Life
?1780-1824 [John Bertridge Clarke]; b. Co. Roscommon, ed. TCD; Ramiro,
trag. (Th. Royal, Dublin, 1822, four times); also adapted Schiller’s Kabale unde Liebe as Ravenna or Italian Love (CG 3 Dec.
1824) 1824. During the Dublin performance of Ramiro, students threw
a straw man from the gallery, dressed in academic robes; d. in poverty;
there is a notice on him in The Warder (13 Jan. 1866). PI RAF.
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References
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), under ‘Clarke,
John Bertridge’, notes contrib. Dublin Magazine, 1820, The
Drama, etc.; actor and playwright; died destitute. Napoleon at
Waterloo (1816); The Tears and Smiles of Ireland (1817); The
Lamentations of the Empire (1818), and - according to PI - an unpublished
MS, The Moorish Maid, a verse tale. See Peter Kavanagh, The
Irish Theatre (1946).
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Notes
Madden Papers, ‘Irish Periodical Literature: Magazines 1820-1830’,
incl. “Ode to Fancy”, in Messrs. Rice & Cole, ed., Dublin
Magazine, 2 vols. (Dublin: Folds 1820), also news item on John Bertridge
Clarke from The Warder (20th Jan. 1866), both held as ‘Gilbert
MS 281 in Pearse St. Library, Dublin.
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