Judge Miriam Reynolds: MIRIAM REYNOLDS, who has died aged 52, was a member of the Circuit Court bench.
Appointed in November 2002, she was not assigned to any specific circuit, although she regularly sat on midlands and northern circuits.
In recent years she had fought courageously to overcome ill-health, having been diagnosed with cancer in 1998.
At the funeral Mass, Fr Andrew O’Sullivan said she faced her illness with fortitude, strength and faith.
She was above all a loving wife and mother and she loved her work, remaining dedicated to it even at times of great sickness.
Eoin McGonigal SC, who gave the eulogy, described her starting out as a young lawyer – courteous and honest with clients, while standing up the local judge where necessary.
When she became prosecutor for Donegal, she was “strong but fair, highly responsible as a criminal lawyer, liked by judges and her colleagues”.
As a Circuit Court judge, “she became a star. The midland circuit claimed her as its own.”
Judge Reynolds presided at a number of high-profile cases, most recently in January when she sentenced a Co Roscommon mother to seven years in prison for incest, sexual assault, ill-treatment and neglect of her children, the maximum sentence available to her. She also placed the woman on the sex offenders register.
Of the six children involved, she said: “Why did nobody do anything? All it takes is for one person to stand idly by. These children were failed by everyone around them.”
The four-year sentence she imposed on a drug-dealer at Sligo in 2005 was upheld by the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2006.
The Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, endorsed her comment at the trial that the drug problem had to be taken seriously and that it was not a matter of “degrees of seriousness.”
Also in 2006, following two aborted trials which attracted much publicity, she presided at the final trial of five anti-war activists accused of damaging a US navy aircraft at Shannon airport in 2003; they were found not guilty.
Before her appointment to the bench, she had a large criminal practice, practising as a senior counsel in the Central Criminal Court, which hears murder and rape trials. She also regularly appeared for clients in the Court of Criminal Appeal and the Supreme Court.
Born in England, she was the eldest of the five children of Irish parents Gerard Reynolds, a building contractor from Carrick- on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, and his wife Mary (née Donnelly) of Mohill, Co Leitrim, and Glaslough, Co Monaghan.
She was educated in England and at the St Louis convent, Monaghan.
Having graduated from UCD with a bachelor of civil law degree (BCL) in 1979, she was admitted to the degree of barrister at law (BL) in the King’s Inns in 1981.
She was called to the Bar in 1981 and practised on the northern circuit from 1982 to 1998, acting as the State prosecutor for Co Donegal from 1990 to 1998.
She acted for the State in 1995 in one of the most controversial court cases of recent times. This was the trial of publican Frank Shortt who was accused of knowingly permitting the sale of controlled drugs in the Rave in the Cave disco at his premises in Quigley’s Point, Co Donegal.
Mr Shortt was found guilty in 1995, sentenced to three years in prison and fined £10,000. However, having served his sentence, he was in 2002 found by the Court of Criminal Appeal to have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice perpetrated by members of An Garda Síochána.
In 1993 she was admitted to the Northern Ireland Bar and to the degree of Barrister of Law, Northern Ireland. In 1998 she was called to the Inner Bar.
She was elected a member of the Bar Council for 1999-2000 and was twice elected as the honorary secretary of the council, in 2001 and 2002. She also was a founder member and former chairwoman of the Irish Women Lawyers Association.
She is survived by her husband Frank Buckley, their two sons Darragh and Cillian, her father Gerry, and brothers Kevin, Gerard, Barry and Kieron.
Miriam Reynolds: born September 8th, 1956; died March 20th, 2009.