Thomas Marlay

Thomas Marlay (1691–1756) was an Irish judge, remembered now as the builder of Celbridge Abbey and as the grandfather of the statesman Henry Grattan.

His mother Elizabeth Morgan was from County Sligo; his father Anthony was a recent arrival from Newcastle-upon-Tyne where his own father Sir John Marlay had been a leading local politician. He was educated at the University of Dublin, and unlike most barristers of his time was a considerable scholar, being awarded the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Doctor of Laws. He rapidly built up a large practice at the Bar and was appointed Solicitor-General for Ireland in 1720 and Attorney-General for Ireland in 1727. He was elevated to the Bench as Lord Chief Baron in 1730 and became Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench in Ireland in 1741.

His most notable trial as Lord Chief Justice was the so-called Annesley perjury case; one of several trials arising from the celebrated legal battle between James Annesley and Richard Annesley, 6th Earl of Anglesey as to which of them was the rightful holder of the Anglesey title and estates. The trial was notable for lasting twenty-two hours without a break and Marlay, who would normally have had 2 or 3 colleagues to support him conducted it virtually singlehanded.

A workload so heavy soon affected his health and from 1749 he was too unwell to go on circuit; he retired on health grounds in 1751. He died in Drogheda on a visit to his colleague Henry Singleton. He was a popular figure and his death seems to have been genuinely mourned: a Dublin paper published verses praising his gentleness, perfect manners and scholarship (the last being rather unusual among Irish judges of the time).^[1]

Marlay built the present Celbridge Abbey. He married Mary de Laune : their surviving children included Richard, Bishop of Clonfert and later of Waterford; and Mary, mother of the statesman Henry Grattan.

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