Background

Lawless was a younger son of Valentine Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry

Valentine Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry

Valentine Brown Lawless, 2nd Baron Cloncurry , was an Irish politician and landowner. He lived in Lyons, under Lyons Hill Ardclough County Kildare.-Birth:...

, and Emily, daughter of Archibald Douglas.

Political career

Lawless sat as Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Clonmel

Clonmel (UK Parliament constituency)

Clonmel was a United Kingdom Parlbiament constituency, in Ireland, returning one MP. It was an original constituency represented in Parliament when the Union of Great Britain and Ireland took effect on 1 January 1801.-History:...

 between 1846 and 1853. He was initially elected as a Repeal Association

Repeal Association

The Repeal Association was an Irish mass membership political movement set up by Daniel O'Connell to campaign for a repeal of the Act of Union of 1800 between Great Britain and Ireland....

 candidate, but was re-elected as a Liberal

Liberal Party (UK)

The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...

 in 1852. However, later the same year he again changed allegiance, this time to the Irish Independence Party

Irish Independence Party

The Irish Independence Party was an nationalist political party in Northern Ireland, founded in October 1977 by Frank McManus and Fergus McAteer...

.

Personal life

Lawless married Frances Georgina, daughter of Jonas Morris Townsend and widow of John Digby, in 1848. He died in November 1853. His wife later remarried and died in 1890.