Michael Comyn

Michael Comyn (1877 – 6 October 1952) was an Irish barrister, Fianna Fáil Senator and later a judge on the Circuit Court.

He was born in Ballyvaughan, County Clare in 1877 and was educated at Mr Brady's School, Ruan, Lancaster. He also attended Preston Schools and University College Dublin where he studied law. He was called to the Bar in 1898 and joined the Munster Circuit in 1900. He built up a highly successful practice and became a Senior Counsel in 1904. He would argue several cases before the British House of Lords in his time.^[1]

During the Irish War of Independence he was involved in the defence of Irish Republican prisoners at the High Court and before the Military Courts. He also defended Republican prisoners during the Irish Civil War. He also took part in some significant inquests notably the two that arose with the deaths of Cathal Brugha and Harry Boland with the intention to disrupt them on behalf of the IRA.^[2]

In 1926 he became a founder member of Fianna Fáil and in 1928 he was elected as one of six Fianna Fáil Senators to the Free State Seanad under the leadership of Joseph Connolly for three years.<ref name=O'Sullivan>O'Sullivan, Donal (1940), The Irish Free State and Its Senate. London, Faber and Faber. p.241</ref> In 1931 he was re-elected for nine years.^[3] After the 1934 Seanad election there was a contest on 12 December 1934 to decide who would be elected Cathaoirleach. Senator MacKean was absent for the vote but all other members were present. General Sir William Bernard Hickie chaired the election. The two candidates were the outgoing Cathaoirleach, Thomas Westropp Bennett, and the Fianna Fáil candidate, Comyn. Neither of the two candidates voted and so fifty-six Senators voted in the election. This resulted in a tie of twenty-eight votes each. Westropp Bennett received the votes of all twenty-one members of Fine Gael and seven Independents. Comyn received the votes of his eighteen Fianna Fáil colleagues, all the votes of the seven Labour Party Senators and the votes of three Independents: Sir Edward Bellingham, 5th Baronet, Thomas Linehan and Laurence O'Neill. Hickie then gave his casting vote for Westropp Bennett saying he would have done so had he had the opportunity in the division. The following week, however, Comyn defeated the outgoing Leas-Chathaoirleach, Michael F. O'Hanlon of Fine Gael, by twenty-six votes to twenty-five.^[4]

On 24 February 1936 he resigned his seat in the Seanad as he had been appointed a Judge on the Eastern Circuit Court.^[5] He died in 1952 aged seventy-five years.

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