King's Inns




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The Honorable Society of King’s Inns is the oldest institution of legal education in Ireland. It was founded in 1541 during the reign of Henry VIII. When the king granted the Society the lands and properties on which the Four Courts now stand but which were then occupied by a Dominican monastery. When the Four Courts were built in the 1790s, King's Inns moved to Constitution Hill and the benchers commissioned James Gandon to design their present property.

In the Middle Ages, the need for apprentice lawyers to learn about common law led to the founding of hostels where they could live and study. The Inns of Court were places where the students were provided with accommodation, meals and tuition. Up to 1800 the buildings at Inns Quay provided all that was needed for practice at the bar. There were chambers where barristers lived and worked, a hall for eating and drinking, a library for research, a chapel for prayer and gardens for recreation. Things changed somewhat with the move to Constitution Hill. Chambers and a chapel were to have been built but the plans were never executed. However, many of the 17th century traditions remain or are co-mingled with 21st century developments.

The formal records of King's Inns (the "Black Book") date from 1607. Initially a voluntary society but, by 1634 membership had become compulsory for barristers wishing to practice in the courts. After the Williamite wars of the 1690s catholics were effectively excluded from the legal profession by the penal laws. This exclusion lasted for a century until the Catholic Relief Act of 1792 when catholics were allowed to practice at the outer Bar.

The Court of Exchequer Chamber was an English appellate court for common law civil actions, prior to the reforms of the Judicature Acts of 1873-1875. The Court heard references from the King's Bench, the Court of Exchequer and, from 1830, the Court of Common Pleas. It was constituted from judges belonging to the other two courts.