He was born into an
Ulster aristocratic family at St James's,
Westminster, and served for less than a year as a representative in the
Irish House of Commons for
Carrickfergus before succeeding
his father as
Marquess of Donegall in 1799 and the proprietor of
Belfast.. Lord Donegall was admitted to the
Irish Privy Council in 1803 and later served as
Lord Lieutenant of County Donegal from 1831 until his death. He was also made a
Knight of the Order of St Patrick in 1821 on the occasion of
King George IV's visit to
Ireland In Belfast, those who had engaged in the reform and patriotic politics of the 1790s remained critical of Donegall's role as the town's
pocket borough master. As they had been in the
Dublin parliament, in the new
United Kingdom parliament, Belfast's two MPs were his exclusive nominees. Yet veterans of both reform and rebellion found in Donegall a patron's for their civic initiatives. In 1810, Donegall leased the land, and laid the foundation stone, for
William Drennan's progressively conceived
Belfast Academical Institution. In 1808, he had headed the list of subscribers for the
Belfast Harp Society, dedicated to "preserving the national music and national instrument of Ireland" and to promoting interest the country's language, history and antiquities. In 1809, he leased land on the east side of Donegall Street for building the town's second Roman Catholic Church,
St Patricks. A lifelong gambler, Lord Donegall married the daughter of
Edward May, a moneylender and owner of a gambling house. This may have been an agreement to resolve some debts. In 1818, it came to light that Anna May was illegitimate and had been underage at the time of the marriage. As a result of a 1753 law, the marriage was declared invalid, which would have disinherited the children from the titles. Proceedings were put in place to resolve the issue, but it was the change to the marriage act in 1822 which allowed the eldest son to retain his place in the line of inheritance. Lord Donegall died heavily in debt in 1844 at his home at Ormeau,
County Down (which formed the basis of
Ormeau Park), and was buried in St Nicholas's Church,
Carrickfergus. ==Arms==