Sir John Davys (1646 – November 1689) was an Irish politician.
Biography
Davys was son of Sir
Paul Davys by his second wife Anne, daughter of
Sir William Parsons, 1st Baronet, and younger brother of
Sir William Davys
Sir William Davys (before 1633 – 1687) was an Irish barrister and judge who held the offices of Recorder of Dublin, Prime Serjeant and Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. He was suspected of Roman Catholic sympathies and was threatened with remova ...
, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. He was educated at
Trinity College, Dublin and
Lincoln's Inn.
In 1678 Davys was granted the office of
Principal Secretary for Ireland in
reversion, in the event of the demise of the current office holder
Lord Lanesborough, who died in 1683. This office had been previously held by his father Sir Paul Davys. He was appointed to the
Privy Council of Ireland in about 1682.
During the
Popish Plot, both John and his brother were accused of Catholic sympathies and summoned to London to account for their behaviour, but were cleared of any suspicion of disloyalty on the evidence of
James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, a lifelong friend of their father, and
Michael Boyle,
Archbishop of Armagh, who was William's father-in-law. After the accession of
James II, John is said to have opposed the King's policies and to have absented himself from Ireland for a time.
Francis Elrington Ball
Francis Elrington Ball, known as F. Elrington Ball (1863–1928), was an Irish author and legal historian, best known for his work ''The Judges in Ireland 1221–1921'' (1926).
Life
A younger son of John Thomas Ball (1815 to 1898), the Lord C ...
in his ''History of Dublin'' praises John Davys as a man of prudence and integrity.
Family
By his wife, Anne Thelwall, Davys had two sons, Paul and Robert. Under the
will of their uncle Sir William Davys, whichever of them married Sir William's stepdaughter Lady Catherine MacCarty (daughter of
Callaghan MacCarty, 3rd Earl of Clancarty and Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald) would inherit the principal Davys estate, St Catherine's Park,
Leixlip
Leixlip ( or ; , IPA: lʲeːmʲənˠˈwɾˠad̪ˠaːnʲ is a town in north-east County Kildare, Ireland. Its location on the confluence of the River Liffey and the Rye Water has marked it as a frontier town historically: on the border betwee ...
.
[Ball 1906, pp.32-33] The elder, Paul, duly married her, and was later created
Viscount Mountcashell, reviving the title previously by his wife's uncle
Justin MacCarthy, Viscount Mountcashell.
Notes
References
*
Further reading
*
* http://www.chaptersofdublin.com/books/ball1-6/Ball4/ball4.2.htm
* http://www.stirnet.com/HTML/genie/british/dd/daviesXY.htm
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davys, John
1646 births
1689 deaths
17th-century Irish politicians
Members of the Privy Council of Ireland
Alumni of Trinity College Dublin