Privy Council of Ireland
In the post-1800 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Irish Privy Council and viceroy Lord Lieutenant had formal and ceremonial power, while policy formulation rested with a Chief Secretary directly answerable to the British cabinet.
[3] Charles I ordered the Lord Deputy to reform the "negligent meeting" of the privy council's committees.
[7] Poynings' Law (1495) gave the Irish Privy Council a leading role in the legislative process.
[1][14] Privy Councillors had a right of audience with the viceroy, and many men were anxious to become members purely for this access and took little or no part in council business.
[16] Nevertheless, the viceroy informally consulted an inner circle before the formal council meetings, in order to expedite decision-making.
[16] In Great Britain a similar process led to the evolution of this inner circle or "cabinet" into the de facto government while the full privy council became a ceremonial body.
Latterly such offices as Vice-Treasurer of Ireland were sinecures whose holders might secure a private act of the British parliament allowing them to take the oath in Britain to save the bother of travelling to Dublin.
[18] In 1801 Lord Pelham, a former Chief Secretary for Ireland, became British Home Secretary and assumed that his office now extended to Ireland, but viceroy Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke insisted that the silence of the 1800 acts regarding the Irish council implied that its assent remained obligatory for effecting government orders.
[19] In 1850 the First Russell ministry proposed to abolish the Lord Lieutenant and transfer some of his statutory functions to Privy Council of Ireland.
[22] Sir Michael Morris, the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, stated that in his 20 years attending council meetings, no "matter of policy" was discussed.
[22] In the 19th century, petitions to the Privy Council against decisions of various administrative bodies were referred to committees of councillors with legal experience.
The British initially hoped the resulting Provisional Government could be appointed under the "Crown Colony" provision, but realised ministers from Sinn Féin would refuse the Privy Council oath, and instead the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922 replaced much of the 1920 act as regards Southern Ireland.
[34] It was in the Council Chamber on 16 January 1922 that Viscount FitzAlan formally handed over control of the Dublin Castle administration to the Provisional Government of what would on 6 December become the Irish Free State.
[39] When the Constitution of the Irish Free State came into force the next day, the UK's Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act 1922 created the Governor and Privy Council of Northern Ireland to perform the functions previously performed there by the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council of Ireland.
[45] In 1931 The Irish Times reported a rumour that the Free State government was seeking to transfer the JCPC's appellate jurisdiction to a revived Privy Council of Ireland.
[46] The Parliamentary Gazette, an unofficial reference work, continued to publish lists of members of the "Privy Council in Ireland" as late as 1934.
[47] Official sources after 1922 occasionally retained the style "Rt Hon" for members of the dormant Irish Privy Council; for example in Oireachtas proceedings of Andrew Jameson,[48] Bryan Mahon,[49] and James Macmahon,[50] and in The London Gazette of Henry Givens Burgess.
[51] Hugh O'Neill, 1st Baron Rathcavan was the last surviving Irish Privy Councillor; appointed on 16 September 1921, he died on 28 November 1982.
[55] By the 19th century the Attorney-General for Ireland was a member as were many senior judges; Charles Dod contrasted this with the equivalent officers in England and Wales, who received knighthoods.
A room over the chapel built by Philip Sidney in 1567 had "a very long table, furnished with stools at both sides and ends [where] sometimes sit in council about 60 or 64 privy councillors".
