52 Facts About Declan Costello

Declan Costello was an Irish judge, barrister and Fine Gael politician who served as President of the High Court from 1995 to 1998, a Judge of the High Court from 1977 to 1998 and Attorney General of Ireland from 1973 to 1977.

Declan Costello served as a Teachta Dala for the Dublin North-West constituency from 1951 to 1969 and for the Dublin South-West constituency from 1973 to 1977.

The formulator of the Towards a Just Society policy document, Costello was credited with shifting Fine Gael towards the left, a move which made the party a more attractive coalition partner for the Labour Party.

Declan Costello's ideals were later viewed as having been taken up by Garret FitzGerald, who became leader of Fine Gael and was twice Taoiseach.

David Declan Costello was born and grew up in Ballsbridge, Dublin, the son of John A Costello who served as Taoiseach on two occasions, and Ida Mary Costello.

Declan Costello attended the Sacred Heart convent school, Leeson Street, and St Xavier's School, Donnybrook.

Declan Costello was educated at University College Dublin, where he studied Law and Economics from 1943, and was an auditor of the UCD Law Society.

Declan Costello survived the disease but at the cost of one of his kidneys, which would leave him in relative frail health and appearance for the rest of his life.

In 1948, Declan Costello completed his degree, joined the Irish Bar and began practising law in and around Dublin.

Declan Costello was the youngest member of the house at the time, earning him the informal title of Baby of the Dail.

Declan Costello co-founded the Association of Parents and Friends of Mentally Handicapped Children in 1955, and aided in the fund-raising for a daycare centre in 1956 for the education of children who were mentally disabled.

Towards the end of the 1950s, Declan Costello began to assert himself even more in Fine Gael; alongside a growing collection of progressives within the party, Declan Costello founded a monthly political magazine as well as a research and study group focused on developing new policies for the party.

In 1963, Declan Costello found an attempt to change party policy suppressed by the party leadership.

Regardless, in April 1964 Declan Costello broke party protocols and circulated a proposal to radically alter Fine Gael's economic policies.

At this point Declan Costello did not expect his proposal to gain traction within the party; instead, it was to be used as a pretext to leave the party and politics, and to turn to his work as a lawyer.

Declan Costello neither canvassed other party members nor spoke to the press following the circulation of his document.

However, to his surprise, Declan Costello's ideas began to pick up momentum with Fine Gael backbenchers, who had begun to crave a means by which Fine Gael could differentiate itself from Fianna Fail.

Declan Costello began to argue his case with the Fine Gael frontbench, and using his honed debating skills, dominated proceedings.

Declan Costello would go on to expand his initial policy document into a 30,000-word manifesto called Towards a Just Society, which would have a major impact on the party for many decades.

Declan Costello continued his work as a TD for Dublin North-West and came to seek the leadership of Fine Gael to continue his Just Society project.

Declan Costello's opportunity came quickly, as following the 1965 election James Dillon stepped down as leader of the party.

However, Declan Costello was politically outmanoeuvred by Dillon and Sweetman who moved rapidly to place Liam Cosgrave as Dillon's successor and were successful.

Declan Costello was further frustrated by Cosgrave's limp espousal of the Just Society concept.

In February 1967, Declan Costello said that he would not aim for the Dail again and focused on his successful legal work.

In 1972 Declan Costello unsuccessfully defended journalist Kevin O'Kelly against contempt of court charges, arising from a radio interview he conducted with Provisional IRA leader Sean Mac Stiofain.

Declan Costello stood in a different constituency from his previous one, moving to Dublin South-West, but was elected at the 1973 Irish general election.

When Fine Gael returned to government in 1973, Declan Costello was appointed Attorney General under Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave.

Regardless, Declan Costello accepted the position, even though it meant he would earn less money than if he continued his private law practice.

Declan Costello took his cues from John Hume, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, the main nationalist party in Northern Ireland at the time, and like Hume was successful in pushing for very capable all-Ireland establishments.

Declan Costello did so successfully in the courts, but his ultra-aggressive defence of it contributed to the disdain in which Unionists held it, and in turn, they would cause the collapse of the agreement in early 1974.

Declan Costello pushed, unsuccessfully, for family law in Ireland to be updated so that it would be more sympathetic to forsaken wives, mothers who were not married, and out-of-wedlock-born children, as well as other more liberal values.

Declan Costello sought to depoliticise the office of Attorney General and successfully did so in 1975 upon his establishment of the Director of Public Prosecutions's office.

Declan Costello was vocal in his belief that, wherever possible, the Irish state should refuse to extradite Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoners to the United Kingdom.

Declan Costello's stance was born out of his experience in 1973 when he was in charge of Ireland's case with the European Commission of Human Rights being against the UK for the internment and torture of nationalists in Northern Ireland.

Declan Costello had been convinced he needed to establish precedent in international law on the matter, regardless of diplomatic concerns.

For having created the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Law Reform Commission, Declan Costello has been called the "most consequential attorney general in the state's history".

One tendency for which Declan Costello was noted, was for early case decisions as to the rights and wrongs of each party's intentions, and encouraging the applicable barrister to make a satisfactory legal argument.

Declan Costello did not care much for precedent; instead, he favoured "creative use of technicalities" and his decisions were considered all but appeal-proof.

Declan Costello was praised for his speedy but thorough handling of the investigation.

In 1985 Declan Costello upheld the firing of Eileen Flynn, an unmarried woman who had given birth to a child while working as a teacher at a Catholic-run school.

Declan Costello ultimately supported the nuns who ran the school and their contention that Flynn's "conduct was capable of damaging" their efforts to uphold Catholic "norms of behaviour".

In 1989, Declan Costello ruled on matters involving "the limits of judicial authority".

In O'Reilly v Limerick Corporation, Costello ruled that the courts could not adjudicate over the state's distribution of public resources, as this required specialist knowledge.

In 1993, Declan Costello ruled "that the Office of Public Works was not exempt from the planning process".

Declan Costello held "that the certainty of the fetus dying in an abortion outweighed the possibility of a suicide", and granted the injunction.

Declan Costello's ruling was opined to be in breach of European law, which "protects the right to travel for services lawfully provided" in other EU countries, although an official ruling on that thinking was avoided.

Declan Costello's final act as a public figure was "to head an inquiry into the tax evasion conspiracy directed by the Guinness and Mahon Bank".

Declan Costello has been described as a "devotee" of the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, a believer that "human rights existed to serve the common good rather than individual autonomy".

Declan Costello had befriended Father Joseph Leonard, an elderly priest who lived in Drumcondra, Dublin.

Bouvier wrote to Leonard that Declan Costello "sounds like absolute heaven" and that he would make a "suitable" husband.

However, the match was never to come about as Bouvier continued her travels onwards to Scotland, and later returned to the United States while Declan Costello married Joan Fitzsimons in 1953.

Declan Costello died on 6 June 2011 in Rathfarnham, Dublin following a long illness.