ABSTRACT
This chapter traces mayoralty's origins and development through the centuries before detailing the consolidation of the modern Mayor's role during the nineteenth and twentieth century’s. It deals with mayoral development in the early medieval period in Ireland. The twelfth-century invasion of Ireland saw the rationalisation of towns and Mayors' emergence as 'chief executive officers' of the King and his barons, along with courts and councils. The Mayoralty is the most significant casualty, which is yet more remarkable given, for example, thDt dublin has had a Mayor since the early thirteenth century. The nineteenth century was a tumultuous one for the Irish Mayoralty, as well as local government more generally. The Irish Mayoralty remains comparatively powerless and largely ceremonial, particularly in the cities. In local election, the mayoralty was used to publicise the republican cause, and also the imprisonment of prominent republicans.
