The Chief Justice of Ireland, Donal O’Donnell, addressed a secular ceremony marking the opening of the new legal year at the Four Courts on Monday, the first of its kind, and welcomed the new development.
The two traditional religious ceremonies marking the occasion — both a Church of Ireland service and a Catholic Mass — are “valuable and often beautiful” events, the Chief Justice said.
However, there has “always been, in my experience, some discomfort with the idea of the opening of the legal year being marked by not one but two religious ceremonies, and also increasingly with the idea that the opening of the year was associated, almost by default, with religion”, he continued.
Senior judges and lawyers from across these islands were in attendance for the historic event, which was devised by a committee chaired by Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne of the Supreme Court.
