Early Life
He was born on 24 April 1884, the fourth son of Patrick O’Byrne and Mary O'Byrne née Tallon, of Seskin, County Wicklow, in Ireland. He was educated at the Patrician Monastery, Tullow, County Carlow, and studied Moral and Mental Science at the Royal University, where he graduated in 1907 in First Place with First Class Honours. He was awarded a Master of Arts degree in 1908.
He joined the Land Commission, where he acquired an intimate knowledge of the system of real property and land tenure in Ireland. Subsequently, he studied at King's Inns, Dublin, and was called to the Irish Bar in 1911, where he practised mainly in real property.
He stood as a pro-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate at the 1922 general election for the Wexford constituency but was not elected. In 1922 he was appointed by the Provisional Government of the Republic of Ireland to the Irish Free State Constitution Commission to draft the Constitution of the Irish Free State, commonly known as the Irish Free State Constitution Commission. It prepared a draft Constitution. He was thus one of the constitutional architects of the Irish Free State.
In 1923 he was appointed to the Judiciary Commission by the Government of the Irish Free State, on a reference from the Government to establish a new system for the administration of justice in accordance with the Constitution of the Irish Free State. The Judiciary Commission was chaired by the last Lord Chief Justice of Ireland (who had also been the last Lord Chancellor of Ireland). It drafted legislation for a new system of courts, including a High Court and a Supreme Court, and provided for the abolition of the Irish Court of Appeal.
He was appointed King's Counsel in 1924, the last barrister in the Free State to receive the rank. He was also a delegate of the Irish Free State to the League of Nations in the same year.
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