The state entry of the new Viceroy was conducted with its usual ceremony on December 11, 1876. Lord Randolph, who with his wife and child followed in the procession, made, amid the bustle and discomfort of this day, a life-long friend. Mr. FitzGibbon filled in 1877 the peculiar office of ‘Law Adviser’ at the Castle. The proper duty of the ‘Adviser’ was to answer legal questions put by justices of the peace all over Ireland, but he had also to give advice and opinions to all and sundry at the Castle, in the constabulary, lunacy, valuation, and a dozen other of the queerly-conceived and oddly-entangled departments through which the Government of Ireland is administered. ‘After the Duke’s public entry,’ writes Lord Justice FitzGibbon, ‘the legal maid-of-all-work attended with the rest of the officials in the throne room, to be presented. When I had made my bow I went back to my “files.” Presently the door opened, and Kaye, the Assistant Under-Secretary, came in with a young man whom he introduced as “the Lord-Lieutenant’s son,” who “wanted to ask the Law Adviser a question.” So he left us. A footman had jibbed--I suppose he did not like the look of Dublin Castle--and Lord Randolph wanted to know whether he could “sack” him without paying his fare back to London. He wanted to do this “as a lesson.” I told him that, whatever the law was, the Lord-Lieutenant’s son couldn’t do it; and so began an acquaintance which ripened soon into a friendship that, full though it was of almost constant anxiety and apprehension, is one of the dearest memories of my life. How it grew so fast I can hardly tell. I suppose electricity came in somewhere....’