local government. Although considerably changed, the
county and the
borough remain the focus of local administration seven centuries after they were introduced by the Anglo‐Normans.
The county (French
comté) was first introduced into the areas of Ireland that were reserved to the crown by
Henry II and
John, lord of Ireland. Dublin was organized as a county by the 1190s, if not earlier. In 1206 a boundary commission was established to determine the border between the kingdoms of Cork and Limerick, no doubt with a view to dividing Munster into the two counties that appear in the records shortly afterwards: Cork with Waterford, and Limerick with Tipperary. Outside the royal demesne, the
liberties or
palatinates of Leinster and Ulster were subsequently subdivided into counties under private jurisdiction, so that by the end of the 13th century only the Gaelic north‐west remained unshired. A uniquely Irish aspect of the county system was the introduction of the counties of the cross in the 14th century. Governed by royal
sheriffs, they consisted of scattered church lands (‘crosslands’) inside the liberties. Thus, for example, there were two counties of Tipperary: the county of the liberty of Tipperary under a sheriff appointed by, and answerable to, the earl of
Ormond; and a county of the cross of Tipperary, under a sheriff appointed by the crown.
The county was divided into
cantreds or
baronies, which corresponded to the hundreds in English counties. In each cantred the sheriff presided twice a year over a court called the tourn, where he inquired into the alienation of royal jurisdiction by feudal or ecclesiastical courts, breaches of the peace, burglaries, homicides, and abuses of power or neglect of duty by royal officials such as serjeants, who served writs, or
coroners, who kept a record of the pleas of the crown.
The county court, summoned once a month, was attended by those who owed suit in virtue of their tenure. While its judicial importance was greatly reduced by the introduction of the
assizes in the 13th century, it retained important public functions: proclamations, elections, outlawries, and (probably) consent to local subsidies in time of war.
The second pillar of local government was the Anglo‐Norman borough. Every borough had its own hundred court and corporate protections against outside interference secured by charter. Between 1171 and 1229 Dublin achieved a large measure of self‐government through successive royal charters, including the right to elect a mayor.
Early modern local government continued to be organized through the counties, those of medieval origin being supplemented by a larger number created between 1542 and 1606. A few medieval towns, such as
Dublin,
Galway, and
Carrickfergus, were regarded as counties. Within the county the principal royal official was the sheriff, appointed annually from the landowners of the county by the
privy council with the advice of the justices of assize. The sheriff was the link between central government and the localities, receiving and executing writs from Dublin and collecting certain royal taxes for which he accounted at the
exchequer at the end of his term. He was assisted by a number of subsheriffs. The sheriff was also responsible for the operation of law within the county, including jail delivery at the assize, and for executing writs from the assize. In time of war the powers of the sheriff were considerably augmented by grants of
martial law which might be exercised by provosts marshal. During the 17th century another county institution, the
grand jury, emerged. Originally drawn from the freeholders to approve indictments at the assizes, it became responsible for bridge building and raised local
taxes (the ‘county charge’, later
‘cess’) for this purpose.
Two areas were exempt from these structures. The palatinate of Tipperary, finally abolished in 1716, had its own officials and procedures, as had the major ecclesiastical liberties of Dublin, such as St Sepulchre's (abolished 1856). The second exemption was the
provincial presidencies of Connacht and Munster (abolished in 1672) which had their own system of administration. At a local level three institutions were important. Where there was a
Church of Ireland presence the
parish, through the meeting of the
parish vestry, exercised some local government functions through its officials, including the churchwardens and parish constable. The vestry was responsible for local taxation,
poor relief, and the maintenance of roads, and in some larger urban parishes watches were established. Secondly, the great estate through its manorial structures such as the court leet and court baron provided ways of obtaining legal redress for grievances and in some small Ulster towns formed a layer of urban government. Thirdly,
urban government through corporations, of which over 80 were erected in the reign of James I, provided a wide range of services including franchisal courts.
During the 18th century the grand jury became more significant as more duties were assigned to it, including responsibility for roads and provision for the sick and the poor. Concern about standards of public health in the early 19th century led to legislation requiring grand juries to provide certain facilities, such as fever hospitals, under the supervision of central government.
After 1838
poor law boards took over responsibility for the provision of health and welfare services and grand juries resumed their original role of maintaining the local infrastructure. In contrast to grand juries, which were composed of members of the predominantly Protestant landed gentry, poor law boards combined elected guardians with magistrates sitting ex officio. The boards were to provide a training ground for Catholic/nationalist politicians, and, from 1896, were to give women their first experience of local government office. Under the
Local Government Act of 1898 the administrative responsibilities of grand juries were transferred to popularly elected county councils, while poor law boards were absorbed into rural district councils.
Local government in independent Ireland has seen the gradual narrowing of its traditional roles and the loss of functions, in matters such as public health, vocational education,
social welfare, road development, physical planning, and most recently environmental protection, either to central government or to national or regional administrative boards. Its structure has remained largely unchanged: county borough corporations for city government, and county councils for county government. Beneath county councils the only effective administrative units are urban district councils and a handful of borough corporations: rural district councils were abolished in 1925, while no new electoral ‘towns’ (legally defined as between 1,500 and 8,000 in population, and therefore too small to administer increasingly complex local services themselves) were established between 1900 and 1978. Since then a court decision has forced the government to provide for elected town commissioners in a number of towns.
Since the 1920s, reforms including the
city and county management system have wrought a shift in power from politicians to officials. The funding base of local authorities has also undergone change. The bulk of revenue now comes through block grants from central government rather than from local property taxation and other discretionary sources: domestic rates were removed in 1978, and those on agricultural land in 1982.
Local government occupies a peculiar place in the Irish political system. Elected on a universal adult franchise since 1934, it remains the main stepping stone to a seat in the
Dáil, yet local politicians have little direct power. Local elections should be held every five years. They have frequently been postponed by central government, yet very few people bother to protest. With central government as the dominant funder, the democratic link between local representation and local taxation has all but gone, and is not much mourned: there has been intense communal resistance to efforts to supplement revenue through charges for specific local services. Furthermore, while local politicians of all parties have routinely condemned what they term administrative and political overcentralization, those who have later achieved national office seldom do much to reverse that trend.
Bibliography
Crossman, Virginia , Local Government in Nineteenth‐Century Ireland (1994)
Feingold, W. L. , The Revolt of the Tenantry: The Transformation of Local Government in Ireland 1872–86 (1984)
Otway‐Ruthven, A. J. , A History of Medieval Ireland (2nd edn., 1980)
CAE,/RG,/VC,/ and Revd Canon C. A. Empey
