tanistry, case of

tanistry, case of, decided by the Irish judges in King's Bench in 1608, and recorded in Sir John Davies's Reports (1615). It arose from the disputed possession of the castle and lands of Dromaneen, Co. Cork. The plaintiff, Murrough MacBryan, asserted tanist right; the defendant. Cahir O'Callaghan, claimed common law inheritance. The case, referred in 1604 by the Munster presidency court, had been argued out in King's Bench, with Davies defending, but left undecided. The parties instead made a partition between themselves in chancery.

Afterwards the Irish judges decided to review the case and passed a special ruling abolishing tanistry, the Gaelic method of political succession, and the lands attached to the office (see tánaiste). This voided Irish sovereign rights, which were considered obnoxious to the crown and destabilizing to the country, by vesting the lands in the crown by conquest right, and strengthened the 1606 decision in the case of gavelkind, where tanistry had been abolished only by implication. It also voided the 1593 surrender and regrant of Dromaneen, thereby endangering the letters patent of other Gaelic lords whose power originated in tanistry. Davies made immediate use of this ruling to facilitate the plantation of Ulster by quashing Gaelic freeholders’ rights which he himself had previously advocated.

Hiram Morgan