The Lord Mayor of Dublin ( ga, Ardmhéara Bhaile Átha Cliath) is the honorary title of the chairperson ( ga, Cathaoirleach, links=no ) of Dublin City Council which is the local government body for the city of

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

, the capital of Ireland. The incumbent, since June 2022, is councillor

Caroline Conroy Caroline Conroy is an Irish Green Party politician who has served as Lord Mayor of Dublin since June 2022. In June 2022, she was elected as the 354th Lord Mayor of Dublin, succeeding Alison Gilliland. She was elected to Dublin City Council ...

. The office holder is elected annually by the members of the Council.

Background

The office of Mayor of Dublin was created in June 1229 by Henry III. The office of ''Mayor'' was elevated to '' Lord Mayor'' in 1665 by Charles II, and as part of this process received the honorific

The Right Honourable ''The Right Honourable'' ( abbreviation: ''Rt Hon.'' or variations) is an honorific style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. The ter ...

(''The Rt Hon.''). Lord mayors were ''ex-officio'' members of the

Privy Council of Ireland His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal execu ...

, which also entitled them to be addressed as The Right Honourable. Though the Privy Council was ''de facto'' abolished in 1922, the Lord Mayor continued to be entitled to be addressed as The Right Honourable as a result of the

Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 The Municipal Corporations Act (Ireland) 1840 (3 & 4 Vict. c. 108), ''An Act for the Regulation of Municipal Corporations in Ireland'', was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 10 August 1840. It was one of the Municipal Corporati ...

, which granted the title in law. The

Local Government Act 2001 The Local Government Act 2001 (No. 37) was enacted by the Oireachtas on 21 July 2001 to reform local government in the Republic of Ireland. Most of the provisions of the Act came into operation on 1 January 2002. The act was a restatement and a ...

finally removed the title as a consequence of the repeal of the 1840 act.

Functions

The office is largely symbolic and its responsibilities consist of chairing meetings of the city council and representing the city at public events. Apart from a few reserved functions, which are exercised by the city council as a whole, executive power is exercised by the

chief executive A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

, a council official appointed by the Public Appointments Service (formerly by the Local Appointments Commission). Except on a handful of occasions where the city government has been suspended for not striking a rate (a level of local tax), Dublin has had a mayor for nearly eight hundred years. The Lord Mayor resides in the eighteenth-century Mansion House on

Dawson Street Dawson Street (; ) is a street on the southern side of central Dublin, running from St Stephen's Green to the walls of Trinity College Dublin. It is the site of the residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, the Mansion House. Location Dawson Stre ...

. A privilege enjoyed by the Lord Mayor is to receive the first car registration number in Dublin for each new year. Since 2018, each new Lord Mayor is presented with an official bicycle by the Dublin Cycling Campaign.

Nial Ring Nial Ring is a Dublin city councillor, who has served as Lord Mayor of Dublin from June 2018 to June 2019. An independent politician who was formerly a member of Fianna Fáil, he was first elected councillor for the Dublin North Inner City ward ( ...

was the first recipient.

City regalia

Chain of office

The chain is the outward sign of the office of the Lord Mayor and is worn within the city when performing official civic functions, important ceremonial occasions and also as appropriate at other times, such as opening conferences, new businesses, etc. It is also worn, at the Lord Mayor's discretion, when paying visits to such places as schools, churches and the emergency services. The Lord Mayor of Dublin's gold chain of office was presented by King William III to the City of Dublin in 1698. The chain is composed of decorative links including the Tudor rose, a harp, a trefoil-shaped knot and the letter S (thought to stand for

Seneschal The word ''seneschal'' () can have several different meanings, all of which reflect certain types of supervising or administering in a historic context. Most commonly, a seneschal was a senior position filled by a court appointment within a royal, ...

or Steward). A circular gold medal with the bust of William III hangs from the chain. The previous chain was not returned by Michael Creagh, the Protestant Jacobite Lord Mayor in 1688–1689.

Dublin city seal

The city seal dates from 1229/1230 when it was used by the Dublin City Assembly to issue a deed to the Town Clerk. One side shows three watchtowers above one of the city gates being defended by archers, while the reverse side shows a merchant ship at sea.

Great Dublin civic sword

The civic sword dates from the 1390s and was made for

Henry IV of England Henry IV ( April 1367 – 20 March 1413), also known as Henry Bolingbroke, was King of England from 1399 to 1413. He asserted the claim of his grandfather King Edward III, a maternal grandson of Philip IV of France, to the Kingdom of F ...

in 1399. He gave it to the City of Dublin in 1409/1410.

Great mace of Dublin

The Great mace dates from 1717/1718 and incorporates parts of an earlier mace made in 1665 for the first Lord Mayor of Dublin, Sir Daniel Bellingham. The city sword and Great mace are still used at major civic events such as the Honorary Freedom of the City conferring. All of the above are on display in Dublin City Hall.

Lord Mayor's coach

The Lord Mayor's coach was built in 1789 by William Whitton, of Dominick Street, and made its first appearance on the streets of Dublin on 4 November 1791 in an annual event to mark the birthday of William III. The elaborately decorated coach far exceeded its original budget and was completed for a total cost of £2,690 13s 5d. The coach was used for ceremonial occasions up until 1932 when, due to its poor condition, it was placed in storage. Following expert restoration, the coach returned to public life in 1976 and is a feature of Dublin's annual Saint Patrick's Day parade.

Notable mayors

*Richard Muton (1229–1230), Dublin's first Mayor * Gilbert de Lyvet (1233–1234, 1235–1237) * John Drake, three times Mayor between 1401 and 1412, who led the Dubliners to victory over the O'Byrne clan of

County Wicklow County Wicklow ( ; ga, Contae Chill Mhantáin ) is a county in Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is bordered by ...

at the Battle of Bloody Bank in 1402 * Bartholomew Ball (1553–1554), whose widow Blessed Margaret Ball was martyred by their eldest son, Walter * Walter Ball (1580–1581), Commissioner for Ecclesiastical Causes – implemented the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

in Dublin * Francis Taylor (1595–1596), who was incarcerated because of his

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

ism, and has been declared a

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

for his faith and

beatified Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their n ...

by the Catholic Church *Sir Daniel Bellingham (1665–1666), first ''Lord'' Mayor *Jean Desmynieres (1666–1667) and Lewis Desmynieres (1669–1670),

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

Lord Mayors of Dublin * Sir Michael Creagh (1688–1689) who, although a Protestant, was a supporter of the Catholic James II *Sir

Mark Rainsford Sir Mark Rainsford (circa 1652 – November 1709) was an Irish Lord Mayor of Dublin and the original founder of what was to become the Guinness Brewery. Political career Sir Mark Rainsford was Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1700 to 1701. During his ...

(1700–1701), the original founder of what was to become St James' Gate (Guinness) Brewery *

Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...

(1841–1842), leader of campaigns for

Catholic Emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

and

Repeal A repeal (O.F. ''rapel'', modern ''rappel'', from ''rapeler'', ''rappeler'', revoke, ''re'' and ''appeler'', appeal) is the removal or reversal of a law. There are two basic types of repeal; a repeal with a re-enactment is used to replace the law ...

of the Acts of Union; first Catholic Lord Mayor of Dublin since 1690 *Sir John Barrington (1865–1866 and 1879–1880), the first

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

to hold the office *

Laurence O'Neill Laurence O'Neill (4 March 1864 – 26 July 1943) was an Irish politician and corn merchant. O'Neill was elected to Dáil Éireann as an independent Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin Mid at the 1922 general election. He did not contest the 1923 ...

(1917–1924), who was Lord Mayor throughout the

Irish War of Independence The Irish War of Independence () or Anglo-Irish War was a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army, along with the quasi-mil ...

and the

Irish Civil War The Irish Civil War ( ga, Cogadh Cathartha na hÉireann; 28 June 1922 – 24 May 1923) was a conflict that followed the Irish War of Independence and accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State, an entity independent from the United ...

Alfie Byrne Alfred Byrne (17 March 1882 – 13 March 1956) was an Irish politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP), as a Teachta Dála (TD) and as Lord Mayor of Dublin. He was known as the "Shaking Hand of Dublin". Early life The second of seven ...

(1930–1939 and 1954–1955), the longest-serving Lord Mayor of Dublin in the office's 800-year history * Kathleen Clarke (1939–1941), the first woman in the post * Hazel Chu (2020–2021), the first person of Chinese ethnicity to be mayor of a European capital

List

Notes

References

External links

Lord Mayor WebsiteLord Mayors of Dublin 1665–2021
(Dublin City Council) {{DEFAULTSORT:Dublin, Lord Mayor Of Local government in County Dublin History of Dublin (city)