Lucas Dillon

Sir Lucas Dillon (c.1530–1592; also called Luke Dillon) was a leading Irish barrister and judge of the Elizabethan era who held the offices of Attorney General for Ireland and Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer. He was held in high regard by the Queen, although his enemies accused him of corruption and maladministration. He was the father of James Dillon, 1st Earl of Roscommon.

He was born at Newtown in County Meath, son of Sir Robert Dillon, Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, and his wife Elizabeth Barnewall of Crickstown. Sir Robert Dillon, later Lord Chief Justice, was his second cousin. He entered Middle Temple in 1561, was called to the Bar, and then returned to Ireland to practice law. His rise in the legal profession was rapid: he became Principal Solicitor for Ireland in 1565 and Attorney General the following year. He sat in the Irish House of Commons as member for Meath in the Parliament of 1568-71. He bought an estate at Moymet, near Trim, County Meath, where he built Moymet Castle, now a ruin.

In 1570 he succeeded his father-in-law James Bathe as Chief Baron, rather against the wishes of the Irish ruling class, most of whom supported the claims of the second Baron of the Exchequer, Robert Cusack. The final decision rested with Queen Elizabeth I, who wrote that while she heard very good reports of Cusack, Dillon had the stronger claim. Cusack's supporters praised him as "a true Protestant", whereas Dillon was known to incline privately to the Roman Catholic faith. However the English Crown, while it made intermittent efforts to appoint judges of sincere Protestant views, would as a rule accept outward adherence to the Church of Ireland as sufficient evidence of loyalty, and Dillon's private religious opinions, which were shared by several of his colleagues, were not a bar to advancement.

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