[3] Although Richard initially intended to join the clergy, he was educated in law at Gray's Inn and was called to the bar in Dublin.
It spurned the outcome of the Glorious Revolution, recognising King James's divine right to the Irish crown over William of Orange's parliamentary one.
William, made King of England during the revolution, was set on conquering Ireland from James, and to achieve that end he launched the Williamite War.
Richard was diametrically opposed to the Act of Settlement 1662 (he was the author of A Letter from Coventry, an anti-settlement pamphlet[9]), which had punished royalists and Roman Catholics who had fought against parliament in the Civil Wars; he unsuccessfully advocated its repeal in this session.
Jane's sister, Mary O'Kearney, married Sir Richard's brother, Pierce Nagle of Annakissy, the high sheriff of County Cork in 1689.