Well-known Tipperary legal veteran is also a dedicated sea swimmer

Tucked into Market Street past Mulcahy’s pub in  Clonmel is the red door of the offices of Kieran and Roger Cleary, a law litigation firm run by father and son.

Still practising at 74 years old, Kieran is not only an esteemed lawyer but also a dedicated sea swimmer, with a training regime of four sessions per week during the summer, once a week during Winter.

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He swims regularly along the coast of Ardmore, Kinsale, and Rosslare, and has completed many charity swims, including Beat the Ferry challenge, a swim from Passage East in Waterford to Ballyhack in Wexford only last year.
Kieran is ready for my arrival, and waiting for me in his office. Behind his desk are some ruled paper, his opened-up work diary, and a window facing the bunting-striped sky.

COURTHOUSE
Over the phone, we discussed meeting in Clonmel’s Courthouse, his home for the last 45 years of his law career, but instead we meet on the top floor of this small slice of building, in the room where he spends the majority of his life.

Though Kieran has been a practising lawyer for 45 years, he has not practised the sport of sea swimming for nearly as long, only learning how to swim at 32 years old. On a family holiday in Benidorm, Kieran couldn’t help but worry about his then infant children playing in the water, and sought lessons soon after.

Though his wife, Mary Cleary, grew up swimming in a village outside Dungarvan, his childhood was spent watching rugby matches with his father, and playing on the team in Rockwell College. It was only after his children had become older, that he started to take sea swimming seriously.

“I could be a better person and a better parent,” Kieran says as we discuss why he loves swimming. “To sweat it out. All that tension. To leave it behind and start again.”

I could only wonder how one could find the icy waters of the Irish seas as a way to unwind.
Only when he told me about his after-swim ritual, did I see its attraction: the exposure to the wild waves, then returning to a cup of tea and community.

What happens afterwards is just as important as the activity itself: “Put on your dry robe and walk immediately for at least 25 minutes.” Kieran advises those just starting in sea swimming to “breathe properly, and stay at your pace.”

CELEBRATE
In 2019, Kieran decided to celebrate his Golden Wedding Anniversary in a novel way by completing the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) Helvick 2km swim in his wife’s hometown.
Together, they have three children, including Roger and Sinéad who are solicitors, and Clíona who is a barrister.
“There are four lawyers in the house, and Mary Cleary will not allow any talk about our own cases at all,” he says. This separation between court life and their own family unit is very important to them.

As Kieran fills me in on the details of his most well-known cases, I can see how this ‘rule’ was formed.
A cheating-gone-wrong murder, a mother’s newly-bought teapot handle scalding her child’s body, a Dublin gang terrorising a family in their home: “And the child in the cot, completely traumatised, just sitting there.”

Before he moved to practising personal injury in the 1990s with his daughter, Sinéad, he had enjoyed the suspense in the courtroom that came with criminal law cases.

No wonder the unpredictability of the sea holds no fear for him. “If your nature is given anyway to panic, don’t go into the sea,” he says. With this cool head, Kieran makes for the perfect candidate for the sport.

CHARITY SWIM
While the Beat the Ferry challenge was not Kieran’s first charity swim, it was, by far, his most important.
In 2021, his long-time friend, Brendan Daly, was struck with Motor Neurone Disease, and died within a few months of diagnosis.

On his iDonate page, which raised over €6,500 for South Tipperary Hospice, he talks about the experience of the charity transforming the home into a place of palliative care.
“Within a very short couple of weeks his wonderful home, which was full of life and music, was turned into an emergency Hospice ward.” Brendan was diagnosed in January, and died in May.

They packed a lot into 30 years of friendship. “We used to play lots of bad golf. We went on the Camino trail. We went to serious rugby matches in Dublin,” he says.
One particular story involves an all-men’s trip to London to see The Phantom of the Opera on the West End. After the show, in the hotel bar, Brendan started playing the piano. “Just entertaining himself,” Kieran says. It was then the actor playing the Phantom walked in with an entourage. Kieran introduced himself, while the performer turned his attention to Brendan, asking if he could sing with his accompaniment. Brendan cooly replied, “Just two songs, no more.” With a full laugh he tells me, “We talked about that for twenty years.”

Training took nine months for the Beat the Ferry challenge, with three swim sessions per week. Kieran spent this time also actively raising money among his legal colleagues, which incentivised him further to complete the swim: “It doesn’t matter if I have a heart attack. [If] people are good enough to give you €50, you must say ‘I did it’.”

Not only is the swim physically gruelling, it’s also a journey not without risk. Every time he drives down to the beach, he checks the tides. “The sea is dangerous,” he reminds me. “You must respect the sea.”
Although the swim was challenging, Kieran finished the 2km swim to cheering crowds at the pier. When talking about the large sum of money raised in honour of his late friend he says, “It was the greatest achievement of my life.”

Talking about his next trip to the West of Ireland with his teenage granddaughter, he tells me his time away from the office is just as important as his time in it. “When I got into the courts, I realised the stress was frightening, and I was not going to be a good parent or husband if I came home stressed out.”

BOUNDARIES
In his criminal law days, when he could be called on a Sunday morning to drive up to Dublin, he came his closest to burnout.
He switched his focus to personal injury after one criminal in a court case made a threatening remark to him. “I said, ‘I’m not doing this any more.” His tips for preventing burnout? Boundaries between work and personal life. He never brings his notebook home with him. Opening it at 9am and closing it at 5pm, his notebook stays on his desk throughout the weekend.
He also prioritises his friendships outside his profession.

FRIENDSHIP
“Your friends are your friends and they are to be cherished,” he says. In our fast-paced and high-pressure world of today, I appreciated hearing from someone doing such stressful but important work, who can decompress from the job, despite it being a family business.

After our lively chat, Kieran and I shake hands and say goodbye. I am standing up from my seat when he remembers one last funny story.

In Tipperary’s first consent divorce - where both parties agree to the separation - Kieran represented the wife who appeared in court “magnificently dressed”.

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The judge wanted to adjourn the hearing until Monday, as it was her first divorce case, and she wanted to look over the documents carefully. The woman told her she couldn’t do that.

When the judge asked why, she said, “I’m getting married today in Ballylooby, and I want to be a bride, not a polygamist.”
And with that, our conversation ended as warmly as it began.