Colm Condon

Who was Colm Condon?

Colm Condon was Attorney General of Ireland from 1965 until 1973. He served in office during the beginning of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s.

He was born in Ashbourne, County Meath, the third son of Thomas Condon, an accountant and Irish Republican Army activist, who had taken part in the 1916 Easter Rising. His mother was Margaret McGuire, a teacher in Ashbourne. Thomas Condon was also briefly a senator representing the Fianna Fáil party as well as having been a member of Meath County Council.

Condon was educated at Terenure College in Dublin and subsequently at University College Dublin. He practised cases including those involving defamation and personal injury.

Condon was called to the Bar in 1944 and became a senior counsel in 1959. He was appointed as attorney general, serving under Taoiseach Sean Lemass. He remained in office under Lemass's successor, Jack Lynch. He argued on behalf of the State during the 1970 Arms Trial which involved future Taoiseach Charles Haughey.

In 1972 he helped draft legislation that set up the Special Criminal Court.

In 1997 Condon appeared before the Moriarty Tribunal in which he sided with Haughey challenging the powers of the tribunal.