Privy Council of Ireland

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His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the

British cabinet. The council comprised senior public servants, judges, and parliamentarians, and eminent men appointed for knowledge of public affairs or as a civic honour
.

Role

As in England, the medieval unitary

king's council evolved into distinct bodies, the smallest being the privy council, of senior advisors to the king (or, in Ireland's case, to the king's representative).[1] Others were the great council, which evolved into the Parliament of Ireland, and the afforced council, an ad-hoc body of intermediate size.[1]

The privy council played a leading role in directing the

Act of Explanation 1665 empowered the viceroy and council to override the royal charters of municipal corporations; the resulting "New Rules", which governed many major towns from 1672 until the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840, allowed the council to veto the corporation's choice of mayor.[5] This power was controversially used in Dublin in 1711–1714 to keep out Whigs,[6] and in Cork in 1835 to keep out an Orangeman.[5] The 1665 act also established a commission to resolve doubts over the Act of Settlement 1662; when the commission found further ambiguities in the 1665 act's terms of reference, it applied to the "Lord Lieutenant and Council" to resolve them.[7]

Private bills were always initiated by the council until the Williamite revolution.[8] The council gradually stopped initiating any bills beyond two "causes and considerations" bills, one of which was always a money bill, to which the Commons objected as violating its control of supply. The Patriot Party defeated the 1768 "Privy Council Money Bill", heralding an increase in parliamentary sovereignty which culminated in the Constitution of 1782, which removed the Irish Privy Council from the legislative process.[9][10]
(The British Privy Council retained the right to veto Irish bills, but not to amend them.)

Wood's halfpence came after the Irish privy council sided with the Irish parliament in opposition to the British government and refused to intercede between parliament and the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Carteret.[13]

The Irish council developed a judicial role later than the Privy Council of England, with the Court of Castle Chamber sitting in Dublin Castle from 1571 to 1641.[1][14] In the 19th century, petitions to the Privy Council against decisions of various administrative bodies were referred to committees of councillors with legal experience. Most were ad hoc, but there were statutory "judicial committees" (comprising current or former senior judges) relating to the Encumbered Estates' Court (1849–58) and Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898.[15]

Privy Councillors had a right of

private act of the British parliament allowing them to take the oath in Britain to save the bother of travelling to Dublin.[17]

Although the

Ireland under the Union had a some government bodies answerable to the viceroy and Council and others which were divisions of Whitehall departments; however, a lack of collegiality prevented the Irish council becoming a rival power centre.[19] In 1852 the Privy Council Office was merged into the Chief Secretary's Office.[20] The Veterinary Department of the Irish Privy Council established 1866–72 became the Veterinary Branch of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in 1900.[21] Latterly the council's executive role was merely formal and ceremonial.[22][23] There was controversy over the proclamations issued by the council under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act 1887, since among the signatories were senior judges who might hear appeals against sentences handed down under the act.[22] Sir Michael Morris, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, stated that in his 20 years attending council meetings, no "matter of policy" was discussed.[22]

Although the

Anglo-Irish War the 1921 Southern election was won by abstentionsts of Sinn Féin, and the "Crown Colony" provision seemed likely to be invoked, but a truce was agreed leading to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The British initially hoped the resulting Provisional Government could be appointed under the "Crown Colony" provision, but realised ministers from Sinn Féin would refuse the Privy Council oath, and instead the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922 replaced much of the 1920 act as regards Southern Ireland.[28]

Most of the council's records were lost in either a 1711 fire or the 1922

John P. Prendergast was published in 1967.[32]

Members

See also: List of Privy Counsellors of Ireland

Technically there were no

knighthoods.[35][34] The chief governor attended meetings but was not a member of the council; a former Lord Lieutenant might be sworn in as a member after stepping down.[22] After the Church of Ireland's 1871 disestablishment its archbishops of Dublin and Armagh were no longer appointed.[36]

Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, was offered a place on the council.[38]

The role of Secretary of the Council and

Keeper of the Privy Seal of Ireland was filled by the Secretary of State [for Ireland] while that office existed (1560–1802) and the Chief Secretary for Ireland thereafter.[34][39] The office of Clerk of the council was by the 18th century a sinecure, held from 1786 by Henry Agar, later 2nd Viscount Clifden.[40] After Clifden's death in 1836, the Public Offices (Ireland) Act 1817 applied,[41] and the senior deputy clerk became "First Clerk of the Council, Usher, and Keeper of the Council Chamber",[42] positions merged in 1852 with that of Chief Clerk to the Secretary.[40]

Ceremonial

The Council Chamber (1712–1922) was above the archway in Dublin Castle

For most of its existence the council met in the Council Chamber in Dublin Castle, where new councillors took their oath of office and from which Orders in Council were issued. A room over the chapel built by Philip Sidney in 1567 had "a very long table, furnished with stools at both sides and ends [where] sometimes sit in council about 60 or 64 privy councillors".[43] Charles I sent the English Privy Council's rules of order to Ireland with some extra orders including "No man shall speak at the Council Board covered, save only the Deputy."[4] In 1655 during the Protectorate the council moved to the old Custom House on Essex Quay.[29] After a 1711 fire destroyed its chamber and archives, it returned to Dublin Castle to a new Council Chamber above the archway linking the Upper and Lower Yards.[29][44] By 1907 only members living near Dublin would receive a summons to ordinary meetings of the council.[45]

Members of the Privy Council of Ireland were entitled to the

Privy Council of Great Britain. In writing, the post-nominal letters
"PC" could be used, or "PC (Ire)" to avoid confusion with any other privy council.

Supersession

It was in the Council Chamber on 16 January 1922 that Viscount FitzAlan formally handed over control of the Dublin Castle administration to the

Henry Arthur Wynne on 28 November 1922, on the recommendation of James Craig, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.[49] The last Order in Council was made on 5 December 1922.[50] When the Constitution of the Irish Free State came into force the next day, the UK's Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act 1922 created the Governor and Privy Council of Northern Ireland to perform the functions previously performed there by the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council of Ireland.[50] On 12 December 1922, the first Governor was sworn in and he in turn appointed Craig's cabinet to the Privy Council of Northern Ireland.[50][51] In the Irish Free State, statutory references to "Order in Council, or by the King (or Queen) in Council, or by Proclamation of the King (or Queen) or of the King (or Queen) in Council" were changed to "Order of the Governor-General upon the advice of the Executive Council".[52]

Although never formally abolished, the Privy Council of Ireland ceased to have any functions and did not meet again. The Chief Secretary's chair was taken from the Council Chamber in Dublin Castle to serve as the chair of the Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann.[53] In 1930, the meaning of appeal to "His Majesty in Council" (in the Free State Constitution and Anglo-Irish Treaty) was disputed in a case at the Judicial Committee of the UK Privy Council in London (JCPC). One party claimed that "His Majesty in Council" ought to mean the Privy Council of Ireland, but the JCPC ruled that it meant the JCPC itself.[54] In 1931 The Irish Times reported a rumour that the Free State government was seeking to transfer the JCPC's appellate jurisdiction to a revived Privy Council of Ireland.[55] The Parliamentary Gazette, an unofficial reference work, continued to publish lists of members of the "Privy Council in Ireland" as late as 1934.[56] Official sources after 1922 occasionally retained the style "Rt Hon" for members of the dormant Irish Privy Council; for example in Oireachtas proceedings of Andrew Jameson,[57] Bryan Mahon,[58] and James Macmahon,[59] and in The London Gazette of Henry Givens Burgess.[60] Hugh O'Neill, 1st Baron Rathcavan was the last surviving Irish Privy Councillor; appointed on 16 September 1921, he died on 28 November 1982.

The 1908 act establishing the National University of Ireland provided it with a petitions review committee to be composed of members of the "Privy Council in Ireland".[61] In 1973 the Seanad expressed concern that because "the Privy Council in Ireland is non-existent" there was no way to process petitions.[62]

See also

References

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Sources

Further reading

External links

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