Retiring Judge’s reflections on a lifetime ruling from the bench
The only hate mail Judge Mary Fahy remembered receiving during her 31 years presiding over District Courts was for the controversial ‘C’ case.
This was a legal case in the late 1990s about whether a thirteen-year-old girl, who became pregnant after being raped by an older man and was suicidal, could be permitted to travel abroad for an abortion.
It came before Judge Fahy, a ‘moveable’ judge sitting mostly in Dublin at the time, who ruled the girl had a right-to-travel – a decision the High Court upheld.
“Both myself and the HSE at the time (Eastern Health Board) did get some hate mail, nothing major. Other than that, I can’t remember any (abuse),” she said during an interview with the Connacht Tribune last Friday, in the Hardiman Hotel, ahead of her retirement last Monday.
The modern-day hate mail for people in public life – including high-profile judges – is social media abuse.
Sharing news articles of court cases on Twitter and Facebook allows trolls to instantly provide sometimes ill-informed and nasty public commentary on rulings, often anonymously.
This does not impact Judge Mary Fahy, though, because apart from WhatsApp and Instagram with her family, she avoids social media.
“If I meet people out on Shop Street or in Dunnes Stores, they often smile and say hello, but I’ve never had anyone abuse me in public, ever; 99.9% of the people are very respectful,” she said.
“For everyday cases, there may be awful stuff on social media, but I don’t get involved because I don’t see it. If one got involved in that, one would never go to work,” she said.
That’s not to say she’s out of touch. Far from it. And she credits her two adult children, Rebecca and Catherine, with keeping her down-to-earth.
“In modern days, people prefer to see their judges as normal – I think I’m normal,” she said.
Caption: Last day…District Court Judge Mary Fahy.
Get the full interview in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.