| Sources |
- [S709] Obituary - Peter Smithwick, (Independent), https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/obituary-peter-smithwick-judge-who-led-tribunal-into-murder-of-ruc-men-after-they-left-dundalk-garda-station-41440398.html.
Judge Peter Smithwick KM, who has died at the age of 85 , led a tribunal of inquiry into suggestions that members of An Garda Síochána or other state employees colluded in the fatal shooting of two senior officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) who had just come from a meeting with gardaí on the other side of the Border.
A member of the Kilkenny brewing family, Peter Alexander Smithwick was born on February 15, 1937, and grew up in the country residence of Kilcreene Lodge ? as a youngster he is said to have witnessed Hollywood legend and family friend James Cagney dancing on the parquet floor during a visit.
Peter started school at the Loreto Convent in Kilkenny at about three years of age, moving at age six to a boarding prep-school also run by nuns in Wicklow.
In an interview with Maurice O'Keeffe for the Irish Life and Lore oral history archive, he recalls being instructed, when sending letters home: 'Do not write ?Mister' to
your father on the envelope, your father is a Squire ? ?Mister' is his gardener!'
He spent six years from age 11 in Castleknock College and wanted to go on to Trinity College Dublin but, because of the Catholic Church ban at the time on its adherents attending TCD, he went to University College Dublin instead, where he became an enthusiastic debater at the Literary and Historical (L&H) Society.
Having qualified as a solicitor, he returned to Kilkenny at the age of 21 to work in his father Walter's law practice. After a few years he also became a non-executive director at the family brewery.
He campaigned for Fianna Fáil in the 1960 Carlow-Kilkenny by-election, won by the party's candidate, Patrick Teehan.
Smithwick remained active in the party for about 10 years and was elected several times to its national executive.
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He also got elected as a councillor for one term but couldn't secure a nomination to run for the Dáil. 'I would not have been very good at glad-handing and being ?Hail-fellow-well-met' to everybody,' he recalled.
He had greater success in his legal career, being appointed to the District Court in 1988, a job he loved. Later in the same year, he applied for promotion to District Court president and was somewhat surprised when he got the job.
A few years later, he was appointed to the non-jury Special Criminal Court, which deals with activities of illegal paramilitary groups and organised crime gangs.
He found it 'fascinating', although there were grim aspects to it, as well as the need for personal security precautions ('not that I received any threats or any problems during my time there'). He also sat on the Circuit Court where juries were part of the structure.
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In 2005 he was appointed as chairman and sole member of a tribunal of inquiry into the events surrounding the deaths of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and his RUC colleague Supt Bob Buchanan, who were shot and killed shortly after they crossed the Border into Northern Ireland on March 20, 1989, following a meeting at Dundalk garda station in Co Louth.
The IRA admitted responsibility for the killings.
Describing his role in heading what came to be known as the Smithwick Tribunal, he told the Irish Life and Lore archive at the time: 'I have to try and find out was there some mole within the Garda Síochána in 1989 who gave the tip-off to the IRA to murder two RUC officers going back over the Border after a meeting with senior guards in Dundalk. It's going to be very difficult to find out if that happened.'
Public hearings took place in Dublin and in his report, issued in December 2013, Judge Smithwick said he was 'satisfied there was collusion in the murders' and, although nobody was identified, 'the evidence points to the fact that there was someone within the garda station assisting the IRA'.
A Knight of the Order of Malta (KM), he was elected as president of the charity's Irish Association from 2000 until 2009.
In a tribute, the order said he 'epitomised Christian chivalry in a world that needs it'.
He was also a freeman of the city of Kilkenny.
Peter Smithwick died on March 8 and is survived by his wife Deirdre, their daughters Thalia and Aoife, grandchildren Diarmuid, Oisín, Isabel, Nicky and Marina and his sister Judy.
Requiem mass took place in St Mary's Cathedral last Friday morning, followed by interment in the grounds of St Canice's Cathedral. His brother, retired commercial solicitor Paul Smithwick OBE, died last month aged 76.
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1937 - 2022 (85 years)
