Michael Smith

Sir Michael Smith, 1st Baronet (1740–1808) was an Irish judge. He was the founder of a judicial dynasty, several of whose members were noted for eccentricity. He was also the first of the Cusack-Smith baronets of Tuam. Background and early career He was born at Newtown, County Offaly, the son of William Smith (died 1747) and his wife Hester Lynch of Galway. The Smith family had come to Ireland from Yorkshire in the seventeenth century, and acquired substantial property in the Midlands. Michael revered the memory of his father, who died when his son was only seven, and later composed a eulogy which was inscribed on his father's tombstone. He graduated from Trinity College Dublin, and was called to the Bar in 1769. He was elected member of the Irish House of Commons for Randalstown in 1783, and was noted for his reason and moderation in debate, despite a rather "stiff and monotonous" delivery. As a politician, he supported the cause of Catholic Emancipation (his first wife Maryanne was a Roman Catholic). Judge He was raised to the Bench as a Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland) in 1793; in 1801 he became Master of the Rolls in Ireland, retiring in 1806. The Mastership of the Rolls had long been a notorious sinecure for politicians, many of whom had no legal qualifications whatever, and some of whom were Englishmen who rarely visited Ireland. The appointment of Smith, a lawyer of undoubted ability, is thought to have been the result of a conscious policy of making the Mastership a full-time and responsible judicial office; the policy was successful.