While it is only to be expected that lawyers and their organisations will welcome the appointment of a new Chief Justice, there is no mistaking the genuine warmth with which they speak of Mr Justice Ronan Keane.
Both the Bar Council and the Law Society issued statements warmly welcoming his appointment, stressing not only his intellectual ability and knowledge of the law but also his humanity and integrity.
These views are shared by individual lawyers, and rarely has there been so much unanimity across the political spectrum in the Law Library over an appointment.
"It would have been a travesty if he was not appointed," said a senior counsel with Fine Gael sympathies. "He is the outstanding lawyer of the Court. If you had a poll of barristers he would have been the overwhelming choice."
"He was a brilliant student and a very distinguished lawyer," said another senior counsel. "He's an intellectual, absolutely at home with ideas. He was by far the best ever president of the Law Reform Commission. He is interested in jurisprudence, that is the important thing about him."
Yet another senior counsel said: "He is a naturally brilliant judge, a lawyers' lawyer. Ronan Keane is a thinker and a scholar."
His appointment is the culmination of a distinguished judicial career. He was appointed a High Court judge in 1979, at the age of 47, nine years after being called to the Inner Bar. He presided over the Stardust Inquiry in 1981, and was president of the Law Reform Commission from 1987 to 1992.
During his term of office the commission produced several ground-breaking reports, including one on the sexual abuse of children and one on libel.
He did not hesitate to urge legislative reform on governments, and was one of the first advocates of the mandatory reporting of child sex abuse, in 1989.
He also criticised the then government for failing to clarify the law on nullity, and as recently as 1997 criticised successive governments for failing to introduce legislation on abortion.
Mr Justice Keane is also the author of several authoritative text-books, on subjects including local government, trusts and company law.
In the High Court he was, according to a senior counsel who appeared before him, exemplary; he would totally master all the detail of a complex technical case. "He could bend his mind to anything. He would sit silently, he is not an interventionist. He would then identify what the issues were."
He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1996 and, in the words of one senior counsel, "really flourished there." His judgments were on issues including the rights of refugees and the freedom of the press.
In May last year he delivered the Supreme Court judgment that part of the Aliens Act was unconstitutional, on the grounds that the Oireachtas could not assign its policy-making role to the Minister for Justice.
In it he criticised the power conferred on officials, saying: "The increasing recourse to delegated legislation throughout this century has given rise to an understandable concern that parliamentary democracy is being steadily subverted and crucial decision-making powers vested in unelected officials."
While he ruled that an article in The Irish Times on a Dublin criminal, Eamon Kelly, published after conviction but before sentence, was in contempt of court, he also over-ruled restrictions placed by a judge on the reporting of a Cork drugs trials. In that judgment he stressed the role of the media as the "eyes and ears of the public in the courts."
At a personal level he is described as rather shy, very pleasant, modest - "though he has nothing to be modest about," added one barrister. He is also described as witty and charming, enjoying the company of a group of close friends.
His shyness may have been intensified by the public exposure of his private life through the revelations of his estranged wife, Ms Terry Keane. Earlier this year she spoke on The Late Late Show, and wrote in the Sunday Times, about her relationship with the former Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey.
In her Sunday Times article she suggested that her husband's appointment to the High Court bench by the then Taoiseach, Mr Jack Lynch, had been orchestrated by Mr Haughey. However, this was denied by Mr Michael O'Kennedy, who was then a colleague of Mr Justice Keane at the Bar, and who spoke in Cabinet in favour of his appointment.
Mr O'Kennedy: "He was highly respected. He was chairman of the Bar Council. He had a considerable reputation . . . so when his name was mentioned I was very happy to convey . . . that in my view his appointment would be very highly regarded at the Bar." His colleagues concurred with this view yesterday.