Gazette 100 years of women in the profession

Throughout 2023, the Law Society Gazette will be celebrating the achievements of women in law over the past century with a series of profiles.

Joan M Macaulay – career woman

Joan M Macaulay was born in 15 September 1921. On qualification, she worked with Gerard Sweetman in GD Fottrell & Son in Dublin, and then with Philip Smith in Louis CP Smith & Co, Cavan. Throughout her career, she also advised prominent representative associations of the farming community, including Macra na Feirme and the IFA and in the early 1980s, she was appointed as a District Court judge. 

First woman president Moya Quinlan honoured

The Law Society has marked the enduring legacy of its first female president, Moya Quinlan,
by naming its main lecture theatre in her honour.

Moya Quinlan – first female president

Moya Quinlan (née Dixon) was born on 28 June 1920. Moya became the first female Council member of the Law Society of Ireland in 1969 and was re-elected for the next 45 years. She played a key role in the acquisition of the Law Society’s premises at Blackhall Place and became the Society’s first female president in 1980/81.

Frances Mary Callan – ‘truly an icon’

Frances Mary Callan (known as Mary) was born in 1920, the daughter of Christopher E Callan, solicitor, Boyle, Co Roscommon, and Mollie Dillon-Leetch (the third female barrister in Ireland). Mary served her apprenticeship in her father’s firm and was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors on 17 December 1948.

First female District Court judge - Eileen Kennedy

Eileen Kennedy, Ireland’s first female District Court judge, was from Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan. The daughter of solicitor PJ Kennedy, she was educated at St Louis Convent, Carrickmacross, and UCD.

MacBride sisters put Mayo on the map - Clohra and Sheila MacBride

This month, the Gazette looks at the interesring life of Mayo’s MacBride sisters, Clohra and Sheila, proved a remarkable ‘double-act’, with both achieving their own ‘firsts’. Clohra MacBride was the 7th woman solicitor on the Roll and her sister Sheila MacBride was 41st.

Lasting legal legacy - Moya O'Connor

Mayo woman Moya O’Connor was admitted to the Roll of Solicitors in 1941 and joined the family firm. The Gazette delves into her legal legacy and how it has inspired her four nephews and two grand-nephews to follow in her footsteps.

Ireland’s first Jewish female solicitor - Beatrice Mushatt

The Gazette continues its series marking the centenary of the first women in Ireland to qualify as solicitors. Beatrice Mushatt was the daughter of Jewish Lithuanian parents who fled the Russian pogroms at the end of the 19th century. On 30 April 1944, she became the first Jewish woman to qualify as a solicitor in Ireland.

An Early entrance - Helena Mary Early

Helena Mary Early was the second woman solicitor to be entered on the Roll of Solicitors – but the first woman to be admitted in the new Free State. The March Gazette sheds light on her accomplished oratory, her stint as the first woman auditor of the Solicitors’ Apprentices’ Debating Society, and much more.

The Change Agent - Rose Wall

In the Jan/Feb Gazette, Gordon Smith speaks to Community Law and Mediation CEO Rose Wall about using the law as a tool for climate justice, and her work in the field of social justice and human-rights law.