Brady, Rory (1957–2010), barrister and attorney general, was born on 20 August 1957 in Gray Street in the Liberties area of Dublin, son of John Brady and his wife Teresa (née Kennedy). John Brady worked in Guinness's brewery, and was an unsuccessful Clann na Poblachta candidate for Dublin South Central in 1948; in later years, the family were pro-Fianna Fáil. Rory's maternal grandfather, John ('Jack') Kennedy, captained the Dublin GAA football team to three all-Ireland titles (1891–2 and 1894), and was a pallbearer at the funeral of Charles Stewart Parnell (qv). Rory was always fiercely proud of his family background (which contrasted with those of many privately educated barristers), and emphasised his Liberties roots and Christian Brothers' education. He always retained a strong, working-class Dublin accent (often stressed to deflate pomposity), and was 'never known to wield a golf club' (he was a soccer fan). As a leading barrister, he was active in organising bar support for the Capuchin Day Centre for the homeless, located near the Four Courts, and in developing a scholarship scheme for Dublin working-class pupils. He also retained a traditional catholic devotional faith, though he kept this very much a private matter; in 2002, he responded to a papal statement suggesting that catholic lawyers should not appear in divorce cases by stating that lawyers had a duty to provide a service to the best of their ability.
Brady was educated at Synge Street CBS, UCD (BCL, 1978) and the King's Inns. An excellent student debater, he was auditor in 1979 of the UCD law students' debating society, and associated with students in the UCD Law Society, some of whom became his closest friends. Called to the bar in 1979, he rapidly developed an excellent practice in the areas of commercial law and personal injuries. Widely regarded as one of the 'greener' members of the Irish bar, he was associated in business and politics with the Irish-American mining businessman and supporter of the republican movement, Emmett O'Connell. Brady served as a director of two O'Connell-associated companies, Osceola Hydrocarbons (1986) and Granuaile Shipping (1995), and joined in the endeavours of O'Connell's Irish American Unity Conference to secure financial contributions for Senator Gary Hart, an unsuccessful candidate for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination, who advocated vigorous American intervention to secure a Northern Ireland settlement. In Irish politics, Brady signed a statement in 1983 in support of an unsuccessful attempt to nominate Seán MacBride (qv) as a presidential candidate in opposition to Patrick Hillery (qv). As a junior, he represented several republican defendants, including the person convicted of the murder of Lord Mountbatten, and Maze escapees trying to avoid extradition. This should not be overemphasised; he was also defence counsel for the British tabloid News of the World when it was sued by Crossmaglen Rangers GAC in 1992 for insinuating that the club had IRA connections, and he stated in relation to the murdered solicitor Pat Finucane (qv) that lawyers had a duty to represent their clients irrespective of their political views. His own political views did not keep him from establishing a wide range of friendships at the bar, and he was widely popular (not least because of his gift of deflating tension or pomposity with a well-chosen humorous remark).
His reputation as a skilled commercial lawyer is indicated by the high-profile companies which employed his services in court at various points, including the ESB, Independent News and Media, Dunnes Stores, Greencore, and the property company Treasury Holdings (though he also acted for the National Bus and Rail Union). He was one of the team of lawyers appointed to argue against the constitutionality of the 1993 matrimonial home bill (giving spouses equal ownership rights in the family home) after President Mary Robinson referred it to the supreme court, where it was found to be unconstitutional. At the 1994 beef tribunal, he represented Hibernia Meats and one of its sub-contractors, Classic Meats. Brady was nominated in 1997 by the ad hoc referendum commission to set out the case for the proposed seventeenth amendment to the constitution (limiting cabinet confidentiality) for the benefit of voters. He often read papers at legal conferences, and was a regular contributor to the Bar Review.
Becoming a senior counsel in March 1996, shortly thereafter Brady acted (with James Nugent, SC) as counsel for the tribunal presided over by Chief Justice Thomas Finlay into the circumstances whereby the Blood Transfusion Service Board, by using tainted plasma, caused many patients to contract hepatitis C. The tribunal lawyers were widely praised for contributing to the speedy completion of the proceedings through their succinctness and clear presentation. Brady represented Fianna Fáil before the McCracken tribunal (inquiring into certain payments by businessman Ben Dunne to politicians, including Charles J. Haughey (qv)), and on the last day of proceedings made a series of proposals to the tribunal about how corruption might be discouraged. These included obliging politicians and public servants to produce tax clearance certificates and swear statutory declarations that their tax affairs were in order (a measure subsequently adopted), obliging accountants and financial advisors to report suspicious transactions by politicians and administrators, and establishing an ethics commission. He subsequently drew on his experience of tribunals to put forward proposals about how these might be conducted more speedily and at less expense (including the use of preliminary inquiries by a specially created inspectorate to determine whether a tribunal was required, a statutory obligation on tribunals to make a progress report to the dáil within a certain period, and empowering the oireachtas to discontinue a tribunal if necessary).
Brady was elected to the twenty-member Bar Council of Ireland (1997), and was chair of its internal relations committee (1997–8), subsequently chairing almost every committee, including its criminal and state bar committee. In July 1999 he stood for the council's chairmanship, but was narrowly defeated by Liam McKechnie. After McKechnie was appointed a high court judge, Brady was elected to the chairmanship (October 2000–June 2002). He oversaw the creation of a bar arbitration committee (which he chaired himself); was responsible for the erection of a plaque at the King's Inns commemorating members of the bar who died through participation in the 1798 and 1803 rebellions; and promoted better relations with the bars of England and Wales, and of Northern Ireland. He mounted a high-profile campaign against the establishment of a personal injuries assessment board as an alternative to court settlement of insurance claims, arguing that it would create a new layer of bureaucracy, endangered the rights of claimants, and would not achieve its stated purpose of reducing insurance premiums. (Throughout his career Brady maintained a strong interest in arbitration and other forms of alternative dispute resolution. In April 2008 he successfully mediated a dispute between the broadcaster Pat Kenny and a neighbour over ownership of a plot of land.)
At Michaelmas 2000 Brady was elected a bencher of King's Inns. He chaired (2001–02) the Aviation Appeals Panel (considering appeals against decisions by the aviation regulator), and early in 2002 became chairman of the Censorship of Publications Board (an unpaid and largely nominal position). From the early 1990s he assisted Fianna Fáil, providing legal advice to three successive party leaders: Albert Reynolds (qv), Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen. He advised on disclosure of documents to the Moriarty and Flood tribunals, which investigated alleged political corruption, and acted as legal adviser to party committees considering the expulsion of the TDs Liam Lawlor (qv) and Beverley Cooper Flynn. Brady represented Ahern in a successful libel case (2001) against Denis ('Starry') O'Brien, who falsely claimed to have bribed Ahern.
Brady's performance as attorney general in Ahern's second Fianna Fáil–PD government (June 2002–June 2007) was generally regarded as distinguished, marked by hard work and fierce attention to detail. Ahern described him as 'my closest and most trusted colleague at the cabinet table. He was never anything other than brilliant' (Sunday Independent, 25 July 2010). Brady's official duties ranged from drawing up the regulations implementing a ban on smoking in the workplace, to advising on such sensitive issues as whether allowing overflights and landing facilities at Shannon airport to US aircraft made Ireland a belligerent in the 2003 Iraq war (he advised that it did not), whether Ireland could participate in an European security mission in Macedonia which was not organised by the UN, and whether dáil constituencies could be revised on the basis of provisional rather than official census figures in order to avoid holding a general election on obsolete boundaries (they could not).
He launched a programme of systematic statute law revision (2003), leading to the removal of many obsolete laws from the statute book. He set out publicly the case for politicians rather than judges being the first point of reference for citizens wishing to extend their rights, and his role in appointments (like that of other like-minded law officers and ministers) contributed to the tendency for Irish courts in the early twenty-first century to pull back from the interventionist judicial philosophy associated with such figures as Brian Walsh (qv). Brady took a keen personal interest in the case of Tristan Dowse, a child adopted in Indonesia by an Irish citizen couple who subsequently sought to have the adoption annulled. This was resolved by a judicial decision that Tristan should be brought up by his natural mother while retaining his Irish citizenship and succession rights.
In an unusual move for an attorney general, Brady personally presented the Irish case against Britain over the opening of new facilities at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria before two international tribunals at the Hague. This led to new and more satisfactory arrangements for Ireland to be kept informed on the workings of the plant. In 2003 he used a high-profile address to the Bar Association of the District of Columbia, USA, to voice strong suspicions that British state agents had been involved in Pat Finucane's death and to call for a judicial inquiry.
Posthumous tributes claimed that Brady's greatest contribution as attorney general came through his advice to the Irish government on the developing peace settlement in Northern Ireland, which culminated in the 2007 St Andrews agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP on the re-formation of a power-sharing executive. Although many details of his role remained secret even years after his death, Brady is known to have advised on such matters as the arrangements for decommissioning paramilitary weapons and the details of power-sharing proposals (including whether the Irish constitution required a new referendum on the St Andrews agreement itself; he advised that it did not). Brady strongly believed that the Irish state should not allow Sinn Féin to claim a monopoly of the Irish republican tradition, and was a leading promoter of the successful suggestion by the justice minister, Michael McDowell, that the government should mount a high-profile commemoration of the ninetieth anniversary of the 1916 Easter rising.
Brady was subjected to criticism when the supreme court found in 2006 that legislation prohibiting persons accused of statutory rape from pleading ignorance of the child's age was unconstitutional. It was clear that the attorney general's office had not anticipated the decision, and fears were expressed that a large number of persons imprisoned for sex offenses might have to be released. Opposition politicians called for Brady to resign over the issue. A subsequent supreme court ruling limited the scope of the decision, and an inquiry found that while Brady had been notified that the case was being brought, his officials had failed to notify him of its subsequent progress; administrative machinery was established to keep future attorneys general informed of such sensitive developments.
After the 2007 general election, Brady stood down as attorney general and returned to the bar (after spending six weeks in summer 2007 as a visiting fellow at Harvard University). It was widely believed that the choice as his successor of Paul Gallagher, SC (notably competent, but associated with Fine Gael), reflected Brady's own recommendation. In April 2008 he was appointed chairman of the Irish Takeover Panel. He remained personally close to Ahern, advising him on the drafting of his retirement announcement in April 2008, and was present at Ahern's address to the US congress later that month. In 2008 he became a fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers. He served on a Fianna Fáil party committee considering the possibility of organising in Northern Ireland, and wrote an introduction to a book by Richard Humphreys, Countdown to unity: debating Irish reunification (2009), in which he emphasised that despite the amendment of the jurisdictional claim over Northern Ireland as part of the 1998 Belfast agreement, reunification remained a constitutional imperative.
With his reputation at its height, in 2008 an apparently trivial illness was diagnosed as cancer. Over the following two years, his body was progressively disabled while his mind remained sharp. Shortly before his death, Brady was offered a seat on the supreme court, but refused because of his illness. One of the last cases in which he appeared, McAleenan v. AIG (Europe) Ltd, was formally decided in May 2010. He died on 19 July 2010 in the Beacon Hospital, Dublin.
Brady married (1989) Siobhan Barron; they had two daughters. Their family life was notably close, and it was said that the most conspicuous luxury he enjoyed in life was family trips abroad.