John Naish

For the 18th century English shipbuilder, seeJohn Naish (shipbuilder).

John Naish,PC (Ire),QC(15 August 1841 – 17 August 1890) was an Irish lawyer and judge, who held a number of senior offices, includingLord Chancellor of Ireland.

Early life

Born inLimerickon 15 August 1841, son of Carroll Naish of Ballycullen and his second wife Anne Margaret Carrollor O'Carroll,Naish was educated atClongowes Wood SchoolandTrinity College Dublin.He was an outstanding student, gaining numerous distinctions in mathematics, physics and natural science, as well as law. He got his BA in mathematics in 1862.

Early career

He was called to theIrish Barin 1865, and practised on theMunsterCircuit, becoming aQCin 1880. His reputation as a barrister was mixed: he was considered too nervous and retiring to be a good advocate, and disliked the rough-and-tumble of Court practice but hard work and academic brilliance compensated for this. He appeared in the celebratedlibelaction brought by Canon O'Keeffe againstCardinal Cullen(who had placed the Canon under aninterdict) and co-wrote with the future Mr. JusticeEdmund Bewleyan influential textbook on the Common Law Procedure Acts.

Law officer

He becameLaw Adviser to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland(a deputy to the two senior law officers) in 1880. The office had become a very onerous one and its holder was often criticised for its excessively political nature since one of the Law Adviser's responsibilities was to advise magistrates on how to deal with proceedings with a political element. Naish is credited with having advised that magistrates in dealing with theIrish National Land Leagueshould rely on a fourteenth-century statute, theJustices of the Peace Act 1361(34 Edw. 3.c. 1) to imprison those who could not findsuretiesfor their good behaviour. This was a misinterpretation of the statute, which was clearly aimed only at cases ofriot.These concerns about his obviously political conduct may explain why the office of Law Adviser was left vacant after his promotion to higher office.

Judge

He wasSolicitor-General for Irelandfrom January 1883 andAttorney-General for Irelandfrom December 1883. He stood for theHouse of CommonsatMallowas the Government candidate in 1883, but in the fraught political atmosphere which followed thePhoenix Park murders,he was crushingly defeated byWilliam O'Brien.He was appointed to thePrivy Council of Irelandin 1885 and served asLord Chancellor of Irelandfrom May to July 1885 and again from February to June 1886; he was a Lord Justice of theIrish Court of Appeal1885-6 and 1886–90.

Death and family

Naish's health failed when he was still in his late forties: he travelled to the Continent in hope of a cure, but died at the Germanspatown ofBad Emson 17 August 1890, two days after his forty-ninth birthday, and was buried there. His memorial can still be seen.

He married Maud Dease ofCounty Westmeathand they had three children.J. Carrol Naish,theHollywoodactor, was his great nephew, the grandson of his elder half-brother Carroll Naish.

Reputation

Delaney, in his biography ofChristopher Palles,calls Naish an outstanding judge, even in an age when the Irish judiciary included such eminent figures as Christopher Palles himself,Gerald FitzGibbon,andHugh Holmes.Elrington Ball, on the other hand, thought him a poor choice as Lord Chancellor: in Ball's view, Naish was a good academic lawyer but an unsuccessful barrister and a failure as a politician. As aRoman Catholic,however, he was an acceptable choice of Chancellor to Nationalists.TheDictionary of National Biographypraises him as a brilliant academic, and while accepting that he had his faults as a barrister, agrees with Delaney that he was a great judge, perhaps the most eminent Irish judge of his time.

References

• Concise Dictionary of National Biography.