Oliver Goldsmith

Oliver Goldsmith, poet, essayist and playwright was born on 10^th November 1728 in Pallas, Longford. The years 1729 and 1730 have also been sighted as his birth year, but nothing definitive has been found. His father, Charles, was the local curate and the family lived in a grand house in Lissoy. He went to school in Pallas, Elphin and Athlone before entering Trinity College in June 1745. Sadly, he had already contracted smallpox which permanently scarred his face.

Oliver Goldsmith

After leaving college he travelled around Europe, busking to make money. Having visited France, Germany and Italy his funds were almost gone when he arrived in London in February 1756. He took on various jobs before he landed a position with Ralph Griffith’s Monthly Review where he wrote book reviews and translated others. In 1758 his first major work, An enquiry into the present state of polite learning in Europe, was published. It did not get great reviews; however the author’s style was favourably noted.

His essays in The Bee and other periodicals were popular as many enjoyed his writing was imbued with a graceful, lively and accessible style. Such a gift made him popular, and he was able to have an improved lifestyle, although his gambling and cavalier nature with money were habits that he never overcame.

After a few years in London his style had been spotted by many well-known locals, including Dr Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Sir Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick and Edmund Burke with whom he was a founding member of The Club. This was a group of distinguished individuals from all walks of life who met regularly over dinner to discuss the issues of the day.

By the mid-1760s he was writing poetry, with The Deserted Village being his most famous piece. His novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1770) and his play She Stoops to Conquer (1773), which premiered in Covent Garden, are still popular.

After a brief illness he died on 4^th April 1774 and was buried in Temple Cemetery, London.

Oliver Goldsmith’s statue (by JH Foley) in Trinity College

The Kish Lighthouse

The Kish Lighthouse

You cannot always see it but you know it’s there, helping sailors navigate the tricky waters of Dublin Bay. It’s seven miles from the coast, a dot on the horizon when visible, but the Kish Lighthouse plays an important role and has done so in one form or another. The name kish means to trap or snare and many a ship was lost due to the shifting sand bank.

The treacherous waters just beyond Dublin Bay have been the cause of many ships demise, and in August 1810, the Corporation for Improving the Port of Dublin, later known as the Commissioners of Irish Lights, decided to install a floating light on the Kish Bank. The following year they purchased the Galliot Veronia Gesina (103 tons), fitted it out and hired a crew to operate and maintain a floating light. The light was first operational on 16th November 1811. A gong was sounded off in time of foggy weather, and an 18-pounder gun was fired when the Holyhead Packet was passing.

In 1842 the Corporation tried to build a permanent at the site  but the piles were destroyed in a sever gale and the project was cancelled.

In 1960, the Commissioners decided to erect a platform style lighthouse, similar to those used in offshore oil rigs. A competition was held and the design submitted Christiani & Nielsen Ltd, was eventually selected. This design, for a  concrete lighthouse, was designed to last for at least 75 years.

Work began in 1963 and the lighthouse was towed from Dun Laoghaire marina to the Kish Bank on 29^th June 1965. It is 100 feet high and surmounted by a 32 feet diameter helicopter landing platform. On 9 November 1965 the Kish Lightvessel was withdrawn and replaced by the new lighthouse whose equipment includes a catoptric lantern giving a two million candlepower beam. On 7 April 1992 the lighthouse was converted to automatic operation and the Keepers were withdrawn from the station.

Sir William Orpen – artist

Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen (1878–1931), painter, was born 27 November 1878 at Oriel, Grove Avenue, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. His paternal grandfather, Richard John Theodore Orpen (1788–1876) was president of the Incorporated Law Society and knighted for his services to the legal profession, also founded the successful practice which Orpen’s father, Arthur, later headed. William’s artistic talent was evident from early on, and it was encouraged by his mother against the wishes of his father, who wanted William to study law.

Sir William Orpen

He studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (DMSA) where his precocious talent was recognised, and he won every major prize awarded by the school before winning the gold medal for life drawing in the British national competition (1897). Later, in London, he again flourished while studying in the renowned Slade School of Fine Art (1897–9) and won the summer competition for his ‘The play scene from Hamlet’.

He was small, only 5 ft 2 in in height, blue-eyed, with plenty of freckles and considered himself ugly, something that shaped his self-image. However, women found him attractive, and he married (8 August 1901) Grace Knewstub (d. 1948), daughter of a London art-gallery manager. They lived in Chelsea and had three daughters. He soon developed a successful practice producing portraits for clients throughout Britain.

He was friendly with Hugh Lane (from their time at the Slade) and he helped organise, and was represented in, Lane’s exhibition of Irish painting at the London Guildhall (1904).

During WWI, and as the most successful artist of his generation in Britain, he spent eleven months in France (April 1917–March 1918) producing paintings that showed the Somme battlefields in all their horror and the savagery of war. In June 1918 he was knighted for his wartime services.

Aftermath – A Memory of the Somme

He fell ill in May 1931, and died 29 September in South Kensington, London. He is buried in Putney Vale cemetery.

John Millington Synge

John Millington Synge, poet, folklorist and leading figure in the Irish Literary Revival of the late 19^th century was born on the 16^th April 1871 in Rathfarnham, County Dublin. He was the youngest of eight children and his father was John Hatch Synge, a wealthy barrister who came from a family of laned gentry in Glanmore, County Wicklow.

JM Synge

His father died in 1918 and was buried on his son’s first birthday. Soon afterwards his mother took the family on the short journey to Rathgar where they lived beside her mother’s home. The little boy was educated at home before attending the Royal Irish Academy of music where he studied violin, piano, music theory and won a scholarship in counterpoint. He entered Trinity College in 1889 and graduated three years later before travelling to continue musical studies in Europe. However, due to his inherent shyness he was unable to deliver convincing musical performances and he opted for a literary future. So, in 1895 he moved to Paris and enrolled to study literature and languages.

JM Synge’s home in Rathfarnham, Dublin

He met WB Yeats the following in a hotel in Paris, and he suggested that he should travel to the Aran Islands and write about what he experienced there. Over the next few years, he did just that, and in learning the language spoken by the locals, he was able to write incisive, dramatic works. His play In the Shadow of the Glen, formed part of the bill for the opening run of the Abbey Theatre from 27 December 1904. But it was his masterpiece The Playboy of the Western World that was remembered by the audience and the public. On its opening night, 26^th January 1907, riots broke out and continued on following evenings. The play was ridiculed by just about every commentator and it caused more riots when it was performed later that year in America.

Plaque at Synge’s home in Rathfarnham, Dublin

Synge, who had always been a frail type, died from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on 24^th March 1909 in Dublin, and he is buried in Mount Jerome cemetery.