During the reign of James II, Daly was made a judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) and a Privy Councillor.
In the same year however, he was threatened with impeachment by James's Patriot Parliament, after he allegedly insulted that assembly by comparing it to the mob incited by Masaniello, the Neapolitan revolutionary leader of the 1640s.
One of the terms of the pardon he received for supporting James during the Williamite War in Ireland was his conforming to the Protestant church.
For this some "die-hard" Catholics never forgave him, and after his death, an enemy wrote that he deserved a place in Purgatory for his apostasy.
Daly was also a patron of the local Catholic clergy, providing a refuge for Athenry's Dominican friars in Esker, close to his castle at Carrownekelly.
In analysing Daly's successful career, Patrick Melville states There was ... a marked difference in how the various Irish families gained or preserved estates from the 17th to the 19th centuries.