IRISH PETTY SESSIONS

By the 17th century, all but the most serious civil and criminal cases in Ireland were heard at local quarter sessions, presided over four times a year by justices of the peace: unpaid magistrates drawn from the local gentry and landowning classes. From the early 19th century, however, more minor offences were heard at the petty-sessions courts, which also took on the responsibility of preliminary hearings for more serious cases to be referred to the quarter sessions. With the 1851 Petty, the system was substantially professionalised, with trained and salaried magistrates taking over the judicial roles.