Carleton, Hugh, Viscount Carleton 1739-1826, chief justice of common pleas in Ireland, eldest son of Francis Carleton of Cork, by Rebecca, daughter of John Lanton, was born 11 Sept. 1739. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and being called to the Irish bar became third serjeant 1776, second serjeant 1777, solicitor-general in 1779, and chief justice of the common pleas in 1787. He sat in the Irish House of Commons for fifteen years. He was M.P. for Tuam from 1772 to 1776, for Philipstown from 1776 to 1783, and for Naas from 1783 to 1787. In 1789 he was created Baron Carleton of Amer, and in 1797 Viscount Carleton of Clare, Tipperary. He retired from the bench in 1800, and the same year was chosen one of the twenty-eight representative peers of Ireland. Curran, referring to the lugubrious manner of Carleton on the bench, said that he was plaintiff (plaintive) in every case before him. He died on 25 Feb. 1826. He married in 1766 Elizabeth, only daughter of Richard Mercer, and in 1795 Mary Buckley, second daughter of Andrew Matthew; but by neither marriage had he any issue.

Sources:
     Georgian Era, ii. 540
     Gent. Mag. 1826, i. 270.

Contributor: T. F. H. [Thomas Finlayson Henderson]

Published: 1886