Derry Irvine, Baron Irvine of Lairg, Scottish lawyer, judge, and politician, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain

Derry Irvine, Baron Irvine of Lairg
Alexander Andrew Mackay Irvine, Baron Irvine of Lairg,, known as Derry Irvine, is a Scottish lawyer and politician who served as Lord Chancellor from 1997 to 2003.
Lord Chancellor
The Lord Chancellor, formally titled Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The lord chancellor is the minister of justice for England and Wales and the highest-ranking Great Officer of State in Scotland and England, nominally outranking the prime minister. The lord chancellor is appointed and dismissed by the sovereign on the advice of the prime minister. Prior to the union of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, there were separate lord chancellors for the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. Likewise, the Lordship of Ireland and its successor states maintained the office of lord chancellor of Ireland until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, whereupon the office was abolished.