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Charles Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath

Northern Irish politician (1933-1993)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ5081144 ↗
Source-derived summary

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Edward Henry John Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath, DL (23 June 1933 – 9 January 1993) was a Northern Irish politician and Territorial Army officer.

Early and personal life

Mulholland attended Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied agriculture. He was married to Dorinda (15 February 1929 – 19 March 2022), only daughter of Lieutenant-General Arthur Percival, on 5 December 1959.

Career

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 commanding officer (lieutenant-colonel) 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 (UUP) 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.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Charles Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath” as northern Irish politician (1933-1993). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Charles, Mulholland and Baron.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1933, 1993, 1929, 2022—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1933-06-23. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Charles, Mulholland and Baron providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Charles Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath”, the useful work is to connect “northern Irish politician (1933-1993)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5081144. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1933, 1993, 1929 and 2022.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Charles Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Charles Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath primary sources, Charles Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath archive and Charles research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Charles Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Charles Mulholland, 4th Baron Dunleath” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.