John MacDermott, Baron MacDermott

The Right Honourable The Lord MacDermott MC, PC, PC (NI)
MacDermott in 1950.
Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland
In office 1951–1971
Preceded by	Sir James Andrews, Bt.
Succeeded by	The Lord Lowry
Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
In office 23 April 1947 – 6 April 1951
Preceded by	The Lord Wright
Succeeded by	The Lord Asquith of Bishopstone
Personal details
Born	John Clarke MacDermott

John Clarke MacDermott, Baron MacDermott, MC, PC, PC (NI) (12 April 1896 – 13 July 1979), was a Northern Irish politician, barrister, and judge who served as Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland. He was the first law lord to be appointed from Northern Ireland.

The son of a Belfast Presbyterian clergyman, MacDermott served with distinction with the British Army on the Western Front during the First World War, winning a Military Cross, before reading Law at the Queen's University of Belfast. After being called to the bar in both Dublin and Belfast, he acquired a busy practice in Northern Ireland, taking silk in 1936. In 1938, he was elected to the Northern Ireland House of Commons as an Ulster Unionist member, rejoined the British Army the following year on the outbreak of the Second World War, and was released from military service in 1941 to enable him to become Minister of Public Security in the Government of Northern Ireland. In 1941, he became Attorney-General for Northern Ireland, serving until his elevation to the Northern Irish High Court in 1944.

In 1947, MacDermott was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and was elevated to the House of Lords. In 1951, he returned to Belfast to become Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, though he continued to sit occasionally in London. He retired in 1977, and in the same year was severely wounded in a terrorist attack whilst delivering a lecture. He died two years later. His son, also John Clarke MacDermott, was a Lord Justice of Appeal in Northern Ireland.

Biography

John Clarke MacDermott was born in Belfast in 1896, the third surviving son and sixth of seven children of the Reverend John MacDermott DD, a Presbyterian clergyman who was minister of Belmont and moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and of his wife Lydia Allen MacDermott (née Wilson), the daughter of a Strabane solicitor. He was educated at Campbell College, Belfast, from where he won a scholarship to read Law at the Queen's University of Belfast in 1914.

During the First World War, he served with the machine gun battalion of the 51st (Highland) Division in France, winning the Military Cross in 1918.

After serving with the Machine Guns Corps in France, Belgium and Germany during the First World War, for which he was awarded the Military Cross and reached the rank of Lieutenant, MacDermott was called to the Bar of Ireland in 1921.

Eight years later he was appointed to determine industrial assurance disputes in Northern Ireland, and in 1931 he became a lecturer in Jurisprudence at Queen's University, teaching for four years.

In 1936 he was made a King's Counsel, and two years later he was elected to the Northern Ireland House of Commons as an Ulster Unionist member for Queen's University.

In 1940, MacDermott was appointed Minister of Public Security in the Government of Northern Ireland, and the following year became the Attorney General for Northern Ireland. He was succeeded in this post by William Lowry, whose son, Lord Lowry, would eventually succeed MacDermott as Lord Chief Justice. In 1944 he resigned his parliamentary seat on appointment as a High Court Judge for Northern Ireland, and three years later, on 23 April 1947 was made a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, becoming a life peer as Baron MacDermott, of Belmont in the City of Belfast.

Lord MacDermott returned from the House of Lords to take up his appointment as Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland; his successors to the latter office have become Law Lords subsequently. Whilst LCJ, he was affectionately known as "the Baron".

In 1977, aged over eighty, Lord MacDermott offered to redeliver a lecture at the Ulster College, which had been interrupted by a bomb meant for him and which had severely wounded him.

Having been made a Northern Ireland Privy Counsellor seven years earlier, Lord MacDermott was sworn of the British Privy Council in 1947.

Four years later, in 1951, he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, a post he held for twenty years. He was also Pro-Chancellor of his alma mater from 1951 to 1969. In 1958, he chaired the commission on the Isle of Man Constitution. He died in 1979.

In 1926, he wed Louise Palmer Johnston, later Lady MacDermott. Their son, Sir John MacDermott, was also sworn into the British Privy Council in 1987, as a Lord Justice of Appeal in Northern Ireland. He later became a Surveillance Commissioner for Northern Ireland.

See also

• List of Northern Ireland Members of the House of Lords

External links

• Works by or about John MacDermott, Baron MacDermott at the Internet Archive
• Portraits of John MacDermott, Baron MacDermott at the National Portrait Gallery, London