Charles Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath
Charles Edward Henry John Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath DL was a politician in Northern Ireland.
Mulholland studied at Eton College and the University of Cambridge. Mulholland succeeded as Baron Dunleath in 1956 and entered the House of Lords.
As Lord Dunleath, he became a Deputy Lieutenant of County Down and the Lieutenant-Colonel commander of the North Irish Horse in the Territorial Army. He was also interested in vintage motoring. In August 1967, he was appointed to the BBC's Board of Governors, taking over from Richard Pim as Governor for Northern Ireland.
In the early 1970s, Dunleath was active in the Ulster Defence Regiment and was an Ulster Unionist Party member. However, he joined the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, and was elected for the party in North Down at the 1973 Northern Ireland Assembly election. He held the seat on the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention.
Dunleath was the only Alliance Party member in the House of Lords. While there, he strongly promoted the Education Act, 1978, which permitted representatives of the Roman Catholic church to take a role in the Protestant-dominated state school system. He also attempted to introduce a bill to liberalise divorce law in Northern Ireland.
Mulholland was chairman of a company which bid for the Independent Television licence for Northern Ireland in 1979. In order to place the bid, he was required to resign from his party affiliation, and thereafter sat as a crossbencher. However, he was elected at the 1982 Assembly election for the Alliance Party again in North Down.
