Recorder of Kinsale

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The Recorder of Kinsale was a judicial office-holder in pre-independence Ireland. He was the chief magistrate of the town of Kinsale. Given the population of the town,[1] the need for a full-time judge may be questioned. However Kinsale has been a chartered town since 1334, and the charter granted by Elizabeth 1 in 1589 explicitly provides for the office of Recorder. The first Recorder whose name is definitely known is Robert Slighe, who served in that office between approximately 1601 and 1615.[2]

Like other Irish Recorders the Recorder of Kinsale was not a Crown appointment, but was elected by Kinsale Corporation, also known as the Court of the Hundred.[3]

In addition to presiding at criminal trials, the Reorder was charged with keeping the peace. Henry Bathurst, in the 1650s, was much occupied with curbing the supposed threat to public order posed by the large Quakers community in County Cork, and was accused, perhaps unfairly, of being a "great persecutor" of that denomination.[4]

Given the size of the town, the Recorder's duties were not especially onerous, and might be combined with another Government post. Henry Bathurst was also Recorder of Cork, and Sir Richard Cox, 1st Baronet, was also Recorder of Clonakilty from 1675: he later went on to hold high judicial office, notably as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. William Rowley, the elder brother of Admiral Sir Josias Rowley, who was Recorder from 1796 to 1812, combined that position with the office of Commissioner of Customs for Kinsale, and also sat in the Irish House of Commons as member for Kinsale.[5]

Sir Richard Cox, 1st Baronet, Recorder of Kinsale and later Lord Chancellor

Like all Irish Recorderships, the office was abolished by the Irish Free State in 1924.[6]

List of Recorders of Kinsale (incomplete)[]

  • 1601 Robert Slighe
  • 1637 William Galway
  • 1655 Henry Bathurst (also Recorder of Cork)
  • 1681 Sir Richard Cox, 1st Baronet (also Recorder of Clonakilty, later Lord Chancellor of Ireland)
  • 1796 William Rowley (also MP for Kinsale)
  • 1832 Richard Connell

Sources[]

  • Burke's Peerage 107th Edition Delaware 2003
  • Fuller, Abraham and Holms, Thomas A Compendious View of Some Extraordinary Sufferings of the Quakers in Ireland 2nd Edition Dublin 1731
  • Lewis, Samuel A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland London S. Lewis and Co 1837


Notes[]

  1. ^ Just under 5300 as of 2016, although it had been 7000 before the Great Irish Famine
  2. ^ "The Lord Courcy's son's passports to some of his father's followers, July 7 1615: Warrant upon the humble suit of Robert Slighe, Recorder of Kinsale" Copy in the National Library of Ireland
  3. ^ Lewis Topograpical Dictionary of Ireland
  4. ^ Fuller and Holms p.101
  5. ^ Burkes' Peerage Vol. 3 p.3421
  6. ^ Courts of Justice Act 1924 s.51
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