Patrick Duigenan

Patrick Duigenan.

Patrick Duigenan BA, MA, LLB, LLD, FTCD, KC (1735 – 11 April 1816), Irish lawyer and politician, was the son of a Leitrim Catholic farmer named O'Duibhgeannain.

Through the tuition of the local Protestant clergyman, who was interested in the boy, he got a scholarship in 1756 at Trinity College, Dublin, and subsequently became a fellow. He was called to the Irish bar in 1767 and obtained a rich practice, mainly in the area of law relating to tithes. A that time tithes were levied off the majority Catholic population for the benefit of the minority Church of Ireland, and were consequently unpopular. While Duigenan thought that Catholics should not have political rights, he provided his Catholic wife with a chapel at their home and arranged for a priest to say mass for her on Sundays. A noted Anti-Catholic be opposed the Roman Catholic Maynooth College and he opposed the Maynooth Grant.^[1]

He is remembered, however, mainly as a politician, on account of his opposition to Grattan, his support of the Union, and his violent antagonism to Catholic emancipation, both in the Irish House of Commons and in pamphlets. As a Member of Parliament (MP), he represented Old Leighlin one of the Bishop’s boroughs of the Irish Parliament between 1791 and 1798 and subsequently Armagh Borough until 1801. He sat then for Armagh City in the first Parliament of the United Kingdom. He was a well-known character at Westminster until he died on 11 April 1816.

See also

• Clan O Duibhgeannain

Notes

References

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Duigenan, Patrick". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press 
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs