Masters of the Bench

Mary Rose Gearty was appointed to the Irish High Court in 2019 and is the inaugural Director of Judicial Studies in Ireland.  She has responsibility for child abduction cases under the Hague Convention and also hears Judicial Review, Criminal Law and Personal Injury cases. 

Mary Rose attended The Honorable Society of King’s Inns in Dublin and King's College in London. She was called to the Irish Bar in 1992 and took silk in 2009. She has been a Bencher of The Honorable Society of King’s Inns since 2018.   As an elected member of the Bar Council in Ireland for over ten years, she founded the Advanced Advocacy Course for members of the Irish Bar and was one of the first internationally accredited advocacy trainers in Ireland.  Mary Rose established the mentoring programme for women at the Irish Bar and a counselling helpline for barristers in distress.  She is currently the Chairwoman of GEMME, an international association of judges for the promotion of mediation and she chairs the Judicial Sub-committee of the IRLI, an Irish Rule of Law charity, working in Tanzania and elsewhere on projects to enhance the rule of law.