Life
1859-1940 [Samuel Robert Keightley]; b. Belfast; ed. Queen’s College, Belfast; in law; later prominent member of Senate of QUB; poet and novelist; contested Antrim as Independent Unionist, 1903, and Derry as a Liberal, 1910; issued a novel, The Pikemen (1903); knighted in 1912. CAB PI JMC IF DIW RAF SUTH DUB OCIL
[ top ]
References
D. J. ’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); Sir Samuel; A King’s Daughter (Belfast 1879); better known for his historical novels
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: University of America 1904) selects ‘A Gentleman of the Kingdom of Ireland’ from The Silver Cross.
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), gives bio-data: b. Belfast 1859; ed. Queen’s College, Belfast; contested Antrim as Unionist candidate, 1903; held S. Derry as Liberal, 1910; QUB Senate; resides in Lisburn; works incl. A King’s Daughter, The Cavaliers, Heronford, &c.; lists The Crimson Sign, non-partisan rom. of Siege of Derry from viewpoint of Williamite officer (NY 1894); The Last Recruit of Clare’s, memoirs of Anthony Dillon, Chev. of St. Louis, of Clare’s Regt. in service of France; episodic stories of intrigue and revenge in French court [1897]; The Pikemen, Ards Peninsula during rising 1798, Nationalist-Presbyterian sympathies (1903); A Beggar on Horseback, Rody Blake, a Barry Lyndon type, tells adventures in Dublin and on the continent in the age of half-sirs, tone ‘facetious’ (1906). NOTE ref. in Robert Welch, ed. W. B. Yeats, Celtic Twilight (1993)
John Sutherland, The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction (Longmans 1988; rep. 1989), lists Sir S[amuel] R[obert] 1859-1940; b. Belfast, son of JP, ed. QUB, and later elected to Univ. Senate; Irish bar, 1883; m. 1892, knighted 1912; Independent Unionist candidate in Antrim, 1903; poetry and Dumas-inspired historical romances with Irish settings, including The Crimson Sign (1895), of the siege of Derry; The Cavaliers (1896); The Silver Cross (1898); Heronford (1899); The Return of the Prodigal (1900); A Man of Millions (1901), a contemp. thriller. BL 9.
Eggeley Books lists Barnaby’s Bride (Long 1906), 286pp.; [with bio-dates 1859-1930.]
Ulster Libraries: Belfast Central Public Library holds King’s Daughter and other poems; also fiction, A Man of Millions (n.d.); The Pikemen (1903); The Silver Cross (1898). Linehall Library (Belfast) holds A King’s Daughter and other poems (Belfast 1878).
[ top ]