A. M. Sullivan (barrister) facts for kids
Alexander Martin Sullivan, often called The Last Serjeant, was an important Irish lawyer. He was born on January 14, 1871, and passed away on January 9, 1959. He is most famous for being the main lawyer defending Roger Casement in a very important legal case in 1916. He was the very last lawyer in Ireland or England to hold the special title of Serjeant-at-law.
Growing Up and Education
Alexander Martin Sullivan was born in Dublin, Ireland. His father was A M Sullivan. Young Alexander went to several schools, including Beaumont College, Ushaw College, and Belvedere College. He also studied at Trinity College Dublin and King's Inns to become a lawyer. In 1892, he officially became a lawyer in Ireland. He then worked on legal cases in the Munster area of Ireland.
A Career in Law
Sullivan became a senior lawyer, known as an Irish KC, in 1908. He later received special legal titles like King's Third Serjeant in 1912, Second Serjeant in 1913, and First Serjeant in 1919. He was the last person to hold this top Serjeant position.
He supported a moderate form of Irish nationalism and was part of the Irish Parliamentary Party. During the First World War, Sullivan strongly encouraged Irishmen to join the British army. Because he disagreed with the Sinn Féin republican movement and handled many legal cases for the government during the Irish War of Independence, he faced danger in 1920. In April 1921, his home in Rosscarbery, County Cork, was destroyed.
After this, Sullivan moved to England in 1921. He started a new legal career there, having already joined the Middle Temple in 1899. He became a leader and Treasurer at Middle Temple. Even though the Serjeant rank no longer existed in England, people still called him Serjeant Sullivan out of respect.
He remained a member of the Irish legal community. He even returned to Dublin in 1923 for a famous case called Croker v Croker. In this case, the children of "Boss" Croker, a former leader of Tammany Hall, tried to change their father's will. Their father had left all his money to their stepmother.
The Casement Legal Case
In 1916, Alexander Sullivan was chosen as the main lawyer to defend Sir Roger Casement. No English lawyer wanted to take Casement's case. Sullivan was convinced to help by George Gavan Duffy, whose wife was Sullivan's sister. Even though Sullivan was a top lawyer in Ireland, he was considered a less experienced lawyer in England at that time.
The facts of the case were mostly clear. So, Sullivan focused on a technical legal argument. He argued that an old law from 1351 only applied to actions done "within the realm" (inside the country), not outside it. Casement wanted him to discuss bigger ideas, but Sullivan stuck to this specific legal point. However, over many years, judges had expanded how this law was understood. Both the trial judges and the appeals court rejected Sullivan's argument. Casement famously commented on the legal details, saying it was like "hanging a man’s life upon a comma."
Books and Later Life
Sullivan wrote two books about his experiences: Old Ireland in 1927 and The Last Serjeant in 1952. He stopped working as a lawyer in 1949. He then moved back to Ireland to live out his final years. He lived on Greenmount Road in Terenure, Dublin. In 1900, he married Helen Kelley, whose father was Major John Kelley from Brooklyn, New York. They had children.
