On Thursday, 23rd October, the School of Law, UL and the School of Law, NUI Galway hosted the inaugural Justice Henchy Memorial Lecture in Corofin, Co Clare, birthplace of the late eminent Supreme Court judge, the Honourable Mr. Justice Séamus Henchy (1917–2009). The event was very well attended with invited guests, including legal practitioners, locals, friends and family, traveling from far and wide. This year’s lecture, delivered by prominent High Court judge and Judge Designate of the Court of Appeal, the Honourable Mr. Justice Gerard Hogan, was a tremendous success. Mr. Justice Hogan’s paper was entitled ‘Elegantia juris: Mr. Justice Seamus Henchy’.

Speaking at the event, UL Vice President Academic and Registrar, Professor Paul McCutcheon commented on the aptness of hosting the inaugural lecture in Corofin, ‘where the young Séamus Henchy started his life’.  Referring to the ‘genius that was Séamus Henchy’, Mr Justice Hogan added: ‘His judgments are generally viewed as timeless expositions of legal principle and they are regarded as having been endowed with an almost unique precedential status and standing. The judgments are particularly admired – indeed, revered – for that special and indefinable quality of elegantia juris: the ability to reach beyond the mundane, the formalistic and the technical in order to identify true and coherent legal principles in elegant legal prose, often charting a new path for the law in the process.’

The School of Law also presented Mrs. Averil Henchy, wife of the late Mr. Justice Henchy, with a beautiful commemorative gift which recorded a powerful dissent delivered by Justice Henchy in Norris v Attorney General.

The memorial lecture was chaired by Mr. Michael McNamara, TD.

For a copy of Mr Justice Hogan’s paper, click: Henchy Lecture