Thomas Kelly

Thomas Kelly (1723–1809) was an Irish barrister, judge and politician, who held the office of Serjeant-at-law (Ireland). He sat briefly in the Irish House of Commons and was then appointed a justice of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland). In his own lifetime, his lack of legal learning was proverbial, but nonetheless, he was universally esteemed as a kindly and humane man. In the nineteenth century, his principal claim to fame lay in being the father of Thomas Kelly junior, a prolific writer of hymns and founder of a breakaway Protestant sect.