FIGHTING FOR THE FAMILY

– Justice Catherine McGuinness

WORDS: Nessa O'Mahony

It is hard to think of anyone who has made more impact in the area of family law reform than Hon. Justice Catherine McGuinness. Currently President of the Law Reform Commission, she retired from the Supreme Court in 2006. Her sphere of
infl uence has been wide, a fact recognised when she was given a People of the Year Award last year; the citation referred to her‘pioneering and vast contribution to Irish life in many roles over a lengthy career’.

The Justice is characteristically modest when asked what such awards mean to her: “I was very pleased of course. It means a lot to me. It recognised not just what I did but the various things that I was involved in, in particular things like the work of the Law Reform
Commission and further back the work of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation. It was also very nice for my family because they got a big party on the day and they were really pleased and proud of it.”.

Mentioning her family seems equally characteristic. Her office in Shelbourne Road, Dublin, is
bedecked with family photographs — she has three children and seven grandchildren — and her eyes light up when she speaks of her eldest grandchild, Maggie, who is following in her footsteps by studying law (she’s a fi rst year in NUI Galway).

And it has been initiatives to improve the legal rights of families that have been at the heart of her career. McGuinness came late to the legal profession. She met and married her husband, Proinsias MacAonghusa, when she was studying modern languages at TCD. But although her early married years were devoted to raising her children, she had time for civic engagement..

Read more about Justice Catherine McGuinness in in the Spring 2011 issue of WMB, on newsstands now!