Recorder of Dublin

The Recorder of Dublin was a judicial office holder in pre-Independence Ireland. The Recorder was the chief magistrate for Dublin, and conducted a wide range of civil and criminal business; his overall responsibility was to keep the peace, and he also maintained strict control over the number of public houses. His duties were so onerous - by the 1830s he was hearing roughly 2000 cases a year - that some Recorders sought promotion to the High Court bench in the hope that the workload would be lighter. The Recorder also acted on occasion as a mediator in conflicts between the central Government and Dublin Corporation.

Although he held a full-time office, the Recorder, unlike the High Court judges, was not debarred from sitting in the Irish House of Commons, and despite their heavy workload as judges several Recorders were M.P.s at the same time. After the Act of Union 1800 the Recorder was eligible to sit in the English House of Commons, although some objection was made to this in 1832, on the ground that a judge should not sit in Parliament. There was apparently no such objection to combining the office with that of a Law Officer: Sir Richard Ryves, Recorder 1680-1685, was a Serjeant for part of the same period.

The first man to hold the position was James Stanihurst, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, in 1564, and the last was Sir Thomas O'Shaughnessy. The Recordership was abolished in 1924 and the Recorder's functions transferred to the new Circuit Court.