Diarmuid Rossa Phelan is a farmer, senior counsel, professor at the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin, fellow of Trinity College Dublin (TCD), [1] [2] and a former member of TCD's Board, to which he was twice elected. [3] He was also twice elected Chairman of TCD's Board of Fellows. [4]
He is a member of the Bar of England and Wales, the Bar of Northern Ireland and the New York State Bar Association. [2]
He was made called to the bar in 1994 and made senior counsel in 2008. [2]
He was a counsel for the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources at the Moriarty Tribunal on the issuing of the second GSM licence. [5]
He represented the companies Phone Paid Services Association Ltd, Modeva Interactive and Zamano Plc before the High Court in 2012. [6]
He represented several high-profile pro bono actions in referendums and refugees against deportation orders, including in 2017 before the High Court where he represented a mother and two children who were being deported to Nigeria after residing in Ireland for over a decade. [7]
In October 2008, he spoke at the Oireachtas Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the European Union. [8]
He has authored many legal articles and books, including Revolt or Revolution: At the Constitutional Boundaries of the European Community (1997) and Basic Community Cases (1997), which he co-authored with Bernard Rudden, Professor of Comparative Law at University of Oxford. [9]
During the debate over the Thirty-third Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland to establish a Court of Appeal, he suggested that giving the Supreme Court absolute discretion to select which cases to hear was dangerous and would need to be monitored for mission creep. [10]
On 3 August 2008, he was seriously injured when the car he was in was hit by a car driven by Catherine O'Meara. [11] After the accident he was cut from the vehicle and taken to Nenagh Hospital. [11] He suffered from a spinal injury and over a decade later was still being treated. [11] A court case to determine damages was settled between him and O'Meara. [11]
He farms mixed organic livestock in County Wexford and near Tallaght, County Dublin. The farms run training programs for veterinary and engineering students, [12]
Keith Conlon was shot at Phelan's farm near Tallaght on 22 February 2022 and died in Tallaght University Hospital two days later. [12] Phelan was charged with murder and initially denied bail. [12] He was later granted bail on 8 April after an appeal. [13] On 14 October 2024 he pleaded not guilty to the murder of Keith Conlon. [14] [15] The trial began two days later in the Central Criminal Court. [14] [16]
The court heard how Phelan had shot a dog he believed to have been worrying his sheep during lambing season with a Winchester rifle on the day in question, when three men suddenly emerged from nearby woodland and ran towards him shouting threats. Phelan then produced an 8-shot revolver while retreating backwards and warning the men to halt, and when they continued to advance Phelan fired 3 warning shots above their heads in a left-to-right arc, with the final shot hitting Conlon behind the top of the right ear as he turned his head. Garda ballistics experts subsequently test-fired the same Smith & Wesson revolver and discovered that over 90% of their shots landed below the point of aim, which defense lawyers argued was a major factor in Conlon being accidentally shot by Phelan. [17]
On 3 January 2025, Phelan was unanimously found not guilty of murder after seven hours of jury deliberations. The jury accepted that Phelan had acted on self-defence using no more force than reasonably necessary. [18]
