John T[homas] Campion

Life
1814-?1890 [John Thomas Campion; pseuds. incl. “O’Carolan”, “The Kilkenny Man”, “Spes”, “Urbs Marmoris”, “J.T.C.”]; physician and novelist; b. Kilkenny, practised as doctor there; contributed to the Nation, United Irishman, Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine, the Kilkenny Journal, Irish People, The Celt, Duffy’s Fireside Magazine and Irish Felon; wrote historical novels incl. The Last Strugglers of the Irish Sea Smugglers (1869); also a historical study, Traces of the Crusaders in Ireland (1856). PI DIW IF DIL OCIL

Works
Ballads and Poems: Traces of the Crusaders in Ireland (Dublin: Hennessy 1856); Alice, A Historical Romance of the Crusaders in Ireland (Kilkenny: Coyle 1862); The Last Struggles of the Irish Sea Smugglers (Glasgow: Cameron 1869); and Michael Dwyer; or, The Insurgent Captain of the Wicklow Mountains (Glasgow: Cameron, Ferguson 1869), and Do. [another edn.]: a tale of the Rising in '98 (Dublin: Gill [1910]), 127pp.

“The Felons”
(Thomas Francis Meagher, and a couple of other outlawed ’FortyEight men, when wandering in Tipperary with a price on their heads, came upon a poor peasant at the close of a distressing and anxious day. Their meeting forms the subject of the following lines.)
“Good peasant, we are strangers here And night is gathering fast; The stars scarce glimmer in the sky, And moans the mountain blast; Can’st tell us of a place to rest? We’re wearied with the road; No churl the peasant used to be With homely couch and food.” “I cannot help myself, nor know Where ye may rest or stay; A few more hours the moon will shine. And light you on your way.” “But, peasant, can you let a man Appeal to you in vain, Here, at your very cabin door, And ’mid the pelting rain — “Here, in the dark and in the night, Where one scarce sees a span? What! close your heart! and close your door I And be an Irishman! ” “No, no — go on — the moon will rise In a short hour or two; What can a peaceful labourer say Or a poor toiler do? ” “You’re poor? Well here’s a golden chance To make you rich and great! Five hundred pounds are on our heads! The gibbet is our fate! Fly, raise the cry, and win the gold Or some may cheat you soon;	And we’ll abide by the roadside, And wait the rising moon.” What ails the peasant? Does he flush At the wild greed of gold? Why seizes he the wanderers’ hands? Hark to his accents bold: “Ho! I have a heart for you, neighbours — Aye, and a hearth and a home — Ay, and a help for you, neighbours: God bless ye and prosper ye — Come! Come— out of the light of the soldiers; Come in ’mongst the children and all; And I’ll guard ye for sake of old Ireland Till Connall himself gets a fall. “To the demons with all their gold guineas; Come in — everything is your own; And I’ll kneel at your feet, friends of Ireland! What I wouldn’t for King on his throne. God bless ye that stood in the danger In the midst of the country’s mishap, That stood up to meet the big famine — Och! ye are the men in the gap! “Come in — with a céad mile fáilte; Sit down, and don’t make any noise, Till I come with more comforts to crown ye — Till I gladden the hearts of the boys. Arra! shake hands again — noble fellows That left your own homes for the poor! Not a man in the land could betray you Or against you shut his heart or his door.”
Rep. in Gill’s Irish Reciter: A Selection of Gems from Ireland’s Modern Literature, ed. J. J. O’Kelly [Seán Ó Ceallaigh](Dublin: M. H. Gill 1905), pp.196-97 [available at Internet Archive - online]. Also gives "Slaibh na nBan" - ending: ‘[...] Then, hail ! brave men of Ireland, upon the mountain top — With such a harvest Freedom's arm might glean a glorious crop. / Be you of cheer, though foemen sneer, and fearlessly push on, / Till every mountain in the land be manned like Sliabh na mBan!’ (pp.226-27.)

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References
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington 1904), remarks that owing to a misprint the Emmet poem, which appeared in The Nation in 1844, has not until lately been attributed to him; further states that he was ‘born in Kilkenny and lived to a great age’.

D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); notes more or less admirable verse in Nation, United Irishman, Duffy’s Hib Mag., Kilkenny Journal, Irish People, The Celt, Duffy’s Fireside Magazine over signatures ‘O’Carolan’, ‘The Kilkenny Man’, ‘Spes’, ‘Urbs Marmoris’, ‘J.T.C.’; accounts say he was born in 1830, but he was ‘Spes’ in The Nation in 1842; his historical tales contrib. to Irishman and Shamrock have been published; well-known poem in Hayes’s Ballads of Ireland (signed ‘S.F.C.’) on Emmet’s trial [‘He dies today, said the heartless judge’], reprinted in Nation where he also corrected the signature error.

Stephen Brown, ed., Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), notes his poetry as above and cites The Irish Felon as a publication venue; also mentions novels, Alice (1862), The Last Struggles of the Irish Sea Smugglers (1869), Michael Dwyer, The Insurgent Captain (Gill, n.d.); Traces of the Crusaders in Ireland. Brown finds his style turgid.

Brian McKenna, Irish Literature, 1800-1875: A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), cites poetry, Ballads an Poems, in Traces of the Crusaders in Ireland, Celtic Union Series (Dublin 1856), pp. 73-107. Note also, ‘much of the poetry [in Duffy’s Fireside Mag., 1850-1854] is by John T. Campion’. See McKenna, Irish Lit. (1974), p.35. See also See David James O’Donoghue, ‘The Literature of ‘67’, in Shamrock, 30 (1893)

Robert Hogan, ed., Dictionary of Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1979), calls him ‘jingoistically patriotic, but in manner conventionally imitative English modes’; his well known poem, ‘Emmet’s Death’ is basically bad; Michael Dwyer flawed by melodramatic and sentimental excesses.

TCD Library (Dublin) holds Michael Dwyer; or, The Insurgent Captain of the Wicklow Mountains (Glasgow: Cameron, Ferguson 1869), and Do. [another edn.]: a tale of the Rising in '98 (Dublin: Gill [1910]), 127pp.

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