Robert Lynd Erskine Lowry, Baron Lowry, PC,

PC (NI) PC or pc may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Player character or playable character, a fictional character controlled by a human player, usually in role-playing games or computer games * ''Port Charles'', an American daytime TV soap opera * ...

(30 January 1919 – 15 January 1999), was a

Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland The Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland is a judge who is the appointed official holding office as President of the Courts of Northern Ireland and is head of the Judiciary of Northern Ireland. The present Lord Chief Justice of Northern Irel ...

and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. Knighted in 1971, he was created a life peer as Baron Lowry, of

Crossgar Crossgar () is a village and townland in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is about south of Belfast – between Saintfield and Downpatrick. Crossgar had a population 1,892 people in the 2011 UK Census. History Crossgar has had an inter ...

in the County of Down, on 18 July 1979, in the early months of the Thatcher government.

Early life

His father was former

Ulster Unionist The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) is a unionist political party in Northern Ireland. The party was founded in 1905, emerging from the Irish Unionist Alliance in Ulster. Under Edward Carson, it led unionist opposition to the Irish Home Rule movem ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

ODNB and Attorney General for

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

William Lowry The Rt Hon. William Lowry, PC (NI), KC (19 March 1884 – 14 December 1949), was a Northern Irish barrister, judge, Ulster Unionist Party Member of Parliament, and Attorney General for Northern Ireland Career Born in Limavady, he was educated ...

. His mother was a niece of

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...

activist, Robert Wilson Lynd.''Obituary: Lord Lowry'';

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

; 18 January 1999 He attended the

Royal Belfast Academical Institution The Royal Belfast Academical Institution is an independent grammar school in Belfast, Northern Ireland. With the support of Belfast's leading reformers and democrats, it opened its doors in 1814. Until 1849, when it was superseded by what today is ...

and

Jesus College, Cambridge Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...

, where he read Classics, achieving a double first.

Military

During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, he fought with the

Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers was an Irish line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 until 1968. The regiment was formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment of Foot and the 108th Regiment o ...

in Tunisia, followed by the Royal Irish Fusiliers before becoming a Major in 1945. He has since held the title of Honorary

Colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge o ...

for * 38th Irish Infantry Brigade - 5th Battalion and 7th Battalion *

Royal Irish Rangers The Royal Irish Rangers (27th (Inniskilling), 83rd and 87th) was a regular infantry regiment of the British Army with a relatively short existence, formed in 1968 and later merged with the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1992 to form the Royal Iris ...

- 5th (Volunteer) Battalion

Law

He was admitted to the

Bar of Northern Ireland The Bar of Northern Ireland is the professional association of barristers for Northern Ireland, with over 600 members. It is based in the Bar Library, beside the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast, together with the Bar Council of Northern Irel ...

in 1947. He was a High Court Judge in Northern Ireland from 1964 until he became

in 1971, when he was also made a Northern Ireland Privy Counsellor. Prior to the

Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 The Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which abolished the death penalty for murder in Northern Ireland, and established the Diplock courts in which terrorist offences were tried by ...

coming into force, Lowry excluded confessions made by

Provisional Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...

(IRA) suspects in

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

detention on the grounds that they were not made voluntarily. The introduction of the Act reduced the scope of what was inadmissible. Lowry did not exclude self-incriminating evidence alone as insufficient to convict upon, and in ''R v. Gorman'' he found that the Northern Ireland Act 1972 s. 1, by retrospectively validating the conferment of powers of arrest under the regulations, rendered lawful the otherwise unlawful arrest and subsequent detention of Gorman. Lowry was unable to implement Article 7 of the

European Convention on Human Rights The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by ...

(ECHR), as it was not incorporated into UK law until the Human Rights Act 1998. In 1975, Lowry was appointed by

Merlyn Rees Merlyn Merlyn-Rees, Baron Merlyn-Rees, (né Merlyn Rees; 18 December 1920 – 5 January 2006) was a British Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament from 1963 until 1992. He served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1974–197 ...

to chair the

Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention The Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention (NICC) was an elected body set up in 1975 by the United Kingdom Labour government of Harold Wilson as an attempt to deal with constitutional issues surrounding the status of Northern Ireland. F ...

, an unsuccessful attempt to replace the collapsed

Sunningdale Agreement The Sunningdale Agreement was an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland. The agreement was signed at Sunningdale Park located in Sunningdale, Berkshire, on 9 December 1973. Unioni ...

. In 1977,

John Hume John Hume (18 January 19373 August 2020) was an Irish nationalist politician from Northern Ireland, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the recent political history of Ireland, as one of the architects of the Northern Ire ...

challenged a regulation under the 1922 Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act (Northern Ireland), which allowed any soldier to disperse an assembly of three or more people. Lowry held the regulation was ''

ultra vires ('beyond the powers') is a Latin phrase used in law to describe an act which requires legal authority but is done without it. Its opposite, an act done under proper authority, is ('within the powers'). Acts that are may equivalently be termed ...

'' under Section 4 of the

Government of Ireland Act 1920 The Government of Ireland Act 1920 (10 & 11 Geo. 5 c. 67) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill ...

which forbade the

Parliament of Northern Ireland The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore ord ...

from making laws in respect of the British Army. In 1980, Lowry partly excused the actions of two Royal Ulster Constabulary members of the Glennane gang convicted of murder and bombing by saying they acted under the "powerful motive... that more than ordinary police work was justified to rid the land of the pestilence which had been in existence". This was criticised by the

Historical Enquiries Team The Historical Enquiries Team was a unit of the Police Service of Northern Ireland set up in September 2005 to investigate the 3,269 unsolved murders committed during the Troubles, specifically between 1968 and 1998. It was wound up in Septembe ...

of the

Police Service of Northern Ireland The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI; ga, Seirbhís Póilíneachta Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ') is the police force that serves Northern Ireland. It is the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) after it was reform ...

as "difficult to conceive of a statement more fundamentally flawed or calculated to destroy the confidence of a large section of the community in the court's independence and probity". Lowry presided over some of the

Diplock court Diplock courts were criminal courts in Northern Ireland for non-jury trial of specified serious crimes ("scheduled offences"). They were introduced by the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973, used for political crime, political an ...

cases. He also presided over the supergrass trial in 1983 where Kevin McGrady, a former IRA member, gave evidence which led to the conviction of seven out of ten defendants. As a result, Lowry became an IRA target, narrowly missing death on at least three occasions. In 1982, having just survived a hail of IRA bullets, he proceeded to give a planned lecture at

Queen's University, Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

. He was an honorary

Bencher A bencher or Master of the Bench is a senior member of an Inn of Court in England and Wales or the Inns of Court in Northern Ireland, or the Honorable Society of King's Inns in Ireland. Benchers hold office for life once elected. A bencher ca ...

of the King's Inns,

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

, and of the

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn ...

, and he was a

Law Lord Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, commonly known as Law Lords, were judges appointed under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 to the British House of Lords, as a committee of the House, effectively to exercise the judicial functions of the House o ...

Personal life

Lord Lowry married twice: *Mary Martin (d. 1987), in 1948, with whom he had three daughters (Sheila, Anne and Margaret). * Barbara Calvert, Lady Lowry QC, in 1994 (daughter of Albert Parker CBE). She died in 2015.Barbara Calvert QC (Lady Lowry)
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowry, Robert Lynd Erskine 1919 births 1999 deaths Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge British Army personnel of World War II High Court judges of Northern Ireland Knights Bachelor Law lords Lord chief justices of Northern Ireland Members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Members of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland Lawyers from Belfast People educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers officers Royal Irish Fusiliers officers Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Northern Ireland King's Counsel

Early life

Military

Law

Personal life

See also

References