Abraham Creighton, 2nd Earl Erne

Who was Abraham Creighton, 2nd Earl Erne?

Abraham Creighton, 2nd Earl Erne was an Irish peer and politician.

He was the elder son of the 1st Earl Erne, by his first wife, Catherine Howard. Between 1790 and 1798, he represented Lifford in the Irish House of Commons. In Dublin, he was a member of the Kildare Street Club.

In November 1798 Abraham was declared insane. He was then incarcerated in Brooke House, London, for the next forty years. On his father's death in 1828 Abraham became the second Earl, although still incarcerated and officially insane.

He died in 1842, within months of the death of his father's second wife, Mary Hervey, daughter of Frederick Hervey, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry. He was unmarried and without descendants. The title and the estates including Crom Castle passed to his nephew John Creighton, the third Earl. The third Earl subsequently changed the spelling of the family name to Crichton, which spelling is maintained to this day by the Earl of Erne.