Alan Brodrick, 1st Viscount Midleton

Alan Brodrick, 1st Viscount Midleton, PC (Ire) (c. 1656 – 29 August 1728) was a leading Anglo-Irish lawyer and politician of the early eighteenth century: he was Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He was a man of great gifts, but so hot-tempered and passionate that even Jonathan Swift is said to have been afraid of him.

He was the second son of Sir St John Brodrick of Ballyannan, near Midleton in County Cork, by his wife Alice (d.1696), daughter of Laurence Clayton of Mallow, County Cork, and sister of Colonel Randall Clayton MP, of Mallow. Brodick's father had received large land grants during the Protectorate, and thus the family had much to lose if the land issue in Ireland was settled to the satisfaction of dispossessed Roman Catholics.

He was educated at Magdalen College and the Middle Temple, being called to the English bar in 1678. Brodrick and his relatives fled Ireland during the Glorious Revolution. They were attainted under the rule of King James II in Ireland. In exile in England, Brodrick argued for a speedy reconquest.

In 1690 he returned to Dublin and was given the legal office of Third Serjeant. He also became Recorder of Cork. He was dismissed as Serjeant in 1692, apparently on the ground that there was no work for him to do. Brodrick, while complaining bitterly about his dismissal, admitted privately that his post had been a superfluous one.

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