Richard Boyle, 2nd Viscount Shannon

Field Marshal Richard Boyle, 2nd Viscount Shannon PC (1675 – 20 December 1740) was a British military officer and statesman.

Military career
Born in Westminster, Middlesex, Boyle started his military career as a volunteer in the service of the Duke of Ormonde at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. He went on to fight in the Battle of Landen in 1693. He was commissioned into Ormonde's Troop of Horse Guards the following year.

Boyle inherited the title of Viscount Shannon from his paternal grandfather, Francis Boyle, 1st Viscount Shannon, in 1699. He entered the House of Commons in 1708 as Member of Parliament (MP) for Arundel, then he served successively as MP for Hythe and East Grinstead. In 1720, Boyle was constituted the Commander in Chief of the Irish military forces by King George II. In 1739, he received a promotion to the rank of field marshal; however, he died a year after receiving it.

Family
On 7 July 1702, he married Mary Sackville, widow of Lionel Boyle, 3rd Earl of Orrery, who died twelve years later, bearing no children. In January 1720, Boyle remarried, this time to Grace Senhouse, and they had one child, Grace Boyle, Countess of Middlesex.