VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY
171
\\'alter. married Anne IJryan. oi Jenkins-
town. Walter Lawless was a captain of
"Liittrell's Horse." and his son, Richard (2).
who was killed at the siege of Limerick in
1691. had a son. Walter (3), great-great-
grandfather of Joseph Thomas Lawless, of
this chronicle.
Patrick Lawdess. brother of Richard (2) Lawless, was reared in Ireland, was an offi- cer in the army of James II.. and subse- quently settled in Spain. Family history speaks of him as "The Spaniard." and he rose to distinguished position as a diplomat. His brother, John, was the grandfather of "Honest Jack" Lawdess. mentioned else- where. Richard ( i ) Lawless had a son. Thomas, wdio married a Miss Butler; their son, James Lawless, was the father of Nich- olas Lawless, the first Lord Cloncurry, and grandfather of Valentine Browne Lawless, who was intimately associated with the Emmets in the insurrection of 1803. Dr. Mackenzie, in his note to volume two, page 15, Shiel's "Sketches of the Irish Bar," is authority for the statement that it was Val- entine Browne Lawless to whom Robert Emmet made allusion in his celebrated speech in reply to Lord Norbury, presiding judge at Emmet's trial : "There are men concerned in this conspiracy who are not only superior to me. but even to your own conception of yourself, my lord." Valentine Browne Lawless was the grandfather of the Hon. Emily Lawless, the authoress, who died in London, England, in October, 1912 Her mother was Elizabeth (Kirwan) Law- less, of Castlehacket. county Galway, davigh- ter of John Kirwan, the geologist.
Lawrence (i) Lawdess, son of Weaker (3) Lawdess, and great-grandfather of Joseph Thomas Lawless, died in Galway, Ireland, aged eighty-three years. He and the other members of his family were close friends and intimates of the Emmets in Dublin, and, as appears in the diary of Thomas Addis Emmet, afterwards attorney-general of the state of New York, a Lawless was with him in France, aiding in the endeavor to enlist the services of Napoleon in the Irish cause. One of the sons of Lawrence (i) Lawless, Lawrence (2) Lawless, was concerned in the insurrection led by Robert Emmet in 1803. but escaped prosecution, being in this respect more fortunate than his cousin. Val- entine Browne Lawless, afterw^ard the third Lord Cloncurry, who was arrested and. al-
though never tried, served two years in Lon-
don Tower.
Thomas Lawless, son of LawTence (i) Lawless, was a farmer in the land of his Ijirth during his active life. He was a Roman Catholic in religion, and in politics was conspicuously identified wdth the "Re- pealers." In the agitation in Ireland for Catholic Emancipation he played a promi- nent part, joining O'Connell's Catholic xA.s- sociation and the Repeal Association, al- though on "The Wings" question he op- l>osed O'Connell and with his brothers, Dan- iel and Lawrence (2), followed the leader- ship of their kinsman, John (Honest Jack) Lawdess in resistance. "The Wings" was the name given by John Lawless, the famous Irish orator, to two sections of the Bentinck bill proposed in the house of commons in 1825, advocating Catholic emancipation. One "Wing" w^as the proposal to subsidize the Catholic clergy by making them depend- ent upon the government for support ; the other "Wing" was the disfranchisement of the "forty-shilling freeholders," effectuated by raising the qualification to vote to five pounds sterling, the whole proposition com- ing under the term found in modern parlia- mentary parlance, "rider." This specious remedy now^ receives universal condemna- tion, and "Honest Jack" Lawdess defeated O'Connell. who advocated the bill before the people, and thus so incurred his enmity that when John Lawless became a candidate for the seat from county Meath, under the later law permitting Catholics to hold office, he was opposed and defeated by O'Connell.
Thomas Lawless married, about 1829, Mary Hessian, daughter of Thomas Hessian, who died about the time of the birth of her only child, Thomas Joseph Lawless. They were married at Tuam, county Galway, Ire- land, his birthplace, Castlehacket. being near that place ; and Thomas Lawless died at New^ Garden, in his native county, aged fifty- seven years.
Thomas Joseph Lawless, son of Thomas and Mary (Hessian) Lawdess, was born in Ireland, and there lived until 1852, when he immigrated to the United States, settling at Portsmouth, Virginia. On November 24 of the year of his arrival he departed in the Japanese expedition of Commodore Mat- thew Calbraith Perry, having entered the United States naval service, on that date leaving Norfolk. Virginia, as a member of
