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James Creed Meredith AI simulator
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James Creed Meredith AI simulator
(@James Creed Meredith_simulator)
James Creed Meredith
James Creed Meredith (28 November 1875 – 14 August 1942) was an Irish judge who served as a Judge of the Supreme Court from 1937 to 1942 and a Judge of the High Court from 1924 to 1937. He was best known as a nationalist of the early 20th century who upheld Brehon Law. He was President of the Dáil Courts and a Chief Judicial Commissioner of Ireland.
He was selected by the League of Nations to oversee the 1935 Saar status referendum. He was also a noted scholar, philosopher and author, whose 1911 translation of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgement is still widely used by students today. In 1896, he won the British championship for the Quarter mile race. He was the grandfather of the bronze casting sculptor Rowan Gillespie.
Creed Meredith was born at 17 Lower Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, in 1875. He was the son of Sir James Creed Meredith and Ellen Graves Meredith (1848–1919), his father's third wife and the daughter of his father's first cousin, Rev Richard Graves Meredith (1810–1871), of Timoleague, County Cork, elder brother of Sir William Collis Meredith and Edmund Allen Meredith. James was a nephew of Sir Edward Newenham Meredith (1776-1865), 9th Bt, and a brother of Ralph Creed Meredith and Llewellyn Meredith (1883–1967). He was a cousin of Richard Edmund Meredith, Master of the Rolls in Ireland.
Meredith was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, receiving a master's degree. In 1896, while a student at Trinity, he became the British Quarter Mile Champion, running the distance in 52 seconds and beating Fitzherbert of Cambridge, the championship holder. Coincidentally, his future brother-in-law, Howard Meredith Percy (1879–1902), won for Canada the inter-collegiate championship in the half-mile and mile runs when at McGill University. After university, Meredith began a legal career, becoming a barrister.
In 1914, Meredith had approached Sir Thomas Myles to use his yacht, the Chotah, to land guns for the Irish Volunteers at Kilcoole. Meredith himself helped out aboard the Chotah during the operation with his friends Erskine Childers and Edward Conor Marshall O'Brien. Meredith was unusual amongst Protestants and graduates of Trinity College, Dublin, the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin of his era, in that he was an active supporter of Sinn Féin and the revolutionary Dáil government between 1919 and 1922. He served as the Dáil Supreme Court president from 1920 to 1922.
Although a republican – with a small 'r' – Meredith became a pacifist and a member of the Irish Proportional Representation Society. He was a founding member of the United Irish League along with fellow pacifist and writer Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, the painter Dermod O'Brien, William O'Brien, M.P. and Michael Davitt. In 1917, Meredith campaigned with George William Russell and Sir Horace Plunkett for the establishment of the Irish Convention in an attempt to find a way around the Unionist stonewall against self-government.
After Sinn Féin's landslide victory in the 1918 general election, and the unilateral declaration of independence, the Dáil appointed Meredith to chair a committee of lawyers to draw up a constitution for the newly declared Irish Republic, working closely with his cousin, Arthur Francis Carew Meredith, K.C. Two years later the new Dáil Courts system was set up to replace the English-law based court system. Meredith was appointed President of the Irish Supreme Court over Arthur Clery because he was by then a King's Counsel (a senior barrister).
After the War of Independence, some Dáil deputies[who?] argued that elements of the Brehon law should be incorporated into the legal system of the new State. Meredith was among those who supported this view. In 1920, on an appeal by a deserted wife and child seeking compensation or support from her husband, Meredith pronounced that English Law was retrograde in this matter and that he would give his judgment by the spirit of Brehon Law. He awarded the woman compensation and thus became the last known Irish judge to appeal to the ancient Irish law system. However, Laurence Ginnell and others in the judiciary who supported this initiative of reviving aspects of Brehon Law took the losing anti-Treaty side during the subsequent Civil War (1922–23), and so the project came to nothing.
James Creed Meredith
James Creed Meredith (28 November 1875 – 14 August 1942) was an Irish judge who served as a Judge of the Supreme Court from 1937 to 1942 and a Judge of the High Court from 1924 to 1937. He was best known as a nationalist of the early 20th century who upheld Brehon Law. He was President of the Dáil Courts and a Chief Judicial Commissioner of Ireland.
He was selected by the League of Nations to oversee the 1935 Saar status referendum. He was also a noted scholar, philosopher and author, whose 1911 translation of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Judgement is still widely used by students today. In 1896, he won the British championship for the Quarter mile race. He was the grandfather of the bronze casting sculptor Rowan Gillespie.
Creed Meredith was born at 17 Lower Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, in 1875. He was the son of Sir James Creed Meredith and Ellen Graves Meredith (1848–1919), his father's third wife and the daughter of his father's first cousin, Rev Richard Graves Meredith (1810–1871), of Timoleague, County Cork, elder brother of Sir William Collis Meredith and Edmund Allen Meredith. James was a nephew of Sir Edward Newenham Meredith (1776-1865), 9th Bt, and a brother of Ralph Creed Meredith and Llewellyn Meredith (1883–1967). He was a cousin of Richard Edmund Meredith, Master of the Rolls in Ireland.
Meredith was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, receiving a master's degree. In 1896, while a student at Trinity, he became the British Quarter Mile Champion, running the distance in 52 seconds and beating Fitzherbert of Cambridge, the championship holder. Coincidentally, his future brother-in-law, Howard Meredith Percy (1879–1902), won for Canada the inter-collegiate championship in the half-mile and mile runs when at McGill University. After university, Meredith began a legal career, becoming a barrister.
In 1914, Meredith had approached Sir Thomas Myles to use his yacht, the Chotah, to land guns for the Irish Volunteers at Kilcoole. Meredith himself helped out aboard the Chotah during the operation with his friends Erskine Childers and Edward Conor Marshall O'Brien. Meredith was unusual amongst Protestants and graduates of Trinity College, Dublin, the sole constituent college of the University of Dublin of his era, in that he was an active supporter of Sinn Féin and the revolutionary Dáil government between 1919 and 1922. He served as the Dáil Supreme Court president from 1920 to 1922.
Although a republican – with a small 'r' – Meredith became a pacifist and a member of the Irish Proportional Representation Society. He was a founding member of the United Irish League along with fellow pacifist and writer Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, the painter Dermod O'Brien, William O'Brien, M.P. and Michael Davitt. In 1917, Meredith campaigned with George William Russell and Sir Horace Plunkett for the establishment of the Irish Convention in an attempt to find a way around the Unionist stonewall against self-government.
After Sinn Féin's landslide victory in the 1918 general election, and the unilateral declaration of independence, the Dáil appointed Meredith to chair a committee of lawyers to draw up a constitution for the newly declared Irish Republic, working closely with his cousin, Arthur Francis Carew Meredith, K.C. Two years later the new Dáil Courts system was set up to replace the English-law based court system. Meredith was appointed President of the Irish Supreme Court over Arthur Clery because he was by then a King's Counsel (a senior barrister).
After the War of Independence, some Dáil deputies[who?] argued that elements of the Brehon law should be incorporated into the legal system of the new State. Meredith was among those who supported this view. In 1920, on an appeal by a deserted wife and child seeking compensation or support from her husband, Meredith pronounced that English Law was retrograde in this matter and that he would give his judgment by the spirit of Brehon Law. He awarded the woman compensation and thus became the last known Irish judge to appeal to the ancient Irish law system. However, Laurence Ginnell and others in the judiciary who supported this initiative of reviving aspects of Brehon Law took the losing anti-Treaty side during the subsequent Civil War (1922–23), and so the project came to nothing.