Quarter Session Courts in Ireland
The Dublin Quarter Sessions Court had cognizance of all crimes committed within the city's boundaries except treason. There were Quarter Sessions Courts elsewhere in Ireland in Cork, Limerick, Derry, Kilkenny, Waterford, Galway, Carrickfergus, Kinsale, and Youghal. The recorder of the court sat alone. The Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 abolished many city and borough courts, but Dublin, Galway and Carrickfergus retained their courts of Quarter Sessions.
In 1867, the Attorney-General for Ireland, Hedges Eyre Chatterton, issued guidelines to regulate which cases ought to be tried at tried at assizes rather than quarter sessions: treason, murder, treason felony, rape, perjury, assault with intent to murder, party processions, election riots, and all offences of a political or insurrectionary character.
Quarter Sessions were abolished in the Irish Free State under the Courts of Justice Act 1924. Their jurisdiction (together with that of the Assizes and the County Court) was largely transferred to the Circuit Court.
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