St George Daly

St George Daly (1758 – December 1829) was an Irish judge, who had a reputation for ignorance.

He was a son of James Daly MP, of Carrownakelly and Dunsandle, by his second wife Catherine, daughter of Sir Ralph Gore, 4th Baronet and Elizabeth Ashe.[1][2] He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and called to the Irish Bar in 1783.[1] Denis Daly, a much respected but short-lived politician, was his brother. The Dalys were a long established landowning family in County Galway. Though traditionally. Roman Catholics, and of Gaelic origin, they managed to hold onto their lands by embracing the Protestant faith and abandoning their previous loyalty to the Stuart dynasty.

In January 1798 he was elected to the Irish House of Commons as one of the two Members of Parliament for the pocket borough of Galway. When the Irish House of Commons was abolished by the Act of Union 1800, Galway's representation was reduced to one. The other MP, George Ponsonby, resigned, leaving Daly as the sole MP.[3] He was appointed to the Irish Privy Council on 16 December 1800.[4] He was the first MP for Galway Borough in the new House of Commons of the United Kingdom but vacated his seat on 21 February 1801[1] on appointment as a Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland); John Brabazon Ponsonby was elected to succeed him on 10 March.[5] On 3 November 1803 he transferred from the Court of Exchequer to the Court of King's Bench (Ireland), serving until his resignation in 1822.[6]

Reputation

The reputation of the Irish Bench in the years after the Act of Union was very low: several High Court judges, including Daly, were accused of owing their appointment to their support for Union and nothing else. It was said of Daly that he had never held even a dozen briefs in his whole career, and that barristers used to mock his ignorance in open court.[7]He did at least come from a family with a tradition of judicial service: his great-grandfather, the first Denis Daly, had been a judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) during the reign of James II.

Family

He lived at Eyrecourt in County Galway. In 1803 he married his cousin Louisa, daughter of Richard Gore of Sandymount, County Wicklow and Martha Fiott.[1]

References

1. R.G. Thorne, The House of Commons 1790-1820, Secker & Warburg 1986, vol. I, p. 565
2. http://thepeerage.com/p23360.htm#i233595
3. http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/irelandcommons.htm
4. http://www.leighrayment.com/pcouncil/pcouncilI.htm
5. http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Gcommons1.htm
6. J. Haydn and H. Ockerby, The Book of Dignities, W.H. Allen & Co. 1894, p. 579
7. O'Faoláin, Sean King of the Beggars- a life of Daniel O'Connell Alan Figgis and Co. 1970 p.98