Denis Caulfield Heron LL.D QC (16 February 1824, Dublin – 15 April 1881, Lough Corrib, County Galway)[1] was an Irish lawyer and politician, who was Catholic Liberal MP for Tipperary, and a senior legal adviser to the British Crown.
Heron had previously been examined and, on merit, declared a scholar of the college but had not been allowed to take up his place due to his religion.
Heron appealed to the Courts which issued a writ of mandamus requiring the case to be adjudicated by the Archbishop of Dublin and the Primate of Ireland.
He was Law Adviser to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1866 to 1868 in which capacity he was much occupied with prosecuting the trials that followed the Fenian Rising of 1867.
[12] Denis Caulfield Heron, who was a keen sportsman, died suddenly of a heart attack while he was salmon fishing in the Corrib River in County Galway in April 1881.