Paget Bourke
Sir Paget John Bourke, SC (1906–7 November 1983) was an Irish-born barrister and British colonial judge who became chief justice of Sierra Leone and Cyprus.
He was the son of H. C. Bourke of Amana, Ballina, County Mayo. He studied at Mount St Mary’s College, Chesterfield, and Trinity College, Dublin, earning a BA and LLB. He was called to the Irish Bar at King's Inns in 1928.
In 1933 Bourke joined the Colonial Legal Service as Legal Adviser and Crown Prosecutor in the Seychelles, where he sat on the Executive and Legislative Councils. He then worked in Palestine as Chief Magistrate in 1936, Relieving President of a District Court in 1941, and President of a District Court in 1945. He served as a Judge of the Supreme Court of Kenya in 1946, then as Chief Justice of Sierra Leone from 1955 to 1957 and Chief Justice of Cyprus from 1957 to 1960. He was called to the English Bar at Gray’s Inn in 1957 and was knighted that year.
After retiring from the Colonial Service, he returned to Dublin and became Senior Counsel at the Irish Bar in 1961. From 1965 he served part-time as a judge of the Courts of Appeal for the Bahamas and Bermuda, and Belize from 1968, serving as president of these courts from 1970 to 1975. He was also a Justice of Appeal in Gibraltar from 1970 to 1976, having acted as Chief Justice of Gibraltar from October to December 1965.
In 1975 Bourke was kidnapped in Dublin but escaped at the border with Northern Ireland. He retired to his daughter’s ranch near Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada, where he died. He married Susan Dorothy Killeen in 1936; they had three sons and a daughter. Lady Bourke died in 1982. Sir Paget Bourke was the paternal uncle of Irish president Mary Robinson.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:39 (CET).