Page 97 - GAHS Journal Volume 9

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 9

Irish Treaty was signed in December and ratified the following
year, so Fay and Averil achieved their firsts when they were both
British citizens.

Fay returned to Belfast but gave up practice after a few
probationary appearances. Averil went on to chalk up several
more milestones: in 1922 the first woman to write a law report in
Ireland and the first secretary of the Dublin University Women
Graduates’ Association (‘DUGWA’), and then first ‘Mother of the
Bar’ (an unofficial title given to the longest serving barrister). That
alone would be significant enough for most people, but she
sustained a long and successful career in challenging
circumstances, only retiring in 1969 when she was 76. Life for
the early female pioneers in the legal profession was difficult
enough, but this Anglo-Irish Protestant negotiated a path from
the privileges of her birth through two world wars, civil war,
constitutional upheaval and Ireland’s transition to nation state.
Her long career led to a professional status in which she
commanded respect and affection in equal measure but her
death went largely unremarked.

So Greystones has good cause to be grateful to Osborne
“Ossie” Spurling and his wife Betty, the couple who bought her
house in 1975. Ossie’s capacity for hoarding memorabilia has
undoubtedly driven his family to distraction over the years, but
he rescued a large collection of the Deverell personal effects
“just because they looked interesting”, carefully preserving them
for over 40 years. This rich archive contains items that provide
1
innumerable clues to her family, personal and professional life,
and valuable information about the history of Greystones itself.

1 Kindly donated by the Spurlings to Kings Inns Library in 2017.
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