Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Edward Henry John Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath, DL (23 June 1933 – 9 January 1993) was a Northern Irish politician and Territorial Army officer.
Early and personal life Mulholland attended Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied agriculture.Oliver Pritchett, "The team with the fate of radio in its hands", The Guardian, 29 May 1969 He was married to Dorinda (15 February 1929 – 19 March 2022), only daughter of Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, on 5 December 1959."An Appreciation of Dorinda Dunleath by Alistair Rowan". Ulster Architectural Heritage Society
Career Mulholland succeeded as Baron Dunleath in 1956 and entered the House of Lords. As Lord Dunleath, he became a deputy lieutenant of County Down and the commanding officer (lieutenant-colonel) of the North Irish Horse in the Territorial Army. He was also interested in vintage motoring.Ivan Yates and Laurence Marks, "BBC: When Curran tried to blow the whistle", The Observer, 22 February 1970 In August 1967, he was appointed to the BBC's board of governors, taking over from Richard Pim as governor for Northern Ireland."Lord Hill goes to BBC", The Guardian, 27 July 1967
In the early 1970s, Dunleath was active in the Ulster Defence Regiment and was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member."Ulster scheme to recruit women for search duties", The Guardian, 12 June 1973 However, he joined the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, and was elected for the party in North Down at the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election. He held the seat on the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention.North Down 1973–1982, Northern Ireland Elections
Dunleath was the only Alliance Party member in the House of Lords."Resignation", The Guardian, 3 November 1979 While there, he strongly promoted the Education (Northern Ireland) Act, 1978, which permitted representatives of the Roman Catholic church to take a role in the Protestant-dominated state school system.Bob Rodwell, "A integrated, all-Protestant school", The Guardian, 2 November 1981 He also attempted to introduce a bill to liberalise divorce law in Northern Ireland.Anne McHardy, "Divorce reform for Ulster", The Guardian, 20 July 1977
Dunleath was chairman of a company which in 1979 bidded for the Independent Television licence for Northern Ireland. In order to place the bid, he was required to resign from his party affiliation; having been elected to Ards Borough Council in 1977, he thereafter sat as an Independent member and as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. However, in 1981 he rejoined the Alliance Party in a personal capacity, and the following year successfully stood as an Alliance candidate in North Down at the Northern Ireland Assembly election, serving for the entire four years of the revived Assembly's existence as both a representative (MPA) and as the Assistant Speaker.
On Dunleath's death from cancer in 1993, his peerage passed to his first cousin Michael Mulholland.
See also List of Northern Ireland Members of the House of Lords
References