William Bathe (Irish judge)

Sir William Bathe (c.1530-1597) was an Irish judge and landowner. He is commemorated by the Wayside Cross (also known as the Dowdall Cross) in Duleek, which was erected by his widow Janet Dowdall. He should not be confused with his much younger cousin William Bathe of Drumcondra Castle, who was a Jesuit and noted musicologist.

William was the elder son of John Bathe, Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas; little seems to be known about his mother. The Bathes were a long established family which settled in County Meath, and had several branches in Meath and others in Dublin : William's branch of the family lived at Athcarne, near Duleek, which William inherited in about 1559: he built Athcarne Castle (which is now a ruin) in 1590. He also built a bridge nearby.

He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1557, and was called to the Bar there in 1563. In 1562 he was one of a number of law students who wrote and presented to the English Crown a book describing what they called the "wretched condition" of English rule in the Pale; The Queen and her ministers naturally took offence at these strictures on their Irish government, and regarded those responsible for the book with suspicion; but unlike some of the other students involved, notably Henry Burnell, William was never seen as an active opponent of the Crown. When he subsequently became an office holder, he was required to swear the usual oath to recognise Queen Elizabeth I as head of the Church of Ireland. It is not known whether, like his cousins the Bathes of Drumcondra, at least two of whom became priests, he privately inclined to the Roman Catholic faith, although his father had been in high favour with Elizabeth's Catholic sister Queen Mary, while his wife was a cousin of the Catholic martyr James Dowdall.

He returned to Ireland, and was appointed Recorder of Drogheda in 1567. He was a noted authority on the law of municipal corporations. He became a judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland) in 1581. He acted as the judge of assize in Ulster in 1591-2, but shortly afterwards his health declined seriously: it was said that both his judgment and his memory failed, although he apparently remained on the Bench until his death in 1597. He was remembered as "a man of much distinction".

He married Janet Dowdall, daughter of Patrick Dowdall of Termonfeckin, but had no issue, and Athcarne passed at his death to his brother: the Bathe family lived at Athcarne until about 1700. Janet in 1601 erected the impressive memorial to her first husband which can still be seen in Duleek, as well as a number of other memorial crosses nearby. She remarried Oliver Plunkett c.1600.