Patrick O’Kelly


Life
1754-1837? [Pat O’Kelly “Bard O’Kelly”] b. Loughrea, Co. Galway [var. Co. Clare]; schoolmaster Co. Galway; publ. Killarney: A Descriptive Poem (1791); The Eudoxologist; The Aonian Kaleidoscope, and Hippocrene; was presented to George IV on his visit to Ireland; his watch being stolen in Doneraile, Co. Cork, he wrote “The Curse of Doneraile”, a poem of 90 lines; afterwards appeased by Lady Doneraile with the presentation of a watch to replace the one lost and wrote “The Palinode,” revoking all the former curses; he met Sir Walter Scott in summer 1825. JMC PI DNB
 
Note: not to be confused with Patrick O’Kelly, the translator of Histoire de l’Irlande by Abbé MacGeoghegan [q.v.] as History of Ireland (Dublin 1844)

 

Works
  • Killarney: A Descriptive Poem / by Pat. O’Kelly (Dublin: printed for the author by P. Hoey 1791), viii, 136pp., 8° [incls. O’Kelly’s poetical miscellanies’, with a list of subscribers; available on microfilm (Woodbridge, CT: Research Publications, Inc. 1986) [35 mm., 1 reel].
  • Poems on the Giant’s Causeway, and Killarney: with other miscellanies / By P. O’Kelly (Dublin 1808), 8° [incls. “Killarney: An Epic Poem” [cp.49].
  • The Eudoxologist: or an ethicographical survey of the western parts of Ireland : A poem ... : to which are prefixed [ie.., affixed] the author’s poems on the Giant’s causeway, and Killarney with other miscellaneous compositions (Dublin 1812) [2 pts. in 1 vol.; 8°].
  • The Aonian Kaleidoscope; or, A Collection of Original Poems (Cork: for the author 1824), [6], 96, [2], 97-110pp. [20.5 cm.; incls. subscribers list with insert page for Waterford subscribers].
  • The Hippocrene: A Collection of Poems, by Patrick O’Kelly [...] (Dublin: T. & S. Courtney [printers ...] 1831), 160pp. [comprising pp.1-128, 105-120, 125-132], [8]p., ill. [1 plate, port.], 8°. [ded. to Henry William Paget, Marquis of Anglesea and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; incls. subscribers’ list.; front. port. “Allen’s Litho” [Fry’s Irish type on [B]4; var.type sizes].

See also [anon., ] An Excellant [sic] New Song lately composed, intituled, The Pearl of the Irish Nation: To its own proper tune (s.l. s.n.; ?1790), 1 sht. [author’s name found in the cryptogram in the second column; another edn. printed in New London, Connecticut in 1788; available in University Microfilms International (Ann Arbor, Mich.: 1991) [ESTC N63418 & Wing E3828C].

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Commentary
Claire Connolly, ‘Irish Romanticism, 1800-1830’, in The Cambridge History of Irish Literature (Cambridge UP 2006), Vol. I, writes: ‘bardic practices survived in memory and in stories for authors such as Maria Edgeworth and Sydney Owenson, while poets like Patrick O’Kelly strove to keep the legacy alive [...]’ (p.408.) Connolly goes on to speak of Charlotte Brooke and Charles Henry Wilson, ‘who sought to give expression to a vanishing world by capturing the oral tradition in print.’ (Ibid., p.409.)

 

Quotations
“The Curse of Doneraile”: ‘Alas! how dismal is my tale, / I lost my watch in Doneraile. / My Dublin watch, my chain and seal, / Pilfered at once in Doneraile / May Fire and Brimstone never fail / To fall in showers on Doneraile ... &c.,]. (In Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature, Washington 1904.)

An excellant new song [...] (1790): ‘Hard was my lot, for to be shot.’

 

Reference
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington 1904); bio-data as supra; O’Kelly is here called absurdly vain, having printed poetical eulogies to himself - viz., ‘ ‘twould take a Byron and a Scott, I tell you, / Combined in one to make a Pat O’Kelly’.

Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. XLII (1895), pp.76-77:
O’KELLY, PATRICK (1754–1835?), eccentric poet, known as the “Bard O’Kelly,” was born at Loughrea, co. Galway, in 1754. He seems to have obtained a local reputation as a poet before he published his first volume, Killarney: a Poem, in 1791. His fame rapidly spread, and subsequent volumes were issued by subscription. When George IV was in Ireland, O’Kelly was presented to him in Dublin. His majesty, when Prince of Wales, had subscribed for fifty copies of his second volume of poems. He travelled over the south and west of Ireland selling his books. In July 1808 he wrote the well-known “Doneraile Litany,” which is his best production. It is a string of curses on the town and people of Doneraile, co. Cork, where he had been robbed of his watch and chain in the locality. On Lady Doneraile replacing his property, he wrote “The Palinode,” revoking all the former curses. He met Sir Walter Scott at Limerick in the summer of 1825 (Lockhart, Life of Walter Scott, 1 vol. Edinburgh, 1845, p. 602). O’Kelly died about 1835.
 His works, which are all in verse of a very pedestrian order, are:
  • Killarney: a Descriptive Poem, 8vo, Dublin, 1791. O’Kelly complained that Michael McCarthy’s ’Lacus Delectabilis,’ 1816, was almost entirely taken from his poem.
  • The Eudoxologist, or an Ethicographical Survey of the Western Parts of Ireland: a Poem, &c., 8vo, Dublin, 1812 (containing the “Doneraile Litany”).
  • The Aonian Kaleidoscope, 8vo, Cork, 1824
  • The Hippocrene, 8vo, Dublin, 1831 (with portrait).

D. J. O’Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912) lists Patrick O’Kelly with these remarks: “An extraordinary character, born in 1754, probably in Loughrea, Co. Galway, though Roscommon, and Macroom (Co. Cork) have also been suggested, and he himself, in one of his poems, seems to imply that Lahinch (Co. Clare) was his birthplace. He is the author of the celebrated “Doneraile Litany,” which is in his 1812 volume, and was written in July, 1808. It is said to have been suggested, if not partly written by, Hugh Harkin (q.v.) O’Kelly was a, plagiarist, but some of his poems are clever, and his volumes are very curious. He wrote for various periodicals, and there is one of his pieces in Watty Cox’s [Irish] Magazine for September, 1810. In each of his volumes there are poetical eulogies written upon him by other bards. Thus in “Killarney,” there are verses by T. M.(eehan?), R—a M—s (a young lady?), D. C. and J. B. In his Eudoxologist there are poems by P. S. (Dr. Patrick Sharkey), Philaretus, J. D. B., Bunker’s Hill (is this John Daly Burk? (q.v.), J. A. K. (Ballinasloe), L. C. (Loughrea), W. W. (Mount Talbot), and O. Maguire (Killarney), and D. C. (as before). In his Aonian Kaleidoscope, there are pieces by Dr. P. Sharkey and J. J. Callanan (q.v.); and in his Hippocrene, by Rev. Horace Townshend, Hugh Harkin, Joseph O’Leary, J. R. C, Philaretus, A. Mahony (Dingle), and D. C. (See Michael McCarthy). Bibl.: Brit. Mus. Cat.; O’Donoghue’s Poets of Ireland; Croker’s Popular Songs of Ireland; Watty Cox’s Irish Magazine (September 1810).

See also O’Donohgue’s notices on -

1] Jeremiah Joseph Callanan: ‘[...] In Patrick O’Kelly’s volume of poems — The Aonian Kaleidoscope, 1824— are some lines by Callanan eulogistic of O’Kelly’ (Poets of Ireland, 1912, p.54);
2] George Nugent Reynolds: ‘There is an elegy on him in Patrick O’Kelly’s Eudoxologist, 1812; (Ibid., p.390), and
3] Patrick M. B. Sharkey: ‘He wrote several poems for Cork periodicals, I think, and there are two by him in Patrick O’Kelly’s Aonian Kaleidoscope, and Eudoxologist.’ (Ibid., p.420.)

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