John Larkin

Who is John Larkin?

John Larkin, QC is the Attorney General for Northern Ireland.

Larkin is the first person to hold the office separately since its functions were assumed by the Attorney General for England and Wales in 1972. He is the first holder of the office not to be a politician sitting in either the Parliament of Northern Ireland, at Stormont, or the UK Parliament.

Larkin was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and was educated at St Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School, Belfast, and Queen's University Belfast, where he read law. He was subsequently called to the Bar of Northern Ireland and practised as a barrister.

In the early 1980s he was involved in politics as a member of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, but ceased to be active as his legal career took off. In 1989, at the age of 25, Mr Larkin was appointed as Reid Professor of Criminal Law, Criminology and Penal Law at Trinity College, Dublin. He returned to Northern Ireland in the 1990s to work at the Northern Ireland Bar, specialising in administrative law, civil liberties and human rights, competition and constitutional law, defamation and judicial review.