Tributes paid to the late Courts Service registrar Shay Bowen

Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford told the Central Criminal Court the late registrar was 'a man of grace and dignity, a real gentleman'

The late Shay Bowen. Ray Boland SC echoed Judge Lankford's tribute, telling the court that Mr Bowen had been 'an oasis of calm in a sometimes chaotic environment'. File picture

Tributes have been paid at the Central Criminal Court to the late Courts Service registrar and well-known Cork radio presence Shay Bowen, “an oasis of calm in a sometimes chaotic environment”.

Mr Bowen worked for many years as a registrar at the district court and the circuit court in Cork. 

Married to retired garda, Geraldine McCarthy, he had a lifelong association with radio broadcasting, with a regular programme on Cork University Hospital (CUH) radio.

Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford said that it was with deep sadness that she learned of his death.

"He would have been known to many of us in the courts. He was a man who had borne his illness very bravely," she said. 

I am sure we will remember him as a man of grace and dignity, a real gentleman. In court he was a dignified presence in what is often a chaotic place. 

The judge said that not everyone would have known that, in his younger life, he was an active part of the once thriving pirate radio scene in Cork.

Ms Lankford said that the late Mr Bowen had beautiful Irish and had worked as registrar on many cases that were heard as Gaeilge over the years.

“He was respected and loved by many of us,” Judge Lankford said.

Ray Boland, senior counsel, said on behalf of the Bar: “Shay was a gentleman — an oasis of calm in a sometimes chaotic environment. 

"I was always happy to see him — the man at the desk, courteous to a fault, a great friend of the Bar.”