People, Place and Power – The Grand Jury System in Ireland

23 Fig. 6. Cartouche from William Larkin’s Grand Jury map of Galway, 1819. Virginia Crossman, the authority on the Irish grand jury system, notes that: In the early nineteenth century the grand jury was the most important local body in rural Ireland, empowered to raise money by means of county rates for a variety of purposes from the construction and repair of roads and bridges to the upkeep of the local institutions such as hospitals and lunatic asylums. 19 The grand jury’s responsibilities gradually expanded. From 1634, the construction and repair of bridges came under the auspices of the county assizes, to be funded by the county, 20 but responsibility for maintaining highways had lain with parishes from 1615. From then, parishioners were required to provide six days free labour repairing local