Gerald Comerford

He sat in the House of Commons in the Irish Parliament of 1585–6, and briefly held office as Chief Justice of Munster and as a Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland).

Comerford rose rapidly in the public service to become a trusted servant of the English Crown, and would probably have become one of the dominant political figures in the southeast of Ireland had it not been for his early death.

Fouke's daughter Catherine married Sir John Everard of Fethard, thus allying the Comerfords with one of the leading landowning families of County Tipperary.

[2] His political career advanced rapidly, and in the Irish Parliament of 1585–6 he was returned (along with Edward Brennan) as one of the two members for the newly created borough of Callan.

[2] He used his growing influence to recover lands confiscated from his relative Henry Comerford, which had been acquired by Francis Lovell, former High Sheriff of County Kilkenny.

[2] After Perrot's recall to England in 1588, Comerford earned the goodwill of Sir Richard Bingham, the Lord President of Connaught, and was appointed a member of his Council.

In 1588, following the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Comerford was given the task of tracking and reporting on the movement of the surviving ships as they made their way down the west coast of Ireland, although he did not have enough men to confront them.

During the Nine Years War the Crown effectively lost control of Connacht, but Comerford showed his devotion to duty by remaining in the provincial capital, Galway.

Contrary to the normal practice by which the Chief Justice was expected to refuse any other judicial office, he was also made a Baron of the Irish Court of Exchequer, on the removal of Patrick Segrave for corruption.

He issued a proclamation denouncing several Catholic priests, including the prominent Jesuit James Archer (a Kilkenny man whom he must have known personally) as "seditious traitors".

Whether there was any truth in the rumours that Comerford (or his brother-in-law Sir Nicholas Walsh) converted to Catholicism on his deathbed is difficult to determine, although at least one of his sons was a priest.