User:Waynetyrrell/Cahir Davitt

The Hon. Mr. Justice Cahir Davitt (1894 - 1986).

Cahir Davitt was born in County Dublin on the 15th of August 1894 as the second son of the Fenian and Land Leaguer Michael Davitt. He studied at O’Connells CBS in Dublin and continued his education in UCD and the King’s Inns, being called to the Bar in January 1916. The last years of British government in Ireland, 1916–21, had seen the use of extraordinary legislation and military courts on a scale unprecedented since the eighteenth century. Individual executions, such as that of Kevin Barry in November 1920, undermined the legitimacy of British rule as nothing else had done since the attempted imposition of conscription. But in 1922–3 the new Irish government introduced a martial law regime far more drastic, there were 77 official executions between November 1922 and May 1923 including that of Erskine Childers.

Against this backdrop Cahir Davitt had been appointed as a Dail Judge in 1920 and sat throughout the country while evading the British Forces. Following the truce at the age of 27 he was appointed by Michael Collins as the Judge Advocate-General of the Irish Free State. There was, at first, no legal framework for this system of martial law and no certainty that the government would be successful in the civil war. Davitt was critical of what he referred to as ‘drumhead’ Courts-Matrtial committees and on one occasion he prevented the execution of a civilian spy convicted by a military court in Cathal Brugha barracks by pointing out that shooting him would be murder in law, and might be prosecuted as such if the other side won. He was responsible for drafting the first manual of regulations for the Free State Army and is credited with laying the foundations for what was to become the Army Legal Services.

He was appointed as an assistant Circuit Court Judge in November 1926 and then a few months later in 1927 as a Circuit Court Judge. He chaired the Great Southern Railways Stocks transactions Tribunal from 1943 to 1944. He was appointed to the High Court in 1945 and became President of the High Court in 1951, an office he held until his retirement in 1966. He died on the 01st of March 1986.