Richard Finglas (died 1574) was an Irish barrister and Law Officer of the sixteenth century. He belonged to the prominent Finglas family of Westphailstown (or Westpalstown),

County Dublin "Action to match our speech" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg , map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...

, and must therefore have been a close relative, probably a nephew or grandson, of Patrick Finglas,

Lord Chief Justice of Ireland The Court of King's Bench (or Court of Queen's Bench during the reign of a Queen) was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The Lord Chief Justice was the most senior judge ...

, who died in 1537. He was appointed Principal Solicitor for Ireland in 1550, and his tenure in that office was renewed by

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

in 1561.Smyth pp.173, 285-6 As Principal Solicitor, he served as deputy to the

Solicitor General for Ireland The Solicitor-General for Ireland was the holder of an Irish and then (from the Act of Union 1800) United Kingdom government office. The holder was a deputy to the Attorney-General for Ireland, and advised the Crown on Irish legal matters. On ra ...

. He was appointed

Serjeant-at-law (Ireland) This is a list of lawyers who held the rank of serjeant-at-law at the Irish Bar. Origins of the office of serjeant The first recorded serjeant was Roger Owen, who was appointed between 1261 and 1266, although the title itself was not commonly ...

in 1554. Some sources state that he was appointed Solicitor General in the same year, but this may simply reflect the confusion between the two similarly named offices of Solicitor General and Principal Solicitor. He played a part in the development of the King's Inns as Ireland's first law school, and is listed as one of the lessees of the building which housed the Inns at Blackfriars (modern Henrietta Street) in the 1567

lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...

from the English Crown. He sat on a number of Crown commissions, including one in 1559 for assessing the inhabitants of Dublin for

taxation A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures (regional, local, o ...

, and two for mustering the available troops in

the Pale The Pale (Irish: ''An Pháil'') or the English Pale (' or ') was the part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the Late Middle Ages. It had been reduced by the late 15th century to an area along the east coast st ...

. He sat on a commission of gaol delivery in

Westmeath "Noble above nobility" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Westmeath.svg , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = , subdivis ...

and

Kildare Kildare () is a town in County Kildare, Ireland. , its population was 8,634 making it the 7th largest town in County Kildare. The town lies on the R445, some west of Dublin – near enough for it to have become, despite being a regional ce ...

in 1553-4.Morrin Vol.1 p.346 As Queen's Serjeant he earned high praise from the Irish Government for his devotion to duty: he was awarded a special

annuity In investment, an annuity is a series of payments made at equal intervals.Kellison, Stephen G. (1970). ''The Theory of Interest''. Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc. p. 45 Examples of annuities are regular deposits to a savings account, ...

of £10 for his "labour and diligence" in attending the

Court of Castle Chamber The Court of Castle Chamber (which was sometimes simply called ''Star Chamber'') was an Irish court of special jurisdiction which operated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was established by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571 to deal with ca ...

(the Irish version of Star Chamber) and the Privy Council of Ireland; this seems to have been a special reward over and above the normal fees for his office. Despite his obvious legal ability, and the praise for his diligence, he never became a High Court judge: this probably reflected the low opinion which

Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

had of her Irish Law Officers, whom she generally refused to promote to the judiciary, and whom wherever a vacancy arose she replaced if possible with an English lawyer. He died, still in office, in 1574.

Sources

*Hart, A. R. ''History of the King's Serjeant at law in Ireland'' Four Courts Press Dublin 2000 *Kenny, Colum ''King's Inns and the Kingdom of Ireland'' Irish Academic Press Dublin 1992 *Morrin, James ''Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland in the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth'' Alexander Thom and Co. Dublin 1861 *Smyth, Constantine Joseph ''Chronicle of the Law Officers of Ireland'' Butterworths London 1839

Notes

{{reflist Serjeants-at-law (Ireland) People from County Dublin Year of birth missing 1574 deaths