Patrick Fitzgerald (died after 1600) was an Irish
judge
A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...
who held the office of
Recorder of Dublin.
Elrington Ball states that he belonged to a junior branch of the leading
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the State rel ...
FitzGerald family whose head was the
Earl of Kildare
Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ''countess'' is used.
The titl ...
. He was said to be "a man learned in the law" and a devout member of the
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland (, ; , ) is a Christian church in Ireland, and an autonomy, autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the Christianity in Ireland, second-largest Christian church on the ...
.
He was appointed Recorder of Dublin in about 1599. For several years previously he had acted as an extra judge of the
Court of Common Pleas (Ireland)
The Court of Common Pleas was one of the principal courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror image of the equivalent court in England. Common Pleas was one of the four courts of justice which gave the Four Courts in Dublin, which is sti ...
, due to the failing health and mental incapacity of
Sir William Bathe, one of the permanent judges of the Common Pleas. He replaced Bathe as a permanent judge of the Common Pleas in 1600, but was superseded soon afterwards in favour of the veteran English barrister
Peter Palmer. He had already stepped down as Recorder in favour of Sir
Edward Loftus. His precise date of death is not recorded.
References
*Ball, F. Elrington ''The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921'' London John Murray 1926
*Smyth, Constantine Joseph ''Chronicle of the Law Officers of Ireland'' London Butterworths 1839
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fitzgerald, Patrick
Patrick Patrick may refer to:
*Patrick (given name), list of people and fictional characters with this name
* Patrick (surname), list of people with this name
People
*Saint Patrick (c. 385–c. 461), Christian saint
* Gilla Pátraic (died 1084), Patrick ...
Recorders of Dublin