Sir Jonah Barrington

Sir Jonah Barrington (1757–1834) was an Irish lawyer, judge, politician and memoirist, born at Knapton in Queen's County. He served as a member of the Irish Parliament and as a judge of the Admiralty Court, and opposed the Act of Union of 1800. Barrington is best known for his three-volume Personal Sketches of His Own Times (1827–1832), a memoir that vividly records Irish political life and society on the eve of the Union from an eyewitness perspective. Its sharply drawn figures and scenes give it both historical value and literary readability, making it a frequently consulted source on Ireland from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. Dismissed in 1830 for embezzlement, he died at Versailles, France, in 1834. Public information is limited, and much of his life survives chiefly through this memoir itself.