Nicholas Ball (lawyer)

Nicholas Ball PC (Ire), KC (1791 – 19 January 1865) was Irish barrister, judge and Liberal politician.

He was the eldest son of John Ball, a silk mercer of Dublin, where he lived for many years in No 75, St Stephen's Green. Ball was called to the bar in 1814 and became a King's Counsel in 1830.

Six years later, he was nominated a King's Serjeant and was admitted additionally a bencher of King's Inns. In the same year he entered also the British House of Commons for Clonmel. Ball served as Attorney-General for Ireland during Lord Melbourne's second government from 11 July 1838 to 23 February 1839, having been sworn off the Privy Council of Ireland on taking office. When he subsequently was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland), he was only the second Roman Catholic since the reign of King James II of England to have held this post.

On 30 October 1817, he married Jane Sherlock, daughter of Thomas Sherlock and his wife Jane Mansfield, of Butlerstown, Waterford. Their daughter, Jane Isabella, married Henry Edward Doyle, director of the National Gallery of Ireland, and uncle of author Arthur Conan Doyle. Ball's son, John, was a Liberal politician and a noted naturalist.

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