Life
1742-1783, b. Co. Kildare; Prime Sargeant of Ireland and Free Trade orator
whose rousing speeches in the Irish Parliament were recalled by Sir Jonah
Barrington and J. A. Froude. In a debate of November 1779 he said, ‘England
has sown her laws as dragon’s teeth, and they have sprung up as armed
men.’ A member of the Monks of the Screw, he also wrote poems, never
collected, some of which are printed in The Cabinet of Irish Literature
(1876-8) ed. Sir Charles Read. RR CAB ODNB FDA
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Notes
He is cited by Richard Lovell Edgeworth as one of the geniuses of Ireland,
in the Essay on Irish Bulls (1803). See also Richard Ryan, Biographia
Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), vol. I, p.229.
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