Lord President of Connaught


The Lord President of Connaught was a military leader with wide-ranging powers, reaching into the civil sphere, in the English government of Connaught in Ireland, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The office was created in 1569, and in 1604 was reconstituted with full powers to hear all civil suits, to impose martial law and to proceed with "fire and sword" against the King's enemies. The width of his powers gave rise to clashes with the longer established courts: in 1622 he and the Lord President of Munster were ordered not to "intermeddle' in cases which were properly within the remit of those courts. He was assisted by a council whose members included the Chief Justice of Connacht, one or two associate justices and the Attorney General for the Province. The office was abolished in 1672.

List of Lord Presidents of Connaught