Black cap

When worn, the square was placed on top of the judicial wig, with one of the four corners of the fabric facing forward.

[1] Originally, the cap was a normal part of judicial full dress, as worn by judges on all especially formal or solemn occasions, of which passing a death sentence was just one.

[6] It remained in use in the Irish Free State and Republic of Ireland;[7] there was only one such cap, kept by the county registrar in Dublin's Four Courts.

George Gavan Duffy was the first judge to break the tradition, not wearing the black cap when pronouncing a death sentence in 1937.

Such claims go back as far as in the era of the infamous John Toler, 1st Earl of Norbury (Chief Justice, 1800–1827).