Selling weed to mugs from Tipperary.
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Answer the question, pal.
Has your recent spells in education come at a cost to you or did the state help out with costs for your education?
Largely Protestant settler/plater types -many from after the Cromwellian settlement. Others invariably came from old Anglo-Irish stock who had converted to Protestantism - Catholics could not enter the ranks of the magistracy until 1794 (ish) and even then very few were initially admitted…
Essentially magistrates and the gentry/landlords were one and the same… you needed a basic income of £1000 to be regarded as a minor gent, however, in Ireland many of the gentry/magistrates fell short of this income and the position of magistrate was really used for social mobility in many cases. The other position that went hand in hand with the position was that of grand juror - which was the forerunner to the county council- but it was very much closed to the local gentry who decided where the local cess (tax) went and there are significant complains countrywide that they boyos were using it to build bridges/roads/walls around their own estates. Basically, they were no different to the modern day politician except that they controlled local landed estates, court houses and how taxes were spent- they had the lot sown up - but the period I look at, 1830-1846, sees the expansion of central government into provincial Ireland and the introduction of government paid magistrates to challenge the local hegemony of the local magistrates/gentry. Catholics had more joy in entering the ranks of the paid magistrates but it was a slow process.
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I was awared a scholarship which included some part time teaching/tutoring.
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Thanks for that. How much power did these magistrates have? Could they use the death penalty at their whim? Were they largely well intentioned or venal?
No…they only controlled local petty courts for the lower crimes and neighbourly squabbles… You had quarter sessions for more serious crimes and the the twice yearly assizes for the most serious crimes like murder/treason. Assizes had professional judges who travelled a circuit… However, I mentioned earlier about the grand jury… I don’t want you to confuse that with today’s interpretation of a jury ‘grand jury’…a trial jury was called a Petit jury and was often picked by the grand jury who, as I’ve explained, were largely magistrates and they often stacked the Petit jury to suit themselves so that poor old Paddy potato often found it hard to get justice.
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True enough, still had the FG / FF wings
I know. But can he fuck off to australia anyway?
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Your thesis, and strangely for this place I am not taking the piss, must be fascinating. I’ve often wondered how the cromwell planters diluted over the years.
This is how the typical magistrate looked.
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They didn’t really they just kept marrying each other and securing their place through the positions I’ve outlined…strangely enough there are still links to that world out there, but very few… Mate of mine has befriended one such lady in Clare who lives in an 18th century ‘big house.’ She is in her 80s now and has 4/5 dinner parties a year where all her old chums come along… All old Prod stock…Maggie’s husband was great friends with this lady’s husband and visited Clare in the 80s a few times undercover of night and plenty of MI5…if only the ra knew… Anyway, the way they still live/talk etc, you’d think we were still in the empire.
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I’ve come across a few such types. Genteel poverty I suppose these days. Some stayed and inbred I’m sure, but others diluted and dwindled. It really irks me the whole notion of the planter gentry.
I hear you…especially when you consider how the original inhabitants of these lands ended up…of course a lot of the Gaelic lords that were dispossessed went on to become middlemen and land agents and were worse than any of the landlords…I think a chap named Whelan wrote about them - An underground genty- is the name of the book\article…not sure I agree with all he says but an interesting read… I could have it on PDF if you want a read.
Flatty…my tablet is a curse to type long posts with… You’ve me wrecked… The predictive text is a pure cunt…and I’ve to go back and change half my posts.
I think they learn to swear after you’ve had them for a while. My phone is pretty fluent now.
I’d love to read that if you had the PDF.
There was o e such settler type near us. Now gone, but he had the best conker trees about , and was an absolute wanker.
We had one of those too…he was of Palatine stock…it’s where we went for our conkers too…lovely 19th century house but the bastards in Moyross eventually forced them out and later burned the house down.
Pm an email!address
Here @ChocolateMice I hope you bought yourself a nice bottle of champagne down in the Maxol to celebrate your achievement
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I didn’t yet, pal…but I got a bottle handed to me yesterday… I’ll check the name of it and get back to you.