John Francis Moriarty PC, QC (1855 – 2 May 1915) was an Irish lawyer and judge.
Moriarty was born in Mallow, County Cork, the second son of John Moriarty, a successful solicitor. He graduated from the University of Dublin and was called to the Irish bar in 1877.
Moriarty became Queen's Counsel in 1900 and a sergeant-at-law in 1908. Despite a flourishing practice he was often in financial difficulties and went bankrupt in the 1890s. In 1913 he was appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland, then Attorney-General for Ireland and finally a Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal; but served less than two years before dying in May 1915.[1]
Maurice Healy in his popular memoir The Old Munster Circuit[2] gives a vivid portrait of Moriarty as an exceptionally able and flamboyant barrister who was utterly unscrupulous in the tactics he used in conducting a case and was equally unscrupulous in his financial dealings; in Healy's opinion "he seemed to prefer to lose a case by a trick than win it by fair means." The picture he paints may well be exaggerated; Healy himself admits that Moriarty was an exceptionally fine law officer during a period of acute political tension, and his few reported decisions suggest that he would have been a good judge had he lived longer.However the report of an action in which Moriarty was a major figure, National Bank v Silke[3] certainly raises questions about his financial probity, since there is an uncontradicted statement by the defendant that Moriarty induced him to sign a cheque by fraudulent misrepresentation.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Thomas Molony |
Solicitor-General for Ireland April–June 1913 |
Succeeded by Jonathan Pim |
| Preceded by Thomas Molony |
Attorney-General for Ireland 1913–1914 |
Succeeded by Jonathan Pim |