Dr Dudley Loftus (1619 – June 1695) was an

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

jurist and noted orientalist. Loftus was born the second son of Sir Adam Loftus and his wife Jane Vaughan, daughter of Walter Vaughan, into a family of 17 siblings on his great-grandfather’s estate of

Rathfarnham Castle Rathfarnham Castle ( ga, Caisleán Rath Fearnáin) is a 16th-century fortified house in Rathfarnham, South Dublin, Ireland. The earlier Irish castle was occupied by the Harold family, who held it as tenants of the le Bret family. It was replac ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

. He graduated from

Trinity College, Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

when 18, then entered

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in 1639 on the advice of Bishop Usher, taking his Master of Arts degree in 1641. Rathfarnham Castle

In his lifetime he was acclaimed as a linguist, and his reputation as an orientalist was unrivalled thanks to his Latin translations from Ethiopic, Armenian,

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

, and Persian texts. He served four times as a Member of the

Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, but on a highly restrictive fran ...

, representing

Naas Naas ( ; ga, Nás na Ríogh or ) is the county town of County Kildare in Ireland. In 2016, it had a population of 21,393, making it the second largest town in County Kildare after Newbridge. History The name of Naas has been recorded in th ...

between 1642 and 1648, the combined counties of Kildare and Wicklow in the Third

Protectorate Parliament This is a list of parliaments of England from the reign of King Henry III, when the '' Curia Regis'' developed into a body known as Parliament, until the creation of the Parliament of Great Britain in 1707. For later parliaments, see the List ...

of 1659 at

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

Bannow Bannow () is a village and civil parish lying east of Bannow Bay on the south-west coast of County Wexford, Ireland. In modern times the main settlement is the village of Carrig-on-Bannow (or ''Carrig''). In Norman times there was a borough ca ...

between 1661 and 1666 and Fethard between 1692 and 1693. He was also Vicar General of Ireland, Judge of the

Prerogative Court In law, a prerogative is an exclusive right bestowed by a government or state and invested in an individual or group, the content of which is separate from the body of rights enjoyed under the general law. It was a common facet of feudal law. ...

of Ireland, and Senior

Master in Chancery The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over all matters of equ ...

. He inherited the family seat of Rathfarnham Castle in 1659. Despite his many accomplishments, Archbishop

Narcissus Marsh Narcissus Marsh (20 December 1638 – 2 November 1713) was an English clergyman who was successively Church of Ireland Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin, Archbishop of Cashel, Archbishop of Dublin and Archbishop of Armagh. Marsh was born at Hannin ...

wrote of him that "he never knew so much Learning in the Keeping of a Fool". Even so, the archbishop collected the majority of Loftus' manuscripts and housed them at a public library, Marsh's Library), next to St. Patrick's Cathedral, where they can be seen to this day.

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Du ...

for his part described Loftus thus: "Let him be hailed amongst the junior fellows, with his short feet and

rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct specie ...

nose …..Because of his looks and eloquence we name him Ulysses; for Ulysses was not handsome but he had the gift of tongues. No Tartar is more fair, no Athenian better hung, / Sol varnish’d o’er his face, and Mercury his tongue. For his height let us salute him as Ajax, for his scrawniness as Tithonus, for his shaking head as the palsied Priam, for his swiftness as Achilles and finally (for his giant shanks), as the Colossus." Loftus is interred in the family vault in

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Saint Patrick's Cathedral ( ir, Ard-Eaglais Naomh Pádraig) in Dublin, Ireland, founded in 1191 as a Roman Catholic cathedral, is currently the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland. Christ Church Cathedral, also a Church of Ireland cat ...

. He was married to Frances Nagle, daughter of Patrick Nagle and Mary Bolton, and granddaughter of Sir Thomas Nagle, 19th

Baron of Navan {{Use dmy dates, date=November 2019 The Barony of Navan was an Irish feudal barony which was held by the de Angulo family, whose name became Nangle. It was a customary title: in other words, the holder of the title was always referred to as a Baron, ...

, and his wife Marian Fagan; and of Sir

Edward Bolton Sir Edward Bolton (1592–1659) was an English-born judge who served for many years as Solicitor General for Ireland before succeeding his father Sir Richard Bolton as Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. He was the only surviving son of Richard B ...

Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer The Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer was the Baron (judge) who presided over the Court of Exchequer (Ireland). The Irish Court of Exchequer was a mirror of the equivalent court in England and was one of the four courts which sat in the buildin ...

, and Isabella Ayloffe. They had seven children, of whom only one daughter Letitia survived infancy.

References

* Richard Ryan, ''Biographia Hibernica: A Biographical Dictionary of the Worthies of Ireland from the Earliest Period to the Present Time'', London : John Warren, 1821. Vol. II, pages 379-380.
Loftus Family Registry

External links

Dudley Loftus
in Alfred Webb, ed., ''A Compendiun of Irish Biography'', 1878. * ''The Annals of Dudley Loftus'' by Newport B. White in Analecta Hibernica, No. 10 (Jul., 1941), pp. 171, 223, 225-238. {{DEFAULTSORT:Loftus, Dudley 1619 births 1695 deaths 17th-century Anglo-Irish people Irish MPs 1692–1693 Irish orientalists

Dudley Dudley is a large market town and administrative centre in the county of West Midlands, England, southeast of Wolverhampton and northwest of Birmingham. Historically an exclave of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the ...

People from Rathfarnham Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Kildare constituencies Irish ecclesiastical judges Irish MPs 1639–1649 Irish MPs 1661–1666 English MPs 1659

See also

References

External links