Arthur Chichester, 1st Earl of Donegall

Arthur Chichester, 1st Earl of Donegall (16 June 1606 – 18 March 1675) was an Irish peer and soldier.

He was the eldest son and heir of Edward Chichester, 1st Viscount Chichester of Eggesford, Devon, by his first wife Anne Copleston, heiress of Eggesford.

He made a career as a soldier before being elected to the Irish House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Armagh in 1634 and again in 1640. Having distinguished himself in helping to put down the rebellion which took place in Ulster in 1641, Chichester was admitted to the Privy Council of Ireland in 1643 and appointed Governor of Belfast. It was on the advice of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, that in 1647 he was created Earl of Donegall in the Peerage of Ireland. The title was created with a special remainder to the male heirs of his father, whom he succeeded a year later as 2nd Viscount Chichester. He took his seat in the Irish House of Lords in 1661. In 1668 he endowed a mathematical lectureship at Trinity College, Dublin with an annuity of 30 livre (pounds), which lectureship survives as an annual public lecture at the School of Mathematics in Trinity College.

He married three times:

Lord Donegall died after a short illness in Belfast in 1675 and was buried in St Nicholas's Church, Carrickfergus.

As all his sons had died young, the earldom passed under the remainder to his nephew.