Life
1798-1842; b. 3 April, Kilkenny, son of Michael Banim (Snr.), prosperous
farmer and shopkeeper; ed. Mr George Charles Buchanan’s ‘English
Academy’ from the age of five, learning ‘oratorical reading’
and modern languages; later at Kilkenny College (Grammar School), under
direction of Rev. O’Callaghan; left Kilkenny for Dublin, 1813, spent
two years studying art under Mulvany at the Academy of the Royal Dublin
Society; won drawing prize; returned to Kilkenny as art teacher; fell
unhappily in love with girl who died of tuberculosis after the refusal
of their marriage by her father, a local land agent; himself contracted
spinal tuberculosis; contrib. to Leinster Gazette; moved to Dublin
in 1820, intending to live by writing; issued The Celt’s Paradise
(Feb. 1821); received £10 from Lord Cloncurry on viewing the manuscript;
his Turgesius, on the Viking period in Dublin, rejected
by Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and neither acted nor printed; sought
assistance from Richard Lalor Sheil with Damon and Pythias, based
on Polyaenus (Bk. 5, Chap. 25), successfully produced by William Charles
Macready, who appeared as Damon to Charles Kemble’s Pythias (Covent
Gdn., 28 May 1821); returned to Kilkenny in Feb. 1822, with a view to
writing Irish fiction in collaboration with his brother Michael; married
Ellen Ruth [var. Rothe], the daughter of a man with whom he had lodged
there, on 27 Feb. 1822, moved to London, 13 March 1822; wrote librettos
for Thomas Arne of the English Opera House; endured poverty and illness;
encouraged and assisted Gerald Griffin in London, 1823; received manuscript
of Crohoore of the Bill Hook from Michael, 1823, published with
his own John Doe and The Fetches as Tales by the O’Hara
Family [1st ser.] (1825), jointly and pseudonymously as the Abel and
Barnes O’Hara [aka ‘O’Hara Brothers’]; travelled in
Ulster to research his historical novel in the manner of Scott set in
the Williamite War, published in The Boyne Water (1826); issued
Tales by the O’Hara Family [2nd ser.] (1826), his own work
solely, which includes The Nowlans; visited by Michael in 1826;
issued Tales by the O’Hara Family [3rd ser.] (1827), consisting
of The Croppy by Michael; published The Anglo-Irish of the Nineteenth
Century (1828), a satirical novel implicitly comparing the waning
ascendancy with the new greatness of O’Connell; experienced sharp
deterioration in health; moved to Boulogne, and later Paris, 1829; contracted
cholera, 1832; death of two small sons, one bur. in Père la Chaise,
Paris; object of charitable subscription in London, Dublin, and Kilkenny;
returned from France to Dublin, 1835; though ill, attended benefit performance
of The Irish Widow and another play (Dublin Theatre Royal, 21 July
1835); returned to Kilkenny, Sept. 1835; settled in Windgap Cottage; visited
by Gerald Griffin, 1836; received £50 from Sir Robert Peel, and £50 from
the king; inscribed on civil list pension, 1836 (£150 with £40 for his
dg.); completed Fr. Connell (1842) with Michael; d. 13 Aug., at
Windgap Cottage; often called“the Scott of Ireland”, though
William Carleton called his attempt to imitate Scott unfortunate (Nation,
23 Sept. 1843), and called his knowledge of the peasantry more extensive
than profound, while marking his strength of feeling; there is a portrait
in oil in the National Gallery of Ireland by his friend George Francis
Mulvany, thought an excellent likeness by Michael Banim; also a bust by
Hogan. CAB DNB DIB DIH NCBE MKA RAF JMC FDA SUTH OCIL DIL
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Works
Plays (PERFORMANCES): Damon and Pythias
(Covent Garden, 28 May 1821), printed 1821; The Prodigal, never
acted; The Death Fetch (Eng. Opera House [1825]); The Last Guerrilla
(English Opera House [1826]); The Sargeant’s Wife (English
Opera House, 24 July 1827) [printed 1855]; The Sister of
Charity (English Opera House 1830); The Conscript’s
Sister (English Opera House, 1832); The Irish Widow (Theatre
Royal, Dublin, 21 July 1825); The Ghost Hunters (Surrey Theatre,
26 March 1833); The Duchess of Ormond (Drury Lane, 20 Oct. 1836),
and Sylla (Theatre Royal, Dublin, 18 May 1837). Also dramatic versions
of The Fetches and Ghost-hunter [unpub.]. (See Peter Kavanagh,
The Irish Theatre, Tralee: Kerryman 1946.)
Plays (PUBLISHED EDNS.): Damon and Pythias, 5 act tragedy (London: John Warren 1821); The Sargeant’s Wife (London: T. H. Lacy, Vol. 23 [1824]), and Do. (Dicks Standard Plays, No. 369 [q.d.]; Revelations of the Dead Alive (London: J. Simpkin & Marshall 1824).
Poetry, The Celt’s Paradise (London: John Warren 1821); Chaunt of the Cholera (London: James Cochraine 1831); Revelations of the Dead Alive (London: J. Simkin & R. Marshall 1824).
Fiction, The Fetches [being Vol. 2 of Tales by the O’Hara Family; 1st Series] (London: Simpkin & Marshall 1825); The Nowlans [being Vols. 1 & part of 2 of Tales of the O'Hara Family; 2nd Series] (London: Colburn 1826); Peter of the Castle [being Vol. 3 of Tales by the O'Hara Family, 2nd Series] (London: Colburn 1826); [with Michael Banim], The Anglo-Irish of the XIX [Nineteenth] Century, 3 vols. (London: Colburn 1828); [anon.,] The Denounced, 3 vols. (London: Colburn & Bentley 1830); The Smuggler, 3 vols. (London: Colburn & Bentley 1831); [with Michael Banim,] John Doe (London: Saunders & Otley 1835);[with Michael Banim,] The Bit o’ Writin’ and Other Tales by the O’Hara Family 3 vols. (London: Saunders & Otley 1838); [with Michael Banim,] Father Connell, by the O’Hara Family, 3 vols. (London: Newby and Boone 1842). See also under Michael Banim, infra.
Collected & Reprint Editions, The Works of the O’Hara Family, with foreword and notes by Michael Banim, 10 vols. (Dublin: Duffy 1865), and Do. (NY: D & J Sadleir 1869); Kevin Casey, intro., The Nowlans [Classic Irish Novels] (Belfast: Appletree Press 1992); The Anglo-Irish of the 19th Century (Poole: Woodstock Books 1997), 303pp.
The Nowlans, by John Banim (1825) [digital edition], at “Irish Resources”, ed. Michael Sundermeier, Creighton University [link].
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- William Carleton, ‘The Late John Banim’, The Nation (Dublin, 23 Sept. 1843), pp.794-95 [infra];
- Patrick Joseph Murray, The Life of John Banim, the Irish Novelist ... with extracts from his correspondence, general and literary (London: William Lay 1857); also printed as The Life of John Banim, in the 10th and last vol. of The Works of the O’Hara Family, collected by Michael Banim (New York: D&J Sadlier 1869); rep. as The Life of John Banim (New York: Garland 1978);
- Louis Lachal, ‘The Forgotten Irish Novelists’, The Irish Monthly, Vol. 58 (1930), pp.238-49;
- B. G. McCarthy, ‘Irish Regional Novelists of the Early Nineteenth Century’, Dublin Magazine [n.ser.] Vol. XXI, No. 3 (July-Sept. 1946), pp.28-37;
- Thomas Flanagan, The Irish Novelists 1800-1850 (New York: Columbia UP 1958), pp.167-202;
- W. J. MacCormack, ‘A Manuscript letter from Michael Banim (1874)’, Hermathena, Vol. CXVII (Summer 1974), pp.37-38 [infra];
- Bernard Escarbelt, ‘France as Fictional Material in the Novels of John Banim (1798-1842)’, in Cahiers Irelandaises, Vol. 2, No. 3 (Villeneuve d’Ascq 1974), pp.133-52;
- Mark D. Hawthorne, John and Michael Banim, (The ‘O’Hara Brothers’): A Study in the Development of the Anglo-Irish Novel (Salzburg; Inst. für Englische Sprache und Lit. 1975);
- Bernard Escarbelt, ‘The Kilkenny Novelist’, introduction to The Boyne Water [rep. of 1865 edn.] (Lille UP 1976), pp.9-14 [infra];
- Robert Lee Wolff, ‘The Fiction of the O’Hara Family’, intro. to The Denounced (New York: Garland 1979);
- John Cronin, ‘John Banim, The Nowlans’, in The Anglo-Irish Novel: The Nineteenth Century [Vol. I] (Belfast: Appletree 1980), pp.41-58;
- Barton Orr Friedman, ‘Fabricating History, or John Banim Refighting the Boyne’, Éire-Ireland, Vol. 17, No.1 (1982), pp.39-56;
- James Cahalan, Great Hatred, Little Room, The Irish Historical Novel (Syracuse UP/Gill & Macmillan 1984) [infra];
- Barry Sloan, The Pioneers of Irish Fiction 1800-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe/Totowa NJ: Barnes & Noble 1986);
- Tom Dunne, ‘The Insecure Voice: A Catholic Novelist in Support of Emancipation’, in Culture et Practiques Politiques en France et en Irlande, XVI-XVIIIe Siecle [Actes du Colloque de Marseilles 1988] (Paris: Centre de Recherches Historiques [1988]) [infra];
- James Cahalan, The Irish Novel: A Critical History (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1989), [extensive sections on Banim];
- John Cronin, ‘Historical Glimpses: John Banim and the Big House Theme’, in Jacqueline Genet, ed., The Big House in Ireland (Lille UP 1991), pp.85-90;
- Bernard Escarbelt, ‘An Irishman in France: John Banim’, in Barbara Hayley & Christopher Murray, eds., Ireland and France - A Bountiful Friendship: Essays in Honour of Patrick Rafroidi (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1992) [infra];
- Julian Moynihan, ‘Charles Lever (1806-72): The Anglo-Irish Writer as Diplomatic Absentee, with a Glance at John Banim’, in Anglo-Irish: The Literary Imagination in a Hyphenated Culture (Princeton UP 1995) [Chap. V], pp.84-108, espec. 106ff.;
- Willa Murphy, ‘The Subaltern Can Whisper: Secrecy and Solidarity in the Fiction of John and Michael Banim’, T. McDonough, ed., Was Ireland a Colony? (Dublin: IAP 2003), 455-90pp.
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Notes
Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature(Washington:
CUA 1904), Vol. 1, calls Banim ‘a bright-hearted, true-souled Irishman’
[this phrase also quoted by Patrick Murray, in Life of John Banim,
facs. rep. of 10th vol. of Sadlier 1869 edn. of Works, New York:
Garland 1978, p.9]; b. 3 April 1798; son of farmer and trader who gave
his sons a good education; wrote precocious poetry and prose at ten; entered
Kilkenny College at 13; developed talent as sketcher and painter; chose
between art and [?]law; trained RDS, Dublin, in 1814; returned after two
years; drawing teacher; contrib. poems and sketches to local periodicals;
death of a young lady to whom he was engaged permanently affected his
mind and health, passed some years in aimless and hopeless manner akin
to despair; moved to Dublin in 1820, relinquishing art for literature;
numerous contributions to periodicals from this time, mostly hurried;
sketches on theatrical topics, pseudonym ‘A Traveller’ appeared
in Limerick journal, considered v. clever; published The Celt’s
Paradise in 1821; gained friendship of Sheil; tragedy Turgesius
offered to Covent Garden and Drury Lane, and rejected; composed Damon
and Pythias, produced at Covent Garden through recommendation of Sheil,
and well received; [engraved portrait of Banim facing p.44, Vol. I]; revisited
Kilkenny in the summer of 1822 [sic]; planned O’Hara tales;
m. Ellen Ruth [sic], prior to his return [sic] to London for several years;
commenced first of his O’Hara Tales in April 1823; John
Doe and The Fetches [order sic], his sole works in the first series;
The Boyne Water [n.d.]; 2nd ser. Tales by the O’Hara Family
(1826) includes The Nowlans, severely criticised; The Anglo-Irish
(1828); the concluding series of the Tales appeared in 1829, commencing
with The Disowned [recte The Denounced], by John, and ending
with Father Connell by Michael (1842) [note that this denomination
of a third series is irregular, since there was no such corporate issue];
declining health; wrote pieces for the English opera-house [see Balfe];
returned home in 1835; d. 13 Aug. [1842; ?err. 1844]; provision made for
his widow, a daughter dying a few years after her father. The authorship
of the Tales series is here ascribed as follows, John Doe,
Fetches, Smuggler, Peter of the Castle, The Nowlans,
Last Baron of Crana, and Disowned [recte The Denounced],
all by John. A lengthy quotation from Chamber’s Cyclopaedia of
English Literature follows invoking comparisons with Crabbe, Edgeworth,
Lady Morgan, and using epithets such as ‘passion’, ‘crime’,
‘turbulence and misery’, ‘overmastering energy’, ‘sustained
and harrowing interest’, ‘murders’, ‘abductions’,
‘pursuits’, ‘escapes’, ‘spirit’, ‘raciness’,
‘truth of costume and colouring’. D. J. O’Donoghue, author
of Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis 1912), is quoted as
saying, ‘Where his songs are at all tolerable, they are full of fire
and feeling’, with further reference to his disregard of ‘metrical
laws’ as the ‘chief defect’. Justine McCarthy’s Irish
Literature (1904) selects“An Adventure in Slievenamon”
from John Doe [Lieutenant Howard’s discovery of illicit whisky
distilling presided over by Jack Mullins; in the course of it Mullins
shows classical learning (viz., ‘.. remembering my poor old Horace’s
aversion to garlic’), and quotes ‘Parentis olim si quis impia
manu, / Senile guttur [sic] fregerit–’, but soon reverts
to the colloquial in ‘Thonamon duoul’]. Also the poems“Soggarth
Aroon” [‘Loyal and brave to you, / Soggarth Aroon / Yet
be not slave to you / Soggarth Aroon / Nor, out of fear to you,
/ Stand up so near to you- / Och, out of hear to you / Soggarth
Aroon! // ... Knelt by me, sick and poor ... on the marriage day ...
friend only ... And for this I was true to you / Soggarth Aroon /
In love they’ll never shake, / When for Old Ireland’s sake /
We a true part did take, / Soggarth Aroon!’];“Aileen”
[‘And I go to brave a world I hate, / And woo it o’er and o’er,
/ And tempt a wave and try a fate, / Upon a stranger shore, / Aileen;
/ Upon a stranger shore.//Oh, when the bays are all my own, / I know a
heart will care, / Oh, when the gold is wooed and won, / I know a brow
shall wear ../; and ‘He Said that he was not Our Brother’, styled
a ‘ferocious attack provoked by some utterance of Wellington about
Ireland’ [JMC], and continuing: ‘The mongrel! he said what we
knew. / No, Eire! our dear mother-island, / He ne’er had his black
blood from you!’ Stanza 2 of the same ‘tarnishes’ various
English kings and conquerors in Ireland; Stanza 3 explains the conquest,
‘No! falsehood and feud were our evils, / While force not a fetter
could twine’ and ends with the asservation, ‘[...] And no traitor
among us or nigh us- / Let him come, the Brigand! let him come!’
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Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. I] (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists Banim brothers, viz,“The O’Hara Family”, John Doe, or The Peep o’ Day (1825; rep. Simms & M’Intyre 1853, then Routledge [n.d.]), young man joins Shanvests for revenge, terrible to landlord, proctor, and priest; The Fetches (Duffy [1825]), the influence of superstition - the spirit of a person about to die - on two susceptible minds; The Nowlans ([1826] 1853), 256pp., temptation and fall of a young priest; Peter of the Castle (Duffy [1826]), 191pp.; The Boyne Water (Duffy [1826] & eds.), 564pp., chars. incl. Sarsfield, George Walker, Galloping Hogan, the Rapparee, Carolan the Bard and others; The Anglo-Irish of the Nineteenth Century 3 vols (Colburn [1828]; rep. in 1 vol. as Lord Clangore (Duffy 1865), opening in London with Lord Castlereagh and J. W. Croker; the son of a peer, Gerald Blount, flees after a duel with all his anti-Irish prejudices, exciting adventures with Rockites; double identity; Catholic association meeting with O’Connell and Sheil debating, Scott’s son appears at dinner party [see Notes, infra.]; The Conformists (Duffy [1829]), a Catholic under George II determines to conform and oust his father; The Denounced, or the Last Baron of Crana (Duffy [1826; err.], Colburn 1830; New York: Benziger [n.d.]), 235pp; The Changeling, 3 vols, (London 1848), anon., 315, 350, 414pp. [Galway and Connemara, including Aran; mystery surrounding heir of Ballymagawley got out of the way by present owner, Mr. Whaley, returns in disguise to claim rights; Whaley hides his secret from his high-minded daughter Clara; the empty-headed Fosters; petit bourgeois, vulgar Mrs. Heffernan of Galway, matching-making Mrs. Flanagan, and other chars. such as Considine the butler and Capt. O’Connor, peasants.] See also under ‘Anon’: The Anglo-Irish of the Nineteenth Century, rep. anonymously as Gerald and Augusta, or The Irish Aristocracy (Cameron & Ferguson [n.d.]), in which Gerald, orphan son of Lord Glangore is brought up in London while his sister is raised in Ireland by Mr. Knightly [sic], their characters being respectively anti-Irish and Ireland-loving; wrecked off the Irish coast, Gerald is captured by ‘Captain Rock’; adventures and amusing situations result in his eventually being won over to Ireland’s side. Note that Brown’s attribution of first editions to Duffy Dublin are erroneous.
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Peter Kavanagh, The Irish Theatre (Tralee: Kerryman 1946), lists Turgesius, unacted and unprinted [see Dublin University Magazine, No.558, Nov. 1855]; Damon and Pythias (CG 28 May 1821), with help from Sheil, based on Polyaenus Bk. 5, Chp. 25, a success; The Prodigal, never acted; The Death Fetch (Eng. Op. Hs., c.1825); The Last Guerilla (Eng. Op. Hs., c.1826); The Sargeant’s Wife (Eng Op. Hs., 24 July 1827) ?1855; the last three, adpt. from Banim novels. The Sister of Charity (Eng. Op. Hse. 1830), approved; The Conscript’s Sister (Eng. Op. Hse. 1832); The Irish Widow, farce (Th. Royal, Dublin, 21 July 1825), author’s benefit, The Ghost Hunters (Surrey 26 Mar 1833); The Duchess of Ormond (DL 20 Oct. 1836), and Sylla (Th. Royal, Dublin, 18 May 1837).
Bernard Escarbelt, ed., The Boyne Water by John Banim [CERIUL Anglo-Irish Texts, Gen. Ed. Patrick Rafroidi] (Univ. of Lille 1976), provides bibliography (pp.26-29), listing Hugh Maxton, ‘Tales of Two Extremes’, in Hibernia (21 Sept. 1973), [n.p.]; William Carleton, ‘John Banim’, The Nation, (23 Sept. 1843), pp.794-95; M[aurice] Goldring, Le Drame en l’Irlande (Paris: Bordas 1972), and cites also Rafroidi’s bibliography of his plays in L’Irlande et le Romantisme (1972) [vide trans., Irish Literature in English, 1980]; M[ichael] Banim’s preface to Town of the Cascades; P. J. Murray, The Life of John Banim, the Irish Novelist ... with extracts from his correspondence, general and literary (London: William Lay 1857); M. A. Steger, John Banim: Ein Nachahmer Walter Scotts (Erlangen: Karl Dores 1935); M. R. Mitford, Recollections of a Literary Life, or Books, Places, and People, 3 vols. (London: Bentley 1852), p.33ff. [see Notes]. Also Thomas Flanagan (1958); J. G. Simms, Jacobite Ireland (Routledge 1969); for history see MacKenzie, Siege of Londonderry, 1690 [q.d.]; C. D. Milligan, History of the Siege of Londonderry (Derry: Carter 1951).
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Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol 2, lists poetry, and the fiction: The Fetches (London: Simpkin & Marshall 1825), in Tales, ser. 1; The Boyne Water, 3 vols. (London: Simpkin & Marshall 1826); The Nowlans (Colburn 1826); The Anglo-Irish of the XIXth Century (Colburn 1828), anon.; The Denounced, 3 vols. (Colburn & Bentley 1830), consisting of The Last Baron of Crana, Vol. I, viii+309pp. (comp.), Vol. II, pp.1-189, and The Conformists, Vol II, pp.189-315, Vol. III, 292pp. (comp.); The Smuggler (Colburn & Bentley 1821); also dramatic works, Damon and Pythias (1821); The Sargeant’s Wife, 2 acts ... taken from Tales of [recte by] the O’Hara Family (Lacy eds. 1824), and copies the unprinted titles from Nicoll and Kavanagh, Turgesius; The Prodigal; The Death Fetch (1825); The Last Guerilla (1826); Sylla (1826); The Sister of Charity (1830); The Conscript’s Sister (1832); The Ghost Hunter (1833); The Irish Widow (1835); The Duchess of Ormond (1936). Revelations of the Dead Alive (London: Simpkin & Marshall 1824), 376pp [presented in novelistic framework, subsequently printed as London and Its Eccenticities in the Year 2023, or Revelations of the Dead Alive [1845]; also Life of John Banim, the Irish Novelist ... with extracts from correspondence, Patrick Joseph Murray (London: William Lay 1857 [sic]), 334pp., port.; Ann Steger’s John Banim ein Nachahmer Walter Scotts ... &c (1935), bibliographically devoid of scientific value. Note that Rafroidi misreads the passage in Ethel Mannin’s Two Studies in Integrity dealing with Chaunt of the Cholera and attributes this to Gerald Griffin rather than Banim (see Romantic Period, Vol. 1). Note that Rafroidi misreads the passage in Ethel Mannin’s Two Studies in Integrity dealing with regarding Chaunt of the Cholera, attributing it in error to Griffin rather than Banim.
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A. N. Jeffares & Anthony Kamm, eds., An Irish Childhood: An Anthology (Collins 1987), gives extract on Kilkenny Grammar School from The Fetches.
John Sutherland, The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction (Longmans 1988; rep. 1989), remarks that John Banim’s heart was broken by the death of his beloved, and cites only two novels, Clough Fion (1852) and The Town of the Cascades (1864), both overlapping the Victorian period. Further, Father Connell (1842), despite artificial murder plot, has vivid pictures of suffering Irish humanity. ‘The Banims claimed attention as folklorists, Irish nationalists, and pioneer of regional authenticity.’[q.p.]
James Cahalan, Great Hatred, Little Room: The Irish Historical Novel (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1983), lists The Boyne Water; A Tale by the O’Hara Brothers, 3 vols (London: William Simpkin & R Marshall 1826; New York: D. & J. Sadlier 1866; 3 vols rep. edn. New York: Garland Publishing Co. 1979); The Denounced, 3 vols (1830; New York: Garland 1979) [onsisting of The Last Baron of Crana and The Conformists].
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, 3 vols. (Derry: Field Day Publications 1991), Vol. 1: selects The Anglo-Irish of the Nineteenth Century (pp.1139-49); biography (pp.1171-72), with notes in conjunction with Michael. See also Vol. 2, bio-notes and remarks at pp.3, 990, 999, & 1022.
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British Library holds 1] The Anglo-Irish of the Nineteenth Century. A novel. [By John Banim] 3 vol. Henry Colburn: London, 1828. 12o. 2] A Letter to the Committee appointed to appropriate a fund for a national testimonial, commemorative of His Majesty’s first visit to Ireland. pp.31. Richard Milliken: Dublin, 1822. 8o. 3] Damon and Pythias, etc. [Another edition.] [A reissue], pp.60. Music-Publishing Co.: London [1860?] 12o. 1865. London,1874?] 8o. 4] [Peter of the Castle] Padhré na Moulh, ou le mendiant des ruines. Roman irlandais [...] traduit de l’anglais par A. J. B. Defauconpret. 2 tom. Paris [Charles Gosselin], 1829. 12o. [copy in TCD] 5] [The Boyne Water] La Bataille de la Boyne, ou Jacques II en Irlande; roman historique irlandais [...] traduit de l’anglais par M. A. J. B. Defauconpret. 5 tom. Paris, 1829. 12o. 6] The Celt’s Paradise, in four duans. pp.96, xxvi. John Warren: London, 1821. 12o. 7] The Ghost-Hunter and his Family. By J. [or rather by Michael] Banim, author of ‘Tales by the O’Hara Family,’ etc. [Another edition.] [A reissue.] Joe Wilson’s Ghost, etc. [Another edition.] The Ghost Hunter and his Family. pp.284. Simms & M’Intyre: London, 1852. 2o. pp.i, 246. G. Routledge & Co.: London, 1863. 12o. G. Routledge & Sons: London, [1870] 12o. pp.124. Aldine Publishing Co.: London, [1913] 8o. 8] The Loaded Dice. 9] The Sergeant’s Wife. A drama, in two acts [...] Taken from the author’s Tales of the ‘O’Hara Family.’ [Another edition] pp.36. London, [1855?] 12o. pp.13. London, [1883?] 8o. 10] Here and there through Ireland [...] With illustrations [...] Reprinted from the ‘Weekly Freeman’. 2 pt. Freeman’s Journal: Dublin, 1891, 92. 8o. 11] Crohoore na Bilhoge ou les White-Boys, roman historique irlandais [...] Traduit de l’anglais par M. A. J. B. Defauconpret. 3 tom. Paris, 1829. 12o. 12] Le Chasseur de spectres et sa famille [...] Traduit de l’anglais par A. Pichard. 2 vol. Paris, 1833. 8o. 13] Les Croppys, épisode de l’histoire de la rébellion d’Irlande en 1798. Roman [...] traduit de l’anglais par M. A. J. B. Defauconpret. 4 tom. Paris, 1833. 12o. 14] The Mayor of Wind-gap. Paris: Baudry’s European Library; sold by Amyot, etc., 1835. pp.285. 8o. 15] The Town of the Cascades. 2 vol. Chapman & Hall: London, 1864. 8o. 16] Chaunt of the Cholera. Songs for Ireland. By the authors of ‘The O’Hara Tales,’ ‘The Smuggler,’ &c. [i.e. John and Michael Banim], pp.iv, 92. J. Cochrane & Co.: London, 1831. 8o. 17] The Croppy; a tale of 1798. By the authors of ‘The O’Hara Tales’ [i.e. John and Michael Banim], etc. [or rather, by Michael Banim alone] 3 vol. Henry Colburn: London, 1828. 12o. 18] Damon and Pythias: a tragedy, in five acts, etc. [In verse. By John Banim. Revised by Right Hon. Richard L. Sheil] pp.70. John Warren: London, 1821. 8o. 19] The Denounced. By the authors of ‘Tales by the O’Hara Family’ or rather, by John Banim]. 3 vol. Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley: London, 1830. 12o. 20] London and its eccentricities in the year 2023, or Revelations of the Dead Alive. By the Author of ‘Boyne Water,’ etc. [J. Banim] pp.376. Simpkin, Marshall & Co.: London, 1845. 8o. 21] The Life of J. Banim, the Irish Novelist [...] with extracts from his correspondence. London, 1857. 8o. 22] Peter of the Castle by J. and M. Banim]; and the Fetches by J. Banim]. By the O’Hara Family. A new edition, with introduction and notes, by M. Banim, etc. Dublin, London, 1866. 8o. 23] The Bit o’ Written’ and other tales, by the O’Hara Family. New edition, with introduction, and notes by M. Banim, etc. 3 vol. London, 1838. 12o. Dublin, London, 1865. 8o. 24] The Boyne Water. By the O’Hara Family [or rather, by John Banim only] [...] A new edition, with introduction and notes by M. Banim, etc. Dublin, London, 1865. 8o. 25] The Denounced; or, the Last Baron of Crana. By the O’Hara Family [or rather, by J. Banim] [...] A new edition, with introduction and notes by M. Banim, etc. Dublin, London, 1866. 8o. 26] The Mayor of Wind-Gap [by M. Banim] and Canvassing by [Miss Martin]. By the O’Hara Family. New edition, with introduction and notes by M. Banim, etc. 3 vol. London, 1835. 12o. Dublin, London, 1865. 8o. 27] The Peep O’Day; or, John Doe [by M. and J. Banim]. And Crohoore of the Billhook [by M. Banim] [...] A new edition, with introduction and notes by M. Banim, etc. Dublin, London, 1865. 8o. 28] Revelations of the Dead Alive. [By J. Banim] London, 1824. 12o. 29] The Smuggler: a tale; by the author of ‘Tales by the O’Hara Family,’ ‘The Denounced,’ etc. [John Banim]. [Another edition.] New edition. 3 vol. London, 1831. 12o. pp.vii, 490. 1833. pp.490. Ward & Lock: London, 1856. 12o. 30] John Banim, ein Nachahmer Walter Scotts. Auf Grund der wichtigsten ‘O’Hara Tales’ [by John and Michael Banim] Inaugural-Dissertation, etc. pp.87. Erlangen, 1935. 8o. Also Murray, Life of John Banim (1857); M. A. Steger, John Banim [in German] (1935); The Sargeant’s Wife, drama (Lacy vol. 23; also Dicks Standard Plays, No. 369]; The Smuggler [1831] [in] Bentley Standard Novels ed., (1833), vii, 490pp.; new edn. (1856), 490pp.
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M. R. Mitford, Recollections of a Literary
Life, or Books, Places, and People, 3 vols. (London: Bentley 1852),
p.33ff: remarks of ‘John Banim, the founder of the first school of
Irish novelists that if it were possible to suspect Messieurs Victor Hugo,
Eugène Sue and Alexander Dumas of reading the English, which they
never approach without such ludicrous blunders, one might fancy that many-volumed
tribe to have stolen their peculiar inspiration from the O’Hara Family.
Of a certainty, the tales of Mr. Banim were purely original ... they reflect
Irish scenery, Irish character, Irish crime, and Irish virtue, with a
general truth which, in spite of their tendency to melo-dramatic effects,
will keep them fresh and life-like for many a day ...’ (p.35.)
Dictionary of National Biography remarks that the O’Hara tales (1st series 1825), to some extent succeeded in doing for the Irish what the Waverley novels had done for the Scottish people. The entry is by Charles Read.
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Patrick John Joseph Murray, Life of John Banim [facs. rep. of 10th vol. of Sadlier 1869 edn. of Works] (New York: Garland 1978), speaks of Banim’s early education from aetat. at Mr. George Charles Buchanan’s establishment, the ‘English Academy’; taught ‘oratorical reading’ and modern languages; Murray narrates a story like that in Father Connell of the elder brother protecting the younger from the tyrannically-inclined teacher, and eventually being rewarded by him for his show of loyalty; Banim left Kilkenny for Dublin in 1813; he returned from Dublin to Kilkenny in Feb. 1822, married Ellen Ruth [Rothe], the daughter of a man with whom he had lodged there, on 27 Feb. 1822, ‘preparatory to moving to London’, which he did with her on 13 Mar. 1822. Note that phrase ‘bright-hearted, true-souled Irishman’, quoted prominently in Irish Literature (ed. Justin McCarthy, 1904), is used by Murray, op. cit., p.9.
Bernard Escarbelt, ed., The Boyne Water by John Banim [CERIUL Anglo-Irish Texts, Gen. Ed. Patrick Rafroidi] (Univ. of Lille 1976), 564pp., with notes, glossary and maps. Escarbelt’s ‘Notes on the Text’ make no reference to the American printing of 1869, but report that the 1865 edn. of The Boyne Water was reprinted by Saddlier [sic err.], New York, in 1881, and translated into French in 1829 by A. J. B. Defauconpret as La Bataille de la Boyne, ou Jacques II en Irlande. Present text from the 1865 ed. in 1 vol, with intro. and notes by Michael, giving an idea of the co-operation of the brothers; orig. ed. 1829 from Simpkin & Marshall (xxxix, 375pp, chaps. 1-XIII; 421pp, chaps. 1-XIV [equiv. of XIV-XXVII in single vol. ed.]; 436pp., chaps. I-XIII.
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W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1976; 1984), lists Irish classical plays including J. Banim, Damon and Pythias (1821) [Stanford, 110]. But note also a play, Damon and Pythias, by Richard Edwards (?1565), written in ‘long doggerel’ and turning on the legendary character Grim, the Collier of Croyden. Edwards was Master of the Children of the Queen’s Chapel. (See Saintsbury, Short History, [1898], 1922 edn., p.231.)
Robert Lee Wolff, ed., The Denounced, by the O’Hara Family, 3 vols. [facs. edn.] (NY: Garland 1978), ded. Wellington; consists of two novels, The Last Baron of Crana, and The Conformists [pl. sic], the latter set near Coleraine and featuring a fanatically anti-Catholic bishop in the historical person of Anthony Dopping, Bishop of Meath (1643-1697) as an example of savage prejudice of Protestant Ulstermen [Wolff]. The novel bears an epigraph from Moore: ‘- bright o’er the flood / Of her tears and her blood, / Let the rainbow of hope be Wellington’s name’. The dedication reads, ‘Addressed to His Grace Arthur, Duke of Wellington, these tales most gratefully, and most respectfully, are enscribed.’ The Preface of three pages speaks briefly of the commencement of writing and the ‘old laws ... at that time debated’ which had since ‘became unexpectedly decided’ (p.[v]), and defends the author against“continuing prejudices” and “opening wounds afresh”, possibly language used by Wellington. In his introduction, Wolff refers to the dedication in the light of the fact that Wellington was castigated in The Anglo-Irish of the XIXth Century. The implication is that the dedication must be ironically intended, even that The Denounced is none other than Wellington himself. Vide the lines ‘He Said that he was not Our Brother’, occasioned by a ‘ferocious attack provoked by some utterance of Wellington about Ireland’, according to McCarthy (ed., Irish Literature, 1904; cited supra). And note also the occasion when Wellington attacked the Catholic mayor of Kilkenny, as reported in Cabinet [?], who may have been Michael Banim.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)