Philip Bermingham

Philip Bermingham (c.1420-1490) was an Irish judge who held the office of Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. He was regarded as "the most learned Irish lawyer of his time", but he had a somewhat turbulent political career and was twice accused of treason.

He belonged to a junior branch of the great Anglo-Irish dynasty of Bermingham, which held the titles Earl of Louth and Baron Athenry. He was probably the grandson of John Bermyngham, judge of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland), who died in 1415.Patrick Bermingham, a later Chief Justice, was his cousin. Little seems to be known of his own parents.

He is first heard of during the Wars of the Roses, as legal adviser to James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormonde, who was a staunch supporter of the House of Lancaster. Ormonde was executed by the rival dynasty, the House of York, after their decisive victory at the Battle of Towton in March 1461, and Bermingham himself was condemned to death as a traitor in 1462. He soon received a royal pardon and under the generally tolerant regime of the new Yorkist King Edward IV his Lancastrian past was not held against him.

He became King's Serjeant in Ireland in 1463; the following year he was nominated as Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas but for unknown reasons did not take up office. He held lands in County Louth and at Dunshaughlin in County Meath where he helped found a chantry. In 1474 he was appointed Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. In 1478 he was described as one of those "men of influence" who opposed the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, Henry, Lord Grey of Codnor, entirely frustrated his efforts to establish his authority in Ireland, and managed to secure his recall.

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