Butler, Richard (d. 1571), 1st Viscount Mountgarret , nobleman, was born in southern Ireland about 1500, the second son of Piers Ruadh Butler (qv) (d. 1539), 1st earl of Ossory and 8th earl of Ormond, and Margaret Butler (d. 1542 (qv)), daughter of Gerald (Gearóid Mór) FitzGerald (qv), 8th earl of Kildare. He had two brothers, James and Thomas, and six sisters, of whom Eleanor, Margaret, and Katharine are the best known. Nothing is known of his childhood, except that during his teenage years – after 1515 – the traditional hostility between the Butlers and FitzGeralds, which had lain dormant for many years, was reactivated with the connivance of the English government.
Richard first appears in contemporary records in 1527 as the recipient of a grant of church lands in Co. Kildare made by Bishop Thomas Dillon. Almost certainly, his uncle Gerald (Gearóid Óg) FitzGerald (qv), 9th earl of Kildare, viewed the grant as a deliberate slight by the Butlers and their allies. Thereafter, whenever Richard is mentioned in the state papers until the mid 1530s it is invariably in connection with the anti-Geraldine activities of his family; he is described as a commander of Butler forces in north Kilkenny, parts of Carlow, and, increasingly, in Wexford. In 1533 he was involved in the series of border skirmishes along the Kilkenny–Upper Ossory frontier with the MacGiollapadraigs, Kildare's allies, which culminated in the entrapment and death of his younger brother, Thomas Butler. Richard subsequently signed the articles drafted against Kildare for his alleged role in the killing – articles that led eventually to the earl's summons to England and the outbreak of the Kildare rebellion in 1534.
Following the defeat of the rebels, Richard's prospects blossomed as the Butlers reaped the rewards of helping to bring about their rivals’ collapse. He was a chief beneficiary of the Act of Absentees, which was passed in the Irish Reformation parliament of 1536–7, being granted leases of the manors of Old Ross, Dipps, and Fassagh Bantry in Co. Wexford formerly held by the Bigod earls of Norfolk. He also profited from the dissolution of the monasteries, receiving the estate of Inistioge priory, Co. Kilkenny, and the tithes and spiritualities of Owney abbey in the territory of Eliogarty, Co. Tipperary. Despite strenuous local objections to his use of coyne and livery and other military exactions that were illegal under English law, his power in Wexford was consolidated in 1538 when he was made constable of Ferns castle, a post he retained for twelve years. His emergence as the second most powerful Butler lord in Ireland was completed in 1542 when, on his mother's death, he inherited her personal estate in Co. Kilkenny and New Ross. He made Ballyragget castle the main seat of his family.
But there his gains ended. Determined to prevent the Butlers from becoming as overbearing as the Kildare FitzGeralds, the government was reluctant to appoint Richard to high office. Even when his elder brother, James (qv), 9th earl of Ormond, died unexpectedly in 1546, the crown would not allow Richard to govern the Butler territories as James had directed. Accordingly, it rewarded him with one hand, on 23 October 1550 raising him to the peerage as Viscount Mountgarret and baron of Kells, while with the other it sought to impose direct royal control over the vast Ormond patrimony that he was supposed to protect during the minority of his nephew, James's eldest son, Thomas (qv), 10th earl of Ormond. He reacted badly to the government's efforts to develop friendly relations with Cathaoir Mac Art Kavanagh (qv), a development he saw as undermining his interests in north Wexford. He was also exercised by the introduction of protestantism to Kilkenny under Bishop John Bale (qv), and did nothing to prevent his soldiers from attacking the bishop's servants; Bale was convinced that Butler was involved in a plot to kill him. The accession in 1553 of the catholic queen, Mary I, saw him return briefly to royal favour, but under Elizabeth I his prospects again receded, presumably because of the influence of Bale, who had become one of Queen Elizabeth's chaplains.
Mountgarret spent the last years of his life serving on various government commissions in Kilkenny and Wexford, generally as a representative of his nephew Thomas, earl of Ormond. In 1567–8, on the earl's behalf, he participated in negotiations with crown officials over the abolition of coyne and livery in the Ormond lordship, a controversial step that helped to provoke the Butler rebellion of 1569. Although he and his eldest son Edmund Butler (qv) stayed loyal to Earl Thomas and the crown, two of his other sons, Piers and James, did not, and it was only because of Earl Thomas's influence with the queen that they were later pardoned.
Richard Butler died 20 December 1571 after a long illness, and was buried at St Canice's cathedral, Kilkenny. His tomb survives. Decorated with various symbols of the Passion, it strongly suggests his commitment to catholicism. A bardic praise poem in his honour, by Torna Mac Maoílín, is included in the poem book (duanaire) of his brother-in-law Theobald Butler of Cahir, Co. Tipperary. He married four times: first, Catherine Barnewall, a Co. Meath heiress; second, c.1542, Anne Plunkett, daughter of John, 5th baron of Killeen, whom he soon afterwards divorced; third, Eleanor FitzGerald, daughter of John, styled earl of Desmond, and widow of Thomas Tobin of the Comsy, whom he also soon divorced; and fourth, about 1547, Ellen, daughter of Theobald Butler of Neigham. Ellen was the mother of all his legitimate children, bearing him six sons and five daughters; she outlived him, but according to chancery documents, she went mad a few years before her death some time after 1575. He also had at least three illegitimate children.