Law Adviser to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland

Later he was given the tasks of drafting Parliamentary bills relating to Ireland, and of advising lay magistrates on any legal problems which they referred to him.

[2] Cases involving State security also fell under his remit: Denis Caulfield Heron, the Law Adviser in 1867, was heavily occupied in prosecuting the trials which followed the Fenian Rising.

[3] At first, the Law Adviser was usually chosen from among the Serjeants-at-law, but in time the position was opened up to rising junior barristers, many of whom hoped in due course to be appointed to the Bench.

Blackburne said that he would not tolerate a refusal to ratify the appointment, an interesting glimpse of the influence he wielded in the Dublin administration at the time.

In particular John Naish, the last nineteenth-century Law Adviser, was attacked by his political opponents for assisting magistrates in suppressing the Irish National Land League.