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

Samuel Haughton

Samuel Haughton was born 21 December 1821 in Carlow, second of three sons of Samuel Haughton, merchant, and Sarah Haughton. He entered TCD at the age of 16 and remained there, first as a student and then as a teacher for the rest of his life. Initially he studied mathematics and graduated with a Gold Medal in 1843 and in 1844 he was elected to fellowship.

Samuel Haughton

He was a Renaissance Man with an interest in various subjects that included mathematics, geology, and medicine. His did research in mathematics and fluid mechanics and in 1851 he was appointed to the chair of geology, a post he held for 30 years. He worked out the age of the earth by various methods and opposed Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, believing that man was a recent creation.

In 1859 he began studying medicine, and after graduation (1862) developed an interest in animal physiology. He was involved in medical administration, and was the registrar of the college’s medical school, and was a board member of Sir Patrick Dun’s hospital.

Today, he is best known for the ‘Haughton Drop’. In this scheme he calculated the best (most humane) way for hanging prisoners. This was to ensure an instantaneous death which, up to that point, was not always guaranteed leaving the prisoner to die a slow and painful death. His work was published in 1866 under the title “On hanging, considered from a mechanical and physiological point of view”.

Haughton showed mechanical and medical calculations and determined that the long drop would be best. So, his rule was: “Divide the weight of the patient, in pounds, into 2,240 and the quotient will give the length of the long drop in feet”. Therefore, for a prisoner weighing 160 lb, a drop of 14 feet would be sufficient to ensure fracture of the spine and sudden death.

He died at home, 12 Northbrook Road, Dublin, on 31 October 1897 and is buried in Killeshin churchyard, Co. Carlow.

Trinity College, Dublin

Sheridan Le Fanu – Writer

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–73), novelist and journalist, was born 28th August 1814 in Lower Dominick Street, Dublin. His father, Rev. Thomas Philip Le Fanu (1784–1845), Church of Ireland clergyman, was related to the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. His early childhood was spent in the quiet surroundings of the Phoenix Park, where in 1815 his father was chaplain in the Royal Hibernian Military School.

Sheridan Le Fanu

Le Fanu was educated at home, before attending Trinity College from where he graduated with a BA in 1836. His first story was published in the Dublin University Magazine, and it was the first of a series of ghost stories that were published, posthumously, in 1880 as The Purcell papers.

Le Fanu studied law at the King’s Inns and was called to the bar in 1839, but enjoyed little success. In 1840 he purchased the Warder, a Dublin evening paper, which he retained until 1870, and The Statesman, a less successful paper, which ceased publication in 1846.

On the 18th December 1843, Le Fanu married Susan Bennett and they had two sons and two daughters. Susan suffered from depression and she dreamt of her father’s ghost inviting her to join him in the family burial vault. Le Fanu was deeply affected by her death on 16 April 1858, and it has been suggested that the recurrence of emotionally scarred women experiencing a form of living death reflects guilt over his relationship with his wife and concern on raising his daughters. Carmilla, the last of five stories in the collection In a Glass Darkly (1872) introduces a female vampire, and The Vampire Lovers (1970), is its most well-known film adaption. The ‘stories’ were from the notebooks of Dr Martin Hesselius, who Bram Stoker used as the model for his character Van Helsing in Dracula (1897).

He died on the 7th February 1873 of bronchitis at his home, 70 Merrion Square, Dublin, and was buried on 11 February at Mount Jerome cemetery.

Plaque at 70 Merrion Square, Dublin

Book of Kells

It is considered by many to be Ireland’s premier, cultural masterpiece, and a visit to see this gem should be on your ‘To do’ list. It was created, or at least started, on the island of Iona, off the West coast of Scotland, around 800 AD, before being taken by monks to Ireland to avoid Viking raiding parties.

The book is written in Latin and shows the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) of the New Testament with many wonderful, illuminated pages. Experts say that three artists worked on the decorative work with one of them being producing images of the highest quality. Also, four scribes copied the text, each bringing his own stylistic traits to the undertaking.

Book of Kells

In the main exhibition hall there is plenty of information on all the techniques employed by the artists and scribes and the materials used. It is written on vellum (calfskin) with as many as 150 being needed. Various pigments were used, including indigo or woad that produced the vibrant blue. The red was made from red lead with the green being a result of damp copper. They all make for wonderous displays of colour that the talented artists fully exploited.

In medieval times most monasteries had decorated books but they are almost all lost now. So, it is very fortunate that the Book of Kells has managed to survive for so long; and in 1653 the Bishop of Meath transferred it to Dublin for safekeeping. It was given to Trinity College in 1661, where it has remained to this day. It has been conserved there, and in 1953 it was split into four, according to the Gospel writers, and one of them is always on display.

It is a massive attraction with half-a-million visitors a year regularly showing up. However, more than a million arrived in 2018 – impressive, and showing that it still has significant, international appeal.

The Old Library, Trinity College, Dublin

Robert Mallet – Man, what a bang!

An engineer of note, who loved a blast

On Killiney Beach, had a test at last

Instruments did measure

The invisible pressure

Of energy waves, that raced so fast

Commemorative plaque on Killiney Beach, Dublin

Lyell’s Principles led him, to study the quake

Of what made the ground, tremble and shake

Get ready to rumble

Some rocks did tumble

And a brand new science, he did create

Robert Mallet – Father of Seismology

He was big in seismology, and railings new

The Fastnet Lighthouse, and bridges a slew

Scholar and inventor

He gave us epicentre

And Mallet’s Mortar, from which no shell flew!

Railings around Trinity College, Dublin

 Robert Mallet (Born on 3rd June 1810, at Ryder’s Row, Dublin) – civil engineer and geophysicist who, due to his study of earthquakes, is referred to as the Father of Seismology.

 

 

 

 

Trinity College – Centre of Excellence

Trinity College is, in the middle of town

Founded long ago, when Liz had the crown

There’s history all round

Great names do abound

A centre of excellence, and world renown

On Time….

Beckett, Wilde and Goldsmith spent time

In hallowed halls, their work so sublime

Book of Kells is a pleasure

Scholarship to treasure

Enjoy the sound, of the Campanile’s chime

Oscar Wilde – writer and wit

Cobblestones are loved, in Parliament Square

A step back in time, you feel like you’re there

The Exam Hall’s inviting

Chequered floor exciting

As alumni on high, gaze down with no care

The Campanile

It’s an oasis of peace, and quiet reflection

The Long Room’s books, a great collection

In the Buttery for tea

More, yes please

A treat all round, it’s loved with affection

The magnificent Long Room

Don Cameron 2022

Oliver St. John Gogarty – Polymath

He was a man of many talents and was born in 5, Rutland Square (now Parnell Square) on 17^th August 1878 the eldest of four children. His father, Henry, was a successful physician and his mother, Margaret, who was from Galway. Henry died when Oliver was eight years old, and he was sent to school in Mungret College in Limerick before transferring to Stonyhurst College in Lancashire which he described as ‘a religious jail’.  He returned to Ireland in 1896 and attended Clongowes Wood College, Kildare, before studying medicine in Trinity College, and graduated in 1907. He went to Vienna to finish his studies and specialised in otolaryngology (Ear, Nose & Throat). Later, he had consulting rooms in Ely Place and was a member of staff at the Meath Hospital until he went to America. 

Plaque outside 5, Parnell Square East, Dublin

A keen sportsman he enjoyed cricket, football (he played for Bohemians FC) and a fine swimmer who saved four people from drowning. He wrote poetry and his poem Tailteann Ode won a bronze medal at the 1924 Olympics in Paris. Among his friends he counted WB Yeats, AE Russell, James Stephens and James Joyce. When Gogarty rented the Martello Tower at Sandycove in 1904 he invited Joyce to stay. He, however, stayed only a few nights, but used the place in the opening scene of Ulysses and immortalised Gogarty in his character Malachi ‘Buck’ Mulligan. 

Martello Tower in Sandycove, Dublin

A close friend of Arthur Griffith he was an early member of Sinn Fein, and became a Senator. In 1922 when Griffith died on 12th August 1922 he performed the autopsy, and did the same for Michael Collins who died less than two weeks later.

In 1917 he and his wife Martha Duane, who was from Galway, bought Renvyle, a large house in Connemara. It was burnt down in 1923 but was rebuilt and operates to this day as Renvyle House. He moved to America where he spent his final years, and he died on the 22nd September 1957 in New York. He is buried in Ballinakill cemetery, near Renvyle.  

Portrait by Sir William Orpen

The Write Men

Behind the curtain, he moves like a swan

The crowd is silent, all chitchat gone

Everything is ready

Sam’s rock steady

Lights, camera, action ‘Right, I’ll go on’

In memory of Samuel Beckett, born 13 April 1906

Samuel Beckett

*

Closer now, to that further shore

The wind is up, blowing hard once more

Sea spray does caress

A magical largesse

Feeding mind and body, deep to the core

In memory of Seamus Heaney, born 13 April 1939

Seamus Heaney

Both men won the Nobel Prize in Literature – Beckett in 1969 and Heaney in 1995

Jonathan Swift – A Wordy Man

A writer of letters, was St Patrick’s famed Dean

And of poetry, pamphlets, you know what I mean

His Letter from a Drapier

Like the blade of a rapier

Cut to the bone, as he vented his spleen

Lemuel Gulliver – float on!

His most famous work was Gulliver’s Travels

To Lilliput, Laputa and many, crazy hassles

The Yahoos were crude

Oh how he was screwed

Gotta go now, can’t be somebody’s vassal

Jonathan Swift – wit, poet and Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral

Late in his life, Frideric Handel came to find

Musicians and singers, of a very special kind

His Messiah was a treat

Swift tapping his feet

At the feast of music, for body and mind

Messiah – 13 April 2007

Writing clever satire, now there’s the rub

None better however, than A Tale of a Tub

Stylistically inventive

Now, please be attentive

For after all is considered, he’s a real Dub!

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Dedicated to Jonathan Swift who was born on 30th November 1667

Oscar Wilde – A Man of Importance

He was the Happy Prince, from Westland Row

A writer of words, that continue to glow

From Earnest to Gray

To another great play

No better person, to put on a fine show

Plaque at 21 Westland Row where Oscar was born

A man of Importance, and wonderful wit

The Ideal partner, with whom to sit

Of art a true Fan

What a clever man

His piece on the Husband, a joyous skit

Oscar Wilde

From the peak of success, to a soulless Gaol

His spirits burned bright, they did not fail

With absinthe of hate

He beat the dire fate

In De Profundis he penned, a heartfelt tale

Oscar relaxing in Merrion Square

After years in Reading, to beaux France exiled

Where on his last work, he painfully toiled

‘Dying beyond my means’

One clearly gleans

A star to the end, the one-and-only Oscar Wilde

Oscar’s famous epigrams in Merrion Square

This is my poetic, birthday tribute to Oscar Wilde who was born at 21 Westland Row, Dublin on 16th October 1854 and died in Paris on 30th November 1900.