John Naish, PC (Ire), QC (15 August 1841 – 17 August 1890) was an Irish lawyer and judge, who held a number of senior offices, including

Lord Chancellor of Ireland The Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, commonly known as the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was the highest ranking judicial office in Ireland until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. From 1721 until the end of 1800, it was also the hi ...

Early life

Born in

Limerick Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...

on 15 August 1841, son of Carroll Naish of Ballycullen and his second wife Anne Margaret Carroll or O'Carroll, Naish was educated at Clongowes Wood School and

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 Unive ...

. He was an outstanding student, gaining numerous distinctions in mathematics, physics and natural science, as well as law. He got his BA in mathematics in 1862.

Early career

He was called to the

Irish Bar The Bar of Ireland () is the professional association of barristers for Ireland, with over 2,000 members. It is based in the Law Library, with premises in Dublin and Cork. It is governed by the General Council of the Bar of Ireland, commonly c ...

in 1865, and practised on the

Munster Munster ( or ) is the largest of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the south west of the island. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" (). Following the Nor ...

Circuit, becoming a QC in 1880. His reputation as a barrister was mixed: he was considered too nervous and retiring to be a good advocate, and disliked the rough-and-tumble of Court practice but hard work and academic brilliance compensated for this. He appeared in the celebrated

libel Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

action brought by Canon O'Keeffe against Cardinal Cullen (who had placed the Canon under an

interdict In Catholic canon law, an interdict () is an ecclesiastical censure, or ban that prohibits certain persons or groups from participating in particular rites, or that the rites and services of the church are prohibited in certain territories for ...

) and co-wrote with the future Mr. Justice Edmund Bewley an influential textbook on the Common Law Procedure Acts.

Law officer

He became Law Adviser to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (a deputy to the two senior law officers) in 1880. The office had become a very onerous one and its holder was often criticised for its excessively political nature since one of the Law Adviser's responsibilities was to advise magistrates on how to deal with proceedings with a political element. Naish is credited with having advised that magistrates in dealing with the

Irish National Land League The Irish National Land League ( Irish: ''Conradh na Talún''), also known as the Land League, was an Irish political organisation of the late 19th century which organised tenant farmers in their resistance to exactions of landowners. Its prima ...

should rely on a fourteenth-century statute, the

Justices of the Peace Act 1361 The Justices of the Peace Act 1361 ( 34 Edw. 3. c. 1) is an act of the Parliament of England. The act, although amended, remains enforceable in England and Wales . Background Maintaining the peace had long been a concern of society and part ...

( 34 Edw. 3. c. 1) to imprison those who could not find

sureties In finance, a surety , surety bond, or guaranty involves a promise by one party to assume responsibility for the debt obligation of a borrower if that borrower defaults. Usually, a surety bond or surety is a promise by a person or company (a ''sure ...

for their good behaviour. This was a misinterpretation of the statute, which was clearly aimed only at cases of

riot A riot or mob violence is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people. Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The p ...

. These concerns about his obviously political conduct may explain why the office of Law Adviser was left vacant after his promotion to higher office.

Judge

He was

Solicitor-General for Ireland The Solicitor-General for Ireland was the holder of an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish and then (from the Act of Union 1800) United Kingdom government office. The holder was a deputy to the Attorney-General for Ireland, and advised the Crown on Irish ...

from January 1883 and

Attorney-General for Ireland The Attorney-General for Ireland was an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish and then, from 1801 under the Acts of Union 1800, United Kingdom government office-holder. He was senior in rank to the Solicitor-General for Ireland: both advised the Crown on ...

from December 1883. He stood for the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

at Mallow as the Government candidate in 1883, but in the fraught political atmosphere which followed the

Phoenix Park murders The Phoenix Park Murders were the fatal stabbings of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Henry Burke in Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland, on 6 May 1882. Cavendish was the newly appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland and Burke was the Permane ...

, he was crushingly defeated by

William O'Brien William O'Brien (2 October 1852 – 25 February 1928) was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons of ...

. He was appointed to the

Privy Council of Ireland His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal executi ...

in 1885 and served as

from May to July 1885 and again from February to June 1886; he was a Lord Justice of the

Irish Court of Appeal The Court of Appeal in Ireland was created by the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Ireland) 1877 as the final appellate court within Ireland, then under British rule. A l ...

1885-6 and 1886–90.

Death and family

Naish's health failed when he was still in his late forties: he travelled to the Continent in hope of a cure, but died at the German

spa A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water (sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa health treatments are known as balneotherapy. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters and hot springs goes back to pre ...

town of

Bad Ems Bad Ems () is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Rhein-Lahn rural district and is well known as a spa on the river Lahn. Bad Ems was the seat of Bad Ems collective municipality, which has been merged i ...

on 17 August 1890, two days after his forty-ninth birthday, and was buried there. His memorial can still be seen. He married Maud Dease of

County Westmeath County Westmeath (; or simply ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster and is part of the Eastern and Midland Region. It formed part of the historic Kingdom of ...

and they had three children. J. Carrol Naish, the

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

actor, was his great nephew, the grandson of his elder half-brother Carroll Naish.

Reputation

Delaney, in his biography of Christopher Palles, calls Naish an outstanding judge, even in an age when the Irish judiciary included such eminent figures as Christopher Palles himself, Gerald FitzGibbon, and Hugh Holmes. Elrington Ball, on the other hand, thought him a poor choice as Lord Chancellor: in Ball's view, Naish was a good academic lawyer but an unsuccessful barrister and a failure as a politician. As a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

, however, he was an acceptable choice of Chancellor to Nationalists.Ball, F. Elrington ''The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921'' John Murray London 1926 Vol. ii p.313. The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' praises him as a brilliant academic, and while accepting that he had his faults as a barrister, agrees with Delaney that he was a great judge, perhaps the most eminent Irish judge of his time.

References

*''Concise Dictionary of National Biography''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Naish, John 1841 births 1890 deaths Solicitors-general for Ireland Attorneys-general for Ireland Lord chancellors of Ireland Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Irish King's Counsel Lords Justice of Appeal for Ireland