Attorney-General for Ireland

The first record of the office of Attorney General for Ireland, some 50 years after the equivalent office was established in England, is in 1313, when Richard Manning was appointed King's Attorney (the title Attorney General was not used until the 1530s),[2] at a salary of 5 marks a year. The Attorney General was initially junior to the serjeant-at-law, but since the titles of King's Serjeant and King's Attorney were often used interchangeably, it can be difficult to establish who held which office at any given time.[2] Thomas Dowdall, for example, was called Serjeant-at-law and King's Attorney in the 1460s at almost the same time.[3] Early holders of the office, including Manning, were also permitted to take private clients.[2] Casey states that the records cast very little light on the duties of the Attorney-General in the early years, no doubt a reflection of his inferior status compared to the Serjeant-at-law.[2]

There are at least two references to a Deputy Attorney-General.[4] The first was in 1385, when Robert Hemynborough, or de Hemynborgh, was appointed Attorney-General "with power to appoint a Deputy".[5] Two centuries later, Edward Butler, who became Attorney-General in 1582, had acted as Deputy from 1578 to 1580.[4] Apart from these two examples, there is no evidence that the Deputy Attorney-General was a permanent position, nor do we know why it was considered necessary to appoint Butler to this office (pressure of work may be the explanation).

It seems that early Attorneys-General might be licensed to appear in certain courts only. William Rouse (1342), Peter de Leycestre (1357), William Lynnoor (1359) and John Barry (1401) were all given a patent to plead in the Court of Common Pleas and the Court of Exchequer.[5] John White was described in 1427 as "King's Attorney in the King's Bench and the Exchequer".[6] The Serjeant-at-law, by contrast, was generally licensed to appear in all the Royal Courts, although John Haire in 1392 was described as "Serjeant-at-law of our Lord the King in the Common Pleas".[3]

Perhaps because the Attorney-General was in the earlier centuries junior to the Serjeant-at-law, some holders of the office were probably not as highly qualified. Thomas Archbold (or Galmole), appointed Attorney-General in 1478, was a goldsmith by profession, and, perhaps more suitably, was also Master of the Royal Mint in Ireland.

In 1537 there was a short-lived attempt, following the report of a royal commission, to expand the role of the Attorney General, which would have involved the abolition of the office of King's Serjeant. The proposal was defeated largely through the firm opposition of the Serjeant-at-law, Patrick Barnewall, who argued that arguing cases for the Crown was and always had been the proper task of the Serjeant-at-law: "the King's Serjeant has always used to maintain the Pleas.... for this two hundred years and more". Why the more junior office was favoured over the much longer established office of Serjeant is not clear

From the early 1660s, due largely to the personal prestige of Sir William Domville (AG 1660–1686), the Attorney General became the chief legal adviser to the Crown. In certain periods, notably during the reign of Elizabeth I, who thought poorly of her Irish-born law officers, the English Crown adopted a policy of choosing only English lawyers for this office, and also the Solicitor-General.[2] Her successor King James I in 1620, on the appointment of Sir William Ryves, noted that the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General "have always been of the King's choice and special nomination",[5] and that they were the Crown servants in whom the King places, above his other learned counsel and officers of the Court: "his more special trust regarding the preservation of his revenue and possessions". It is interesting that the King here seems to place the Attorney and the Solicitor above the Serjeant-at-law in importance.[5]

The Attorney-General, in later centuries at least,[2] was always a member of the Privy Council of Ireland (in earlier centuries there were times when only the Serjeant-at-law attended the Council, but Stephen Roche, Attorney General 1441-44, attended the Great Council of 1441).[2]

A strong Attorney, like Philip Tisdall, William Saurin, or Francis Blackburne, could exercise great influence over the Dublin administration. Tisdall (AG 1760-1777), was for much of his tenure as Attorney General also the Government leader in the Irish House of Commons, and a crucial member of the administration. Saurin (AG 1807-1822) was regarded for many years as the effective head of the Dublin Government, until his career was ended by his opposition to Catholic Emancipation.[2] In 1841 Blackburne (AG 1830–1834, 1841–1842), on being challenged about a proposed appointment within his own office, said firmly that he "would not tolerate a refusal to ratify the appointment".[7]

The office of Attorney General was described as being "a great mixture of law and general political reasoning".[7]