Lords Justices of Ireland

Sir William Pelham, Lord Justice of Ireland

The Lords Justices (more formally the Lords Justices General and General Governors of Ireland) were deputies who acted collectively in the absence of the chief governor of Ireland (latterly the Lord Lieutenant) as head of the executive branch of the Dublin Castle administration. Lords Justices were sworn in at a meeting of the Privy Council of Ireland.

History

A January 1919 proclamation relating to the Soloheadbeg ambush, issued in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant (Viscount French) by the Lords Justices — James Campbell (Lord Chancellor), Frederick Shaw (Commander-in-Chief) and James Wylie (Land Court judge).^[1] Only Campbell signed the proclamation.

After the Norman Conquest of Ireland, the chief governor of the Lordship of Ireland was appointed by the King of England via letters patent; in medieval times under his privy seal,^[2] and later under the Great Seal of England. The patent usually allowed the chief governor to nominate a deputy, though sometimes the King nominated a deputy, and if the chief governor died in office the Privy Council of Ireland would elect a deputy until the King nominated a successor.^[3] The title (originally French or Latin) of the chief governor depended on his power, from most to least: King's (or Lord) Lieutenant; (Lord) Deputy; Justiciar (or Lord Justice); and Keeper. The chief governor's deputy would have a lower title than the chief governor, and was appointed under the Great Seal of Ireland unless by the King. By the time of Henry VII, the Lord Deputy was the resident chief governor (or rarely the resident deputy of a non-resident Lord Lieutenant) and, in case of the Lord Deputy's temporary absence or vacancy, there was one or, later, two Lords Justices appointed by the Privy Council of Ireland. An Irish act of Poynings' Parliament specified that the Treasurer of Ireland would be "Justice & Governoure" until the King send a "lieutenunt or deputye".^[4] This was repealed three years later, but the statute roll was subsequently lost.^[5][6] A 1542 act formalised how the privy council would elect from among its members one or, if necessary, two Lords Justices, each of whom had to be a layman born in England.^[6] The same year the Crown of Ireland Act 1542 changed the Lordship into the Kingdom of Ireland.

In the 17th century the King often left the chief governorship vacant for months or years and instead appointed multiple Lords Justices. Shortly before his 1696 death Lord Deputy Henry Capel nominated Murrough Boyle, 1st Viscount Blesington and William Wolseley to be Lords Justices; Charles Porter, Capel's rival and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, persuaded the Privy Council of Ireland that the deputies' commission expired on Capel's death, whereupon the council elected Porter as sole Lord Justice.^[7] Prior to 1767 the chief governor (now styled Lord Lieutenant or viceroy) was often absent in England unless the Parliament of Ireland was in session, typically eight months every two years.^[8] The Lords Justices were influential and the English government needed their support.^[8] There were always three, typically the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, another member of Irish Commons or Lords, and a senior bishop of the Church of Ireland.^[8] After 1767 the viceroy was resident as a rule, and the practical importance of Lords Justices diminished.^[8] They were still required during vacancies between the death or departure of one viceroy and the arrival of his successor, whom they would formally welcome from Great Britain at a state ceremony in Dublin port or latterly Dunleary/Kingstown. A 1788 act repealed and replaced long-disregarded provisions of the 1542 act regarding election of Lords Justices, allowing up to three, who need not be laymen or English-born.^[9]

After the Acts of Union 1800, de facto executive power shifted from the viceroy to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and the Lords Justices like the viceroy exercised only formal power. Up to the mid nineteenth century the usual Lords Justices were the Lord Chancellor, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh or of Dublin, and Commander-in-Chief, Ireland.^[10] In 1868 it was ruled that a warrant signed in 1866 by only one of the three then Lords Justices was valid, because the patent appointing them allowed for this in case of absence "occasioned by sickness or any other necessary cause", and the cause did not have to be stated.^[11] After the Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1871, its prelates were no longer made Lords Justices, and usually only two were sworn in or the third was a second senior judge. Increasingly as the 19th century progressed, Lords Justices were sworn in during short absences from Dublin of the Lord Lieutenant, avoiding delay in validating the growing number of orders in council for routine administration. For example, there were eleven occasions in 1897 in which various subsets of six men were sworn, usually three at a time, but four on two occasions and two on one occasion; the six being Somerset Lowry-Corry, 4th Earl Belmore, Commander-in-Chief Earl Roberts, and four members of the Court of Appeal in Ireland (the Lord Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, and Master of the Rolls, and Gerald FitzGibbon).^[12]

List of Lords Justices

Until 1689

• Nicholas Arnold (May 1564–mid-1565)^[13]
• William Pelham (1579–80)

10 February–2 July 1616:^[14]

• Thomas Jones, (Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland)
• Sir John Denham, (Chief Justice of the Kings Bench for Ireland)

2 May–8 September 1622:^[14]

• Sir Adam Loftus (Lord Chancellor of Ireland)
• Richard Wingfield, 1st Viscount Powerscourt (Marshal of Ireland)

10 February 1641–January 1644:^[15]

• Sir John Borlase
• Sir William Parsons (to March 1643)
• Sir Henry Tichborne (from 12 May 1633)

26 October 1660–July 1662:^[16]

• Maurice Eustace, Lord Chancellor
• Charles Coote, 1st Earl of Mountrath (died 17 December 1661)
• Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery

1690–1800

• Henri de Massue, Earl of Galway (6 February 1697–April 1701; 1715–16^[17]) in practice dominated his fellow Lords Justices;^[18][19] "but for being a foreigner, he would have been Lord-Lieutenant".^[20]
  • John Methuen accepted nomination as Lord Chancellor of Ireland in February 1697 but resiled from serving as a Lord Justice.^[21]
• Charles Paulet, 2nd Duke of Bolton (25 May 1697–1700)^[18][21]
• Edward Villiers, 1st Earl of Jersey (25 May 1697–1699) rarely in Ireland^[18][21][22]
• Charles Berkeley, 2nd Earl of Berkeley (1699–1700)^[18][22]
• Narcissus Marsh, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh (1699, 1700–01, 1701–02, 1707, 1707–08, 1710)^[23]
• Constantine Phipps (1710) Lord Chancellor
• Richard Ingoldsby (1709–1710)
• Robert FitzGerald, 19th Earl of Kildare (1714)
• Colonel Sir Charles Feilding (1714) son of George Feilding, 1st Earl of Desmond
• Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton (1715–16)^[17]
• Hugh Boulter, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh (1726, 1730, 1732, 1734, 1736, 1737, 1738, 1740, 1742)
• Field Marshal Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth (1736)

1801–1847

From 1848

5 May 1921:

• Six Lords Justices were sworn in, including the first three Catholics^[29]

27 June 1921:

• Nevil Macready, General Officer Commanding in Ireland, was sworn in as a Lord Justice in order to swear in Sir John Ross as Lord Chancellor. The Lords Justice previously appointed were all unavailable owing to the Anglo-Irish War.^[30]

28 June 1921:

• The Lord Chief Justice Thomas Molony and the Master of the Rolls Charles O'Connor as Lords Justices opened the inoperative Parliament of Southern Ireland.^[31] (The Lord Lieutenant Viscount FitzAlan had opened the operative Parliament of Northern Ireland in person on 7 June.^[32])

See also

Various deputies for the British monarch:

• Regency Acts provide for a regent during a monarch's total incapacity
• Counsellor of State during partial incapacity, such as when abroad
• Lords Commissioners for routine Parliamentary functions

Sources

• Agnew, David Carnegie A. (1864). Henri de Ruvigny, Earl of Galway: A Filial Memoir. Edinburgh: William Paterson.
• Bagwell, Richard (1909), Ireland under the Stuarts and under the Interregnum, London: Longmans, Green I: 1603–1642; II: 1642–1660; III: 1660–1690
• Madden, Richard Robert (1845). The Connexion Between the Kingdom of Ireland and the Crown of England. Dublin: James Duffy.
• Moody, T.W.; Martin, F.X.; Byrne, F.J., eds. (24 March 2011). "Chief Governors". Maps, Genealogies, Lists: A Companion to Irish History, Part II. A New History Of Ireland. IX. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199593064.
• Quekett, Arthur S. (1928). The Constitution Of Northern Ireland. Part I: The Origin and Development of the Constitution. Belfast: HMSO.
• Quinn, David. B. (1941). "The Bills and Statutes of the Irish Parliaments of Henry VII and Henry VIII". Analecta Hibernica (10): 71–169. ISSN 0791-6167. JSTOR 25510968.
• Sturgis, Mark (1999). Hopkinson, Michael (ed.). The Last Days of Dublin Castle: The Mark Sturgis Diaries. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-7165-2626-1.
• Wood, Herbert (8 February 1923). "The Office of Chief Governor of Ireland, 1172-1509". Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Section C. 36: 206–238. ISSN 0035-8991. JSTOR 25504230.
• Wood, Herbert (1 June 1935). "The Titles of the Chief Governors of Ireland". Historical Research. 13 (37): 1–8. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2281.1935.tb00065.x.

Citations