David Plunket, 1st Baron Rathmore

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David Robert Plunket, 1st Baron Rathmore PC QC (December 3, 1838 – August 22, 1919) was an Irish politician. The third son of John Plunket, 3rd Baron Plunket, and brother to the 4th Baron, he was educated at Trinity College Dublin and was called to the Irish bar in 1862. After practising on the Munster Circuit for a number of years, he was made a Queen's Counsel in 1868, and became legal adviser to Dublin Castle that same year.

In 1870, Plunket was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Dublin University, and was Solicitor General for Ireland from 1875 to 1877. He was then briefly Paymaster General in 1880, and in 1885 he became First Commissioner of Works in Lord Salisbury's first ministry, resuming office after a short interval when the Conservatives returned to power the following year. He sat in the Cabinet until 1892, and on his retirement in 1895 he was created Baron Rathmore, of Shanganagh in County Dublin.

A director of the Suez Canal Company as well as Chairman of the North London Railway for many years, Lord Rathmore died, unmarried, at the age of 80 in a hotel in Greenore, County Louth. His peerage became extinct at his death.

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Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Anthony Lefroy John Thomas Ball	Member of Parliament for Dublin University with John Thomas Ball 1870–1875 Edward Gibson 1875–1885 Hugh Holmes 1885–1887 Dodgson Hamilton Madden 1887–1892 Edward Carson 1892–1895 1870–1895	Succeeded by Edward Carson W. E. H. Lecky
Political offices
Preceded by Sir Stephen Cave	Paymaster-General 1880	Succeeded by The Lord Wolverton
Preceded by The Earl of Rosebery	First Commissioner of Works 1885–1886	Succeeded by The Earl of Morley
Legal offices
Preceded by Henry Ormsby	Solicitor General for Ireland 1875–1877	Succeeded by Gerald Fitzgibbon
Peerage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baron Rathmore 1895–1919	Extinct