Court of Common Pleas (Ireland)

The first Chief Justice was Sir Robert Bagod, former High Sheriff of County Limerick, a member of an old Dublin family which gave its name to Baggot Street.

They were also more likely than their colleagues to be Irish-born, and to be fluent in Irish, although a number of early justices, like John de Ponz and William Fauvel, were English.

A petition for redress dated 1369 refers to the recent burning of the town by the Irish of Leinster, and more generally to "the time of war", during which most of the judges dared not go to Carlow.

[5] John Tirel, Chief Justice of Common Pleas 1386-95, was notoriously reluctant to brave "the dangers of the roads".

After the first decade of the new Court's existence, it was decided that it could be made to work more efficiently by merging the Common Pleas and Queen's Bench Divisions.