Mr Justice John Murray's legal career involved serving Fianna Fáil twice in government as Attorney General, as well as an eight-year period with the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
He first became Attorney General for a brief period in 1982 after the then AG, Mr Patrick Connolly, resigned in bizarre circumstances when a wanted murderer, Malcolm McArthur, was found to be staying in his flat. Mr Murray was 38 years old and had just been called to the Inner Bar when Mr Charles Haughey asked him to take the job.
That Haughey-led government only lasted a few months longer but when Mr Haughey returned to power in 1987 he again asked Mr Murray to take the job, and he was chosen again in 1989 when Fianna Fáil went into Coalition with the Progressive Democrats.
From a Limerick family with strong Fianna Fáil connections, he had a consistent interest in politics, being twice elected president of the Union of Students in Ireland.
He qualified as a barrister in 1967, and in the early 1970s he unsuccessfully contested the local elections for Fianna Fáil in Dún Laoghaire.
Early in his career he represented Mr Neil Blaney in the 1970 Arms Trial, and was also part of the State team during the prosecution of Britain in the early 1970s before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for the brutal treatment of detainees.
In 1969 he married Ms Gabrielle Walsh, daughter of Supreme Court judge Brian Walsh. They have a daughter and a son.
Throughout the 1970s he built a successful career in commercial, civil and constitutional law until his first appointment as Attorney General in 1982.
As AG he was responsible for drafting the amendment to the Constitution which guaranteed the right to life of the unborn, equal to that of the mother, and which was passed in the 1983 referendum.
During his second term he refused to grant the extradition to Britain of Father Patrick Ryan on explosives charges because of the prejudicial nature of the publicity about the case in the British media. He also set the scale of fees for counsel in the beef tribunal.
When that Fianna Fáil/PD Government ended he was appointed to the European Court of Justice, a job which at the time carried a salary of €162,526, more than twice the €75,927 salary earned by a High Court judge at the time. He was reappointed to the court in 1997 and in 1999 was appointed to the Supreme Court.
He has held a variety of other positions. He is a member of the Board of the Courts Service, chairman of the Ethical Committee of the European Commission and honorary co-chair of the International Law Institute, Washington DC.
He is a former chairman of the Anti-Fraud Committee of the European Central Bank.