Life
1823-1875, b. Castlebellingham, Co. Louth, ed. Kingstown [Dun Laoghaire]; TCD
grad. 1848; MA 1854; worked first at Brewery in Drogheda; while at Galway
he was persuaded by Prof. Nesbit, Professor of Latin at Queen’s,
to take up political economy there; held Whateley chair as Professor of
Political Economy, TCD, 1856-61; publ. lectures as The Character and
Logical Method of Pol. Economy (1857); Irish bar, 1857; Prof. jurisprudence
and pol. Econ., Galway, 1859-65 [var. 1859-70]; crippled in hunting accident,
Galway 1860; countered Archbishop Cullen’s policy of denominational
education; Prof. of pol. econ., The Slave Power (1862) established
his reputation in defending the Union position; Chair of Pol. Econ., University
College, London, 1866; resigned through sickness, 1872; d. London; works
include The Slave Power (1862) which persuaded Britain to support
the North against the South in the American Civil War; wrote on Irish
university question; Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly
Explained (1874); followed his friends Mill and Ricardo in economics
though latterly showed independence on the contentious liberal economic policy of 'laissez faire' in Ireland; d. at
Blackheath; UCG (Galway) holds a collection of papers originating from
his period in the chair there. DNB DIW DIB DIL FDA
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Works
The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy (London:
Longman 1857; 2nd rev. ed. Macmillan 1875); The Slave Power, Its Character,
Career & Possible Designs, Being an Attempt to Explain the Real Issue
in the American Contest (Parker, Son & Bourn 1862; 2nd ed. enl.
Macmillian 1873); Essays in Political Economy, Theoretical
and Applied (Macmillan 1873); Political Essays (Macmillan 1873);
Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (Macmillan
1874; rep. NY: Augustus Kelley 1967).
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Criticism
William J. Maguire, Irish Literary Figures (1945), p.172ff.
W. Bagehot, ‘Professor Cairnes’ in R. H. Hutton, ed., Biographical Studies (London: Longmans 1895).
A. Weinberg, John Elliot Cairnes and the American Civil War, A study in Anglo-American Relations (London 1969).
T. A. Boylan and T. P. Foley, ‘John Elliot Cairnes, John Stuart Mill and Ireland, some Problems for Political Economy, in A. E. Murphy, ed. Economists and the Irish Economy from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day (Dublin: IAP/Hermethena, 1984), pp.96-119
‘Cairnes, Hearn and Bastable, The Contribution of Queen’s College, Galway to Economic Thought’ in D. Ó Cearbhaill, ed. Galway, Town and Gown 1484-1984 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1984)
Joseph Lee, The Modernisation of Ireland, 1848-1918 (1973), pp.24, 26.
Tadhg Foley, ‘Praties, Professors, and Political Economy’ (Irish Reporter, Third Quarter 1995), pp.6-7.
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Notes
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field
Day 1991), Vol. 2; selects Essays in Political Economy, ‘Political
Economy and Land’ [184-88]; ‘Political Economy and Laissez-Faire’, pp 189-92; A letter from John Stuart Mill to Cairnes is cited in Roy Foster, Paddy and Mr Punch (John Lane, 1993), p.8.
Library of Herbert Bell, Belfast holds William Cairns, Outlines of Lectures on Logic [Belles Lettres] (Belfast 1835).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)