Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Goold, Thomas
GOOLD, THOMAS (1766?–1846), a master of the court of chancery in Ireland, was born of a wealthy protestant family in Cork. Coming to Dublin about 1789 he proceeded to squander his patrimony, some 10,000l, in rioting and entertainments, at which Grattan, Saurin, Bushe, Plunkett, and others, are said to have been present. Having come to the end of his resources, he applied himself zealously to practice at the bar, to which he had been called in 1791. A pamphlet in defence of Burke's ‘Reflections on the French Revolution,’ ‘against all his opponents,’ gained him the honour of an invitation to Beaconsfield, and an introduction to Lord Fitzwilliam, made useless by the viceroy's prompt recall. In 1799 Goold wrote an ‘Address to the People of Ireland on the subject of the projected Union,’ and sat in the last session of the Irish parliament as a member of the opposition. In 1818 he gave evidence at the bar of the House of Commons upon the inquiry into the conduct of Windham Quin. Meanwhile his practice had been rapidly increasing. In 1824 W. H. Curran calls him one of the most prominent members of the Irish bar, and he had been appointed third serjeant in the previous year. Indeed it has been said that he was the best nisi prius lawyer who ever held a brief at the Irish bar. In 1830 he was appointed king's serjeant, and a master in chancery in 1832. He died at Lissadell, co. Sligo, the seat of his son-in-law, Sir R. G. Booth, bart., on 16 July 1846.
[Ann. Reg. 1846; W. H. Curran's Sketches of the Irish Bar, i. 183-207.]