John Keating

John Keating, or Keatinge (c. 1630–1691) was an Irish judge of the late seventeenth century, who held office as Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas. He had an impressive reputation for integrity, impartiality and benevolence. Due to his loyalty to King James II of England, he was dismissed from his office as Chief Justice after the Revolution of 1688. Later, faced with the threat of impeachment, he committed suicide.

Family and early career He was born in Dublin, the second son of Edmund Keating of Narraghmore, County Kildare and Elizabeth (or Elinor) Eustace. His mother was the daughter of John Fitzwilliam Eustace of Harristown, County Kildare, and sister of Sir Maurice Eustace, later Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He had one older brother, Oliver, who died in 1683, and at least one sister Catherine, who died in 1699. Catherine married firstly the senior judge Adam Cusack, Chief Justice of Connacht, who died in 1681, and secondly the Jacobite leader Colonel Nicholas Cusack (died 1726), a great-grandson of Sir Thomas Cusack, Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

Keating, like his uncle Maurice, combined membership of the Church of Ireland with a notable tolerance in religious matters, which led to claims in later life that he was himself secretly a crypto-Catholic. The Keating family lived as permanent guests of Eustace on his Palmerstown estate, which he bought around 1647, and it later became the home of John and his wife.

Keating graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1655 and entered Lincoln's Inn in 1657; in 1689, he broke with all precedent in refusing to allow two convicted cattle thieves to plead benefit of clergy for a first offence. Both were hanged.

Dismissal and death During the politically turbulent years 1688–1691, Keating was in a particularly difficult position since, unlike some of his colleagues, he was very anxious to retain office.

The collapse of the Jacobite cause in the following year placed Keating in an impossible position, which explains his frequently puzzling behaviour. He could not seriously have expected to be allowed to keep his office, yet he undoubtedly made friendly advances to the new administration, possibly with the help of his brother-in-law Colonel Cusack, who played a part in negotiating the Treaty of Limerick.

Marriage In 1659 he married Grace Holte, daughter of the prominent landowner and Royalist Sir Thomas Holte of Aston Hall by his first wife Grace Bradbourne, and widow of Sir Richard Shuckburgh. Grace died in 1677; Keating erected a memorial to her in Palmerstown Chapel, Dublin, with an inscription paying eloquent testimony to their happy marriage. He erected a similar memorial at her other family's parish church in Lower Shuckburgh, Warwickshire.

There were no children of this marriage (Grace was much older than her husband), but she had seven surviving children by her first marriage, including Sir John Shuckburgh (1635–1661), first of the Shuckburgh Baronets, Elizabeth who married Sir Edward Waldo of Harrow, London, and Grace, who married firstly Sir John Bernard, 2nd Baronet, and secondly Thomas Mariet.

Character and reputation Historians on the whole have dealt kindly with Keating both as a man and as a judge. The more critical among them, like Elrington Ball, have accused him of clinging to office in an undignified manner, and the Cavenagh case shows that he could be merciless enough when he thought there was a danger of a felon escaping justice. Yet there is impressive evidence of his good qualities. Duhigg, in a celebrated passage, called him: "the great ornament of the Irish Bench ... a great magistrate who in a slippery or stormy period exercised official station with mild manners and untainted integrity. This great man was calm, patient and humane in the trial of prisoners; clear, laborious and consistent in the discussion of civil suits; faithful to his King and country in the indulgence of political principles; and attached to God in the exercise of Christianity."