George Shurley

Sir George Shurley (1569–1647) was an English-born judge who held the office of Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Uniquely among the holders of that office, he ranked as junior to Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas in precedence.

He was born at Isfield, Sussex, the second son of Thomas Shurley and his first wife Anne Pelham of Laughton Place;Sir John Shurley, the prominent politician and MP, was George's brother. Their great-grandfather, John Shurley, who held office as Cofferer to Henry VIII, had acquired Isfield in the 1520s. George's birth date is sometimes given as 1559, but is likely to have been some years later as John, who was the elder of the two, was probably born in 1568.

He matriculated from Clare College, Cambridge in 1587, and was called to the Bar in 1597; he was a member of the Middle Temple and was made a Bencher in 1607.

He was sent to Ireland as Lord Chief Justice in 1620, with a knighthood. He became Treasurer of the King's Inn, and a member of the Privy Council of Ireland. He sat in the Court of Castle Chamber (the Irish equivalent to Star Chamber); but he had a reputation for being "aloof" and for refusing to meddle in politics, and he left little trace on the records of those bodies.

He is known to have been outraged at being forced to yield precedence to Dominick Sarsfield, 1st Viscount Sarsfield, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, a step which he termed "a discourtesy never before offered to one in my position". Apart from the issue of precedence, he could reasonably have complained at any honour being shown to Sarsfield, a judge who was already notorious for corruption, which led to his eventual removal from the Bench, and who died in disgrace. Shurley is also said to have complained of being forced to go on assize in Ulster (possibly because of the appalling condition of the roads), although he was happy to take the Munster circuit, and appears to have been diligent in the exercise of his duties.

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