William Saurin (1757 – 11 February 1839) was an Irish barrister, Crown official and politician. He was Attorney-General for Ireland from 1807 to 1822, and for much of that period, he acted as the effective head of the Irish Government. He was unusual among Irish Law Officers in that he was never appointed a judge, nor wished to become one. As an Ulster Protestant, and a determined opponent of Catholic Emancipation, he incurred the bitter enmity of Daniel O'Connell, who called him "the mortal foe", and worked for years to have him removed from office. Family Saurin was born in Belfast, second of the four sons of the Reverend James Saurin, Vicar of Belfast (died 1774) and his wife Jane Duff. James Saurin, Bishop of Dromore, was his younger brother. The Saurins were of French Huguenot descent (no doubt this is why Daniel O'Connell called William an "insolent transplanted Frenchman"). The family, who were originally from Nimes, fled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Even a century later, this episode, according to his friends, made a deep impression on William. Louis Saurin, Dean of Ardagh, the first of the family to settle in Ireland, (he was a brother of the celebrated preacher Jacques Saurin, who converted to Catholicism, and then back to the Reformed faith), was William's grandfather. Education and early career He was educated at Duboudien's School, a well-regarded private academy in Lisburn, and at the University of Dublin, where he took his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1777. He entered Lincoln's Inn and was called to the Bar in 1780. After a slow start in his profession, he became one of its acknowledged leaders; despite his later eminence he was at first considered something of a "plodder". Legal and political career Saurin was a passionate opponent of the Act of Union and endeavoured, without success, to persuade the Irish Bar as a body to oppose it. He then entered the Irish House of Commons as member for Blessington, in order to combat the achievement of the Union. His speeches against the Union were considered to be among the finest on the topic. He said that he- denied the right of the legislature to alienate its sacred trust. He insisted that it would amount to a forfeiture of that estate which was derived from and held under the people, in whom the reversion