Life
1810-1889; b. Dublin; excise service, 1830, and Surveying Gen. Examiner, 1854; Collector of Inland Revenues, 1857; conrib. to The Nation under pseud *** (three asterisks) and the figure of a hand (as reported in The Nation, 21 Aug. 1852); mbr. Kilkenny Archaeological Society; and contrib. to its journal, and to The Irish Monthly; his verse-history, Monks of Kilcrea, printed anonymously as Scraps of History (1858), was translated into French by Chevalier de Chatelain in 1858; settled in London, 1869; exhibited large collection of antiques; d. London. PI JMC DBIV DIW DIH MKA DIL RAF
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Criticism
See Matthew Russell, ‘Our Poets, Irish Monthly, No. 13 (1885).
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References
D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary(Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); The Monks of Kilcrea, a ballad poem (Dublin 1853), and French translation of same by Le Chevalier de Chatelain (Lon. 1858); poems for DUM, Dublin Joural of Temperance ..., Penny Journal et al.; early member of Kilkenny Archae. Soc.; died in Kensington 1889.CRONE, The Monks, sketches of Irish history in verse.
John Cooke, ed., Dublin Book of Irish Verse 1728-1909 (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis 1909); bio-dates 1810-1889; ‘The Mountain Fern’; ‘After Aughrim’ (”for better die with Sarsfield so/Than live a slave without a blow ..”. JMC, b. Dublin, exciseman (Customs); Collector of Revenue, 1857; retired 1877; Monks of Kilcrea (1853) for many years anonymous, long narrative poem, second ed. 1861, French trans. 1858; contributed verse to Dublin Penny Journal, Dublin University Magazine, and The Nation; contrib ‘After Aughrim to Irish Monthly some years before his death; rhetorical ballads of his in Hayes Ballad Poetry; ‘The Mountain Fern’; d. London, Nov. 1889; his collection of Irish antiquities was exhibited in London, where he settled in 1869. JMC selects ‘After Aughrim’ [‘Do you repent you made him go,/Kathleen/An quick you answer proudly, “No!”/For better die with Sarsfield so/Than live without a blow/For the Green!’], called poignant, fresh in feeling, fragrant in expression; ‘The Mountain Fern’ [‘Oh, the fern, the fern, the Irish hill fern,.That girds our blue lakes from Lough Ine to Lough Erne/That waves on our crags like the plume of a king/That bends like a nun over clear well and spring’, &c.]
Brian McKenna, Irish literature, 1800-1875: A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), cites The Monks of Kilcrea (McGlashan 1853).
University of Ulster (Morris Collection) holds The Monks of Kilcrea, a ballad poem (1853).
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