High Sheriff of County Londonderry

The High Sheriff of County Londonderry is the high sheriff for an area corresponding to the former administrative county of Londonderry in Northern Ireland. The office was created along with the county in 1613 as the Sheriff of the City and County of Londonderry, and renamed in 1900 when the separate High Sheriff of Londonderry City came into being for the city.

History

During the Plantation of Ulster, the London livery companies were made responsible for the area that became County Londonderry based on the earlier County Coleraine. A single 1613 charter established Londonderry city and county and the Irish Society as the livery companies' body for overseeing the plantation. The charter did not make the city a separate county corporate from the county-at-large, but did refer to the county as "the City and County of Londonderry" and gave the common council of the city corporation the privilege of electing two sheriffs annually for the county. Although the charter required the sheriffs to reside in the city or its liberties, occasionally the corporation included one of the rural gentry among the sheriffs in a vain attempt to lessen their resentment against this privilege. The Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840 abolished this corporate privilege; henceforth the county had a single sheriff appointed, as in other Irish counties, by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 separated "the City and County of Londonderry" into the county borough of Londonderry and the administrative county of Londonderry, with separate sheriffs for each.