Unlike his brother who converted to Anglicanism, he remained a Roman Catholic like his martyred mother, Blessed Margaret Ball.
He married Begnet Luttrell and they had three children, Margaret, Jane and Bartholomew.
As mayor, he tried to have his aged mother released from Dublin Castle, where she had been imprisoned for recusancy on the orders of his brother Walter, but Walter, who seems to have been determined that their mother must die in prison, managed to thwart his efforts and she died, still a prisoner, in 1584.
In 1585, he was elected to the Irish House of Commons for County Dublin.
[1] He died in 1609 and is buried in St. Audoen's Church, Dublin.