1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/O'Brien, Peter O'Brien, 1st Baron

O’BRIEN, PETER O’BRIEN, 1st Baron (1842–1914), Irish lawyer and Lord Chief Justice, was born June 29 1842, the fifth son of John O’Brien, M.P. for Limerick from 1841 to 1852. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and was called to the Irish bar in 1865. He became a Q.C. in 1880, was in 1883 made Crown prosecutor and serjeant-at-law, and in 1884 became a bencher of King’s Inns. In 1886 he opposed the Home Rule bill, and joined the Unionist party, becoming in 1887 solicitor-general and in 1888 attorney-general for Ireland, in which capacity he conducted many political prosecutions. He earned at this time his nickname of “Peter the Packer.” In 1889 he was made Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, was created a baronet in 1891, and was raised to the peerage in 1900. He retired from the office of Lord Chief Justice in 1913, and died at Stillorgan, co. Dublin, Sept. 7 1914, his title becoming extinct.