inns and was called to the bar in 1957, having been awarded the John Brooke scholarship. 

At the junior bar, Judge Carroll's primary practice as a conveyancer meant that her appearances in court as an advocate were rare. This dramatically changed after she became a senior counsel in 1976 where she developed a reputation for excellence in court advocacy. 

In 1979, she became the first woman to be elected chairperson of the Bar Council of Ireland, and in the same year, the first woman to be elected an ordinary bencher of the Honorable Society of King's Inns. The following year she became the first female judge of the High Court on 6 October 1980, sitting on a range of challenging civil and criminal cases, before her retirement in November 2005. 

First woman elected Chairperson of the Law Society

Moya Quinlan (née Dixon) was born on 28 June 1920 and was educated at Sion Hill College in Blackrock, Dublin and admitted to the Roll of Solicitors on 9 July 1946 having served her apprenticeship with her father, Joseph H. Dixon, Solicitor, Dublin. 

She became the first female Council member of the Law Society of Ireland in 1969 and was re-elected for the next 45 years. She played a key role in the acquisition of the Law Society’s premises at Blackhall Place and became the Society’s first female President in 1980/81.

She was a key figure in the Dublin Solicitors Bar Association and served as its President in 1979. She was appointed to the Employment Appeals Tribunal and chaired many divisions of the EAT, serving for over 35 years. She was also appointed as a member of the inaugural Legal Aid Board in 1979. 

She served as Chairwoman of the Primary School Curriculum Review and was appointed to the first board of the Irish Hospice Foundation. She was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 at the Irish Law Awards ceremony. Ms. Quinlan passed away on 12 February 2019, aged 98.

Picture courtesy of Law Society of Ireland.

First woman appointed as Chief Justice.

Susan Denham was educated at Alexandra College, Dublin; University of Dublin, Trinity College; King’s Inns and Columbia University, New York, U.S.A. She was called to the Bar in 1971 and became a Senior Counsel in 1987. 

As a barrister she practiced on the Midland Circuit and in Dublin and had a general practice with a specialisation in Judicial Review cases. Appointed a Judge of the High Court in 1991, in December 1992 she was the first woman 
appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court. 

Judge Denham chaired the Working Group on a Courts Commission established by the Government to review the management of the Courts, which published six reports and two working papers, leading to the establishment of the Courts Service in November 1999. She was subsequently a member of the Interim Board, and of the Board of the Courts Service 1999 to 2001.

In 2009, Judge Denham presented the report of the Working Group on a Court of Appeal to the Minister for Justice, which came into existence in October 2014.

Judge Denham was appointed the 11th Chief Justice of Ireland on the 25th July, 2011. As a former Chief Justice, Judge Denham remains a member of the Council of State in accordance with Article 31 of the Constitution.