BALL, Nicholas (1791-1865), of 85 Stephen’s Green, Dublin

Ball was born in Dublin, the son of John Ball, a wealthy silk manufacturer. A descendant of a Cromwellian officer who settled in Ardee, co. Louth, his father converted to Catholicism and became one of Dublin’s most prominent merchants, attending the Catholic Convention in 1792.1C.J. Woods, ‘Ball, John’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, i. 246-7. Nicholas, his second son by his second marriage, was educated at Stonyhurst and Trinity College, Dublin. After being called to the Irish bar in 1814 he travelled abroad with his friends, Thomas Wyse, Stephen Woulfe and William Henry Curran. They passed two winters in Rome, where, early in 1817, Ball and Wyse were alleged to have sought papal support for a scheme for Catholic emancipation, by which the pope’s nomination of Irish Catholic bishops would be subject to a government veto.2F.E. Ball, The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 (1926), ii. 351; J.R. O’Flanagan, The Irish Bar; comprising anecdotes, bon-mots, and biographical sketches of the bench and bar of Ireland (1879), 316; P.B. Austin, rev. S. Agnew, ‘Ball, Nicholas’, Oxford DNB, iii. 568-9. Unlike Wyse, Woulfe, and another Trinity contemporary, Richard Sheil, however, Ball provided only ‘passive support’ to the Catholic Association in later years, and took little part in the controversy with Daniel O’Connell over the veto question.3Freeman’s Journal, 16 Jan. 1865; The Times, 8 Mar. 1817; O. MacDonagh, The Hereditary Bondsman. Daniel O’Connell 1775-1829 (1988), 114.

Perhaps because Ball only rarely went out on the Connaught circuit, his practice as a barrister was slow to develop. He was, however, gradually rewarded with ‘an ample share of easy and profitable business’ at the Rolls court, then under Sir William McMahon. He also acquired considerable business in the court of chancery, where he specialised in Catholic trusts. He subsequently confined himself exclusively to equity practice, and was valued as an excellent counsel, demonstrating ‘admirable working qualities’ and, though ‘not a great lawyer’, was acute and clear in his opinions. He obtained silk in 1830.4The Times, 13 July 1840; Ball, Judges in Ireland, ii. 284, 352.

Ball declined an invitation to stand as a Liberal for County Louth at the 1835 general election, but ‘sacrificed many years of eminent equity business’ when he was returned unopposed as the ministerial candidate for Clonmel in February 1836, after the sitting member, Dominick Ronayne, unexpectedly died.5The Times, 5 Dec. 1834, 13 July 1840. Although supporters described him as ‘a zealous Irish liberal’, he was strongly opposed to repeal. Being as much an opponent of ‘ultramontane notions’ as he was of ‘ascendancy’, he proved assiduous in avoiding ‘political conflicts’ in the house.6Freeman’s Journal, 16 Jan. 1865; R.B. Mosse, The Parliamentary Guide (1837), 132. In spite of his reputation as one of the leaders in the Irish court of chancery, the Whig government was aware that strenuous objections would be made to the appointment of Ball and Woulfe, both of whom were Catholics, as the two Irish law officers. Ball therefore had to be content with an appointment as serjeant-at-law, 10 Nov. 1836, and that year was also admitted as a bencher of the King’s Inns.7The Times, 15 Aug. 1836; Lord Duncannon to D. O’Connell, 19 Oct. 1836, O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, v. 399-400.

Ball is known to have spoken in the House on only two occasions, being renowned in parliament ‘for his devotion to supper and silence in debate’.8Ball, Judges in Ireland, ii. 285; O’Flanagan, Irish Bar, 317. He acquired celebrity as ‘the only silent Irish lawyer that ever entered Parliament!’: D.O. Madden, Ireland and Its Rulers: Since 1829, iii (1844), 34. In 1838 he moved minor amendments, in the ‘terse and lucid language’ for which he was known, to the Irish municipal corporations bill, proposing that charitable trusts should continue to be vested in the present corporators during their lives or until Parliament determined otherwise.9Freeman’s Journal, 16 Jan. 1865; Hansard, 2 Aug. 1838, vol. 44, cc. 903, 924-5; 3 Aug. 1838, vol. 44, c. 986. That year he also prepared Irish bills to better regulate hospitals and dispensaries, and to amend the laws relating to the valuation of land and corporate property.10PP 1837-38 (115) iv. 611; PP 1837-38 (337) iv. 623; PP 1837-38 (421) iv. 635; PP 1837-38 (650) vi. 579; PP 1837-38 (689) ii. 881. In 1837 he sat on the important select committee on fictitious voters in Ireland and also served on the inquiries into the Irish prerogative and ecclesiastical courts and the country’s plan of education. The following year he served on the inquiry into election petition recognizances.11PP 1837 (308) xi, Pt. I. 1; PP 1837 (335) xi, Pt. II. 1; PP 1837 (480) xi, Pt. II. 143; PP 1837-38 (259) xiii, Pt. I. 1; PP 1837-38 (294) xiii, Pt. I. 339; PP 1837-38 (643) xiii, Pt.II. 1; PP 1837 (412) vi. 415; PP 1837 (485) ix.1; PP 1837-38 (441) x. 183. He was returned again for Cashel in 1837 and, despite reservations about his ‘habitual silence in the house’ his reputation as a ‘clever and fluent equity lawyer’ made him the natural successor to Woulfe as attorney-general for Ireland in July 1838. In Dublin, Ball worked closely with Thomas Drummond, the Irish under secretary, in drawing up plans to improve the mode of conducting crown prosecutions in Ireland, and supported his efforts to resist political jobbery in crown appointments.12The Times, 23 June 1838; R.B. O’Brien, Thomas Drummond. Life and Letters (1847), 354-74. Ball was one of the pall bearers at Drummond’s funeral in April 1840: Ibid., 393.

According to some, it was Ball’s ‘invincible taciturnity in the house’ and strong dislike of parliamentary duties that prompted his rapid elevation to the bench as a justice of the common pleas and retirement from parliament in February 1839, being only the third Catholic to achieve judicial office since the reign of James II.13Ball, Judges in Ireland, ii. 285, 286. On the bench he upheld his reputation as a lawyer and, in the summer of 1841, the Irish viceroy took his counsel over the replacement of Lord Plunket, the Irish lord chancellor, by Lord Campbell. Ball was widely expected to succeed Woulfe as lord chief baron, his religion and his experience as an equity lawyer and parliamentarian being thought to tell in his favour.14The Times, 2 Nov. 1839. His confinement to ‘a seat in a mere court of common law’ was not thought to match his professional attainments and, in 1846, he was even spoken of as a possible lord chancellor of Ireland. He nevertheless presided in a number of important cases, including the state prosecution of Charles Gavan Duffy in 1849 and the great Mountgarret case in 1854, which involved a peerage and an estate of £10,000 a year. Throughout his judicial career he demonstrated a talent for analysing evidence and presenting it to a jury and, although he became increasingly idiosyncratic in court, he was, being much travelled and well read, considered to be ‘one of the most agreeable, accomplished, and pleasant members of the Irish Bench’.15J. Quinn, ‘Ball, Nicholas’, Dictionary of Irish Biography, i. 251; The Times, 13 July 1840; Gent. Mag, (1865), i. 389; Freeman’s Journal, 16 Jan. 1865; O’Flanagan, Irish Bar, 318, 315.

A decline in Ball’s health was hastened by the death of his barrister son, Nicholas, early in 1865. He died some months later after a brief illness at Bray, co. Dublin and was buried in the family vault in the Pro-cathedral, Marlborough Street, Dublin. He was succeeded by his eldest son, John Ball (1818-89), who represented Carlow as a Liberal, 1852-7, and was under-secretary of state for the colonies in Palmerston’s first administration. John was also a noted naturalist and pioneering glaciologist, serving as first president of the Alpine Club (1858-60).16G.L. Herries Davies, ‘Ball, John’, Oxford DNB, iii. 563-4. In 1866 Ball’s daughter, Jane Isabella, married Henry Edward Doyle (1827-92), director of the National Gallery of Ireland, and uncle of the author Arthur Conan Doyle.17Ball, Judges in Ireland, ii. 352; G. Doyle, Out of the Shadows: The untold story of Arthur Conan Doyle’s first family (2004), 21. His other two daughters, Anna and Mary, became nuns, his sister, Frances Ball, having introduced the Loreto order to Ireland: P.B. Austin, rev. S. Agnew, ‘Ball, Nicholas’; T. Cooper, rev. R. Mitchell, ‘Ball, Frances’, Oxford DNB, iii. 557-8.