Patrick Duigenan

Patrick Duigenan, PC (I) KC, FTCD (1735–11 April 1816), Irish lawyer and politician, was the son of a Leitrim Catholic farmer surnamed Ó Duibhgeannáin.

At that time tithes were levied from the majority Roman Catholic population for the benefit of the minority Church of Ireland, and were consequently unpopular.

In spite of his Anglican convictions, he provided his Catholic wife with a chapel at their home and arranged for a priest to say Mass for her on Sundays.

[2] He is remembered, however, mainly as a politician, on account of his opposition to Grattan, his support of the Union, and his violent antagonism to Catholic emancipation, both in the Irish House of Commons and in pamphlets.

[2] He had married twice; firstly around 1782, to Angelina, daughter of Thomas Berry of Eglish Castle, King's County, and secondly, on 2 October 1807, Hester Watson, the widow of George Heppenstall, solicitor to the Dublin police, of Sandymount.