The main unit of local government in the later medieval Lordship of Ireland was one imported from England and with a long prior history in that country— the county. The first counties were probably created in the final years of the twelfth century. By the beginning of the second decade of the thirteenth century, separate counties of Dublin, Munster, Cork, and Waterford had come into existence in those areas reserved to the Crown at the time of the initial Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland or during the later expansion of the Lordship. Further counties were created during the course of the thirteenth century. A separate county of Uriel or Louth was probably created in 1227 at the time that Hugh de Lacy recovered the liberty of Ulster. County Kerry was carved out of either the existing county of Munster or out of County Cork, probably in the 1220s.
County Limerick had probably been carved out of the older county of Munster by the 1230s, and by the 1250s the remainder of that county had come to be called County Tipperary rather than Munster. Connacht, too, had its own sheriff by 1236, reflecting the progress of conquest in the west and the creation of a county there. It too subsequently had a separate county (of Roscommon) carved out of it, perhaps in 1288. It was not until 1297 that a separate county of Meath was established, coterminous with the original liberty of Meath, but with a sheriff directly responsible for only the de Verdon portion of that liberty. All these were royal counties, with sheriffs who were directly answerable to the Dublin administration. There were also private sheriffs within the greater liberties who were immediately answerable to the lords of these liberties and their stewards (or seneschals). The large liberty of Leinster had been divided into four separate administrative units from the late twelfth century on. A separate sheriff of County Kildare is first mentioned in 1224, before the partition of the liberty itself between coheirs. References to the other counties seem to come only after the division (to Co. Wexford in 1249; to County Carlow in 1254; to County Kilkenny in 1255), but the division itself probably followed the preexisting division into separate counties. The liberty of Ulster was also divided into a number of separate counties. In the fourteenth century there also emerged within each of the liberties counties consisting of lands belonging to the church (cross-lands) in the liberty that were exempt for this reason from the control of the lord of the liberty and directly subject to the king’s rule. These sheriffs of the cross-lands also came to play a rule in acting in the counties within the liberties when the steward of the liberty failed to do so. The names of some of the counties were derived from those of preexisting native Irish administrative and political units, either provinces or kingdoms (Munster, Meath, Connacht, Uriel). Others were named after specific towns that formed the core of the counties concerned and constituted their administrative centers (Dublin, Cork, Waterford, Carlow, Kildare, Roscommon, Wexford, Kilkenny, Tipperary).
The county’s main administrative official was the sheriff, who was chosen by the local county court. Governmental orders were transmitted from Dublin or from England to the sheriff for local execution within his county, and he was normally required to report back on what had been done or why it had not been done. The sheriff was also responsible for collecting moneys owed to the king within his county and transmitting them to the Exchequer in Dublin or spending the money locally and accounting for that when he next came to render his accounts in Dublin. The process of the king’s courts was also dependent on him.
He was responsible for ensuring that defendants were summoned to court, the execution of court process against them and the enforcement of judgments within his county, and reporting back on what he had done. The sheriff was also the presiding officer of the county court held in the county he served and was responsible for executing its process and judgments as well. Sheriffs were assisted in the execution of their duties by a staff of under-sheriffs and clerks appointed by and answerable to them, and also by a chief sergeant and his subordinates, who were generally responsible for the local execution of royal mandates. There were also at least two coroners in each county, whose primary responsibility was to make enquiries into all suspicious deaths, but who might be required to act in place of the sheriff if he failed to execute any of his functions. For the counties within the liberties, however, communication from the central authorities was through the stewards, who were the main administrative officials of the liberties concerned and who then transmitted any necessary orders to the sheriffs.
Each county also possessed a county court. Like its English counterpart, this had a significant civil jurisdiction and sole power to proclaim the outlawry of a fugitive from justice. It was also a place for the choice of representatives for the county at the Irish parliament and also for the choice of sheriffs and coroners. The primary location for the proclamation of newly enacted legislation, and other matters the Dublin administration wished to draw to wider attention, was also the county court. In addition, the county court was a locus for wider decision-making on such matters as the imposition of local taxation to help pay the costs of local military activity.
The main administrative unit below the level of the county was the cantred. The term is related to one used in Wales and is etymologically equivalent to the English term "hundred," the term used for a similar sub-county administrative unit. They were also often based on preexisting areas, and generally coincided with the basic area of ecclesiastical administration above the parish and below the archdeaconry, the rural deanery. They were significant units for the purposes of taxation, law enforcement (the sheriff held a sheriff’s tourn in each cantred twice a year), and general administration. But already before the end of the Middle Ages the term "barony" was coming to be used in place of cantred for these units.
The larger cities and towns of the later medieval lordship generally enjoyed a substantial degree of autonomy and were governed and administered by their own elected officials (mayors or bailiffs) and their councils. This autonomy was generally granted them by royal charter, and the charter also generally confirmed some of the distinctive customs that were observed in the town. Regular reissuing of these charters allowed regular updating of their powers and of the city’s custom. However autonomous, they remained ultimately under the control of the Dublin administration.
How effective this structure of local government was at any stage in the later Middle Ages is more problematic. The late thirteenth century was probably the period when the control of the Dublin administration reached its maximum extent, but even then there were areas of Gaelic lordship within the existing counties in which the Dublin administration and its local agents were relatively ineffective. Thereafter there was a steady decline in its control and also therefore in the effective reach of the colony’s local government structures. By the late fifteenth century, the area most firmly under its control was the area of the Pale, but some local government structures also survived outside that area, not just in major towns but also in some rural areas, often in discontinuous islands of settled governmental structure that had managed to survive the wider decline in the lordship’s fortunes.
