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Valentine Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry

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Valentine Lawless

'"Valentine Lawless'" the second Lord Cloncurry, was an Irish politician and landowner. He lived in Lyons, under Lyons Hill Ardclough County Kildare. he is believed to have joined the United Irishmen in 1793, and was imprisoned in June 1798 on suspicion of treason in London, released, re-arrested and held in the Tower of London until March 1801. Lawless’s agent Thomas Braughall was also arrested. On his release he went to Paris and then Rome. He was there during Robert Emmet's rebellion and is believed by Emmet’s biographer Ruan O’Donnell to have been a member of the new Republican Government in waiting. He returned in 1804 and became involved with the refurbishment of Lyons House. Valentine Lawless brought an action for criminal conversation against John Piers, whose misdemeanours with Lady Georgiana Cloncurry were witnessed by the painter Gabrielli while he was at work. Lawless did not support Daniel O'Connell in his campaign for Repeal. After 1828 he became a member of the private cabinet of Henry William Paget, Marquis of Anglesey and kept horses ready at Lyons for meetings when Anglesey was Lord Lieutenant in 1828-29 (popular), and 1830-34 (unpopular). In 1829 Daniel O’Connell stated that the Lord Lieutenant had been recalled to London 'because he visited Lord Cloncurry.' Lawless was granted an English peerage in September 1831 a few days after the coronation of William IV, His memoir, published in 1849, claimed: The independence of Ireland is sure to come at last - as sure as that the Roman Empire fell in pieces, or the North American provinces are now free states. When misfortune shall overtake England, or the lot common to empires as to individuals, can she lay the flattering unction to her soul that she has acted with probity towards Ireland?'

Bibliography

  • Annals of Ardclough by Eoghan Corry and Jim Tancred (2004).
  • W J Fitzpatrick: Life, Times and contemporaries of Lord Cloncurry (1855).
  • Valentine Lawless, Lord Cloncurry: Recollections (Dublin 1849). (text available online http://indigo.ie/~kfinlay/Cloncurry)
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