2 - From Lawyer to Politician, 1685–1703

Summary

By the beginning of Queen Anne’s reign in 1702 William Conolly was an established figure in the Dublin political world. He was MP for County Londonderry and recognised as a leading member of the nascent Irish Whig party. Furthermore, he had extensive landed interests, with estates in seven counties all of which he had acquired after 1691. By any contemporary standard his was a remarkable success story but, as J. G. Simms pointed out as long ago as 1956, Conolly’s rise ‘cannot be ascribed only to his trafficking in the forfeited estates’. His marriage to Katherine Conyngham, as we have already seen, was highly significant but also of crucial importance was his early career as a lawyer, which gave him the skill necessary to profit from the Williamite confiscation, and to establish a political career. This chapter concentrates on Conolly’s legal career, looking at his activities as an attorney, both in Dublin and on the north-west circuit, as well as his legal and other activity on behalf of Derry corporation and the Irish Society of London. The beginnings of Conolly’s official career, in the alnage office, will also be explored in an attempt to unravel the reasons for Conolly’s rapid social mobility.

Conolly qualified as an attorney sometime before 1685. Unfortunately nothing is known of his education or his activities before this time but he was probably educated locally before travelling to Dublin to serve his mandatory apprenticeship as an attorney. In 1671 it was decreed that:

None should be admitted an attorney of this court unless he hath served or shall serve by the space of five years at least as a clerk to some judge, sergeant at law, practising counsellor, attorney, clerk or officer of one of his majesties courts at Westminster in England or at Dublin.

This was the rule as laid out by the courts but unfortunately there is little hard data to test its operation. Conolly had, it would seem, qualified sometime before 1685 as he was addressed in a letter of February of that year as ‘attorney at law’. The exact date of his qualification remains elusive. Attorneys were required to register as members of King’s Inns before they could practise in any of the Dublin courts.