[Extracts from Court Houses and Market Houses of the Province of Ulster, by C E B Brett, published by the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society in 1973.]
It is a most curious reversal of history that the regulation of marketing, now regarded as a matter for free enterprise, was originally a closely-guarded prerogative of the crown; whereas the administration of justice, now a prerogative of the crown, was originally left largely to private enterprise. The market system in Ireland, as in most of Europe, grew up by means of royal grants of monopolies to individuals. These monopolies were valuable, by virtue of the right to levy tolls on all who brought goods to market; they were guarded with great jealousy. Whenever any grant of a new market or toll was solicited from the Crown it was necessary to inquire by a jury whether the grant would be prejudicial to the King or to the owners of neighbouring markets. Bracton, who died in 1268, says that a market will be a nuisance if set up within six and two-thirds miles of an existing market, because 'an ordinary day's walk may be taken at twenty miles, and, dividing the time into three portions, the morning will be used going to market, the middle of the day in buying and selling, and the other third part of the time in returning home. The right to hold a fair or market was accompanied by the right to conduct a Court of Pie-Poudre, at which the steward adjudicatcd on commercial disputes and disturbances arising in the market; the cases had to bc heard there and then; the court fees constituted a useful source of revenue for market owners.
...The court system in Ulster has changed greatly over the
past two centuries. Today, in Northern Ireland, the system comprises
the High Court jurisdiction in Belfast; the periodic Assizes held
by High Court judges in the county towns; the regular county courts;
and the petty sessions districts, where courts are presided over
by resident magistrates. The structure in the Republic is, for
all practical purposes, similar, although there the High Court
sits of course in Dublin and not in the counties of Ulster.
Before the great reforming Judicature Act of 1877 there were six
ancient superior courts in Ireland, all with their seats in Dublin:
Chancery, King's Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, Admiralty, and
the Prerogative Court. To these had been added, as the nineteenth
century progressed, the Court of Bankruptcy and Insolvency; the
Landed Estates Court; and the Probate Court. The next layer down
comprised the assistant barristers, first appointed in 1787 in
disturbed areas, whose office gradually evolved so that a hundred
years later they were renamed County Court Judges. Magistrates
of police were first appointed, again in areas of disturbance,
in 1814; by 1853 they had evolved into resident magistrates. Justices
of the Peace, unpaid amateurs, were supposed, in Ireland as in
England, to provide the groundwork of the system; but this did
not work well, for too many of the gentry were absentees, and
too many of the justices were licensees. So the nineteenth century
saw a steady erosion of the powers of justices of the peace in
favour of salaried magistrates. Until their abolition in 1859,
a bewildering network of manor courts and courts baron dealt with
the less important civil cases. Their authority derived originally
from crown grants to landowners: like the right to hold markets,
they went with the premises. In many instances, the original grants
or letters patent had been lost or forgotten, and there was uncertainty
as to the jurisdiction (both territorial and pecuniary) they conferred.
The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland, published in three volumes
in 1845, contains an excellent concise account of the legal system
as it then existed. It also contains some interesting statistics.
In 1841, the census enumeration of 'persons at and above 15 years
of age, who ministered to justice,' exhibits: 29 judges, 69 stipendiary
magistrates, 2 mayors, 16 sherrifs, 24 coroners, 14 seneschals,
754 barristers, 32 proctors, 2,572 attorneys, 24 clerks of the
peace, 43 officers in courts of justice, 1 consular agent, 26
public notaries, 87 scriveners, 12 clerks of petty sessions, 147
law clerks, 3,806 excise and stamp officers, 33 civic officers,
9 inspectors of weights and measures, 9,721 constabulary and police,
1,398 bailiffs, 214 city constables, 6 town serjeants, 477 jailkeepers,
4 serjeants-at-mace, and 21 watchmen. This list poses some imponderable
questions. For example, how on earth did 2,572 attorneys manage
to conduct their business with only 87 scriveners and 147 law
clerks - that is, one employee to every eleven solicitors - amongst
the lot of them?
[The book describes in much more detail the workings of the market and court systems and the buildings associated with them, county by county].
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The High Court buildings, in Chichester Street, were provided
by the British Government under the Government of Ireland Act
of 1920, and are an interesting study in the Recessional-Imperial
style of British architecture. Stormont, completed in 1932 to
designs by Sir Arnold Thornely, is notably more successful than
the supreme court building completed in 1933 to designs by J.G.West
of the Board of Works: it is interesting that both are much more
satisfactory internally than externally. The High Court building
presents a very grim and forbidding facade to Chichester Street;
its failure is partly due to the obtrusive attic storey, partly
to the lack of a pediment which would have served to subdue it.
The front is of thirteen bays, the end bays projecting, the central
three bays recessed to form a porch; the first three storeys are
articulated by a row of giant Corinthian columns - at the porch,
free-standing; at the outer projecting bays, coupled with pilasters;
otherwise, engaged. These are very much as Lanyon would have had
them, and the relationship with his original designs for the County
Court House is intriguing, though almost certainly unconscious.
But Lanyon would never have allowed so recessive an entrance;
nor so very slab-like and unrelated an attic storey above the
entablature. The entire exterior is of Portland stone - laboriously
kept free of bird-droppings by men with scrubbers and hoses -
with very heavy Gibbsian surrounds to the steel-frame windows
on the ground floor.
Internally, the detailing is more satisfactory. The central hall,
140 feet long and 30 feet high, is panelled in travertine marble;
articulated with composite pilasters; and has a coffered ceiling.
The marble coats of arms at either end of the hall are carved
with admirable clarity. In many ways, this is the best room in
the city. The court rooms themselves, panelled in teak and floored
with cork, are both impressive and practical - even comfortable.
It is edifying to compare the Gothic and Perpendicular justice
dispensed in Street's Law Courts in the Strand with the more Classical
and Horizontal brand to be found here: there is no question that
a different atmosphere imposes a somewhat different style.
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