Life
1787-1840; ed. Stonyhurst and TCD; Irish bar, 1814; active in campaign for Catholic Emancipation; crown counsel for Munster, 1830; third serjeant, 1834; MP for Cashel, 1835-38; solicitor-general for Ireland, 1836; attorney-gen., 1838; chief-baron of the Irish exchequer, 1838; known as first Catholic since the reformation to hold law offices for the state; his saying ‘To create and to foster public opinion in Ireland-to make it racy of the soil’ serves as epigraph on the title-page of The Spirit of the Nation (1843). ODNB

[ top ]