Dublin Castle administration in Ireland

The Dublin Castle administration in Ireland was the government of Ireland under English and later British rule, from the twelfth century until 1922, based at Dublin Castle.

Head

The head of the administration was variously known as the Justicar, the Lord Deputy, from the seventeenth century the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and later the Viceroy. Before 1707 he represented the government of the Kingdom of England, then that of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and finally from 1801 that of the United Kingdom. He was also the personal representative in Ireland of the monarch.

The Upper Courtyard of Dublin Castle. The Viceregal apartments are on the left.

By the nineteenth century, the Lord Lieutenant was declining in importance by comparison with his chief aide, the Chief Secretary for Ireland. By the late nineteenth century the Lord Lieutenant was sometimes, but not always, a member of the British cabinet, but the Chief Secretary invariably was a member.

The Government of Ireland Act 1920 gave the Lord Lieutenant a new role, that of the Crown's representative in the two new Irish UK regions of Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. However, Southern Ireland's institutions never came into operation due to the Irish War of Independence. Upon the independence of the Irish Free State from the United Kingdom in 1922, the Lord Lieutenancy was abolished, with its functions being transferred to the two new offices of Governor-General of the Irish Free State and Governor of Northern Ireland respectively.

Other officers

Other major officers in the Dublin Castle administration included the Chief Secretary, the Under-Secretary, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, the Attorney-General for Ireland (briefly replaced under the Government of Ireland Act by the Attorney-General for Southern Ireland), and the Solicitor-General for Ireland. All of these posts were abolished in 1922. The Chief Secretary's office evolved into the administrative basis for the new President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, effectively the prime minister, with the Under Secretary's administrative role becoming that of the new chief civil servant in the Irish government, the Secretary to the Executive Council.

See also

• Dublin Gazette

References

Sources

• Costello, Peter (1999). Dublin Castle in the life of the Irish nation. Dublin: Wolfhound Press. ISBN 0-86327-610-5.
• McCarthy, Denis , David Benton (2004). Dublin Castle: at the heart of Irish History. Dublin: Stationary Office. ISBN 9780755719754.
• Maurice O'Connor Morris Dublin Castle Harrison, 1889
• McBride, Lawrence W. The Greening of Dublin Castle: the transformation of bureaucratic and judicial personnel in Ireland, 1892-1922 Catholic University of America Press, 1991 ISBN 9780813207155
• Sturgis, Mark. Eds. Michael Hopkinson and Tim Pat Coogan The last days of Dublin Castle: the Mark Sturgis diaries Irish Academic Press, 1999 ISBN 9780716526261