a leading Irish judge of the sixteenth century, who was regarded as a mainstay of the English Crown in Ireland. He was also the author of an influential "Breviat " or tract, "Of the Getting of Ireland, and of the Decay of the same", on the decline of English power in Ireland. Little is known of his parentage, but Francis Elrington Ball states that he came from a long established family who took their surname from Finglas, County Dublin. He later held estates at Piercetown, near Dunboyne, County Meath, and at Westphailstown in County Dublin. He was at Lincoln's Inn 1503-6 and became Serjeant in 1509. He was considered one of the ablest lawyers of his time and a gifted writer.
