Background
Anthony Dudley was born in 1919, a year when Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom and the struggle for Irish independence was moving into open conflict. His early life belongs to that period of political upheaval, which would soon lead to the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922.
His documented professional life was centred on Dublin, the Irish capital, where he was admitted to practise in 1942 and where the law firm with which he was later associated has its principal office.
Education
Dudley's documented legal qualification is his admission to the bar in Ireland in 1942. Irish legal practice in that period rested on the common-law traditions inherited from the English legal system, and entry to the profession was regulated through Irish professional bodies. Admission marked the point at which a lawyer could practise in the Irish courts and advise clients under Irish law.
Career
Dudley's documented professional career centres on McCann FitzGerald, a Dublin law firm, where he held the position of partner.
The firm traces its roots to the 1820s and took its present form after a 1965 merger. One of its major predecessors, McCann White & FitzGerald, was founded in Dublin in 1947 by Alexis FitzGerald, a solicitor and later Fine Gael senator, who served as the firm's senior partner until his death in 1985.
The firm expanded beyond Dublin in the following decades. It opened an office in Brussels in 1974 and in London in 1986, and it reopened a New York office in 2016, advising on Irish law from these international locations.
