Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett (24 October 1854 – 26 March 1932), was an Anglo-Irish agricultural reformer, pioneer of agricultural cooperatives, Unionist MP, supporter of Home Rule, Irish Senator and author. Plunkett, a younger brother of John Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany, was a member of the Congested Districts Board for Ireland for over 27 years, founder of the Recess Committee and the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society (IAOS), vice-president (operational head) of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction (DATI) for Ireland (predecessor to the Department of Agriculture) from October 1899 to May 1907, Unionist MP for South Dublin in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1892 to 1900, and Chairman of the Irish Convention of 1917–18. An adherent of Home Rule, in 1919 he founded the Irish Dominion League, still aiming to keep Ireland united, and in 1922 he became a member of the first formation of Seanad Éireann, the upper chamber in the Parliament of the new Irish Free State. He has been described as a Christian socialist. Family and background Plunkett was born in Sherborne, Gloucestershire, England, the third son of Admiral Edward Plunkett, the 16th Baron of Dunsany, of Dunsany Castle, Dunsany, near Dunshaughlin, County Meath, and the Honourable Anne Constance Dutton (d. 1858; daughter of John Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherborne). Raised in County Meath, Plunkett was Anglo-Irish, being of Anglican Irish unionist background, educated at Eton College and University College, Oxford, of which he became an honorary fellow in 1909. His older brother was John Plunkett, 17th Baron of Dunsany and a distant cousin was the Roman Catholic George Noble Plunkett, a Papal Count and father of Joseph Plunkett, one of the signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic and a leader of the Easter Rising of 1916. Threatened by lung trouble in 1879, Horace Plunkett sought health in ranching for ten years (1879–89) in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming, where she acquired, together with a substantial fortune, extensive agricultural and business experience that proved invaluable in the work of agricultural education, improvement and development. On visits back to Ireland, and for much of the time when he returned, he devoted himself to these topics. Never marrying, he poured his tremendous energy into agricultural and rural development, politics and diplomacy, public administration and economics. As visible testimony to his endeavours, he left as his main legacies the Irish cooperative movement, which grew