Best known as Caetano Beirão, he lived in Lisbon for most of his life. The only son of Caetano Maria Ferreira da Silva Beirão and Rosa Isabel Burke de Abreu Beirão, he belonged to a line that included illustrious names in the fields of justice, medicine, politics , and the humanities. On the paternal side, he descended from a common branch that went back to Francisco António Ferreira da Silva Beirão and included his father, grandfather, uncles and cousins, supporters of the traditional monarchy as the political regime par excellence. It would have been primarily his ancestry that informed his way of thinking in this field, as well as the activism that, according to him, he showed throughout his life since, as far as we know, it did not stand out in terms of his academic or professional career.

Considering his time at the School of Law of the University of Coimbra, it could be said that this fact alone linked him to the family tradition of highly prestigious jurisconsults, bearing in mind that the information about his literary merit at the end of the degree did not go beyond what was sufficient and that in his professional career , he was only a sub-delegate of the public prosecutor ’ s office in the 1 st Court of Lisbon. While Oliveira Salazar, his fellow classmate in 1913-1914, achieved 19 points out of 20 in all his subjects and Helena Quintanilha, the only woman to attend the course, was classified with 16 points , the 12 awarded to Caetano Beirão placed him among the weakest students.

One could speculate on the possibility of the ideological influence of the future President of the Council on his fellow classmates, particularly on the one we are dealing with now. But the results, for the time being, would be mere conjecture, although today , there are those who consider him ‘one of the greatest supporters of Salazarism’. However, be as it may, it would have found favourable ground in the mind of the young Law student, not least because of his family roots. As far as we know, Caetano Beirão once referred explicitly to one of his ancestors. It was his grandfather ’ s half-brother, João José Ferreira da Silva Amaral, whose works attested to ‘his love of the Church, tradition and the throne’ ( Uma Campanha Tradicionalista [A traditionalist campaign ] , p. 178) and characterised the author as an unconditional supporter of the cause of legitimacy.

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