Background
Pennefather was born in Tipperary, the second son of William Pennefather of Knockeevan, member of the Irish House of Commons for Cashel and his wife Ellen Moore, daughter of Edward Moore, Archdeacon of Emly.
Pennefather was born in Tipperary, the second son of William Pennefather of Knockeevan, member of the Irish House of Commons for Cashel and his wife Ellen Moore, daughter of Edward Moore, Archdeacon of Emly.
He went to school in Clonmel and graduated from the University of Dublin.
He was called to the Irish Bar in 1795 and was made a King"s Counsel by 1816. He was very briefly Attorney-General for Ireland in 1830. He was Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1835 and again in 1841.
In the latter year he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Queen"s Bench for Ireland and held the position until he resigned on health grounds in 1846.
According to Elrington Ball, Pennefather was considered to be one of the greatest Irish advocates of his time, and one with few rivals in any age, but he did not live up to expectations as a judge, due largely to his age and ill-health. As a judge he was notable mainly for presiding at the trial of Daniel O"Connell in 1843 for sedition, where his alleged bias against the accused damaged his reputation.
Further damage was done by the majority decision of the House of Lords quashing the verdict in the O"Connell case: while many of the errors were the fault of the prosecution, the Law Lords did not spare Pennefather for his conduct of the proceedings. The Law Lords commented severely that the course of the trial, if condoned, would make a mockery of trial by jury in Ireland.
A related trial, of Sir John Grey, descended into farce when the Attorney-General for Ireland, Sir Thomas Cusack-Smith, who was noted for his hot temper, challenged one of the defence counsel Gerald Fitzgibbon to a duel, for having allegedly accused him of improper motives.
Pennefather told the Attorney General severely that a man in his position had no excuse for such conduct, whereupon the Attorney General agreed to let the matter drop.