Overview
This is a list of lawyers who held the rank of serjeant-at-law at the Bar of Ireland.
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 used in Ireland until about 1388. The earlier terms were "serviens", "King's Narrator" "King's Pleader" or "Serjeant Pleader". The term King's Pleader was still in use in the 1470s. There is a reference to Richard le Blond as the King's "Serjeant Pleader" in 1305 or 1306. In the early years of the office, appointment as serjeant might be temporary and might cover only a part of the country, although John de Neville was acting as Serjeant in 1295-6 "for all parts of Ireland". Roger l'Enfant in the late 1370s pleaded mainly in Cork City, and Walter Cotterell in Munster As a rule, the Serjeant was licensed to appear in all of the Royal Courts, although John Haire in 1392 was described as "Serjeant-at-law of our Lord the King in the Common Pleas".
The role of the Serjeant-at-law
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).