High Sheriff of Tipperary

The High Sheriff of Tipperary was the Sovereign's judicial representative in County Tipperary. Initially an office for a lifetime, assigned by the Sovereign, the High Sheriff became annually appointed from the Provisions of Oxford in 1258. Besides his judicial importance, he had ceremonial and administrative functions and executed High Court Writs. History The first (High) Shrievalties were established before the Norman Conquest in 1066 and date back to Saxon times. In 1908, an Order in Council made the Lord-Lieutenant the Sovereign's prime representative in a county and reduced the High Sheriff's precedence. Despite however that the office retained his responsibilities for the preservation of law and order in a county. County Tipperary was a liberty administered by the Earls of Ormond, who thereby appointed the Sheriff, until it was extinguished as part of the second Duke's attainder for supporting the Jacobite rising of 1715. It then became a normal county under the direct control of the King. In Tipperary and in four of the counties of the province of Connaught the office ceased to exist with the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922.