Hugh Law

Hugh Law QC (1818 – 10 September 1883) was an Irish lawyer, politician and Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

Law was educated at Trinity College, Dublin where he received a Bachelor of Arts in 1839. He became a barrister in 1840 and a Queen's Counsel in 1860. He drafted the "Irish Church Act 1869" which disestablished the Church of Ireland.

He became legal adviser to the Liberal Lord Lieutenant of Ireland John Poyntz Spencer, 5th Earl Spencer) in 1868. He became a bencher of King’s Inns in 1870 and was appointed in succession Solicitor General for Ireland in 1872, Attorney General for Ireland in 1873 a member of the Irish Privy Council on 24 February 1874. In 1874 he was elected a Member of Parliament for Londonderry. He was appointed Attorney General by Liberal Prime Minister Gladstone in 1880 before becoming Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1881.

Hugh Law died unexpectedly on 10 September 1883.

One of his sons, Hugh Law, bought the historic Ardbraccan House, former palace of the Lord Bishop of Meath, from the Church of Ireland in 1885. A descendant, also called Hugh Law, sat initially as a Nationalist MP in the House of Commons and later served in Dáil Éireann as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD from June 1927 until 1932.

References

*http://www.pgil-eirdata.org/html/pgil_datasets/authors/l/Law,H(b1818)/life.htm