Diarmuid Rossa Phelan

Diarmuid Rossa Phelan is a farmer, senior counsel, professor at the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin, fellow of Trinity College Dublin (TCD),^[1][2] and a former member of TCD's Board, to which he was twice elected.^[3] He was also twice elected Chairman of TCD's Board of Fellows.^[4]

He is a member of the Bar of England and Wales, the Bar of Northern Ireland and the New York State Bar Association.^[2]

He was made called to the bar in 1994 and made senior counsel in 2008.^[2]

He was a counsel for the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources at the Moriarty Tribunal on the issuing of the second GSM licence.^[5]

He represented the companies Phone Paid Services Association Ltd, Modeva Interactive and Zamano Plc before the High Court in 2012.^[6]

He represented several high-profile pro bono actions in referendums and refugees against deportation orders, including in 2017 before the High Court where he represented a mother and two children who were being deported to Nigeria after residing in Ireland for over a decade.^[7]

In October 2008, he spoke at the Oireachtas Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the European Union.^[8]

He has authored many legal articles and books, including Revolt or Revolution: At the Constitutional Boundaries of the European Community (1997) and Basic Community Cases (1997), which he co-authored with Bernard Rudden, Professor of Comparative Law at University of Oxford.^[9]

During the debate over the Thirty-third Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland to establish a Court of Appeal, he suggested that giving the Supreme Court absolute discretion to select which cases to hear was dangerous and would need to be monitored for mission creep.^[10]

On 3 August 2008, he was seriously injured when the car he was in was hit by a car driven by Catherine O'Meara.^[11] After the accident he was cut from the vehicle and taken to Nenagh Hospital.^[11] He suffered from a spinal injury and over a decade later was still being treated.^[11] A court case to determine damages was settled between him and O'Meara.^[11]

He owns mixed organic livestock farms in County Wexford and near Tallaght, County Dublin. The farms run training programs for veterinary and engineering students,^[12]

Keith Conlon was shot at Phelan's farm near Tallaght on 22 February 2022 and died in Tallaght University Hospital two days later.^[12] Phelan was charged with murder and initially denied bail.^[12] He was later granted bail on 8 April after an appeal.^[13] On 14 October 2024 he pleaded not guilty to the murder of Keith Conlon.^[14][15] The trial began two days later in the Central Criminal Court.^[14][16]

The court heard how Phelan had shot a dog he believed to have been worrying his sheep with a Winchester rifle on the day in question, when three men suddenly emerged from nearby woodland and ran towards him shouting threats. Phelan then produced an 8-shot revolver while retreating backwards and warning the men to halt, and when they continued to advance Phelan fired 3 warning shots above their heads in a left-to-right arc, with the final shot hitting Conlon in the back of the head as he turned around to run away. Garda ballistics experts subsequently test-fired the same Smith & Wesson revolver and discovered that over 90% of their shots landed below the point of aim, which defense lawyers argued was a major factor in Conlon being accidentally shot by Phelan.^[17]

On 3 January 2025, Phelan was found not guilty of murder after seven hours of jury deliberations.^[18]