Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/444

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

the extensive revenues of the bishopric to meet the pressing wants of the newly erected college. Before the arrival of the requisite official documents from Rome, Daly died at the Lisbon college on 30 June 1662, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, having passed his life in great austerity and religious mortification. He was interred in the college, where his monument is still preserved. The Latin inscription on it designates Daly bishop-elect of Coimbra, founder of the Irish Dominican college of Lisbon, as well as of the convent of ‘Bom Successo’ in its vicinity, and adds that he was successful in the royal legations which he undertook, and was conspicuous for prudence, learning, and piety. The college and convent are still administered by the Irish Dominicans.

A French version of Daly's publication appeared at Dunkirk in 1697, under the title: ‘Commencement, progres et la fin de la famille des Geraldins, comtes de Desmound, Palatins de Kyerie en Irlande, et la description des persecutions des hérétiques. Tiré de quelques fragmens et mis en Latin par Frère Dominique du Rosaire ô Daly … Traduit du Latin en François par l'Abbé Joubert.’ An English translation, by the Rev. C. P. Meehan, from the Latin original, entitled ‘The Geraldines, Earls of Desmond,’ was published at Dublin in 1847, and a new edition was issued in 1878.

[Archives of Irish Dominicans at Lisbon and Belem; manuscripts in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin; Carte MS. vol. xxix. and Clarendon Papers, 1656, Bodleian Library; Histoire du détrônement d'Alfonse VI, roi de Portugal, Paris, 1742; Hibernia Dominicana et Supplementum, 1762–72; Collection of Original Papers by T. Carte, 1759; Historia de S. Domingos … do Reyno de Portugal, por Fr. Lucas de S. Catharina, Lisbon, 1767; Hist. of Kerry, by C. Smith.]

J. T. G.

DALY, DENIS (1747–1791), Irish politician, was the eldest son of James Daly of Carrownakelly and Dunsandle, county Galway, by his wife Catherine, daughter of Sir Ralph Gore, bart., a sister of Ralph, earl of Ross. He was the great-grandson of the Right Hon. Denis Daly, second justice of the common pleas in Ireland, who died on 11 March 1720. Daly was born on 24 Jan. 1747, and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, but it does not appear that he ever took his degree. At a bye election in 1767 he was returned to the Irish parliament for the borough of Galway, and in 1768 for the county. He continued to sit for this constituency until 1790, when he was returned for Galway town. At the previous general election of 1783 he had been elected both for the county and the town, but had chosen to continue his representation of the former. In August 1778 he moved an address to the king for the removal of the embargo, but though strenuously supported by Grattan, Yelverton, and Fitzgerald, the motion was rejected. Though possessing a great reputation among his contemporaries as a speaker, he did not often join in the debates, and rarely spoke without having first carefully prepared his speech. In 1780 he opposed the measure of independence, and in the following year accepted the office of muster-master-general, with a salary of 1,200l. a year. In 1783 he opposed Flood's bill for parliamentary reform; but, though now a ministerialist, he still continued to retain the respect of the opposition. His friendship with Grattan, who had the greatest reliance on his judgment, remained unbroken to the last. Daly was good-humoured and indolent, fond of books, and a good classical scholar. His library, which was sold after his death for over 3,760l., contained many valuable books. He died at Dunsandle on 10 Oct. 1791, in his forty-fifth year. Daly married, on 5 July 1780, Lady Henrietta Maxwell, only daughter and heiress of Robert, earl of Farnham, by his wife Henrietta, countess-dowager of Stafford. His family consisted of two sons and six daughters. His eldest son, James, sometime M.P. for Galway county, was on 6 June 1845 created Baron Dunsandle and Clan Conal in the kingdom of Ireland, and died on 7 Aug. 1847. His other son, Robert, became bishop of Cashel in 1843, and died on 16 Feb. 1872. Denis Daly's widow survived him for many years, and died at Bromley, county Wicklow, on 6 March 1852. The present Baron Dunsandle is his grandson. In Grattan's opinion Daly's death was an irretrievable loss to Ireland, and he is reported to have said that had Daly lived there would probably have been no insurrection, for ‘he would have spoken to the people with authority, and would have restrained the government’ (Grattan, Memoirs, i. 295). According to Grattan's biographer, Daly ‘had as much talent as Malone, with more boldness; he surpassed Hussey Burgh in statement, though he was not so good in reply; and he was superior to Flood in general powers, though without his force of invective’ (ib. p. 291).

[Grattan's Memoirs of the Life and Times of the Right Hon. Henry Grattan (1839), i. 251–252, 288–95; Hardy's Memoirs of James Caulfeild, Earl of Charlemont (1812), i. 283–8, 391, ii. 135, 196; Sir J. Barrington's Historic Memoirs of Ireland (1833), ii. 131–2, 166; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography (1878), p. 121; Wills's Irish Nation (1875), iii. 289–90; Burke's