Arthur St Leger, 1st Viscount Doneraile (died 7 July 1727) 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 State rel ...

politician and peer.

Biography

St Leger was the son of John St. Leger and his first wife Lady Mary Chichester, the daughter of the 1st Earl of Donegall and his first wife, Dorcas Hill. He was a descendant of Sir Anthony St Leger. Sir John St Leger, Baron of the

Court of Exchequer (Ireland) The Court of Exchequer (Ireland), or the Irish Exchequer of Pleas, was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was the mirror image of the equivalent court in England. The Court of Exchequer was one of the four royal courts of jus ...

, was his half-brother, the son of his father's second marriage to Aphra Harflete, an heiress from Ash in

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

. John, who was not highly regarded as a lawyer, was said to have owed his success largely to his brother's support, and the two were close throughout their lives. St Leger represented

Doneraile Doneraile (), historically Dunnerail, is a town in County Cork, Ireland. It is on the R581 regional road east of the N20 road, which runs from Limerick to Cork. It is about north of Mallow town. It is on the River Awbeg, a branch of th ...

in the

Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until the end of 1800. The upper house was the Irish House of Lords, House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, ...

from 1692 to 1693. On 23 June 1703 he was raised to the

Peerage of Ireland The peerage of Ireland consists of those Peerage, titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lordship of Ireland, Lord or Monarchy of Ireland, King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great B ...

as Viscount Doneraile and Baron Kilmayden. In 1715, he was invested as a member of the

Privy Council of Ireland His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal executi ...

. His most noted contribution to public life was during the debate in the

Irish House of Lords The Irish House of Lords was the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from medieval times until the end of 1800. It was also the final court of appeal of the Kingdom of Ireland. It was modelled on the House of Lords of Englan ...

on the much-debated case of ''Sherlock v Annesley'' in 1719. The Barons of the Court of Exchequer, including Doneraile's brother John, had given effect to a decree of the

British House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest extant institutions in the world, its origi ...

, ignoring a contrary decree of the Irish House. The Irish peers, infuriated by this challenge to their authority, summoned the judges to appear before them and after a short, ill-tempered hearing committed them to prison for three months. The only peers to vote against committing the judges were Doneraile and the

Lord Chancellor of Ireland The Lord High Chancellor of Ireland, commonly known as the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was the highest ranking judicial office in Ireland until the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. From 1721 until the end of 1800, it was also the hi ...

, Lord Midleton. While the Lord Chancellor was concerned at the political implications of the Lords' conduct, warning rightly that the House was at risk of losing its judicial powers altogether, Doneraile seems to have been moved by simple family loyalty, as he and his brother were close. He married Elizabeth Hayes, the daughter of John Hayes and Mehitabel Ottrington, on 24 June 1690. Elizabeth brought him substantial estates in

County Waterford County Waterford () is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. It is named after the city of Waterford. ...

, which she inherited from her maternal grandfather. Together they had four children. Both of his two surviving sons would, in turn, succeed to his titles. A third son, John, was killed in a

duel A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people with matched weapons. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the rapier and later the small sword), but beginning in ...

by the future judge Arthur Blennerhassett in 1741. His daughter Elizabeth Aldworth achieved fame as "The Lady

Freemason Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

", and was also the progenitor of the Viscounts Doneraile of the second creation.Edmund Lodge, ''The Genealogy of the Existing British Peerage: With Sketches of the Family Histories of the Nobility'' (Saunders and Otley, 1838), 151-2.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Doneraile, Arthur St Leger, 1st Viscount Year of birth unknown 1727 deaths Viscounts in the Peerage of Ireland Peers of Ireland created by Queen Anne 17th-century Anglo-Irish people 18th-century Anglo-Irish people Irish MPs 1692–1693 Members of the Privy Council of Ireland

Arthur Arthur is a masculine given name of uncertain etymology. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. A common spelling variant used in many Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages is Artur. In Spanish and Ital ...

Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Cork constituencies