Sir John William Basil Kelly, PC, PC (NI), QC (10 May 1920 – 5 December 2008), usually known as Sir Basil Kelly, was a

Northern Irish The people of Northern Ireland are all people born in Northern Ireland and having, at the time of their birth, at least one parent who is a British Nationality Law, British citizen, an Irish nationality law, Irish citizen or is otherwis ...

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

and politician.

Life

Kelly was born into an

Ulster Protestant Ulster Protestants are an ethnoreligious group in the Irish province of Ulster, where they make up about 43.5% of the population. Most Ulster Protestants are descendants of settlers who arrived from Britain in the early 17th century Ulster Pl ...

family in

Clones, County Monaghan Clones ( ; , meaning 'meadow of Eois') is a small town in the west of County Monaghan in Ireland. The area is part of the List of regions of the Republic of Ireland, Border Region in the Republic of Ireland, earmarked for economic development b ...

, on 10 May 1920 as one of the two children, and the only son, of Thomas William Kelly and Emily Frances Kelly (''

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

'' Donaldson). His parents were small farmers in West Monaghan, who had their house 'burnt out' during the revolutionary period in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

in the early 1920s. Shortly after this, the family moved, around 1925, north-east to

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

, settling in a working-class area of East Belfast, where Basil and his sister were raised. Here he attended Mersey Street Primary School, where he later won a scholarship to the prestigious Methodist College, Belfast, later receiving his university education at

Trinity College, Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...

(TCD). He was called to the Northern Irish Bar in 1944 and

took silk A King's Counsel ( post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarch is a woman, the title is Qu ...

in 1958. He served as senior Crown Counsel in counties Tyrone,

Fermanagh Historically, Fermanagh (), as opposed to the modern County Fermanagh, was a kingdom of Gaelic Ireland, associated geographically with present-day County Fermanagh. ''Fir Manach'' originally referred to a distinct kin group of alleged Laigin or ...

and

Armagh Armagh ( ; , , " Macha's height") is a city and the county town of County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Primates of All ...

from 1958 to 1968.

Later career

In 1964, he was elected to the

House of Commons of Northern Ireland The House of Commons of Northern Ireland was the lower house of the Parliament of Northern Ireland created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The upper house in the bicameral parliament was called the Senate. It was abolished with the ...

Ulster Unionist The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded as the Ulster Unionist Council in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist oppositi ...

member for Mid Down. He was appointed as

Attorney General for Northern Ireland The Attorney General for Northern Ireland is the chief legal adviser to the Northern Ireland Executive for both civil and criminal matters that fall within the devolved powers of the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Attorney General for Northern Irel ...

in 1968. He was appointed to the

Privy Council of Northern Ireland The Privy Council of Northern Ireland is a dormant privy council formerly advising the Governor of Northern Ireland in his role as viceroy of the British Crown, in particular in the exercise of the monarch's prerogative powers. The council wa ...

in 1969, entitling him to the style ''

The Right Honourable ''The Right Honourable'' (abbreviation: The Rt Hon. or variations) is an honorific Style (form of address), style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire, and the Commonwealt ...

''. In March 1972, the entire

Government of Northern Ireland A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

resigned, and the

Parliament of Northern Ireland The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore ord ...

was prorogued. As a result, Kelly ceased to be Attorney General. The office of Attorney General for Northern Ireland was transferred to the

Attorney General for England and Wales His Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales is the chief legal adviser to the sovereign and Government in affairs pertaining to England and Wales as well as the highest ranking amongst the law officers of the Crown. The attorney gener ...

, and Kelly was the last person to serve as Stormont's Attorney General until the re-establishment of the position in its own right in April 2010. In 1973, he was appointed as a judge of the

High Court of Northern Ireland The courts of Northern Ireland are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in Northern Ireland: they are constituted and governed by the law of Northern Ireland. Prior to the partition of Ireland, Northern I ...

, and then as a

Lord Justice of Appeal A Lord Justice of Appeal or Lady Justice of Appeal is a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, the court that hears appeals from the High Court of Justice, the Crown Court and other courts and tribunals. A Lord (or Lady) Just ...

of Northern Ireland in 1984, when he was also knighted and appointed to the

Privy Council of the United Kingdom The Privy Council, formally His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a privy council, formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its members, known as privy counsellors, are mainly senior politicians who are curre ...

Death

Lord Justice Sir Basil Kelly died at his home in

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

on 5 December 2008 after a short illness. He was 88 years old.

References

Sources

* Flackes, W.D. and Elliott, S. (1989), ''Northern Ireland: A Political Directory'' (3rd ed.). Belfast: Blackstaff Press Ltd

External links