PLUNKET, WILLIAM CONYNGHAM PLUNKET, 1ST BARON Irish lawyer, orator and statesman, was born in the county of Fermanagh in July 5764, the son of a Presbyterian minister, and studied at Trinity college, Dublin. Having entered Lincoln's Inn in 1784, Plunket was called to the Irish bar in 1787. He gradually obtained a considerable prac tice in equity and was made a king's counsel in 1797.
In 1798 he entered the Irish parliament as member for Charle mont. He was an anti-Jacobin Whig of the school of Burke, and a fervent Irish patriot. But he was a sincere admirer of the con stitutional government of England as established in 1688; he even justified the ascendancy it had given to the Established Church, although he thought that the time had arrived for extending toleration to Roman Catholics and dissenters. To transfer it to Ireland as thus modified, and under an independent legislature, was the only reform he sought for his country; he opposed the union because he thought in incompatible with this object.
When Plunket entered the Irish parliament, the Irish Whig party was almost extinct, and Pitt was feeling his way to accomp lish the union. In this he was seconded ably by Lord Castle reagh, by the panic caused by a wild insurrection, and by the secession of Grattan from politics. When, however, the measure was brought forward, among the ablest and fiercest of its adver saries was Plunket, whose powers as a great orator were now universally recognized. His speeches raised him immediately to the front rank of his party; and when Grattan re-entered the moribund senate he took his seat next to Plunket, thus significantly recognizing the place the latter had attained.
After the union Plunket returned to the practice of his pro fession, and became at once a leader of the equity bar. In 1803 he was selected as one of the Crown lawyers to prosecute Emmet. For his speech on this occasion he was exposed to much obloquy, and more especially to the abuse of Cobbett, against whom he brought a successful action for damages. In 1803, in Pitt's second
administration, he became solicitor-general, and in 1805 attorney general for Ireland; and he continued in office when Lord Gren ville came into power in 1806. Plunket held a seat in the Imperial parliament during this period, and there made several able speeches in favour of Catholic emancipation, and of continuing the war with France; but when the Grenville cabinet was dissolved he returned once more to professional life.
In 1812 he re-entered parliament as member for Trinity college, and identified himself with the Grenville or anti-Gallican Whigs. He was soon acknowledged as one of the first orators, if not the first, of the House of Commons. In 1822 Plunket was once more attorney-general for Ireland, with Lord Wellesley as lord-lieuten ant. One of his first official acts was to prosecute for the "bottle riot," an attempt on his part to put down the Orange faction in Ireland. He strenuously opposed the Catholic Association, which about this time, under the guidance of O'Connell, began its agi tation. In 1825 he made a powerful speech against it; thus the curious spectacle was seen of the ablest champion of an oppressed church doing all in his power to check its efforts to emancipate itself. In 1827 Plunket was made master of the rolls in England; but, owing to the professional jealousy of the bar, who regarded an Irishman as an intruder, he resigned in a few days. Soon afterwards he became chief justice of the common pleas in Ireland, and was then created a peer of the United Kingdom. In 1830 he was appointed lord chancellor of Ireland, and held the office, with an interval of a few months only, until 1841, when he finally retired from public life. He died on Jan. 4, 1854, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas Spen Plunket (1792-1866), bishop of Tuam, as 2nd baron. See the Life of the First Lord Plunket (1869), by his grandson, David Robert Plunket.