The New International Encyclopædia/O'Hagan, Thomas

O'HA′GAN, Thomas, first Baron (1812-85). An Irish jurist and statesman, born at Belfast. He was called to the Dublin bar in 1836, for the following four years he edited the Newry Examiner, and was afterwards associated with his friend Daniel O'Connell in lawsuits bearing upon national rights. He fell out of favor with the Patriot Party by his defense of the union with England, by his appointment to the Board of National Education in 1858, and to the Attorney-Generalship in 1862, but, despite opposition, he was sent to Parliament from Tralee in 1863. Five years afterwards, under Gladstone, O'Hagan was made Lord Chancellor of Ireland and served until 1874. He was the first Roman Catholic raised to that office during two centuries, and he took his seat in the House of Lords in 1870. In 1880 he was made vice-chancellor of the Royal University of Ireland, founded in that year, and the same year Gladstone, on his return to power, called him to resume the Lord Chancellorship of Ireland, but O'Hagan's health forbade his keeping it for more than a year, though he had time to make an eloquent appeal for the Irish Land Bill. His Occasional Papers and Addresses were published in 1884, and his Speeches and Arguments in 1885.