Thomas Kelly

Thomas Kelly (1723–1809) was an Irish barrister, judge and politician, who held the office of Serjeant-at-law (Ireland). He sat briefly in the Irish House of Commons and was then appointed a justice of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland). In his own lifetime, his lack of legal learning was proverbial, but nonetheless, he was universally esteemed as a kindly and humane man. In the nineteenth century, his principal claim to fame lay in being the father of Thomas Kelly junior, a prolific writer of hymns and founder of a breakaway Protestant sect.

Early life He was born at Fidane, in County Galway, third son of Edmond Kelly, or O'Kelly, a minor landowner, and Margery Bourke. On his return to Ireland he began his legal practice on the Connacht circuit, where he sat as an extra judge of assize; he became King's Counsel in 1767 and Prime Serjeant in 1782. Nonetheless he retained his great popularity, having the reputation of being a kindly and humane judge, with a sense of humour, and a notable reluctance, unusual at the time, to impose the death penalty. Henry Grattan called him the most honourable and humane judge he ever knew.

Barrington's low opinion of Kelly as a judge was fully shared by the English-born politician Edward Cooke, always a stern critic of the Irish judiciary: he wrote that "Kelly has been most unfortunate in his judgments: (there is) scarcely one upon a dubious point which has not been set aside".

Death He had a townhouse in Dublin and a country seat, Kellyville (formerly Derrinroe), near Ballintubbert, County Laois, which he purchased around 1777, and substantially rebuilt. He retired in 1801: by some accounts, he resigned in protest against the passing of the Act of Union 1800 which destroyed the independent Irish Parliament, to which Kelly was devoted. He died in Dublin in 1809.

Family He married Frances Hickie, daughter of James Jephson Hickie of Carrick-on-Suir and his second wife Anne Salisbury Jephson. They had three daughters, Annabella, who married Sir George Pigott, first of the Pigott baronets, Harriet, who married Sir Richard St George, 2nd Baronet, the second of the St George baronets of Athlone, and Charlotte, and one son, Thomas Kelly (1769–1855).