PASSING OF DISTINGUISHED MONAGHAN CRIMINAL LAWYER

20 January 2025 No Comments by The Northern Standard

Much sadness has been evoked in Monaghan by the news of the passing of distinguished Senior Counsel Patrick MacEntee at the age of 89. Mr MacEntee was involved in some of the most significant and high profile criminal trials in recent Irish legal history and was also the author of one of the most important reports into the 1974 bomb – ings in Dublin and Monaghan Town. Born in Monaghan in 1936, Mr MacEntee attended UCD and completed his legal studies at King’s Inns. After initially practising on the Northern Circuit, he established his practice in Dublin during the 1970s and 1980s where he become one of the country’s best known criminal lawyers, featuring in a series of high profile trials and murder cases and appearing regularly before the non-jury Special Criminal Court. It was before the Special Criminal Court that he acted for the defence in the 1978 trial of the accused in the Sallins train robbery, which became the longest running trial in Irish criminal history, arising from the stealing of approximately £200,000 from the Cork to Dublin mail train near Sallins in Co Kildare. Convictions were recorded against the three accused in the case, who alleged that signed confessions were obtained under duress after beatings at the hands of the investigating Gardaí. The men’s convictions were eventually overturned and pardons granted and the case is remembered as one of the most conspicuous miscarriages of justice to have occurred in the Irish legal system…

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