1968–1972
Sir John William Basil Kelly,PC,PC (NI),QC (10 May 1920 –5 December 2008),usually known as Sir Basil Kelly,was a Northern Irish barrister,judge and politician.
Kelly was born into an Ulster Protestant family in Clones,County Monaghan,on 10 May 1920 as one of the two children,and the only son,of Thomas William Kelly and Emily Frances Kelly ( née Donaldson). [1] [2] [3] His parents were small farmers in West Monaghan,who had their house 'burnt out' during the revolutionary period in Ireland in the early 1920s. [1] Shortly after this,the family moved,around 1925,north-east to Belfast,settling in a working-class area of East Belfast,where Basil and his sister were raised. [3] Here he attended Mersey Street Primary School,where he later won a scholarship to the prestigious Methodist College,Belfast,later receiving his university education at Trinity College,Dublin (TCD). [1] [4] He was called to the Northern Irish Bar in 1944 and took silk in 1958. He served as senior Crown Counsel in Tyrone,Fermanagh and Armagh from 1958 to 1968.[ citation needed ]
In 1964,he was elected to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland as Ulster Unionist member for Mid Down. He was appointed as Attorney General for Northern Ireland in 1968. He was appointed to the Privy Council of Northern Ireland in 1969,entitling him to the style The Right Honourable .[ citation needed ]
In March 1972,the entire Government of Northern Ireland resigned,and the Parliament of Northern Ireland was prorogued. As a result,Kelly ceased to be Attorney General. The office of Attorney General for Northern Ireland was transferred to the Attorney General for England and Wales,and Kelly was the last person to serve as Stormont's Attorney General until the re-establishment of the position in its own right in April 2010. In 1973,he was appointed as a judge of the High Court of Northern Ireland,and then as a Lord Justice of Appeal of Northern Ireland in 1984,when he was also knighted and appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom.[ citation needed ]
Lord Justice Sir Basil Kelly died at his home in Berkshire on 5 December 2008 after a short illness. He was 88 years old. [5]
Edward Henry Carson,Baron Carson,PC,PC (Ire),from 1900 to 1921 known as Sir Edward Carson,was an Irish unionist politician,barrister and judge,who was the Attorney General and Solicitor General for England,Wales and Ireland as well as the First Lord of the Admiralty for the British Royal Navy. From 1905 Carson was both the Irish Unionist Alliance MP for the Dublin University constituency and leader of the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast. In 1915,he entered the war cabinet of H. H. Asquith as Attorney-General. Carson was defeated in his ambition to maintain Ireland as a whole in union with Great Britain. His leadership,however,was celebrated by some for securing a continued place in the United Kingdom for the six north-eastern counties,albeit under a devolved Parliament of Northern Ireland that neither he nor his fellow unionists had sought. He is also remembered for his open ended cross examination of Oscar Wilde in a legal action that led to plaintiff Wilde being prosecuted,gaoled and ruined. Carson unsuccessfully attempted to intercede for Wilde after the case.
James Brian Edward Hutton,Baron Hutton,PC was a British Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.
County Monaghan is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Ulster and is part of Border strategic planning area of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Monaghan. Monaghan County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county was 65,288 according to the 2022 census.
Basil Stanlake Brooke,1st Viscount Brookeborough,,styled Sir Basil Brooke,5th Baronet,between 1907 and 1952,and commonly referred to as Lord Brookeborough,was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician who served as the third Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from May 1943,until March 1963.
John Clarke MacDermott,Baron MacDermott,,PC (NI),was a Northern Irish politician,barrister,and judge who served as Attorney-General for Northern Ireland,a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary,and Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. He was the first law lord to be appointed from Northern Ireland.
Sir Joseph Napier,1st Baronet was an Irish Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom Parliament. He was also a barrister and judge,who served briefly as Lord Chancellor of Ireland.
Sir William Moore,1st Baronet,PC (NI),DL was a Unionist member of the British House of Commons from Ireland and a Judge of Ireland,and subsequently of Northern Ireland. He was created a Baronet in 1932.
Robert Douglas Carswell,Baron Carswell,,was a British barrister and judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.
William Brian Maginess,QC,was a member of the Government of Northern Ireland,who was widely seen as a possible successor to The 1st Viscount Brookeborough as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.
Robert Lynd Erskine Lowry,Baron Lowry,PC,PC (NI),was a Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. He was knighted in 1971,and created a life peer in 1979.
Sir James Andrews,1st Baronet,PC (NI) was Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and brother of Prime Minister J. M. Andrews and Thomas Andrews,builder of the Titanic.
Major Sir Lancelot Ernest Curran was a Northern Ireland High Court judge and parliamentarian.
Brian Francis Kerr,Baron Kerr of Tonaghmore,,was a Northern Irish barrister and a senior judge. He held office as Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and then as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. In 2009,he was the last person to receive a law life peerage under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876. At the time of his retirement on 30 September 2020,he was the longest-serving justice of the Supreme Court,and the court's last original member.
Sir Robert Wilson Porter,PC (NI),QC was a Northern Irish politician,barrister and judge. He served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II and was later an officer in the Territorial Army.
Sir Edward Warburton Jones PC(NI) PC QC,was a Northern Irish barrister,judge and politician.
Sir Anthony Brutus Babington PC (NI) was an Anglo-Irish barrister,judge and politician.
Arthur Black PC(NI) KC was an Irish barrister,judge and Ulster Unionist Party politician.
William Lowry,PC (NI),KC,was a Northern Irish barrister,judge,Ulster Unionist Party Member of Parliament,and Attorney General for Northern Ireland.
Thomas Watters Brown,KC,PC,PC (NI) was an Irish lawyer and politician.
Gavin James Robinson is a Northern Irish unionist politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) since March 2024. He served as Deputy DUP Leader from June 2023 to May 2024. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Belfast East in the UK House of Commons since the 2015 general election. He was Lord Mayor of Belfast in 2012–2013. Robinson is the DUP Spokesperson for Defence and Home Affairs.