John T[homas] Campion
Life
1814-?1890 [John Thomas Campion; pseuds. incl. signatures OCarolan, The Kilkenny Man, Spes, Urbs Marmoris, J.T.C.]; physician and novelist; b. Kilkenny, practised as doctor there; contributed to the Nation, United Irishman, Duffys Hibernian Magazine, the Kilkenny Journal, Irish People, The Celt, Duffys 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
[ top ]
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.
[ top ]
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. ODonoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); notes more or less admirable verse in Nation, United Irishman, Duffys Hib Mag., Kilkenny Journal, Irish People, The Celt, Duffys Fireside Magazine over signatures OCarolan, 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 Hayess Ballads of Ireland (signed S.F.C.) on Emmets 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 Duffys Fireside Mag., 1850-1854] is by John T. Campion. See McKenna, Irish Lit. (1974), p.35. See also See David James ODonoghue, 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, Emmets 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.
[ top ]
|