Daly was born at Dunsandle Castle,
Loughrea, the newly built residence of his father,
Denis Daly. His ancestor,
Dermot Ó Daly (
fl. 1574–1614) was a
Roman Catholic of
Gaelic descent but his grandfather and father had converted to the
Protestant faith to ensure legal title on their lands. By 1800, the family were among the largest landowners in Ireland and dictated the mayoralty of
Galway for some sixty years. His mother was Lady Henrietta Maxwell, only daughter of
Robert Maxwell, 1st Earl of Farnham and Henrietta Cantillon, widow of the 3rd
Earl of Strafford. Daly graduated with a B.A. from
Trinity College, Dublin, in 1803, was ordained deacon and then priest of the
Church of Ireland, and became
Rector of
Powerscourt in 1814. He was leader of the
Evangelical section of the church, the subject at the centre of most of his publications, which numbered over twenty-two between 1815 and his death. Daly was passionate in his support of anti-Catholic
missions: his hatred of the Irish Catholic church, and especially its
priests, endured to the end of his life, although he must have known that his own family had originally been Catholics. He was one of the founders in 1818 of the controversial
Irish Society for Promoting the Education of the Native Irish through the Medium of Their Own Language. Daly also supported the setting up of
Church Education Society in 1839 countering the setting up of the National School system in Ireland. He was appointed
Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin in 1842; and
Bishop of Cashel and Waterford in 1843 and was serving in that capacity when he died in 1872. ==Select bibliography==