Cearbhall O Dalaigh

Cearbhall O Dalaigh (1911-1978) was an Irish barrister, judge and Fianna Fail politician who served as Chief Justice of Ireland from 1961 to 1973 and, unusually for a jurist, as the fifth President of Ireland from 1974 to 1976. Born in Bray, County Wicklow, he was Attorney General in 1946 to 1948 and 1951 to 1953, becoming the youngest holder of that office, and the youngest ever Supreme Court justice on his appointment in 1953, where he championed constitutional rights and an activist judiciary; he then became Ireland's first judge on the European Court of Justice in 1973 and 1974. He became President of Ireland unexpectedly after the death of Erskine Childers, and resigned in 1976, the first Irish president to do so, after a government minister publicly criticised him for referring emergency legislation to the Supreme Court. He died in 1978. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/