1815-1862; b. 2 Oct. 1815, at Kilcornan, Oranmore, Co. Galway; scion of a Catholic land-owning family in Co. Galway [of English descent; Gl. Roideacháin] with 10,000 acres in Co. Galway in the 1870s; son of Christopher Talbot Redington, an officer, and Frances [né Dowell, of Cadiz]; ed. at Oscott College (Jesuit estab.) and Cambridge University [without degree as a Catholic]; Liberal MP for Dundalk, 1837-46; became a civil servant in the Irish Administration; m. Anne Eliza [née Talbot, of Talbot Hall, Co. Wexford]; appt. Irish Under-Secretary for State, 11 July 1846, and, as such, was later involved in the prosecution of the leaders of the 1848 Rising;

served as Commissioner of Nat. Education and ex officio member of Irish poor commission and member of Sir John Burgoyne’s relief commission in 1847; knighted KCB [Knight Commander of the Bath, civil div.], 1849, shortly after the Queen’s visit, in recognition of his work during the Famine [1845-49]; appt. chair of Board of Control, 1852-56; led commission of enquiry into lunatic asylums of Ireland, 1856; Thomas Burke [q.v.], the Irish Under-Secretary assassinated by the Invincibles with Lord Cavendish in the Phoenix Park in 1882, was his son-in-law; the Irish painter Louis le Brocquy [q.v.] is a great-grandson on the maternal side; Redington’s papers include a letter from Fr. Mathew; the family seat at Clarinbridge [var. Clarenbridge], famed for its oyster festival; Christopher T. Redington owned 9,626 acres at Kilcornan Castle [sic] in the 1870s. ODNB

It was a sad vicissitude of fortune to read the announcement of the sale at Kilcornan of the entire furnishing of that once hospitable and well equipped house of the Redingtons now, alas, without one of the name in or we believe, out of the county. It is a melancholy reflection to see a once socially great family disappear and leave but a cherished memory of goodness and kindliness behind. The late Christopher Talbot Redington was for 20 years or more one of the leading Catholic gentry of this county. He was son of Sir Thomas Redington, who was Under Secretary Thomas Redington, who was Under Secretary for many years and esteemed as a zealous, high-minded official. It is strange that he should have been succeeded in that once important post by another Galway county gentleman, Thomas Henry Burke, of Knocknagurman, Thomas Henry Burke, of Knocknagurman and Glynsk, who by the way, was born in Waterslade House in Tuam, where his family then lived and which they owned, as they did the brood sores [broad swathes?] about Knocknagur, near Milltown. He was basely murdered in the Phoenix Park by the Invincibles and a public meeting in Tuam, held in the Courthouse and presided over by the late Archbishop Mac Evilly, gave voice to the general feeling of indignation felt all over the country. The statute which stands in the Tuam Catholic Cathedral grounds to commemorate the charity of William Burke, of Curraleigh, is an exact likeness of the murdered official, as Sir Thomas Farrell, who carved it, told those who asked him. He said the reason was that no one could produce a photograph or painting of William Burke, for his portrait was never taken and one could not carve a statue to an ideal man, so it occurred to the sculptor to suggest the most prominent of the name then in Ireland, and Dr. MacHale, who knew Sir Thomas and also knew William Burke consented and so the statue in the Cathedral grounds is that to William Burke but not of William Burke but of Sir Thomas Burke. There was another Connaught man under Secretary, the late Lord MacDonnell, a native of Mayo but educated at Queen’s College, of whom great things were expected. The last to fill the post was a former Secretary in the Post Office, but he was a mere automaton and ran no risk, while the real work of administration was done by two others in the Castle —Tuam Herald.