Richard Dowse


Richard Dowse PC was an Irish politician, barrister and judge, who was reputed to be the wittiest Parliamentary orator of his time.

Background

He was born in Dungannon, County Tyrone, eldest son of William Dowse and Maria Donaldson. He was educated at the Royal School Dungannon and the University of Dublin. He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1849 and was called to the Irish Bar in 1852. After practicing for some years on the North-Western Circuit, he became Queen's Counsel in 1863 and Third Serjeant in 1867.

Later career

He was elected as Member of Parliament for Londonderry City at the 1868 general election. He was appointed a Baron of the Court of Exchequer in 1872, having served briefly as Attorney-General and Solicitor-General for Ireland
Dowse resided at 38 Mountjoy Square in Dublin's north city centre.
He died suddenly while holding the assizes in Tralee, County Kerry in March 1890.

Family

On 29 December 1852, he married Catherine, daughter of George Moore of Clones.
She died in 1874.

Reputation

He was considered one of the finest and wittiest Parliamentary speakers of the age, and had the ability to crush an opposing speaker. When John Thomas Ball, a future Lord Chancellor of Ireland, asked for the date of a certain event, Dowse replied gravely that he did not have the precise date, but he thought it was about the time when Ball changed his political allegiance in the hope of getting into the House of Commons.
By comparison with his political speeches, his judgements are generally rather dull, and have little value as precedents. He never had much reputation as a lawyer, although he had the virtues of common sense, clarity and simplicity. Delaney refers to a complex habeas corpus application which Dowse disposed of by saying simply "I'm afraid the prisoner must remain in gaol, and he occasionally showed a touch of his celebrated wit in his judgements.
Maurice Healy tells the story of a later judge who refused to follow a judgement of Dowse's, saying unkindly that "the learned Baron was always better known for his wit than his law". Counsel then embarrassed the judge by pointing out that the House of Lords had given an identical judgment.

Legacy

His obituary notice in The Times of 15 March 1890, read
On his retirement from the House of Commons, Punch magazine published a warm tribute to a man whose humour had been "like an oasis in the desert".
Elrington Ball described him as a man who combined great wit with incisive intelligence and a knowledge of the world.