John George Gibson

Gibson was the youngest son of William Gibson of Merrion Square, Dublin, and Rockforest, County Tipperary, and his first wife Louisa Grant, daughter of Joseph Grant, barrister, of Dublin. Edward Gibson, 1st Baron Ashbourne, was his elder brother. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin and was called to the bar at the King's Inns, Dublin in 1870.

Gibson was made an Irish Queen's Counsel in 1880, and Third Irish Serjeant in 1885.^[1] In 1885 he was elected Member of Parliament for Liverpool Walton.^[2] He was Solicitor General for Ireland from November 1885 to January 1886 and Attorney-General for Ireland from 1887 to 1888. He resigned his seat in 1888 to become an Irish High Court Judge.

Maurice Healy in his memoir The Old Munster Circuit praises Gibson's charm, eloquence, dignity and sense of fairness, although he rated him below his brother Lord Ashbourne as a lawyer.^[3] Arguably Healy underestimated Gibson as a judge: his judgment in Fox v. Higgins ^[4] remains the definitive analysis of the curious "triangular" employment situation in Ireland involving an individual teacher, the school board and the Minister for Education, and it is still regularly quoted.^[5]