The origins of the present District Court in the court system inaugurated in 1919 by the First Dail mirror the confident surge towards political independence, but its raison d'etre was an immediate reaction to the outbreak of the Civil War. It was, therefore, already in place and functioning even before the Irish Free State was established. Many of the 27 lawyers appointed in great haste to be its first justices were established scholars and writers in other fields, and most passed their entire judicial careers of in the same area, yet none appears to have left a record of his experiences.