Peter O'Brien, 1st Baron O'Brien

Peter O'Brien, 1st Baron O'Brien, PC, QC (29 June 1842 – 7 September 1914), known as Sir Peter O'Brien, Bt, between 1891 and 1900, was an Irish lawyer and judge. He served as Lord Chief Justice of Ireland between 1889 and 1913.

Background and education

O'Brien was born at Carnelly House, Clarecastle, County Clare^[1] the fifth son of John O'Brien, Liberal Member of Parliament for Limerick. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College and Trinity College, Dublin and was called to the bar in 1865.^[1]

Legal and judicial career

O'Brien joined the Munster circuit and built up a successful practice, and in 1880 became a Queen's Counsel. The following year he was appointed Junior Crown Counsel at Green Street, Dublin, becoming Senior in 1882, and was made a bencher of the King's Inns in 1884. He unsuccessfully contested County Clare as a Liberal in 1879.^[1] In 1887 O'Brien was appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland, becoming Attorney-General for Ireland and an Irish Privy Counsellor the following year. He was finally appointed Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in 1889, holding the office for twenty-four years.

As Attorney General he showed great skill in "packing" juries in politically sensitive cases with jurors who could be trusted to convict, earning the nickname "Peter the Packer" which stuck to him all his life.

Opinions on his judicial career vary: A. M. Sullivan wrote that as a pupil of the great Chief Baron Christopher Palles he must have learned the principles of common law but was too lazy to apply them; Palles himself is said to have remarked of one of O'Brien's judgments "you never learned that law from me!" However his judgement in R. (Bridgeman) v. Drury [1894] 2 I.R. 489 where he refused to allow the members of Dublin Corporation to charge the ratepayers of Dublin for a particularly lavish picnic, is still often quoted both for its legal principle and its remarkable wit.

He was created a Baronet, of Merrion Square in the County of the City of Dublin, in 1891,^[2] and was ennobled as Baron O'Brien, of Kilfenora in the County of Clare, in 1900.^[3]

Personal life

Lord O'Brien married Anne Clarke in 1867. He died without male heirs at Airfield, Stillorgan, County Dublin, his barony and baronetcy thus becoming extinct. His daughter Georgina published an affectionate memoir of her father a few years after his death. His main personal foibles were his refusal to wear the judicial wig, and a lisp so pronounced that it often made his remarks difficult to follow.

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