Robert Day (Irish politician, born 1746)

Robert Day (1746–1841) was an Irish politician, barrister and judge, who was a highly respected figure throughout his very long life.

Their mother's family, a branch of the great FitzGerald dynasty, had held the hereditary title Knight of Kerry since the thirteenth century.

[5] He was a lively young man and not apparently much interested in learning the law, preferring to see the sights of London, attend debates in the British House of Commons and make frequent trips to the Continent.

[6] He patronised the well-known Grecian Coffee House in Devereux Court off the Strand, where he is said to have enjoyed the company of Oliver Goldsmith.

Despite his love of pleasure, his kindly nature is shown by his organising a charitable subscription for the relief of a poor family who were found starving near the Temple.

[4] He was regarded as a reliable "Government man", and as a result he was appointed a commissioner for revenue appeals and an advocate of the Irish Admiralty Court.

[4] Despite his early neglect of his legal studies and his reputed ignorance of the criminal law, he became Chairman of the Dublin Quarter Sessions in 1790.

[4] He remained a close friend and political ally of Grattan and like him was a member of the popular drinking club called the Monks of the Screw.

However, he distrusted most democratic principles,[4] and, due probably to his fear of another 1798 Rebellion, he supported the Act of Union 1800, which delayed Catholic Emancipation for a generation, something he regretted in later life.

[7] He retained considerable political influence after he went on the Bench, especially in Tralee, where most of the houses were owned by his son-in-law, Sir Edward Denny.

In 1814 he was one of the judges who sat at the trial of the publisher John Magee for seditious libel,[4] where despite their friendship he clashed bitterly with Daniel O'Connell, who was defence counsel.

[1] During the Napoleonic Wars he became preoccupied with the danger of revolution and his addresses to grand juries often consisted of a political harangue on the evils of sedition.

J.P. Kenyon notes that in England it was a long-standing tradition for the justice of the peace to address grand juries in a similar fashion.

O'Connell insisted that he was not the aggressor in the matter, and Day, seemingly satisfied, merely bound him over to keep the peace, thus making the death of D'Esterre inevitable.

Kenny adds that the descriptions we have of his pleasure-filled youth in London give an attractive picture of a lively and fun-loving young man.