John Prendergast Smyth, 1st Viscount Gort

Who was John Prendergast Smyth, 1st Viscount Gort?

John Prendergast-Smyth, 1st Viscount Gort was an Irish politician.

Born John Smyth, Gort was the son of Charles Smyth, Member of the Irish Parliament for Limerick City, and Elizabeth Prendergast. His paternal grandparents were the Rt. Rev. Thomas Smyth, Bishop of Limerick, and Dorothea Burgh, daughter of the Rt. Reverend Ulysses Burgh, Bishop of Ardagh. His paternal uncle was the Most Reverend Arthur Smyth, Archbishop of Dublin. Gort's maternal grandparents were Brigadier-General Sir Thomas Prendergast, 1st Baronet, who was killed in action at the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709, and Penelope Cadogan, sister of William Cadogan, 1st Earl Cadogan. In 1760 Gort succeeded to the estates of his maternal uncle Sir Thomas Prendergast, 2nd Baronet, and assumed the surname of Prendergast in lieu of Smyth. However, in 1785, after the death of his brother Thomas Smyth MP, he resumed the surname of Smyth in addition to that of Prendergast.

Gort was a Colonel in the Limerick Militia and sat as a Member of the Irish House of Commons for Carlow Borough from 1776 to 1783 and for Limerick City between 1785 and 1798.