John Everard (MP)

Sir John Everard (c.1550–1624) was an Irish barrister, politician and judge. He was notable as being the last Irish judge until the reign of James II to openly profess the Roman Catholic faith, and this led eventually to his resignation from the Bench. He then embarked on a political career which descended into farce when, having failed to become Speaker of the Irish House of Commons in 1613, he refused to vacate the Speaker's chair until the successful candidate Sir John Davies (who was a very fat man) literally sat on him. His second son, Sir Richard Everard, was the first of the Everard baronets of Ballyboy.

He was a native of Fethard, County Tipperary, son of Redmond Everard, head of a Roman Catholic family which effectively owned the town of Fethard. He entered the Inner Temple in 1578 and was called to the Bar in 1590. In 1602 he was appointed justice of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland) and knighted. He went regularly on assize in Meath, Louth and Kilkenny.

While other Irish judges secretly remained loyal to the Roman Catholic faith, Everard was apparently unique in his generation in openly adhering to it. This gave grave offence to the Crown, especially at a time when the Lord Deputy of Ireland was Sir Arthur Chichester, a firm Protestant who vigorously enforced the Penal Laws, even to the lengths of executing Catholic bishops. Everard however was held in high regard by most of those who knew him – even Chichester liked him personally – and for a time he was allowed to retain office; but in the long run his position was untenable and he resigned, presumably under official pressure, in 1607. He was given a pension, and the office of chief judge, or senseschal of the Palatine Court of Tipperary, although that office was largely a sinecure and has been described contemptuously as "the judicial scrapheap". He remained a member of the King's Inns, and was made a Bencher in 1609.

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