referred to as the Vice-Admiral of Ireland, but had no control over the royal fleet in Irish waters. Ireland also had its own Admiralty Court from the late 16th century, mainly staffed by English admiralty officials and with a jurisdiction was broadly similar to that of its English counterpart. Much of its activities concerned the many pirates operating off the coast of Ireland during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The Irish Admiralty had no ships of its own and no authority to issue Letters marque to privateers, but could seize and condemn pirate and enemy ships in Irish ports. The Irish Admiralty was granted permission to establish a prize court at the time of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, which was considered to be the equivalent of the Vice-Admiralty courts in British colonies. At the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1744, the Irish Admiralty Court managed to extend its powers and jurisdiction by obtaining independent prize jurisdiction and enhancing its status from that of a Vice-Admiralty to that of an independent court. France In France, prize jurisdiction lay with the Admiral of France until that office was suppressed in 1627. A commission of jurists, the prize council (Conseil des Prises), was established in 1659 to deal with the adjudication of all prizes and the distribution of prize money, although many French privateers tried to evade its scrutiny. Cormack (2002), p. 76. The Prize Council only functioned in times of war until 1861: it then became permanent until its dissolution in 1965. Although officers and men of the French Navy were, in principle, entitled to prize money, and depriving men of prize money due to them was an established disciplinary measure, awards were relatively rare. During the 17th and 18th centuries, French naval strategy alternated between that of guerre d'escadre, maintaining a fully-equipped battle fleet for control of the sea, and guerre de course, sometimes using naval ships but more often privateers, including smaller naval warships leased to private individuals, to destroy an enemy's maritime commerce. Although these alternatives had a strategic basis, only guerre de course was viable when financial problems prevented the maintenance of a battle fleet. Even when it was possible to equip a battle fleet, the French naval doctrine that a fleet must avoid any action that might prevent it carrying out its designated mission, prioritised defensive tactics which made captures and