Author: Langrishe, Hercules
Biography:
LANGRISHE, Hercules (1731-1811: DIB)
Born at Knocktopher, County Kilkenny, he was the eldest surviving son of Robert Langrishe, gentleman usher of the black rod, and his wife Anne Whitby. He was educated at Trinity College Dublin, earning his BA in 1753; in 1764 he was awarded an honorary LLD. He served as MP for Knocktopher from 1751. In 1755 he married Hannah Myhill of Kilkenny; they had three sons and three daughters. A friend of the Irish politicians Henry Flood and Henry Grattan, he published Baratariana with them and Hugh Macaulay Boyd (q.v.) to express opposition to Lord Townshend, the viceroy; Langrishe certainly wrote some of and possibly all the verse in the book. He helped to establish the Society of Granby Row to foster political discussion. In 1777 he was made a baronet and appointed to a succession of government posts. He supported concessions for Catholics but opposed enfranchisement; his letter to Edmund Burke on the subject led to Burke’s Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe (1792), setting out his views on Ireland. Burke’s response encouraged Langrishe to bring forward a bill for Catholic relief although war with revolutionary France caused him to vote against relief in 1796. Langrishe lost his parliamentary seat with the 1800 Act of Union of which he was a lukewarm supporter; he, with other Irish MPs, received handsome financial compensation for the loss. He died at his St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, home on 1 Feb. 1811 and was buried at St. Ann’s church in Dublin. (DIB 3 May 2021; ODNB 23 Dec. 2024) SR