Through the tuition of the local Protestant clergyman, who was interested in the boy, he got a scholarship in 1756 at Trinity College, Dublin, and subsequently became a fellow. At some point he joined the Anglican faith. He studied law at the Middle Temple, was called to the Irish bar in 1767 [2] and obtained a rich practice, mainly in the area of law relating to tithes. 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. He opposed the Maynooth Grant[3] and was appointed Grand Secretary of the Orange Order in 1801.[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. He had no children by either marriage.[2]
