Patrick Hunt:PADDY HUNT SC, who died on December 6th, just after his 50th birthday, was for more than a decade the leading tax practitioner at the Bar.
The second eldest in a family of five, his father Tom was an official in the forestry service with the result that the family moved about the country a good deal. He was born in Clonmel; the family lived in Wicklow, Sligo and, for a long period, in Cork. The young Paddy’s formative years were spent in Sligo where he was educated at Summerhill College.
He began his law studies in University College Cork, at the age of 16. He graduated with his BCL while still in his teens.
He also emerged as a talented musician, playing the organ in the university chapel and several other instruments in less formal circumstances. He was prominent as a student debater and was auditor of the UCC Law Society in the 1980-81 session. He never forgot his years in Cork and the friends he made there; later, they frequently received hospitality and accommodation from him on their visits to Dublin.
Having graduated, he turned to chartered accountancy, completing his articles with Arthur Andersen and Co and qualifying as an accountant with second place in Ireland in the professional examinations in 1984. While still studying accountancy he began his Bar studies at King’s Inns and was called to the Bar in 1986. In 1988 he became an associate of the Institute of Taxation. He worked briefly in financial services before taking up legal practice.
In retrospect, it appears that his decision to devote himself to practise at the Bar, rather than accountancy or financial services, was inspired. He loved the independence of the Bar and even more its collegiality and somewhat communitarian ethos. It was the main context or backdrop to his extraordinary life.
He quite soon became the leading junior counsel in the area of taxation. In early days, however, he also practised general civil law, with an emphasis on commercial and insolvency work.
Although he was soon in great demand, so that he could have constructed a career entirely based on blue-chip institutional clients, he never shirked from acting in tough cases and from representing unpopular clients, reflecting that they, too, were in need of justice.
The wide recognition of his pre-eminence in the areas of tax and insolvency were such that he was often selected to appear before the Appeal Commissioners and in court for legal and financial professionals involved in disputes.
He took silk in 2001 and largely specialised in tax work, especially relating to the taxation of transactions. He was the quintessential specialist, whose standing was recognised and whose counsel was sought by the experts themselves.
If he did well at the Bar from his earliest days in practice, he gave back generously to the profession. He was an enthusiastic participant in the Law Library tradition of freely exchanging technical information and advice informally. He was elected early to the Bar Council and served as its treasurer from 1998 to 2006.
He was instrumental in the complicated process whereby the Bar built and administered significant office premises in a break from the custom of practising collectively in the Law Library.
If his financial expertise was instrumental in allowing that development to take place, he was equally active in ensuring that the move, especially of leading barristers, to private rooms interfered as little as possible with the collegiality of the Bar, and in particular the support which it offers to junior members.
Paddy himself operated an open-door policy to a degree remarkable even at the Bar, and he was a generous mentor to all who showed promise. Although tax law is often arcane and inaccessible, he excelled at explaining it. His opinion on tax issues was widely sought and he expressed it clearly and without waffle.
He was a shy man, a deep thinker who had, some thought, come quite early to rather pessimistic conclusions on some of the great issues of life. Instead of making him cynical, it made him sweet.
He had a highly developed sense of the lacrimae rerum, the essential sadnesses of human life. This made him acutely sensitive to the difficulties, disappointments and fears of people he met, and extremely indulgent of their shortcomings. His time, his talent and his purse were made available to many unfortunates. Any mention of his generosity was instantly cut off with a snarl and an epithet.
Like many another shy person, though, with a natural tendency to be reclusive, he was intensely sociable. There was nothing facile about this. He appreciated all sorts of people for their sometimes odd achievements and accomplishments. He cultivated an expert interest in many topics. He knew all the verses of Bold Thady Quill, but also all the words of the Messiah. He was the very reverse of the narrow specialist.
He became greatly interested in horseracing and was a leading member of the Festival syndicate. This group owned such fine horses as My Cousin Vinny, Assessed and Better Be Bob. Many will recall the image, preserved on film, of Paddy enthusiastically congratulating the syndicate’s winner after the Cheltenham champion bumper in 2008 and placing a Tricolour over the horse’s hindquarters.
He was greatly gifted with brilliance, wit, empathy, great professional success, unrivalled status in his chosen field, and, especially in the Law Library, with a vast group of friends who loved him dearly. His early death after a short illness devastated many.
He is survived by both his parents, Tom and Clare, his brothers Francis and Adrian and his sisters Áine and Máire.
Patrick Hunt, born October 28th, 1961; died December 6th, 2011