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

49 People, Power and Place has sought to convey the power exercised by the grand jury system on people and place across Ireland, especially during the era of its greatest influence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is not possible in a short booklet such as this to describe all the available sources, which include presentment books, treasurers’ accounts, grand jury minute books and resolutions, collectors’ ledgers, valuations, gaol and hospital records. However, the data gathered for this publication conclusively demonstrates the scale, scope and significance of the grand jury sources. The records of the grand jury, which survive in significant quantities across Ireland, are consequently of enormous value for local history and for understanding how the social character of Ireland was shaped at local level during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Much more remains to be uncovered. Most counties published hundreds of copies of abstracts of presentments after assizes sittings, and many are likely to be discovered in boxes and cupboards in ‘big houses’ around the country. These lost records need to be identified and preserved, because they can provide unique and important vistas on social relationships in Ireland before 1898. Fig. 24. Louth County Council membership, April 1899. Louth’s new county council met for the first time on 22 April 1899. Following the election of Peter Hughes as chairman. the transfer of local power from Protestants and Unionists to Catholics and Nationalists was immediately highlighted, when the council passed a motion demanding Home Rule. Cairnes, the only unionist elected to the Council, opposed the motion. 53 Freeman’s Journal, 24 April 1899, p. 5.