'A thoroughly decent human being': Dr John’s legacy sure to endure for generations

This July marks a significant milestone for senior counsel Dr John O’Mahony, one of Ireland’s most distinguished legal minds, who celebrates 50 years in practice at the Bar.

The Crookstown native has built a formidable reputation across five decades, with a career defined by landmark cases, record-breaking legal victories, and perhaps a unique dual expertise in law and medicine.

In 2021, he secured a record €23.5m award for a young Carrigaline woman who had sustained life-altering injuries at birth.

In 2023, he broke records again, acting for a young Togher woman who was awarded €35m, the highest ever payout in a personal injuries case of its kind in Ireland.

Although he specialises in medical law, Dr O’Mahony’s legal acumen extends well beyond that. In the 1980s, he played a key role in several high-profile tribunals, including the Whiddy Tribunal, which investigated the catastrophic 1979 explosion of the oil tanker Betelgeuse at Whiddy Island, which claimed 50 lives.

Dr O’Mahony also served as legal counsel in the investigation into the 1980 Buttevant rail disaster, one of Ireland’s worst rail accidents, which left 18 dead and more than 70 injured.

His practice has touched on diverse areas, including employment law, and in 2003 he represented former executives of Gurranabraher Credit Union in a case that spotlighted governance and ability issues within the organisation.

In 1974, while still a student in UCC, he ran for the then Cork Corporation, and that was when he first came to the attention of a young Turner’s Cross schoolboy who would later become his friend.

“I first came across Dr John through my late father in the 1974 local elections, when I was 14,” re Taoiseach Micheál Martin.

“My father came into the house one evening and said he was out canvassing for a young, brilliant student, who was studying, he said, both law and medicine, which to us seemed an impossible feat, and my father was full of iration for him.”

Mr Martin’s father, Paddy, nicknamed the Champ, was a popular figure in Turner’s Cross, being a bus driver and a gifted amateur boxer who represented his country 13 times. He was also a prominent member of Fianna Fáil in the city.

“Dr John had come in from the country, from Crookstown, and was a candidate in a traditional working-class urban area, and did exceptionally well in the local elections, and it’s because he won the respect of people like my late father, who just ired his intelligence, ired his energy, and thought he would be a very worthy representative,” the Taoiseach told The Echo.

Dr O’Mahony spoke to this newspaper last year about that election, recalling: “I was invited to stand for Fianna Fáil … while I was continuing to practice as a medical doctor and study for a postgraduate degree in law at UCC”.

He received a huge first-preference vote and recalled that he was “comfortably elected, beaten only by the legendary vote-getter Pearse Wyse TD, on the Fianna Fáil list of candidates”. The youngest member of Cork Corporation, he worked well with Gerald Goldberg, a prominent solicitor who had been first elected as an Independent alderman in 1967.

It might be said in the language of today that they bonded over a shared love of Cork’s two martyred lords mayor, Tomás MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney, and Mr Goldberg confided in the younger man that, not least as a representative of Cork’s tiny Jewish community, he would dearly love the honour of becoming lord mayor.

Dr O’Mahony and another councillor, Shandon St barber David Buckley, convinced Mr Goldberg that he would never be lord mayor as an Independent councillor, and persuaded him to Fianna Fáil, which had a majority on Cork Corporation.

According to Dr O’Mahony, it cost Dave Buckley and him “considerable time and effort to convince a majority of our fellow Fianna Fáil councillors”, but they eventually succeeded in getting Gerald Goldberg nominated, and on June 27, 1977, he was elected Cork’s first – and thus-far only – Jewish lord mayor. Dr O’Mahony told The Echo he had proudly served as Mr Goldberg’s deputy lord mayor on a number of occasions.

“Cork had many excellent lords mayor in its proud history. Gerald Goldberg was undoubtedly one of the most distinguished lords mayor of Cork ever,” he said.

The Taoiseach recalled from that time reading a newspaper report of “Dr John at the city council, having gone out and taken measurements coming in from the city dump on the Tramore Rd, highlighting how negative an impact it was having on the surrounding communities.

“And of course that, if you like, was a precursor to an ongoing debate about the city dump, and eventually we’ve ended up with Tramore Valley Park, which is what the people of the area of Turner’s Cross, Ballyphehane, Douglas, and all around there, richly deserved, having endured the dump there for decades.

“That was a big issue with Dr John,” he said.

In July of 1975, Dr O’Mahony was called to the Bar, alongside his friend Kevin Cross, who is now a retired High Court judge.

Mr Cross described Dr O’Mahony as “a superb, enthusiastic, fighting and fiercely independent barrister” and noted that his friend had never “devilled” – the practice whereby young lawyers apprentice to an established barrister – “but immediately went to Cork to forage on his own”.

“There were at that time fewer than 12 barristers in Cork. John, already a qualified doctor, initially combined his law work with hip of Cork Corporation. He quickly flourished, benefiting from the patronage of Gerald Goldberg of Goldberg, Fleming and Company,” he said.

“Success came rapidly and by the time I ed the Munster circuit, six months after John, he was already well established using both his forensic skills and his medical knowledge to the advantage of his clients.”

The Taoiseach said that Dr O’Mahony had left politics after a single term on Cork Corporation, and he had gone on to serve as “an outstanding barrister, a leader in his field”.

“He has given great solace and he has represented people tenaciously and brilliantly in the field of medical negligence, and many, many families have benefited from his advocacy, which has been very strong and which is an essential part of our democracy, that we have such strong, independent legal advocacy on behalf of citizens,” Mr Martin said.

Mr Cross noted that Dr O’Mahony had almost always appeared for the underdog, and for the 50 years of his practice he demonstrated a consistent enthusiasm for his clients and their cases.

“He rarely appeared for insurance companies or, despite his political connections, the State, being far more comfortable fighting the cause, often without a fee, of those who had no one to plead for them.

“He ‘took silk’, becoming a senior counsel in 1986, after little more than 10 years.

“He would have had many opportunities of becoming a judge or even attorney general had he really wished, but he was and is much more comfortable continuing as a barrister,” Mr Cross said.

“As a judge I always welcomed John appearing in cases, usually involving alleged medical negligence often on behalf of infants injured at birth; for as well as his enthusiasm and skill he brought an obvious comion for his injured clients.”

Beyond the courtroom, Dr O’Mahony has contributed to Irish public life in many ways. He was the longest-serving chair of the National Museum of Ireland, playing a significant role in preserving and promoting the country’s cultural heritage.

He has also delivered the annual Liam Lynch oration at Kilcrumper cemetery in Fermoy, reflecting on the legacy of the revolutionary leader.

The Lord Mayor of Cork, Green Party councillor Dan Boyle, said Dr O’Mahony had made great contributions to public life “ever since his earliest days on what was then Cork Corporation”.

“I would be aware of his ongoing contributions as well, for instance his involvement in personal projects developing properties in the city centre, encouraging people to live there again,” Mr Boyle said.

“I think his life has been one of constant consideration of city life and experiment, and I would like to congratulate him on that.”

Maurice Gubbins, former editor of The Echo, first met Dr O’Mahony when Mr Gubbins was a young reporter covering Cork Corporation, and they have been friends ever since.

“To me, Dr John O’Mahony has been one of Cork’s outstanding citizens. Over the years, he has served people who suffered terrible injuries, in obtaining suitable compensation for them, he is an outstanding jurist, a brilliant public speaker, and in his role as a councillor he was a huge servant of the city of Cork,” Mr Gubbins said.

“But apart from all of that, he is a thoroughly decent human being, and one of the finest people I have ever met. I regard it as a privilege to call him my friend.”

Mr Gubbins added that Dr O’Mahony and his wife Louise had “a beautiful family”, and both of their children, Cian and Doireann, had followed in their father’s footsteps to develop their own distinguished careers in the Law Library.

“John has also had a very learned interest in the history of Cork, particularly in the history of Terence MacSwiney and Ireland’s independence movement, and he has made a major contribution in of his for the development of Independence Museum Kilmurry,” he said.

Mr Martin recalled that during his first term as Taoiseach, he had visited the museum, which opened 60 years ago as the Terence MacSwiney Memorial Museum.

“Dr John has been a big er of the museum, which is a tremendous asset to the community in Kilmurry, it’s of a very high standard,” he said.

Mary O’Mahony — no relation — is former chairperson of Independence Museum Kilmurry, and she said Dr O’Mahony has been its patron following the death in 2012 of its initial patron, Máire MacSwiney Brugha, daughter of Terence MacSwiney and his wife Muriel s Murphy.

“Dr John has been a great er of the museum, he’s been a great er of his native Kilmurry and Crookstown, and any events we have on in the museum, he always s us and he has great respect for the volunteers in the museum and what we are trying to achieve,” she said.

“He’s a great to us, a great man, and we’re delighted that we have him as patron.”

Kevin Cross, who retired as a judge four years ago, reflected on the retirement in which Dr O’Mahony has thus far shown little interest.

“Fifty years in continuous practice is a great moment, but for John it is but a date in a continuation into the future to be noted perhaps like O’Gara’s drop goal against Wales as a pinnacle of his achievements,” he said.

“Well done so far, John, we all expect great things in the future.”

Mr Gubbins said that Dr O’Mahony’s legal expertise, medical knowledge, and dedication to public service had profoundly and positively impacted upon thousands of lives across the country.

“Dr John’s legacy is sure to endure for generations to come,” he said.

The Taoiseach said that Dr O’Mahony had made a lasting contribution to Irish law and society.

“What may be less known is that he has been a tremendous patron of the arts, and of artists, and culture, and of all matters historical. He’s a very, very well-read man, with keen observation of how society has evolved, and a very decent man.

“I wish John continued success,” he said.