Barnaby Skurloke or Skurlog

Barnaby Skurloke or Skurlock (1520 – ca. 1587) was an influential lawyer in Ireland of the mid-sixteenth century. He held the office of Attorney General for Ireland, and was the first holder of the office to be so described. He was for a short time acting Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. In later life he became a leading opponent of Government policy and was imprisoned as a result.

He was a native of Bective in County Meath. The family name is an early form of Sherlock. They came originally from Wales, and a branch of the family came to Ireland with Strongbow; the Irish Skurlocks are associated mainly with Meath, and gave their name to Skurlockstown. Barnaby's parentage is obscure: Sir Henry Sidney in 1577 made a reference to his "father and grandfather" having acquired substantial estates, and one or other of them was probably the Barnabas Skurlock who received a grant of lands in Meath in 1529.

Barnaby attended Lincoln's Inn and then returned to practice law in Ireland. In 1554 Mary I appointed him Attorney General for Ireland, which was the first use of that title in place the earlier title of King's Attorney. On the accession of Elizabeth I, he was reappointed Attorney General and also acted briefly as Lord Chief Justice, pending a permanent appointment. He was soon removed from both offices: the cause of his dismissal as Attorney General was later stated to be negligence, and what would nowadays be called the "leaking" of State secrets. It has been suggested that this was the cause of his later opposition to the Crown, but it is clear that the authorities, especially Lord Deputy of Ireland, Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, already regarded him as a troublemaker. From the 1550s on he was consistent in his opposition to the levying of cess (a tax to fund the military garrisons in the Pale). His enemy Henry Sidney later said that he had made a fortune as Attorney General. Despite his opposition to cess, Skurlock was generally well-regarded by the authorities: he was on the commission to execute martial law in Meath in 1564, and was party to the renewal of the lease of the King's Inn in 1567. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Sir William Gerard, described him as one of the most experienced lawyers in Ireland in 1576, when he was referred to as "one of the Queen's learned counsel". He seems to have suffered serious ill-health around this time, being described as "aged and sickly" (56 was a considerable age then).

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