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Life
| 1822-1862 [pseud. ‘Shamrock’, et al.]; b. Dublin 8 Oct., Dublin, illegitimate son of Count D’Alton; brought up in Grenanstown, Co. Tipperary; ed. St Stanislaus (Jesuit Prep. School), Tullabeg; Carlow College; (Jesuit Fathers); medicine, TCD, 1843; joined Young Ireland; contrib. verses to The Nation from 1842, incl. ‘The Munster War Song’; commenced at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin; lived at resided at 35 Mount Pleasant Square, Dublin; wrote “The Dying Girl” (‘To Jessy’, a victim of T.B.), and “The Sister of Charity”; also humorous poems such as “Misadventures of a Medical Student”; he was co-fnder. of the Dublin Society of Vincent de Paul; joined Young Ireland and the Irish Confederation; |
| fnd., with Kevin Izod O’Dogherty, The Irish Tribune after suppression of Mitchel’s United Irishman, 1848; arrested, and successfully defending by Samuel Ferguson against charge of treason-felony; poems include “Extermination” and “Adieu to Inisfail”; resumed medical studies and grad. Edinburgh, 1850; practised at Dr. Steevens’ Hospital; emig. America, 1851; settled in Mobile, Alabama; appt. Professor of belles Lettres at Jesuit University; taught literature and later practised medicine in Thibodeaux, Louisiana, where he died of tuberculosis, 5 July; |
| wrote songs for the Irish regiments in the American Civil War (var. “Song of the Irish-American Regts.”); subject of a marble monument in that town erected in Carrara marble by passing Irish soldiers, in ‘slight testimonial for his unsullied patriotism and his exalted devotion to the Cause of Irish Freedom’; poetry was collected by T. D. Sullivan in 1876, and reissued with a biographical memoir by P. S. Sillard in 1894 (2nd edn. 1901); obituary in The Nation (30 Aug. 1862). CAB ODNB PI DIL RAF DIH OCIL. |
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Works
The Poems of R. D. Williams (4th edn. Dublin 1883); New Edn., with memoir P. A. Sillard (Dublin: Duffy 1894; 1901), xxiv, 334pp.
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Quotations
“The Patriot Brave”: ‘Great spirits who battled in old time/for the freedom of Athens, descend!’ (Quoted in W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition, 1984, p.217; therein described as a celebration of Greek liberty.
“The Dying Girl”: ‘They brought her to the city, / And she faded slowly there, / Consumption has no pity / For blue eyes and golden hair.’ (Quoted by Tadhg Foley, on Irish Studies List [Virginia], Nov. 1999.) Note also the lines ‘Consumption has no pity / For blue eyes and golden hair’, quoted by Matthew Russell, S.J., in Rose Mavanagh and Her Verses (M. H. Gill 1909), p.9.
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References
R. R. Madden, summary notes held in Gilbert Collection, Pearse St. Library): Richard Dalton Williams (1822-62), medical doctor poet of The Nation who worked in St. Vincent’s Hospital, hence his well-known and moving poem on “The Dying Girl” (of T.B.), resided at 35, Mount Pleasant Square, Dublin; obituary in The Nation (30 Aug. 1862), giving his ballads “Munster War Song”, “To Jessy, Dying Girl”, “Adieu to Innisfail”.
Charles Read, ed., A Cabinet of Irish Literature (3 vols., 1876-78), Davis ‘Lament for Owen Roe’, early in 1842, Nation, followed a few months later by ‘The Munster War Song’ from Williams, ‘still a schoolboy; The Misadventures of a Medical Student, verses; crown failed to obtain conviction against Williams when John Martin’s Irish Felon and Kevin Izod O’Dogherty’s Irish Tribune were suppressed, following suppression of Mitchel’s United Irishman; completed medical studies in Edinburgh; emigrated to US in 1851; settled at New Orleans; “Songs of the Irish-American Regiments”; d. of consumption, 5 July 1862; Nation nom de plume, “Shamrock”; Carrara monument raised by passing Irish-American soldiers. Read selects “Ben-Heder”; “Adieu to Inisfail”; “My Cousin” [‘... hopping ... shopping’]; Poems collected by proprietors of Nation [viz, TD O’Sullivan]. NOTE that DIH shows no indication of his final residence in Louisiana.
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: CUA 1904), gives “The Munster War song”.
Stephen Gwynn, Irish Literature and Drama (1936) cites “The Munster War-Song” as appearing in The Nation.
Brian McKenna, Irish Literature, 1800-1875: A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), lists The Poems of Richard Dalton Williams, ed. T. D. Sullivan (Nation Office 1876); another edn. ed. by John Sillard (Duffy 1894). Bibl. as in Works, supra.
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), cites the same editions as O’Donoghue (Poets of Ireland, 1919), and adds, died in US where he practised medicine.
Chris Morash, The Hungry Voice (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1989), bio-notes: b. Dublin, 8 Oct 1822, d. Thibodeaux, Louisiana, 5 July 1862; wrote for The Nation as ‘Shamrock’ and ‘D.N.S.’ while a medical student; co-founded Irish tribune with Kevin Izod O’Doherty; tried with him for treason-felony, William acquitted; emig. 1851. His ‘Lament for Clarence Mangan, selected by Morash, p.157-59; originally published as ‘Implore Pace for Clarence Mangan’ in The Irishman, 1, 27 (7 July 1849) [see Morash pp.18-19, 284]. Anent the literary propensities of the profession, it was said that there was a better chance of finding a doctor at Nation D’Olier St offices than Mercer’s Hospital; Morash, op. cit. p.27); Morash selects “Extermination”, in The Poems of RD Williams (Dublin: Duffy 1901), p.25; “Hand in Hand”, in The Nation, vol. 8, No. 9 (26 Oct. 1850); “Kyrie Eleison”, in Poems (1901), p.150, “Lord of Hosts” in The United Irishman, vol. 1, No. 15 (20 May 1848); “Vesper Hymn to the Guardian Angels of Ireland” Poems (19019), p.149. Further: Williams’s “Lord of the Hosts” can be found sharing the page with popular music hall numbers and ‘minstrel“ songs in the weekly Harding’s Dublin Songster in the first decades of this century.’ (Morash, p.30.)
Eggeley Books (Cat. 44) lists The Poems of Richad D’Alton Williams, ‘Shamrock’ of The Nation, ed. with biog. intro. by P. S. Sillard (Dublin: Duffy 1901), 2nd edn.
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