James Hugh McGuinness

The Honorable James H. McGuinness, Jr., of Austin, Texas, late of Newton and Cambridge, MA, died quietly on February 17th, 2023 after a long illness. Born in Medford, MA, to Janet (Gill) and James H. McGuinness, he earned degrees from Northeastern University, Suffolk Law School and Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. He was an active member of the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement at the time of his death.

Jim's artist-mother encouraged his interest in fine art and the performing arts. Those interests, combined with a strong bent for reason, led him in the direction of the law. Following law school, he joined the Boston Mayor's Office of Human Rights, established and directed Deer Island Legal Services (a prison law practice serving thousands of indigent inmates), and practiced privately. In 1984, he was appointed by Governor Michael Dukakis as an Administrative Judge at the Industrial Accident Board and, in 1996, by Governor William Weld to the state's District Court.

Having long been a denizen of old-book stores, Jim curated a personal library of first edition fiction, history, politics and the sea. His love of the sea was a product of his maternal family's hard life on the Aran Islands of Galway Bay and their migration as fishermen, seamen and officers. His maternal uncle's part of this history was recently published in Paul G. Gill's marvelous true story, "Armageddon in the Arctic Ocean." Jim owned two sailboats of his own in which he relished sailing the New England Coast, and chartered others in Australia and the Caribbean.

Jim also had a lifelong interest in exotic automobiles and motorcycles, celebrating his sixty-fifth year by riding his caf? racer Triumph on a coast-to-coast trek.

Jim leaves his two children. His son, Ian Harwood McGuinness, is a senior engineer with Tesla in Austin, TX and father of Maeve Crowley McGuinness. His daughter, Bailey Gill McGuinness, is a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, OH. She has three children: Cyrus Gilbert, Hailey Rose, and Leo Katriel McAlas. He is also survived by a brother, Michael, of Greenland, NH; nephews James and Justin McGuinness of IL and OH respectively; and niece Caitlin Drew of MA. He was predeceased by his brother, Peter, of Muscatine, IA.

There will be a memorial mass at 10:30am on March 14th at Our Lady Help of Christians Parish in Newton, MA. A luncheon will follow for family and friends. In lieu of flowers, those inclined might consider a donation in Jim's memory to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at P.O. Box 849168, Boston, MA 02284 or via dana-farber.org/gift.