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Birth of John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare, Lord Chancellor of Ireland

John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare PC (Ire), Attorney-General for Ireland from 1783 to 1789 and Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1789 to 1802, is born near Donnybrook, Dublin, on August 23, 1749. He remains a deeply controversial figure in Irish history, being described variously as an old-fashioned anti-Catholic Whig political party hardliner and an early advocate of the Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain (which finally happens in 1801, shortly before his death).

FitzGibbon is the son of John FitzGibbon of Ballysheedy, County Limerick, and his wife Isabella Grove, daughter of John Grove, of Ballyhimmock, County Cork. His father is born a Catholic but converts to the state religion in order to become a lawyer and amasses a large fortune. He has three sisters, Arabella, Elizabeth, and Eleanor. He is educated at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and Christ Church, Oxford. He enters the Irish House of Commons in 1778 as Member for Dublin University, and holds this seat until 1783, when he is appointed Attorney General. From the same year, he represents Kilmallock until 1790. He is appointed High Sheriff of County Limerick for 1782.

When appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1789, FitzGibbon is granted his first peerage as Baron FitzGibbon, of Lower Connello in the County of Limerick, in the Peerage of Ireland that year. This does not entitle him to a seat in the British House of Lords, only in the Irish House of Lords. His later promotions come mostly in the Peerage of Ireland, being advanced to a Viscountcy in 1793 and the Earldom of Clare in 1795. He finally achieves a seat in the British House of Lords in 1799 when created Baron FitzGibbon, of Sidbury in the County of Devon, in the Peerage of Great Britain.

As Lord Chancellor for Ireland, FitzGibbon is a renowned champion of the Protestant Ascendancy and an opponent of Catholic emancipation. He despises the Parliament of Ireland‘s popular independent Constitution of 1782. He is also personally and politically opposed to the Irish politician Henry Grattan who urges a moderate course in the Irish Parliament and is responsible for defeating Grattan’s efforts to reform the Irish land tithe system under which Irish Catholic farmers (and all non-Anglican farmers) are forced to financially support the minority Anglican Church of Ireland. These are not fully repealed until 1869 when the Church of Ireland is finally disestablished, although Irish tithes are commuted after the Tithe War (1831–1836).

FitzGibbon opposes the Irish Roman Catholic Relief Act 1793 personally but apparently recommends its acceptance in the House of Lords, being forced out of necessity when that Act had been recommended to the Irish Executive by the British Cabinet led by William Pitt the Younger. Pitt expects Ireland to follow the British Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791 and allow Catholics to vote again and hold public offices. At the same time, FitzGibbon apparently denounces the policy this Act embodies, so it is probably safe to say that FitzGibbon’s own beliefs and principles conflict with his obligations as a member of the Irish executive of the time.

FitzGibbon’s role in the recall, soon after his arrival, of the popular pro-Emancipation Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl of Fitzwilliam, is debatable. Although he is probably politically opposed to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Fitzwilliam is apparently recalled, because of his own independent actions. Fitzwilliam is known to be friendly to the Ponsonby family and is generally a Foxite liberal Whig. His close association with and patronage of Irish Whigs led by Grattan and Ponsonby during his short tenure, along with his alleged support of an immediate effort to secure Catholic emancipation in a manner not authorized by the British cabinet is likely what leads to his recall. Thus, if anyone is to blame in the short-lived “Fitzwilliam episode” it is Henry Grattan and the Ponsonby brothers – presumably William Ponsonby, later Lord Imokilly, and his brother George Ponsonby — not to mention Lord Fitzwilliam himself. Irish Catholics at the time and later naturally see things very differently and blame hardline Protestants such as FitzGibbon.

Irish Catholics and FitzGibbon apparently agree on one point – Irish political and economic union with Great Britain, which eventually takes place in 1801. Pitt wants Union with Ireland concomitantly with Catholic emancipation, commutation of tithes, and the endowment of the Irish Catholic priesthood. Union is opposed by most hardline Irish Protestants, as well as liberals such as Grattan. FitzGibbon is a strong supporter of the Union since 1793 but refuses to have Catholic emancipation with the Union.

In the end, FitzGibbon’s views wins out, leading to the Union of Ireland with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland without any concessions for Ireland’s Catholic majority, or for that matter, Catholics in the rest of the new United Kingdom. He later claims that he has been duped by the way in which the Act is passed and is bitterly opposed to any concessions during the short remainder of his life.

FitzGibbon’s role as Lord Chancellor of Ireland during the period of the 1798 rebellion is questionable. According to some, he supports a hardline policy which uses torture, murder and massacre to crush the rebellion, or that as Lord Chancellor, he has considerable influence on military affairs, and that martial law cannot be imposed without his consent. Others allege that as Lord Chancellor, he has no say in military affairs. His former side is displayed by sparing the lives of the captured United Irish leaders in return for their confession of complicity and provision of information relating to the planning of the rebellion. However, this willingness of the prisoners to partake of the agreement is spurred by the execution of the Sheares brothers on July 14, 1798.

In contrast to the leniency shown to the largely upper-class leadership, the full weight of military repression is inflicted upon the common people throughout the years 1797–98 with untold thousands suffering imprisonment, torture, transportation and death. Fitzgibbon ss inclined to show no mercy to unrepentant rebels and in October 1798 he expressed his disgust upon the capture of Wolfe Tone that he had been granted a trial and his belief that Tone should have been hanged as soon as he set foot on land.

FitzGibbon is quick to recognise that sectarianism is a useful ally to divide the rebels and prevent the United Irishmen from achieving their goal of uniting Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter, writing in June 1798, “In the North nothing will keep the rebels quiet but the conviction that where treason has broken out the rebellion is merely popish.”

FitzGibbon is noted by some as a good, improving landlord to both his Protestant and Catholic tenants. Some claim that the tenants of his Mountshannon estate call him “Black Jack” FitzGibbon. However, there is no evidence to support this claim, although there is little to no evidence on his dealings as a landlord. Irish nationalists and others point out that while he might have been interested in the welfare of his own tenants on his own estate, he treats other Irish Catholics very differently. Without further evidence, his role as a Protestant landowner in mainly Catholic Ireland is of little importance against his known dealings as Lord Chancellor.

FitzGibbon dies at his home, 6 Ely Place near St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, on January 28, 1802, and is buried in the churchyard at St. Peter’s Church, Aungier Street, Dublin. A hero to Protestant hardliners, but despised by the majority Catholic population, his funeral cortege is the cause of a riot and there is a widespread story that a number of dead cats are thrown at his coffin as it departs Ely Place.

(Pictured: “Portrait of John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare,” painting by Gilbert Stuart, 1789)


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Birth of Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley

Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator, is born on June 20, 1760, at Dangan Castle, County Meath. He, as governor of Madras (now Chennai) and governor-general of Bengal (both 1797–1805), greatly enlarges the British Empire in India and, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1821–28, 1833–34), attempts to reconcile Protestants and Roman Catholics in a bitterly divided country. Throughout his life he displays an ever-increasing jealousy of his younger brother Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, despite his own achievements.

Born Richard Colley Wesley, he is the eldest son of Garret Wesley, 1st Earl of Mornington (he changes the family surname to Wellesley in 1789). He is educated at the Royal School, Armagh, Harrow School, Eton College, and Christ Church, Oxford, although he leaves the latter in 1781, following his father’s death, before completing his degree. He enters the Irish House of Commons in 1780 and, after he inherits his father’s Irish titles in 1781, moves to the Irish House of Lords. A moderately liberal disciple of Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, he wins a seat in the British House of Commons in 1784 and serves there until 1797. From 1793 he is a member of the British Privy Council and a commissioner of the India Board of Control.

As Governor-General of India, Wellesley uses military force and diplomacy to strengthen and expand British authority. East India Company forces defeat and kill Tipu Sultan, Indian Muslim ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore (present-day Mysuru) and sympathizer for Revolutionary France, in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1799), and he then restores the Hindu dynasty there that had been deposed by Tipu’s father, Hyder Ali. He annexes much territory after his brother Arthur and General Gerard Lake defeat the Maratha Confederacy of states in the Deccan Plateau (peninsular India). In addition, he forces the Oudh State to surrender numerous important cities to the British, and he contracts with other states a series of “subsidiary alliances” by which all parties recognize British preponderance. He receives a barony in the British peerage in 1797 at the time of his appointment as governor-general, and in 1799 he is awarded a marquessate in the Irish peerage for his victory in the Mysore War.

When Wellesley is faced with an invasion by Zaman Shah Durrani, ruler (1793–1800) of Kabul (Afghanistan), he utilizes his envoy, Captain John Malcolm, to induce Fatḥ-Alī Shah Qajar of Qajar Iran to restrain Zaman Shah Durrani and to give British political and commercial interests preference over the French. On receiving a British government order to restore to France its former possessions in India, he refuses to comply. His policy is vindicated when the Treaty of Amiens (1802) is violated, and Great Britain resumes war against Napoleonic France.

Wellesley’s annexations and the vast military expenditure that he had authorized alarms the court of directors of the East India Company. In 1805, he is recalled, and soon afterward he is threatened with impeachment, although two years later he refuses an offer of the foreign secretaryship. In 1809, he goes to Spain to make diplomatic arrangements for the Peninsular War against France and later that year becomes foreign secretary under Prime Minister Spencer Perceval. In that office he antagonizes his colleagues, who consider him an indolent megalomaniac and welcome his resignation in February 1812. Unlike most of them, however, he had urged a stronger war effort in Spain and had advocated political rights for British Roman Catholics. After Perceval’s assassination on May 11, 1812, he attempts unsuccessfully to form a government at the request of the prince regent (the future King George IV).

As Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Wellesley disappoints the anti-Catholic George IV, and he is about to be removed when his brother, Arthur, is appointed prime minister in January 1828. He then resigns because his brother is opposed to Roman Catholic emancipation, although the duke is constrained to accept that policy as a political necessity in 1829. His second term as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1833–34) ends with the fall of Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey’s reform government. When the Whig Party returns to power in April 1835, he is not sent back to Ireland, and in his rage, he threatens to shoot the prime minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. He wants to be created Duke of Hindustan so that his rank will equal that of his brother.

Wellesley dies at the age of 82 on September 26, 1842, at Knightsbridge, London. He is buried in Eton College Chapel, at his old school. He and Arthur, after a long estrangement, had been once more on friendly terms for some years. Arthur weeps at the funeral and says that he knows of no honour greater than being Lord Wellesley’s brother.

Wellesley’s library is sold at auction in London by R. H. Evans on January 17, 1843 (and three following days); a copy of the catalogue, annotated with prices and buyers’ names, is held at Cambridge University Library.

Wellesley has several children, including three sons, but none are legitimate. The marquessate thus becomes extinct upon his death. The earldom of Mornington goes to his next surviving brother, William Wellesley-Pole.

(From: “Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquess Wellesley, British statesman,” written and fact-checked by the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com, April 2024 | Pictured: “Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquess of Wellesley (1760-1842),” oil on canvas portrait by Thomas Lawrence, 1812-13)


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Death of James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde

James FitzJames Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, KG, Irish statesman and soldier, dies in Avignon on November 16, 1745. He is the third of the Kilcash branch of the family to inherit the earldom of Ormond. He serves in the campaign to put down the Monmouth Rebellion, in the Williamite War in Ireland, in the Nine Years’ War and in the War of the Spanish Succession but is accused of treason and goes into exile after the Jacobite rising of 1715.

Butler is born into a Protestant family on April 29, 1665, at Dublin Castle. He is the second but eldest surviving son, and one of eleven children, of Thomas Butler by his wife Emilia van Nassau-Beverweerd. His father is known as Lord Ossory. His father is heir apparent of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond but predeceases him and so never becomes duke. His father’s family, the Butler dynasty, is Old English and descends from Theobald Walter, who had been appointed Chief Butler of Ireland by King Henry II in 1177. His mother is Dutch. She descends from a cadet branch of the House of Nassau.

Butler is educated in France and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford. On the death of his father on July 30, 1680, he becomes Baron Butler in the peerage of England and the 7th Earl of Ossory in the peerage of Ireland.

Butler obtains command of a cavalry regiment in Ireland in 1683 and having received an appointment at court on the accession of James II, he serves against the Duke of Monmouth at the Battle of Sedgemoor in July 1685. Having succeeded his grandfather as 2nd Duke of Ormonde on July 21, 1688, he is appointed a Knight of the Order of the Garter on September 28, 1688. In 1688, he also becomes Chancellor of the University of Dublin and Chancellor of the University of Oxford.

In January and February 1689, Butler votes against the motion to put William of Orange and Mary on the throne and against the motion to declare that James II has abdicated it. Nevertheless, he subsequently joins the forces of William of Orange, by whom he is made colonel of the 2nd Troop of Horse Guards on April 20, 1689. He accompanies William in his Irish campaign, debarking with him in Carrickfergus on June 14, 1690, and commands this troop at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690. In February 1691 he becomes Lord Lieutenant of Somerset.

Butler serves on the continent under William of Orange during the Nine Years’ War and, having been promoted to major general, he fights at the Battle of Steenkerque in August 1692 and the Battle of Landen in July 1693, where he is taken prisoner by the French and then exchanged for the Duke of Berwick, James II’s illegitimate son. He is promoted to lieutenant general in 1694.

After the accession of Queen Anne in March 1702, Butler becomes commander of the land forces co-operating with Sir George Rooke in Spain, where he fights in the Battle of Cádiz in August 1702 and the Battle of Vigo Bay in October 1702 during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). Having been made a Privy Councillor, he succeeds Lord Rochester as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1703. In 1704, he leases and rebuilds a property that becomes known as Ormonde Lodge in Richmond outside London.

Following the dismissal of the Duke of Marlborough, Butler is appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Forces and colonel of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards on January 4, 1712, and Captain General on February 26, 1712. In the Irish Parliament he and the majority of peers support the Tory interest.

Butler plays a dramatic role at the notorious meeting of the Privy Council on March 8, 1711, when Antoine de Guiscard, a French double agent who is being questioned about his treasonable activities, attempts to assassinate Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, against whom he has a personal grudge for drastically cutting his allowance, by stabbing him with a penknife. Harley is wounded, but not seriously, due largely to the fact that he is wearing a heavy gold brocade waistcoat in which the knife gets stuck. Several Councillors, including Butler, stab Guiscard in return. Guiscard implores Butler to finish the deed, but he replies that it is not for him to play the hangman. In any case, he has the sense to see that Guiscard must be kept alive at least long enough to be questioned, although as it turns out Guiscard’s wounds are fatal, and he dies a week later.

On April 23, 1712, Butler leaves Harwich for Rotterdam to lead the British troops taking part in the war. Once there he allows himself to be made the tool of the Tory ministry, whose policy is to carry on the war in the Netherlands while giving secret orders to him to take no active part in supporting their allies under Prince Eugene. In July 1712, he advises Prince Eugene that he can no longer support the siege of Le Quesnoy and that he is withdrawing the British troops from the action and instead intends to take possession of Dunkirk. The Dutch are so exasperated at the withdrawal of the British troops that they close the towns of Bouchain on Douai to British access, despite the fact that they have plenty of stores and medical facilities available. Butler takes possession of Ghent and Bruges as well as Dunkirk, in order to ensure his troops are adequately provided for. On April 15, 1713, he becomes Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk.

Ormonde’s position as Captain-General makes him a personage of much importance in the crisis brought about by the death of Queen Anne and, during the last years of Queen Anne, he almost certainly has Jacobite leanings and corresponds with the Jacobite Court including his cousin, Piers Butler, 3rd Viscount Galmoye, who keeps barrels of gunpowder at Kilkenny Castle. King George I, on his accession to the throne in August 1714, institutes extensive changes and excludes the Tories from royal favour. Butler is stripped of his posts as Captain-General, as colonel of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards and as Commander in Chief of the Forces with the first two posts going to the Duke of Marlborough and the role of Commander-in-Chief going to John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair. On November 19, 1714, Butler is instead made a member of the reconstituted Privy Council of Ireland.

Accused of supporting the Jacobite rising of 1715, Butler is impeached for high treason by Lord Stanhope on June 21, 1715. He might avoid the impending storm of Parliamentary prosecution, if he remains in England and stands trial but instead, he chooses to flee to France in August 1715 and initially stays in Paris with Lord Bolingbroke. On August 20, 1715, he is attainted, his estate forfeited, and honours extinguished. The Earl Marshal is instructed to remove the names and armorial bearings of Butler and Bolingbroke from the list of peers and his banner as Knight of the Garter is taken down in St. George’s Chapel.

On June 20, 1716, the Parliament of Ireland passes an act extinguishing the regalities and liberties of the county palatine of Tipperary; for vesting Butler’s estate in the crown and for giving a reward of £10,000 for his apprehension, should he attempt to land in Ireland. But the same parliament passes an act on June 24, 1721, to enable his brother, Charles Butler, 1st Earl of Arran, to purchase his estate, which he does accordingly.

Butler subsequently moves to Spain where he holds discussions with Cardinal Giulio Alberoni. He later takes part in a Spanish and Jacobite plan to invade England and puts James Francis Edward Stuart on the British throne in 1719, but his fleet is disbanded by a storm in the Bay of Biscay. In 1732, he moves to Avignon, where he is seen in 1733 by the writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He dies at Avignon in exile on November 16, 1745, but his body is returned to London and buried in Westminster Abbey on May 22, 1746.

On July 20, 1682, Butler, then called Lord Ossory, marries Lady Anne Hyde, daughter of Laurence Hyde, who is then Viscount Hyde of Kenilworth but becomes Earl of Rochester in November. The couple has a daughter, Mary, who dies young in 1688.

Following the death of his first wife in 1685, Butler plans to marry again in order to secure a male heir. He gains permission from the House of Lords for the arranging of a jointure for another marriage in May 1685, and in August of that year, he marries Lady Mary Somerset, daughter of the Duke of Beaufort and Mary Capel. The couple has a son, Thomas (1686–1689), and two daughters, Elizabeth (1689–1750) and Mary (1690–1713). His second wife is a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Anne. Their younger daughter, Mary, marries John Ashburnham, 1st Earl of Ashburnham.

(Pictured: Portrait of James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, by Michael Dahl, National Portrait Gallery)


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Death of Elizabeth Burke-Plunkett, Countess of Fingall

The Rt. Hon. Elizabeth Mary Margaret Burke-Plunkett, Countess of Fingall, dies in Dublin on October 28, 1944.

Burke is born in Moycullen, County Galway, a daughter of George Edmond Burke of Danesfield and his wife Theresa Quin. She becomes an activist in Irish industrial, charitable and cultural groups, serving as second president of the Camogie Association and first president of the Irish Countrywomen’s Association. She is also a noted literary hostess, whose salon at Earlsfort House is a centre of Dublin intellectual life for many years.

In 1883, Burke marries Arthur James Francis Plunkett, 11th Earl of Fingall, 4th Baron Fingall (1859–1929), state steward to the administration in Dublin Castle and one of the few Catholics to hold an Irish peerage, thus becoming Countess of Fingall.

Burke-Plunkett befriends unionists such as Field Marshal Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, and Chief Secretary for Ireland George Wyndham and also nationalist leaders such as Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera, as well as activists like the cooperative pioneer Sir Horace Plunkett. Her colourful memoir of those circles is published in 1937. She establishes a famous literary salon and for many years she is “at home” every Thursday at Earlsfort House to the leading figures in Dublin intellectual circles. Her main rival as a literary hostess is the artist Sarah Purser, who is “at home” every Tuesday.

A friendship with Máire Ní Chinnéide, forged through theatrical circles, leads to Burke-Plunkett accepting the patronage of Camogie Association of Ireland from 1910 to 1923. She also presents a cup and medals for the winners of the Dublin League. She serves largely in an honorary role, attending a few meetings of what is then known as Cualacht Luithchleas na mBan Gaedheal.

A liberal unionist, Burke-Plunkett becomes active in the promotion of Irish agriculture, industry and culture. She is a founder member of Horace Plunkett’s Irish co-operative movement, is the first president of the Society of United Irishwomen from 1912 to 1921, and of its successor, the Irish Countrywomen’s Association until 1942. She presides at suffragette meetings in Dublin, is a founder of the Irish Distressed Ladies Committee, and serves on the board of the Irish Industries Association. She is also the chairperson of the Irish Central Committee for the Employment of Women.

Burke-Plunkett dies on October 28, 1944, at Earlsfort House, her Dublin home, where she had held her famous Thursdays “at home” for many years. She is buried on the grounds of Killeen Castle, County Meath, following a Requiem Mass at University Church in Dublin.


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Death of Arthur Hill, 2nd Marquess of Downshire

Arthur Hill, 2nd Marquess of Downshire PC, FRS, British peer and MP styled Viscount Fairford until 1789 and Earl of Hillsborough from 1789 to 1793, dies by suicide on September 7, 1801.

Hill is born on March 3, 1753, the eldest son of Wills Hill, 1st Earl of Hillsborough (later Marquess of Downshire). He matriculates at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1771, and receives his MA in 1773.

Hill sits as a Tory for the rotten borough of Lostwithiel from 1774 to 1780, and then for Malmesbury until 1784. He also represents County Down in the Irish House of Commons from 1776 until succeeding to the peerage in 1793.

Hill enjoys a number of civil and military appointments in both England and Ireland during this period. He is commissioned a captain in the Hertfordshire Militia on March 22, 1775, and a lieutenant colonel in the regiment on May 4, 1787, resigning his commission on June 4, 1794. Appointed the deputy governor of County Down on August 6, 1779, he is picked as High Sheriff of Down in 1785. He is chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society on January 22, 1790, and a deputy lieutenant of Berkshire on May 12, 1792.

Upon the death of his father on October 7, 1793, Hill succeeds him as Marquess of Downshire, in the Peerage of Ireland, as well as in his other subsidiary titles, including that of Earl of Hillsborough in the Peerage of Great Britain. He also succeeds his father as Hereditary Constable of Hillsborough Fort, and as Custos Rotulorum of County Down (October 16) and Governor of Down (October 17). On November 7, he is appointed to the Privy Council of Ireland.

Hill vigorously exerts himself against the Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800 and is punished by the Government for his opposition by being dismissed from the Governorship of Down and the colonelcy of the Downshire Militia and struck off the roll of the Privy Council on February 12, 1800.

On June 29, 1786, Hill marries Mary Sandys, by whom he has seven children:

Hill’s last son, Lord George Hill, is born posthumously, as he dies by suicide on September 7, 1801. His widow, Mary, feels his early death is in part due to his humiliation by the Government, and thereafter is a bitter enemy to Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh. She is the heiress of her uncle, Edwin Sandys, 2nd Baron Sandys, and to the estates of her grandfather, William Trumbull, including Easthampstead Park. In 1802, after Hill’s death, she is created Baroness Sandys, with a special remainder to her younger sons and their male heirs in succession and then to her eldest son and his male heirs.

Hill also has a son, William Arthur Dore-Hill, born in 1778, with his mistress Sarah Dore (who later marries William Garrow).


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Edmund Pery Resigns as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons

Edmund Sexton Pery, 1st Viscount Pery, Anglo-Irish politician who serves as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons between 1771 and 1785 resigns as Speaker on grounds of ill health on September 5, 1785. John Foster is unanimously elected to replace him.

Pery is born in Limerick, County Limerick, into one of the city’s most politically influential families, elder son of the Rev. Stackpole Pery and Jane Twigge. His maternal grandfather is William Twigge, Archdeacon of Limerick.

A trained barrister, Pery becomes a member of the Irish House of Commons for the Wicklow constituency in 1751. On the dissolution of the house following the death of George II, he is elected for the constituency of Limerick City and serves from 1761 until 1785, becoming Speaker of the House in 1771. In 1783, he stands also for Dungannon, however chooses to sit for Limerick City. He is considered one of the most powerful politicians in Ireland in his time, leading a faction which includes his nephew, the future Earl of Limerick, and his relatives by marriage, the Hartstonges. Following his resignation, he is created Viscount Pery, of Newtown Pery, near the City of Limerick, in the Peerage of Ireland, entitling him to a seat in the Irish House of Lords. As he has no male heirs, his title becomes extinct on his death on February 24, 1806.

Pery is also noted for his part in the history of the architecture of Limerick. In 1765, he commissions the engineer Davis Ducart to design a town plan for land that he owns on the southern edge of the existing city. This leads to the construction of the Georgian area of the city later known as Newtown Pery. He is also commemorated in the naming of Pery Square.

Pery marries Patricia (Patty) Martin of Dublin in 1756, who dies a year later, and secondly Elizabeth Vesey, daughter of John Vesey, 1st Baron Knapton, and Elizabeth Brownlow. He and Elizabeth have two daughters: Hon. Diana Pery, who marries her cousin Thomas Knox, 1st Earl of Ranfurly, and Hon. Frances Pery, who marries Nicolson Calvert, MP for Hertford.

Pery’s younger brother, William, is a leading figure in the Church of Ireland, becoming Bishop of Killala and subsequently Bishop of Limerick. He is also ennobled as Baron Glentworth. William’s son, Edmund, is made Earl of Limerick in 1803 as a result of his support for the Acts of Union 1800. Pery’s younger sister is Lucy Hartstonge, the founder of what is now St. John’s Hospital, Limerick.


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Birth of Valentine Browne Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry

Valentine Browne Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry, Irish peer, politician and landowner, is born in Merrion Square in Dublin on August 19, 1773.

Lawless is the only surviving son of Nicholas Lawless, wool merchant, brewer, and banker, who becomes 1st Baron Cloncurry in 1789, and Margaret Lawless (née Browne), only daughter and heiress of Valentine Browne of Mount Browne, County Limerick. He is educated privately at Portarlington, Queen’s County (now County Laois), and at Blackrock, County Dublin. He enters Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1789, graduating BA in 1792. After completing a tour of Europe (1792–95) he returns to Ireland, where he joins the Society of United Irishmen and the loyalist yeomanry. Pressurized by his father, he decides to study law, and is at Middle Temple from 1795 to 1798. He later claims that at a dinner party in the spring of 1797 he hears the prime minister, William Pitt, discuss his plans for a legislative union with Ireland, prompting him to write an anti-union pamphlet in response. Like many of the claims in his published recollections, the story is unreliable.

During 1797 Lawless helps Arthur O’Connor form his United Irishman newspaper The Press, and Leonard McNally informs Dublin Castle that Lawless is its principal shareholder. In October 1797 Lawless attends a meeting of the executive directory of the United Irishmen, of which he is elected a member. Throughout this period and after his return to London he is carefully watched by the British secret service. His friendship with O’Connor, and the fact that he provides funds for Fr. James Coigly, arouse deep suspicion. After the outbreak of open rebellion in Ireland he is arrested at his lodgings in Pall Mall on May 31, 1798, on suspicion of high treason, and imprisoned for six weeks in the Tower of London. Arabella Jefferyes, sister of the Earl of Clare, apparently tries to extort money from Lawless in return for pleading his case to the Duke of Portland. He refuses the offer. On his release he tours England on horseback but is rearrested on April 14, 1799, and held until March 1801. His father votes for the Act of Union, hoping to secure his son’s release, and dies on August 28, 1799. Lawless succeeds him as 2nd Baron Cloncurry. His grandfather and his fiancée, Mary Ryal, also die while he is imprisoned.

Embittered by his experience, Lawless tours the Continent from 1801 to 1805 before returning to his family estate at Lyons Hill, Ardclough, County Kildare. Throwing himself into improving his estates and into local concerns, he founds the County Kildare Farming Society in 1814. He is also involved in canal developments and agricultural improvements in the country. Opposed to the rural constabulary bill of 1822, he supports Catholic emancipation and the attempts of Daniel O’Connell to repeal the Act of Union. He breaks with O’Connell in the 1830s when his friend, Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey, is viceroy, because he believes repeal can now be achieved through official means. The rift is never healed.

In 1831, Lawless is admitted to the Privy Council of Ireland (PC) and an English peer but rarely attends the House of Lords. Involved in anti-tithe campaigns, he retires from politics in 1840. Travelling on the Continent in 1841 and 1842, he returns to defend O’Connell’s planned Clontarf meeting in the privy council but refuses to attend any further meetings after his advice on dealing with the Great Famine is ignored in 1846. In 1849 he publishes his personal reminiscences, which appear to have been ghost-written.

Lawless’s health begins to fail in 1851. He dies at the older family home, Maretimo House, Blackrock, on October 28, 1853, and is buried in the family vault at Lyons Hill.

Lawless first marries Elizabeth Georgiana, youngest daughter of Lieutenant-General Charles Morgan, at Rome on April 16, 1803. They have one son and one daughter. The marriage ends in divorce in 1811 after her adultery with Sir John Piers. In 1811, he then marries Emily, daughter of Archibald Douglas of England, and widow of Joseph Leeson. They have two sons and a daughter. The elder son, Edward, succeeds as 3rd Baron Cloncurry. He commits suicide in 1869 by throwing himself out of a third-floor window at Lyons Hill. The younger, Cecil-John, is an MP, but catches a chill at his father’s funeral and dies on November 5, 1853.

(From: “Lawless, Valentine Browne” by Patrick M. Geoghegan, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009 | Pictured: Lyons House, Lyons Hill, Ardclough, County Kildare)


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Birth of Henry Lawes Luttrell, 2nd Earl of Carhampton

General Henry Lawes Luttrell, 2nd Earl of Carhampton PC, Anglo-Irish politician and soldier, who both in public and private life attracts scandal, is born on August 7, 1743. He is spurned by colleagues in the British House of Commons who believe that in the election of 1769 he played an underhand role in denying his seat to the popular choice, the reformer John Wilkes. In 1788 he is publicly accused in Dublin of raping a twelve-year-old girl. Ten years later, his command in the suppression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 is criticised by fellow officers for its savagery, and not least against women. His last years in Parliament are marked by his opposition to Catholic Emancipation, and to parliamentary reform.

Luttrell is the scion of an Anglo-Irish landed family, descendants of Sir Geoffrey de Luterel, who established Luttrellstown Castle, County Dublin, in the early 13th century. His grandfather, Henry Luttrell, had been a pardoned Jacobite commander murdered on the street in Dublin in 1717 supposedly by his former comrades. His father, Simon Luttrell, is successively titled Baron Irnham, Viscount Carhampton and Earl Carhampton, all in the Peerage of Ireland. His mother, Maria, is the daughter of Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica, and the eventual heir to a slave plantation on the West Indian Island which, on her husband’s death in 1787, passes to her son.

Educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, Luttrell is commissioned into the 48th (Northamptonshire) Regiment of Foot in 1757. Two years later he becomes lieutenant of the 34th (Cumberland) Regiment of Foot.

Father and son, both accounted “notorious womanizers,” have a bitter relationship. His father once challenges him to a duel, but he declines, observing that his father is not a gentleman.

Luttrell, described as “strong in body, if not in mind,” achieves a reputation for bravery as a soldier during the Seven Years’ War, becoming Deputy Adjutant-General of the British Forces in Portugal. In 1768 he becomes a Tory Member of Parliament representing Bossiney.

With the support of the Grafton ministry and of the Court, in 1769 Luttrell stands in Middlesex against John Wilkes, the radical and popular figure who had already been the constituency’s three-time democratic choice. He loses the poll (1,143 votes to 269) but is seated in Parliament, Wilkes having once again been barred as an adjudged felon. As a result of the affair, for some months, Luttrell dares not appear in the street and is “the most unpopular man in the House of Commons.”

The government rewards Luttrell by appointing him Adjutant General for Ireland in 1770. He continues to sit in the Commons, where he describes the Whigs in their opposition to the conduct of the American War, as “the abetters of treason and rebellion combined purposely for the ruin of their country.”

Luttrell becomes active in Irish politics and between 1783 and 1787, he sits in the Irish House of Commons for Old Leighlin. On his father’s death in 1787, he succeeds to the earldom of Carhampton and other titles. He becomes Colonel of the 6th Dragoon Guards and Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance in Ireland.

In 1788, Luttrell is publicly accused in Dublin of the rape of a 12-year-old girl. Having been paid to deliver a message, Mary Neal claims she is bundled into a brothel and there assaulted throughout the night by Luttrell. The keeper of the house, Maria Llewellyn, is charged in a case marked by accusations of witness tampering, the death in prison of Mary’s mother and newborn baby sister and by the insinuation that Mary was already working as a prostitute. The affair becomes a cause célèbre with the public intervention of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, later a founding member of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen. To clear Mary’s name he brings her to Dublin Castle to see the Lord Lieutenant, John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland. Westmorland, unmoved, pardons Llewellyn and sets her at liberty. Luttrell is never asked to answer for raping Mary Neal. In 1790 he re-enters the British Parliament as Member for Plympton Erle.

In 1791 and 1792, Luttrell helps vote down bills to abolish the slave trade. Negroes, he proposes, only want “to murder their masters, ravish their women, and drink all their rum.” At the same time, he opposes lifting civil disabilities on Roman Catholics by abolishing the Test Act in Scotland and speaks scathingly of parliamentary reform.

In October 1793, a younger brother, Temple Simon Luttrell, is arrested in Boulogne and, until February 1795, is held in Paris where, on the strength of their sister Anne Luttrell being married to Prince Henry, Duke of Cumberland, he is publicly exhibited as the brother of the king of England.

In 1795, Luttrell is entrusted with the breakup and disarming of Defenders, the agrarian semi-insurgency, in Connacht. His proceedings and impressment of some 1,300 “rebels” into the British navy elicits criticism in otherwise loyal circles.

In 1796, with the leaders of the democratic party, the United Irishmen, preparing for a French-assisted insurrection, Luttrell is given overall command of the Crown forces in Ireland. He demonstrates still greater ruthlessness in attempting to “pacify” the country and suppress the eventual rising in the summer of 1798. His command has the unusual distinction of being upbraided by his successor as Commander in Chief, Sir Ralph Abercromby, for an army “in a state of licentiousness, which must render it formidable to everyone but the enemy.”

Luttrell is seen by his critics as having “fanned the flame of disaffection into open rebellion” by “the picketings, the free quarters, half hangings, flogging and pitch-cappings” he directs.

In July 1799, Luttrell sells his Irish property and by his own later account, he takes no part in the Acts of Union. He claims to be “disgusted at the scene that was passing before me”, and to abandon Ireland because, under a “cowardly” government, he sees “the country likely to become Catholic.” When the Dublin Post of May 2, 1811, erroneously reports his death, he demands a retraction which they print under the headline Public Disappointment.

Luttrell purchases an estate at Painshill Park in Surrey and lives for several years in relative obscurity. From 1813 he harries the government of Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, with the claim that George III had promised him a secure seat in the Commons. In June 1817, five weeks short of his eightieth birthday, he finds his own way back to Parliament as Member for Ludgershall and revenges himself, in the four years remaining to him, by voting with the opposition. This, however, does not extend to joining in the attacks on the domestic spy system in 1818 nor to voting for parliamentary reform in 1819. Moreover, in the wake of the Peterloo Massacre, he supports the government, lauding the use of deadly force against “the Radicals and their system.”

Luttrell dies at his home at Bruton Street, London, on April 25, 1821.


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James FitzGerald, Lord Ophaly, Wins Athy By-Election

At the Athy by-election on June 12, 1741, following the death of Sir Walter Dixon Borrowes, James FitzGerald, styled Lord Ophaly and later 1st Duke of Leinster, is returned. In the course of the election there is a duel between William Paul Warren and Jack Hardy, which leads to Hardy’s right hand and arm being shattered. It is thought that it might have to be amputated.

FitzGerald, an Anglo-Irish nobleman, soldier and politician, is the son of Robert FitzGerald, 19th Earl of Kildare, and Lady Mary, daughter of William O’Brien, 3rd Earl of Inchiquin.

FitzGerald is a member of the Irish House of Commons for Athy from the 1741 by-election until he succeeds his father as 20th Earl of Kildare in 1743. He is sworn of the Privy Council of Ireland in 1746 and in 1747, on the occasion of his marriage, he is created Viscount Leinster, of Taplow in the County of Buckingham, in the Peerage of Great Britain, and takes his seat in the British House of Lords that same year. From 1749 to 1755 he is one of the leaders of the Popular Party in Ireland and serves as the country’s Master-General of the Ordnance between 1758 and 1766, becoming Colonel of the Royal Irish Artillery in 1760. He is promoted to Major General in 1761 and to Lieutenant General in 1770.

In 1761 FitzGerald is created Earl of Offaly and Marquess of Kildare in the Peerage of Ireland and in 1766 he is further honoured when he is made Duke of Leinster, becoming by this time the Premier Duke, Marquess and Earl in the Peerage of Ireland.

FitzGerald marries the 15-year-old Lady Emily Lennox, daughter of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, and one of the famous Lennox Sisters, in London on February 7, 1747. She is a great-granddaughter of King Charles II and is therefore a distant fifth cousin of King George III. Both of them are descended from King James VI and I. The couple has nineteen children.

FitzGerald dies at Leinster House, Dublin, on November 19, 1773, aged 51, and is buried in the city’s Christ Church Cathedral. He is succeeded by his second (but eldest surviving) son, William, Marquess of Kildare. The Duchess of Leinster causes a minor sensation by marrying her lover William Ogilvie in 1774 but continues to be known as The Dowager Duchess of Leinster. She has a further three children by him. She dies in London on March 27, 1814, aged 82.

In 1999, Irish Screen, BBC America and WGBH produce Aristocrats, a six-part limited television series based on the lives of Emily Lennox and her sisters. FitzGerald is portrayed by Ben Daniels.


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Death of Edmund Pery, 1st Viscount Pery

Edmund Sexton Pery, 1st Viscount Pery, Irish politician who serves as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons between 1771 and 1785, dies on February 24, 1806, at his home at Park Street, London.

Pery is born in Limerick, County Limerick on April 8, 1719, into one of Limerick’s most politically influential families, the elder son of the Rev. Stackpole Pery and Jane Twigge. His maternal grandfather is William Twigge, Archdeacon of Limerick.

A trained barrister, Pery becomes a member of the Irish House of Commons for the Wicklow Borough constituency in 1751. On the dissolution of the house following the death of George II, he is elected for the constituency of Limerick City and serves from 1761 until 1785, becoming Speaker of the House in 1771. In 1783, he stands also for Dungannon, however chooses to sit for Limerick City. He is considered one of the most powerful politicians in Ireland in his time, leading a faction which includes his nephew, the future Earl of Limerick, and his relatives by marriage, the Hartstonges. Following his resignation, he is created Viscount Pery, of Newtown Pery, near the City of Limerick, in the Peerage of Ireland, entitling him to a seat in the Irish House of Lords. As he has no male heirs, his title becomes extinct on his death in 1806.

Pery is also noted for his part in the history of the architecture of Limerick. In 1765, he commissions the engineer Davis Ducart to design a town plan for land that he owns on the southern edge of the existing city, which leads to the construction of the Georgian area of the city later known as Newtown Pery. He is also commemorated in the naming of Pery Square.

Pery marries Patricia (Patty) Martin of Dublin in 1756, who dies a year later, and secondly Elizabeth Vesey, daughter of John Vesey, 1st Baron Knapton, and Elizabeth Brownlow. He and Elizabeth have two daughters:

Pery dies on February 24, 1806, at his home at Park Street, London, and is buried at Furnam, Pelham, Hertfordshire, England.

Pery’s younger brother, William, is a leading figure in the Church of Ireland, becoming Bishop of Killala and Achonry and subsequently Bishop of Limerick, Ardfert and Aghadoe, and also ennobled as Baron Glentworth. William’s son, Edmund, is made Earl of Limerick in 1803 as a result of his support for the Act of Union. Pery’s younger sister is Lucy Hartstonge, the founder of what is now St. John’s Hospital, Limerick.

(Pictured: “Portrait of Edmund Sexton, later 1st Viscount Pery” by Gilbert Stuart, oil on canvas, circa 1790, National Gallery of Ireland)