Adam Cusack (c.1630–1681) was an Irishlandowner, barrister and judge of the seventeenth century.
He was born at Rathgar(then deep in the countryside, now a suburb ofDublin), the second son of Robert Cusack of Rathgar Castle(which Adam inherited on the death of his elder brother) and his wife Alice, daughter of Sir George Sexton of Limerick.His father sat in the Irish House of Commons as MP for Kells in 1640-2. He was the grandson of John Cusacke(died 1626),a wealthy Dublinmerchantwho was Lord Mayor of Dublinin 1608-9, and his wife Margaret Gough (née Allen).The Cusacks originally came from Ballymolghan, County Meath.
During the Battle of Rathmines in August 1649 Rathgar Castle was surrounded by troops, but not attacked: Adam and his father were both in the Castle at the time. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin and became a fellow of the college in 1654. He entered Lincoln's Inn in 1655, was called to the Bar in 1660, and entered the King's Inn in 1661. His choice of the law as a profession may have been influenced bythe fact that James Barry, 1st Baron Barry of Santry, a leading barrister whobecame Lord Chief Justice of Irelandin 1660, was his cousin, his mother beingAdam's paternal aunt Anne Cusacke.
Adam was appointed second justice of the provincial court of Connacht in 1661 and became the last Chief Justice of Connacht in 1670. On the abolition of that office in 1672 he was appointed a justice of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland). In therelaxed political atmosphere of the early 1670s his Anglo-Irishbackground andtolerant attitude to Roman Catholics were nota professionaldisadvantage. He had alsothe advantage of having married Catherine Keating, sister of John Keating, later to be Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas and niece of Maurice Eustace, Lord Chancellor of Ireland.
The only seriousobjection to his appointmentto theHigh Court Bench was his health: from early middle age onwards he suffered badly from gout, which became so severe that hewasunable to perform his judicial duties forat least two years. He died, aged only about 50, in 1681, and was buried in St. Audoen's Church, Dublin. In his will, which, according to Elrington Ball, shows hiskindly and charitable nature, he left money to the poor of St. Audoen'sparish and of Rathfarnham, for the relief of poor prisoners, and bequeststothe Bluecoat Schoolat Oxmantown and to the army hospital at Back Lane, Dublin. The bulk of his estate was left to his widow Catherine, who remarried his cousin Nicholas Cusack; she and Adam had no children.
Rathgar Castle fell into decay in the eighteenth century, and was a ruin by 1769, when the Dutch-born artistGabriel Berangerdid a watercolour which shows two men surveyingthe remains. The Castle's precise location is something of a mystery, but itprobably stood on what is nowHighfield Road,at the present site ofSt. Luke's Hospital, Rathgar. It was built by the Segrave familyin the sixteenth century, on what had previously been monastic land, andwas bought by Adam's grandfather John in 1609.