Lucas Dillon, 6th Viscount Dillon

Lucas was born in Ireland as the eldest son of Theobald Dillon and his wife Sarah Bourke.[1] His father was the third son of Christopher Dillon, who was the eldest son and heir apparent of Theobald Dillon, 1st Viscount Dillon.[2][3] The Dillons are an Old English family, established in 1185 when Sir Henry Dillon came to Ireland with Prince John.[4] Lucas's mother was an illegitimate daughter of David Bourke, who was a younger son of Theobald Bourke, 1st Viscount Mayo. Her family, the Mayo Bourkes were gaelicised Old English.[1]

He heads the list of siblings below as the eldest:

1. Lucas (died 1682);
2. James, who was a captain in the army;[5]

His sisters were:

1. Honora, who married firstly Robert Dillon of Lisnagragh and secondly James Dillon of Rathmane;[6] and
2. Bridget, who married a Dillon of County Mayo.[7]

Lucas's uncle Thomas Dillon, 4th Viscount Dillon, died in 1673[9][10] and was succeeded by his only surviving son, also called Thomas Dillon, Lucas's cousin. Thomas Dillon, the 5th Viscount died without surviving children a year later.[11] Lucas succeeded him as the 6th Viscount Dillon in 1674. On 28 February 1675 he granted a yearly pension of £600 to Elizabeth, the widow of the 5th Viscount.[12]

Lord Dillon, as he was now, married firstly Ursula, daughter of William Dongan, 1st Earl of Limerick,[13] by Maria Euphemia, daughter of Sir Richard Chambers, Baronet. Ursula died childless in 1680.[14] In 1682 he married secondly Lady Anne Nugent, daughter of Richard Nugent, 2nd Earl of Westmeath.[15]

On 22 September 1675 Lord Dillon obtained from King Charles II the waver of the quit rents due to the Crown according to the Irish Act of Settlement of 1662.[16] This reward was certainly more earned by the 4th Viscount than by the subject of this article.

A few months after his second marriage Lord Dillon suddenly died of dropsy in September or October 1682 at Kilfaughny, Westmeath,[17] childless despite his two marriages. He was succeeded by Theobald as the 7th Viscount, a second cousin.[18] His widow married secondly Sir William Talbot, 3rd Baronet and died after 14 July 1710.

• Burke, Bernard (1949), A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire (99th ed.), London: Burke's Peerage Ltd. (for Dillon)
• Cokayne, George Edward (1916), Gibbs, Vicary (ed.), The complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant, 4 (2nd ed.), London: St Catherine Press - Dacre to Dysart (for Dillon)
• La Tour du Pin, Henriette-Lucy, Marquise de (1913), Journal d'une femme de cinquante ans (in French), 1 (7th ed.), Paris: Librairie Chapelot
• Lodge, John (1789), The Peerage of Ireland, 4, Dublin: James Moore - Viscounts (for Dillon)
• Webb, Alfred (1878), "Dillon, Theobald, Viscount", Compendium of Irish Biography, Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, p. 149 (for 1st Viscount)
• Seaward, Paul (2004), "Charles II", in Matthew, Henry Colin Gray.; Harrison, Brian (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 11, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 122–145, ISBN 0-19-861361-X

• Genealogy of Lucas Dillon, 6th Viscount Dillon of Costello-Gallin on The Peerage website