Historical Perspectives on Juries in Ireland Juries in Ireland: Laypersons and Law in the Long Nineteenth Century by Niamh Howlin

Date01 January 2018
AuthorGarret Sammon
126
Historical Perspectives on Juries in Ireland
GARRET SAMMON*
Juries in Ireland: Laypersons and Law in the Long Nineteenth Century by Dr Niamh
Howlin (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2017)
Juries in Ireland: Laypersons and Law in the Long Nineteenth Century is one of the
latest publications in a very successful and long-running series of legal history texts
supported by the Irish Legal History Society. Dr Howlin has added signicantly to
scholarship in this area by focusing largely on civil matters – oen neglected in this
context – in her examination of the history of juries in the Irish legal system.
e book can be divided into two halves. e rst half deals with the many dierent
types of jury that operated in Ireland and the various roles that they have played in
Irish society since the middle of the eighteenth century. In this portion of the book,
Dr Howlin provides an in-depth examination of jury selection systems (Chapter2),
grand juries and common juries (Chapter 3), special juries (Chapter4), wide-streets
and valuation juries (Chapter 5), medico-legal juries (including coroner’s juries,
juries of matrons and lunacy juries) (Chapter 6) and mixed, market and manor
juries (Chapter 7).
A number of things are striking from Dr Howlin’s examination. Firstly, juries in
this period were very oen more than passive arbiters of fact, but rather actively
participated in proceedings (for example, coroner’s juries were present when
the body of the deceased was examined and juries of matrons would examine
a woman to determine whether she was pregnant or not). Secondly, jurors oen
gave more than the ‘yes or no’ or ‘guilty or not guilty’ answer that we have come to
associate with the modern criminal jury; for example, jurors were required to make
assessments of property values as part of wide-streets and valuation juries. In some
instances, jurors also attached riders to their verdicts outlining the reasons for their
decision, their recommendation as to quantum of damages or, in criminal matters,
the reasons as to why mercy should be granted to a convicted person. irdly, many
of the same problems faced by jurors in the nineteenth century remain common
complaints of jurors today; such as the inconvenience, cost and discomfort of
performing this duty.
e second section of the book takes a more thematic approach to the role of juries
in the legal system overall. e author examines the various means by which the
attendance of jurors was secured (Chapter 8), the dierent approaches taken over
* Garret Sammon is a solicitor.

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