Thomas O'Hagan, 1st Baron O'Hagan, KP, PC (Ire), QC (29 May 18121 February 1885), was an Irish lawyer and judge. He served as

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 ...

from 1868 to 1874 and again from 1880 to 1881.

Background and education

O'Hagan was born in

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

, the son of Edward O'Hagan, a merchant, and his wife Mary Bell, daughter of Captain Thomas Bell. He was educated at

Royal Belfast Academical Institution The Royal Belfast Academical Institution is an independent grammar school in Belfast, Northern Ireland. With the support of Belfast's leading reformers and democrats, it opened its doors in 1814. Until 1849, when it was superseded by what today ...

, being in his day the only Catholic in the school. In 1836 he was called to the Irish

Bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar ** Chocolate bar * Protein bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a laye ...

Career

Between 1838 and 1841 O'Hagan was the editor of ''The Newry Examiner''. In 1840 he moved to

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, where he appeared for the repeal party in many political trials, becoming an Irish

Queen's Counsel A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...

in 1849. His advocacy of a continuance of the Union with Great Britain, and his appointment as

Solicitor-General for Ireland The Solicitor-General for Ireland was the holder of an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish and then (from the Act of Union 1800) United Kingdom government office. The holder was a deputy to the Attorney-General for Ireland, and advised the Crown on Irish ...

in 1860 and

Attorney-General for Ireland The Attorney-General for Ireland was an Kingdom of Ireland, Irish and then, from 1801 under the Acts of Union 1800, United Kingdom government office-holder. He was senior in rank to the Solicitor-General for Ireland: both advised the Crown on ...

in the following year, lost him the support of the Nationalist party, but he was returned to

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * Generally, a supporter of the political philosophy liberalism. Liberals may be politically left or right but tend to be centrist. * An adherent of a Liberal Party (See also Liberal parties by country ...

Member of Parliament for

Tralee Tralee ( ; , ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the River Lee') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in ...

in 1863. In 1865 he was appointed a judge of the

Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) The Court of Common Pleas was one of the principal courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror image of the equivalent court in England. Common Pleas was one of the four courts of justice which gave the Four Courts in Dublin, which is sti ...

, and in 1868 became

William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British politican, starting as Conservative MP for Newark and later becoming the leader of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party. In a career lasting over 60 years, he ...

's first administration. O'Hagan was the first

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

to hold the chancellorship since the reign of James II, an Act of Parliament admitting Roman Catholics to the position having been passed in 1867. In 1870 he was created Baron O'Hagan, of Tullahogue in the

County A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

of Tyrone, and held office until the resignation of the ministry in 1874. In 1880 he again became Lord Chancellor on Gladstone's return to office, but resigned in 1881. His tenure as Lord Chancellor saw several major legislative reforms in Ireland, of which the most notable was the

Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 (33 & 34 Vict. c. 46) was an Act of Parliament (UK), act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1870. Background Between the Acts of Union 1800 and the year 1870, Parliament had passed ma ...

, providing compensation for tenants in the event of eviction. His first term as Chancellor was also notable for his continual clashes with the other judge of appeal,

Jonathan Christian Jonathan Christian, SL, QC, PC (I) (17 February 1808 in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary – 29 October 1887 in Dublin), was an Irish judge. He served as Solicitor-General for Ireland from 1856 to 1858. He was a judge of the Court of Common P ...

, a bitter-tongued man with a deep contempt for most of his judicial colleagues, including O'Hagan, who he regarded as lazy and unqualified. Christian even published a letter in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' attacking O'Hagan and his highly regarded Scottish colleague Lord Blackburn, who had voted to reverse one of his judgments. O'Hagan for his part seems to have regarded Christian as little more than a nuisance, but on taking up office for his second term, he did not hide his relief that Christian had retired. On his retirement from office Lord O'Hagan was in 1882 appointed a Knight of St Patrick, having become

Vice Chancellor A vice-chancellor (commonly called a VC) serves as the chief executive of a university in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, other Commonwealth countr ...

of the

Royal University of Ireland The Royal University of Ireland was a university in Ireland that existed from 1879 to 1909. It was founded in accordance with the University Education (Ireland) Act 1879 as an examining and degree-awarding university based on the model of the ...

the previous year. He was president of the

Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland The Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland (SSISI) is a learned society which analyses the major changes that have taken place in population, employment, legal and administrative systems and social services in Ireland. It operates as ...

between 1867 and 1870.

Personal life

Lord O'Hagan married firstly in 1836 Mary Teeling, daughter of Charles Hamilton Teeling of

. They had a son Charles who died 1896 in Dublin, and two daughters, Frances and Madeline. Mary died in 1868. He married secondly in 1871 Alice Towneley, daughter and co-heiress of Colonel Charles Towneley of Towneley Park,

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2021 population of 78,266. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River B ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, and Lady Caroline Molyneux, daughter of The 2nd Earl of Sefton. They had two sons, Thomas and

Maurice Maurice may refer to: *Maurice (name), a given name and surname, including a list of people with the name Places * or Mauritius, an island country in the Indian Ocean *Maurice, Iowa, a city *Maurice, Louisiana, a village *Maurice River, a trib ...

, each of whom in turn inherited the title and changed the family name to Towneley-O'Hagan, and two daughters, Kathleen (who lived to be almost 100) and Mary, who married General

Sir Charles Monro, 1st Baronet General Sir Charles Carmichael Monro, 1st Baronet (15 June 1860 – 7 December 1929), was a British Army General in the First World War. He held the post of Commander-in-Chief, India, in 1916–1920. From 1923 to 1928 he was the Governor of Gibra ...

. Alice inherited the family home,

Towneley Park Towneley Park is owned and managed by Burnley Borough Council and is the largest and most popular park in Burnley, Lancashire, England. The main entrance to the park is within a mile of the town centre and the park extends to the south east, c ...

, from her father, but found it too expensive to keep up and sold it to Burnley Corporation in 1901. She died on 20 November 1921. After the death of John Towneley in 1878, O'Hagan inherited the

Towneley family The Towneley or Townley family are an English family whose ancestry can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon England. Towneley Hall in Burnley, Lancashire, was the family seat until its sale, together with the surrounding park, to the corporation of B ...

trustee position at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

Lord O'Hagan died at Hereford House, London, in February 1885, aged 72, and was buried in

Glasnevin Cemetery Glasnevin Cemetery () is a large cemetery in Glasnevin, Dublin, Ireland which opened in 1832. It holds the graves and memorials of several notable figures, and has a museum. Location The cemetery is located in Glasnevin, Dublin, in two part ...

. He was succeeded in the barony by his eldest son,

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

(1878–1900), and then by another son, Maurice Herbert Towneley (born 1882). The

Liberal Unionist The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain, the party established a political ...

editor of the Belfast ''Northern Whig'',

Thomas Macknight Thomas Macknight (15 February 1829 – 19 November 1899) was an English editor of Ireland's leading Liberal newspaper, the ''Northern Whig'' in Belfast, a biographer and publisher. He an originator of the two nations theory in 1896, which ar ...

, who had been a personal friend of O'Hagan, states in his memoir ULSTER AS IT IS (London, 1896) that he believed O'Hagan would have opposed

's conversion to

Irish Home Rule The Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the end of ...

had he not died when he did. O'Hagan's sister

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a female given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religion * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also called the Blesse ...

was Abbess of the

Poor Clare The Poor Clares, officially the Order of Saint Clare (Latin: ''Ordo Sanctae Clarae''), originally referred to as the Order of Poor Ladies, and also known as the Clarisses or Clarissines, the Minoresses, the Franciscan Clarist Order, and the Sec ...

convent at

Newry Newry (; ) is a City status in Ireland, city in Northern Ireland, standing on the Newry River, Clanrye river in counties County Down, Down and County Armagh, Armagh. It is near Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, the border with the ...

and later at

Kenmare Kenmare () is a small town in the south of County Kerry, Ireland. The name Kenmare is the anglicised form of ''Ceann Mara'', meaning "head of the sea", referring to the head of Kenmare Bay. It is also a townland and civil parish. Location Ken ...

. Her biography was written by her protege MF Cusack (1839–1899), "the Nun of Kenmare".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ohagan, Thomas Ohagan, 1st Baron 1812 births 1885 deaths Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom Burials at Glasnevin Cemetery Catholic Unionists Knights of St Patrick Irish Liberal Party MPs Lord chancellors of Ireland Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Kerry constituencies (1801–1922) Lawyers from Belfast UK MPs 1859–1865 UK MPs who were granted peerages Solicitors-general for Ireland Attorneys-general for Ireland People from County Antrim 19th-century Irish lawyers Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland Serjeants-at-law (Ireland) Irish King's Counsel Peers of the United Kingdom created by Queen Victoria Trustees of the British Museum