John Parker (Irish judge)

John Parker (c.1500–1564 ) was an English-born merchant, politician and judge in Tudor Ireland. He held the offices of Constable of Dublin Castle and Master of the Rolls in Ireland; to gain the latter office was a notable achievement for a man who began his career as a cloth-maker and appears to have had no legal qualifications. He also sat in the Irish House of Commons in the Parliament of 1560. As a politician he was noted for leading the opposition to the policies of the Earl of Sussex, the Lord Deputy of Ireland.

He was a native of Tenterden in Kent, where he was in business as a cloth-maker in the 1530s. Later in the same decade he joined the household of Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle, the Governor of Calais, in the same capacity. In Ireland, even while acting as a public servant he pursued his business interests, first as a ship-owner and then as a maker of hats and tapestries, and for this purpose he obtained a royal licence to import dyed wool.

He seems to have been a sincere religious reformer, although like many reformers he personally did very well out of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He received Selskar Abbey in Wexford, Rosbercon Abbey in Kilkenny, Holmpatrick Abbey near Skerries, Dublin and Tircroghan in Westmeath. In his last years he was attempting to purchase Kilcormac Abbey in County Offaly. Despite his apparent wealth Parker, like so many notable figures of the Tudor era, died in debt.

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