His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal executive power in conjunction with the chief governor of Ireland, who was viceroy of the British monarch. The council evolved in the Lordship of Ireland on the model of the Privy Council of England; as the English council advised the king in person, so the Irish council advised the viceroy, who in medieval times was a powerful Lord Deputy. In the early modern period the council gained more influence at the expense of the viceroy, but in the 18th century lost influence to the Parliament of Ireland. In the post-1800 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Irish Privy Council and viceroy Lord Lieutenant had formal and ceremonial power, while policy formulation rested with a Chief Secretary directly answerable to the British cabinet. The council comprised senior public servants, judges, and parliamentarians, and eminent men appointed for knowledge of public affairs or as a civic honour. Role As in England, the medieval unitary king's council evolved into distinct bodies, the smallest being the privy council, of senior advisors to the king (or, in Ireland's case, to the king's representative). Others were the great council, which evolved into the Parliament of Ireland, and the afforced council, an ad-hoc body of intermediate size. The privy council played a leading role in directing the Tudor conquest of Ireland. It established and delegated to Presidencies in Munster and in Connaught, while directly supervising Leinster. Although the chief governor was appointed by the monarch under the Great Seal of England, a 1542 statute legalised the existing practice of an interim Lord Justice being elected by a meeting of the Irish council summoned by the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, as when William Drury was elected in 1579 between Henry Sidney's recall and Lord Grey's arrival. Charles I ordered the Lord Deputy to reform the "negligent meeting" of the privy council's committees. The Act of Explanation 1665 empowered the viceroy and council to override the royal charters of municipal corporations; the resulting "New Rules", which governed many major towns from 1672 until the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840, allowed the council to veto the corporation's choice of mayor. This power was controversially used in Dublin in 1711–1714 to keep out