Life
1749-1814; Sch. TCD, 1766; BA, 1768; MA, 1773; rector of Clane Union; curate of Donnybrook, 1772; Vicar of Carnalawey, 1777; twice married; bur. Donnybrook churchyard; issued Poems on Several Occasions (?1800) mostly written before age of 17; plays incl. Ethelinda (1769), and Female Heroism (1793), founded on revolutionary events in France in 1793, and performed Crow St. May 1804. RAF PI
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Works
Ethelinda, a trag. (1769); Pizzarro (unpub.); Poems on Several Occasions (Dublin ?1800); Female Heroism, 5 act tragedy (Dublin: Porter 1803); [Rector of Carnallaway, and Vicar of Clane], Sermons on various subjects (Dublin: printed at the Hibernia Press office for John Cumming; and Cadell and Davies Strand, London, 1819).
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References
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. 2, cites West’s Charm of Melody (1830), an anthology, was attrib. to him in error, according to Rafroidi.
Peter Kavanagh, Irish Theatre (Tralee 1946): Vicar of Union of Clare; author of two privately printed and unacted tragedies, Ethelinda (1769) and Pizarro (1799), the latter an adapt. of Kotzebue; Female Heroism (1803), based on French Revolution, acted at Crow St. the preface speaks of finishing it after Eyre’s Normandy appeared at Crow St. Good char. in Robespierre. Biog. Dram.
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1976; 1984), p.110, cites Hecuba, attrib. Robert West (1762).
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