[1] His brother Richard Pennefather (1773–1859) had a longer and more successful career as a judge: appointed a Baron of the Court of Exchequer in 1821, he served for nearly 40 years and was held in universal regard;[2] with the general support of the profession he remained on the Bench until shortly before his death at eighty-six, by which time he was blind.
In 1816 he was one of the lead counsel in the celebrated libel case of Bruce v. Grady, which arose from the publication of a scurrilous poem called "The Nosegay", written by a barrister Thomas Grady about his former friend, the notably eccentric banker George Evans Brady of Hermitage House, Castleconnell.
In the latter year, he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench for Ireland and held the position until he resigned on health grounds in 1846.
[7] The related trial of Sir John Grey descended into farce when the Attorney General, Sir Thomas Cusack-Smith, who was noted for his hot temper, challenged one of the defence counsel Gerald Fitzgibbon to a duel, for having allegedly accused him of improper motives.
[1] They had ten children, including Edward, the eldest son and heir; Richard, Auditor General of Ceylon; Ellen, who married James Thomas O'Brien, Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin, and Dorothea, (Dora) (1825–1859), who married in 1850, as his second wife, James Stopford, 4th Earl of Courtown, and had three sons.