A tax and commercial specialist, Smith spent five years as a tax manager at PwC before being called to the bar in 2002, taking silk in 2020. Last year, Smith represented a number of creditors claiming to be owed $178 million(€162 million) by Russian state-owned aircraft and shipping leasing firms. In April, she represented U2 in proceedings brought by a Dublin man who claimed that a song written by him was unlawfully included on the band’s 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

Smith, the chair of the Corporate and Insolvency Bar Association, has been part of delegations to the US from Ireland for Law, the representative body for the Irish legal profession.

A regular feature of high-profile patent and IP disputes in Ireland, Howard was called to the bar in 1990, before taking silk in 2005. He acted on behalf of Google and YouTube in 2013 High Court defamation action relating to a video in which an Irish student was falsely accused of taxi fare evasion.

More recently, he acted for Bewley’s in a high-profile case taken by Johnny Ronan’s real estate firm over the Harry Clarke stained glass inside the café.

He also represented orthopaedics manufacturer DePuy when over 1,000 cases were taken by Irish hip replacement patients against the company, resulting in hundreds of settlements to date in Ireland’s largest-ever corporate personal injuries saga.

Although he was only appointed senior counsel in 2022, Jeffers has hit the ground running with a busy practice and his name continually crops up in high-profile actions. In June, he represented the Data Protection Commission (DPC) in a failed challenge by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties surrounding an alleged massive data breach by Google.

He’s also acting for Meta in the fake ads lawsuit brought by telecoms mogul Denis O’Brien. In 2019, Jeffers acted in a mistaken identity case on behalf of a solicitor and wife who settled their action against the Garda Commissioner and the state over a cannabis raid on their Capel Street flat by gardaí. Prior to a successful career as a barrister, Jeffers was a child actor, with appearances in films such as In the Name of the Father. He also presented Hiúdaí, an Irish language game show for children.

A longtime go-to barrister for Denis O’Brien — acting in the businessman’s legal action against the state arising from remarks made in the Dáil about his banking affairs — Cush took silk just 13 years after being called to the bar in 1985. He chaired the Bar of Ireland’s voluntary assistance scheme which provided free legal representation to people facing lawsuits from banks, among others. Cush has also acted for numerous big names, including Paddy McKillen snr in his legal battle with the Barclay brothers, and Rory McIlroy in his 2014 contract saga with Dublin-based Horizon Sports Management.

This year, he represented Johnny Ronan’s real estate group in its row with Fortress Investments over the repayment of more than €100 million in loans. Away from the Four Courts, the senior counsel authored the Cush Report into the precarity of employment in third-level education in 2016.

As well as specialising in commercial and public law, Fitzpatrick has become the silk of choice for personal insolvency and examinership cases in Ireland. Having previously represented Twitter, he acted this year for Reddit in its judicial review against Coimisiún na Meán’s designation of the social media platform as a named video-sharing service in its new online safety code.

In 2013, he represented BBT Accountants in an action against Michael Lowry TD over fees claimed for work relating to the Moriarty tribunal. He was called to the Inner Bar in 2016, the same year he acted for AIB as it sought to enforce a guarantee by Ivan Yates’s wife Deirdre of €1.6 million in loans to her husband’s liquidated Celtic Bookmakers business.

Taking silk in 2015, Doherty acted alongside Michael Cush on behalf of two Dublin pub owners who successfully challenged FBD Insurance’s failure to pay out on business disruption claims caused by the pandemic. He has appeared on behalf of the Charities Regulator and the liquidators of two Irish-based Russian state-owned leasing firms.

Doherty is in the final year of his three-year spell as chair of the Central Bank’s takeover panel, the statutory body responsible for monitoring company takeovers in Ireland. He took silk in 2015, 20 years after he was called to the bar.

A senior counsel since 2000, Gardiner is a commercial litigation specialist and the former president of Arbitration Ireland. Like a number of the SCs on this list, he’s involved in the ongoing $2.5 billion (€2.27 billion) aircraft leasing litigation. Gardiner, along with Kennedy, Smith and McCullough, is acting for four of the six lessors suing insurers over the missing planes in Russia.

Last year, he acted on behalf of a UK-based Qatari businessman in an action against Meta for hosting fake and defamatory ads featuring his image on Facebook. Gardiner represented three former employees of the O’Flynn property group sued for allegedly making a €12.5 million profit on a student accommodation block at their company’s expense. A graduate of Trinity College, Gardiner is also a member of the New York State Bar.

One of the more difficult silks to summarise in a short blurb, the Harvard and Oxford graduate and former Trinity scholar has had plenty to juggle since she was called to the bar in 2007. That same year, Donnelly joined the TCD law school — after a spell lecturing at Oxford — where she was elected as a fellow in 2011.

A go-to for procurement, competition, constitutional and admin work in the Four Courts, she frequently represents state bodies in High Court actions, such as the Workplace Relations Commission in the case brought by Ammi Burke regarding her dismissal from Arthur Cox. Donnelly is a member of the bar of England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and New York, where she balanced two years as a litigation attorney with teaching an asylum law workshop at Columbia Law School and pro bono work for the Yale Law Clinic and Human Rights Watch.

McGrath is a key figure in the roster of silks employed by social media giants Meta and TikTok in actions against the Data Protection Commission, as well as big insurers such as FBD in the pandemic business interruption claims.

He represented Pat Crean-led Balark Investments in the early days of an almost decade-long legal battle with Johnny Ronan over a plot in Dublin’s docklands. He acted for owners of more than 600 apartments in Spencer Dock, including actor Colin Farrell, suing two companies for alleged construction defects in 2022.

He also represented ex-Grafton chairman Michael Chadwick in seeking to halt the firm’s closed-door AGM in the early days of the pandemic. Outside of the bar, McGrath co-authored the definitive Irish guide to the law of evidence.

Gray primarily practises in Dublin, where she has been a silk since 2019, but she is also a King’s Counsel (KC), and a well-regarded expert in EU, competition and public law.

She frequently represents the government in Ireland and the UK, where she practises at Brick Court Chambers in London. Gray has also appeared as counsel for the European Commission. Recent appearances in the High Court include for the Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) in the challenge taken by DAA over price caps. She has also represented big tobacco companies in challenges to an EU directive banning flavoured heated tobacco products.

Originally from County Antrim, Gray was also a legal secretary (référendaire) at the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Ryanair’s main man in the Four Courts for years, Hayden is an expert on contract law, especially in the aviation industry. The airline also sponsored his daughter Elizabeth in her bid to represent Ireland as an event rider at the 2014 Olympics — hardly surprising, given Michael O’Leary’s love of horses.

This year, Hayden continued to act for the airline in its challenge to the warrant used by competition authorities to search its Dublin headquarters and he’s separately acting for a war-risk insurer in the €2.5 billion aircraft leasing litigation over missing planes in Russia.

Hayden is also a favoured silk of Dunnes Stores in its litigation and acted for numerous developers in legal wranglings with banks. Hayden has appeared in both the Mahon and Moriarty tribunals, as well as the Finlay and Lindsay tribunals into the Irish Blood Transfusion Service.

With qualifications in arbitration and mediation, Kennedy has significant experience in commercial and public law — representing the Irish Independent in the unfair dismissal case taken by ex-journalist Gemma O’Doherty in 2014, as well as the Public Accounts Committee against the high-profile action launched by former Rehab chief executive Angela Kerins, which ended up in the Supreme Court in 2019.

He also acted for DAA in a 2021 dispute around the rehousing of families from land near Dublin Airport’s north runway. A graduate of the College of Europe in Bruges and Trinity College, Kennedy is the chair of the EU Bar Association in Ireland.

A senior counsel since 2014, Dunleavy’s practice for many years revolved around doing work against institutions such as banks, funds, and insurance companies seeking to enforce on debtors. More recently, he has appeared in numerous Commercial Court disputes, including acting for Paddy Cosgrave’s Web Summit in the ongoing litigation with his co-founders. He has also acted for Johnny Ronan’s property firm in its row with Bewley’s Cafe over the Harry Clarke stained glass windows.

Dunleavy specialises in corporate reorganisation, company law and professional negligence. An English literature and sociology graduate from Trinity College before heading to the bar, Dunleavy won the individual award on behalf of King’s Inns at the 1994 Irish Times debate final — which saw comedian Dara Ó Briain take home the team award with UCD. In 2015, a red tee-shirt initiative started by Dunleavy to recognise the plight of Syrian refugees was replicated by hundreds of schools in Ireland and abroad.