Richard Cherry

His promising career was, according to his family, damaged by his staunch opposition to the Boer War, although this did not prevent his appointment as Attorney General for Ireland in 1905 or his election to the House of Commons the following year.

His elevation to the Bench in 1909 was said to be due to his desire to be relieved from the extreme pressure of his work as a Law Officer; possibly he was already suffering from ill health, although it was not until some years later that he was diagnosed with what was described as "slow paralysis".

His retirement was as active as his increasingly bad health allowed: he divided his time between his summer house at Greystones, County Wicklow, and his townhouse at St. Stephen's Green, where he died.

While praising his legal textbooks, he considered him a plodding barrister and a well-meaning but ineffectual law officer and judge: "his knowledge of his fellow men was not extensive, and erred towards charity.

"[4] Healy allows that he had at least the virtue of courtesy, at a time when many of the Irish judiciary had acquired a regrettable reputation for rudeness and impatience.