Michael O'Brien Dilkes

General Michael O'Brien Dilkes (1698 – August 1775) was a soldier of the British Army. Biography He was born in 1698, the son of Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Dilkes and his wife Lady Mary, daughter of Murrough O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin and widow of Henry Boyle of Castlemartyr. After his father's death in 1707 his mother married a third time, to Colonel John Irwin of Sligo. Sir Thomas Dilkes was said to be related to the family of Dilke of Maxstoke Castle. Dilkes joined the Army as a cornet on 12 August 1712, and, in 1723, he was made captain in the 14th Regiment of Dragoons. On 18 April 1728, he was elected to the Irish House of Commons for Castlemartyr, in a by-election following the death of John Fitzgerald.