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

28 1.3. Power In his Account of Ireland, Statistical and Political Edward Wakefield described the grand jury as ‘a sort of county parliament in which numbers are anxious to have a seat’, but the blatant lobbying he described among prospective jurors was far removed from parliamentary dignity: ‘Gentlemen, desirous of being on this jury … are present in the town on the morning when the assizes commence, leaving their cards with the sheriff; who, in court, calls over such names as he chooses to select, and the first twenty-three who answer, are immediately sworn in’. 25 Some counties struggled to fill a complete jury. In King’s County (Offaly), the principal landlords were Lords Digby, Ross and Charleville who owned so much of the county ‘that the remaining land-holders are scarcely sufficient to make a grand jury, and on that account it is sometimes difficult to form one’. 26 Between 1727 and 1852, Westmeath frequently failed to gather the required 23 jurors; in spring 1760 the county could muster only 13 jurors, and 14 in summer 1766 (Fig. 11). In Donegal’s first grand jury presentments book (1753-68), only 21 jurors are listed for the spring 1761 session and 17 for spring 1765. Only four jurors are listed for summer 1764, but this cannot have reflected the actual session as a ‘finding by less than twelve grand jurors is erroneous’. 27 Kerry’s grand jury in 1729 was but sixteen strong; Wicklow’s summer 1712 jury had nineteen jurors. 28 Grand Jury Query Books (1882–1891), County Louth Courtesy of Louth County Archives Service