John Philpot Curran

Life
1750-1817 [J. P. Curran; Right Hon. John Philpot Curran]; b. Newmarket, Co. Cork; ed. Middleton School, and TCD; Irish bar and Middle Temple, 1775; King’s Counsel, 1782; appeared for Catholic clergyman who had been horse-whipped by Lord Doneraile; Prior of Monks of the Screw; MP Rathcormac, 1783-97, at own expense, having been given the Kilbeggan seat, 1783; fought duel with Lord Clare, John Fitzgibbon; defended Archibald Hamilton Rowan and the Sheares brothers; supported Catholic Emancipation and opposed Union; defended Emmet though repudiating his French politics and appalled by his own daughter’s engagement to Emmet; appt. Master of the Irish Rolls and seat in Whig ministry (Privy Coucil), 1806; visited by Shelley, who noted atmosphere of ‘incessant comicality’ (Hogg’s Life, Vol. 2, p.123), 1804; retired, 1814, with pension of £2,700, and settled in London, passing time in company of Thomas Moore, Sheridan, and others; became acquainted with Byron, who wrote of his wit and the poetry of his speech; d. Brompton, 14 Oct.; bur. Glasnevin; monument in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, raised 1845; dwelt at the Priory, Rathfarmham, which thereby became the seat of the Monks of the Screw; there is a bust by Christopher Moore in the RDS (Ballsbridge, Dublin), being a copy of the memorial in St. Patrick's Cathedral. RR CAB DNB PI JMC TAY DIB DIH MKA RAF OCIL FDA

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Works
The Speeches of the Right Honorable John Philpot Curran, edited, with memoir and historical notices, by Thomas Davis [1843, enl. edn. 1845; here called 2nd edn.] (Dublin: James Duffy, 1861), 471pp.; THE SPEECHES / OF / THE RIGHT HONORABLE/ JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN./ COMPLETE AND CORRECT EDITION. / EDITED, WITH MEMOIR AND HISTORICAL NOTICES, /BY /THOMAS DAVIS, ESQ., M.R.I.A., / BARRISTER-AT-LAW. /DUBLIN: / PUBLISHED BY JAMES DUFFY, / 23, ANGLESEA-STREET./1845. CONTENTS: Memoir Of Johin Philpot Curran [xiii]; Flood’s Reform Bill, Nov. 29, 1783 [I]; Privilege Of Commons On Money Bills, Dec. 16, 1783, [3]; Retrenchment, Feb. 14, 1785 [6]; Militia v. Volunteers, Feb. 14,1785 [7]; On Attachments, Feb. 14, 1785 [8]; Orde’s Commercial Propositions, June 30, 1785 [13]; The Same, July 23, 1785 [17]; The Same, Aug. 11, 1785, [22]; The Same, Aug. 12, 1785 [23]; The Same, aug. 15, 1785 [25]; The Portugal Trade, March 11, 1786 [27]; Pensions, March 13, 1786 [29]; Outrages in the South, Jan., 19, 1787 [33]; The Kingdom Of Kerry, Jan. 23, 1787 [41]; Right Boy Bill, Feb. 19, 1787 [42]; The Same, Feb, 20, 1787 [46]; Limitation of Pensions, March 12, 1787 [49]; Tithes, March 13, 1787 [53]; Navigation Act, March 20, 1787 [58]; Contraband Trade, Feb. 19, 1788 [61]; Madness oF George III., Feb. 6, 1789 [62]; Regency, Feb. 11, 1789 [67]; the Same, Feb, 20, 1789 [73]; Disenfanchisement of Excise Officers, April 21, 1789 [75]; Dublin Police, April 25, 1789 [78]; Stamp Officers Salaries, Feb. 4, 1790 [83]; Pensions, Feb. 11, 1790 [89]; Election of Lord Mayor of Dublin before the Privy Council, on Behalf of The Corporation, July 10, 1790 [91]; Government Corruption, Feb. 12, 1791 [131]; Catholic Emancipation, Feb. 18, 1792 [140]; Egan V. Kindillan, (Seduction,) For Defendant [146]; War with France, Jan. 11, 1793 [153]; Parliamentary Reform, Feb. 9, 1793 [159]; For Archibald Hamilton Rowan (Libel), Jan. 29, 1794 [161]; The Same (To Set Aside Verdict), Feb. 4, 1794 [201]; For Drogheda Defenders (High Treason), April 23, 1794 [211]; For Northern Star (Libel), May 28, 1794 [233]; For Doctor Drennan (Libel), June 25, 1794 [220]; For Revs William Jackson (High Treason), April 23, 1795 [240]; Catholic Emancipation, May 4, 1795 [271] State of the Nation, May 15, 1790 [274]; For Dublin Defenders (High Treason), Dec. 22, 1795, [254]; Indemnity Bill, Feb. 3, 1796 [285]; Channel Trade, Feb. 15, 1796 [286]; Insurrection Bill, Feb. 25, 1796 [288]; French War, Oct. 13, 1796 [292]; Suspension of the Habeas Corpus, OCT. 14, 1796 [299]; catholic emancipation, Oct. 17, 1796 [302]; Hoche’s Expedition, Jan. 6, 1797 [310]; Internal Defence, Feb. 24, 1797 [314]; Disarming Of Ulster, March 20, 1797 [317]; Last Speech in the Irish Commons (On Parliamentary Reform), May 15, 1797 [322]; For Peter Finnerty (Libel), Dec. 22, 1797 [330]; For Patrick Finney (High Treason), Jan. 16, 1798 [363]; For Henry Sheares (High Treason), July 4, 1798 [385]; The Same, July 12, 1798, [401]; For Oliver Bond (High Treason), July 24,1798 [422]; For Lady Pamela Fitzgerald and Her Children at the Bar of the Irish House of Commons, Aug. 20, 1798 [440]; For Napper Tandy (Outlawry), May 19, 1800 [451]; Against Sir Henry Hayes (Abduction of Miss Pike), April 13, 1801 [462]; Hevey v. Major Sirr (Assault and False Imprisonment), for Plaintiff, May 17, 1802 [482]; For Owen Kirwan (High Treason), Sept. 1, 1803 [497]; Against Ensign John Costley (Conspiracy to Murder), Feb. 23, 1804 [513]; Massy v. Headfort (Criminal Conversation), For Plaintiff, July 27, 1804 [521]; For Judge Johnson (Habeas Corpus), Feb. 4, 1805 [538]; Merry V. Power (Decision when Master of The Rolls) [584]; Newry Elections, Oct.17,1812 [590]. (See Quotations, infra.)

Criticism
John Bertridge Clarke, The Tears and Smiles of Ireland, a poem on the death of J P Curran (Dublin: R Milliken 1817), 46pp.

William O’Regan, ed., Memoirs of the Life of J.P.C. (1817).

Charles Phillips, Recollections of Curran and Some of His Contemporaries (London & Dublin 1818).

Charles O’Hanlon, ‘John Philpot Curran,’ Gael (Feb. 1900), rep. in Padraic Colum, ed., A Treasury of Irish Folklore [2nd rev. edn.] (NY: Crown Pub. 1967), 613pp. [pp.52-54].

Martin Wallace, 100 Irish Lives (rep. 1990). See also remarks on Curran in Charles Lever, Harry Lorrequer (London: Macmillan 1905), p.xix.

W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (1984), pp. 213-14

Hale, John Philpot Curran (London 195[?]), and Phil[l]ips, Curran and his Contemporaries (London 1850).

D O’Sullivan, The Irish Free State and its Senate (London 1940).

Gillian O’Brien, ‘Camden and the move towards the Union 1795-1798’ (2001), in Dáire Keogh & Kevin Whelan, eds., Acts of Union: The Causes, Contexts and Consequences of the Act of Union, Dublin: Four Courts Press 2001.

Norman Vance, ‘Irish Literary Traditions and the Act of Union’, in Cyril J. Byrne and Margaret Harry, eds., Talamh an Eisc: Canadian and Irish Essays [Irish Studies St. Mary’s Coll.] (Halifax (Can.): Nimbus Publ. Co.), pp.29-47.

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Notes
Brian McKenna, Irish Literature, 1800-1875: A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), lists biogs. by William O’Regan (1817), Thomas Davis (1846), and William H. Curran (1855). Also Leslie Hale, John Philpot Curran, His Life and Times (London 1958) 287p.

Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature [1876-78]; quotes extensively from speeches-with Read’s usual partiality to the profession of lawyer-and mentions Charles Phillips’s Recollections of Curran (1818) as one of the most extraordinary pieces of biography ever written. Also Curran’s Speeches and Memoirs, ed. Thomas Davis.

Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature (Washington: University of America 1904); gives extracts from works incl. ‘On Catholic Emancipation,’ The Liberty of the Press,’ and witticisms; also quoted extensively in section dedicated to him, in John F. Taylor, ‘The Irish School of Oratory’, in McCarthy (op.cit.), Vol. II, pp.vii-xxviii. He is author of the phrase revived by J. F. Kennedy about ‘eternal vigilance’ being the price of freedom [Note that this is also cited as the sole entry in Oxford Book of Quotations, 1941, with eds. to 1970]; his poetry includes ‘The Plate-warmer’ and ‘The Deserter’s Meditations’ [which O’Connor calls, after the refrain, ‘ Let Us Be Merry Before we Go’, in Book of Ireland, p. 318. [‘If sadly thinking, with spirits sinking/Could, more than drinking, my cares compose/A cure for sorrow from sighs I’d borrow/And hope tomorrow would end my woes’]; ‘The Deserter’s Meditation’ also occurs in Geoffrey Taylor’s (1951), and Brendan Kennelly’s (1970), anthologies; Kennelly (Penguin Book of Irish Poetry) and O’Connor (Book of Ireland) prints the short lines of the original as pentameters.

Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernia: Irish Worthies (1819, 1821) Vol. I. The chief biographical sketch in this compilation is of Curran [pp.299-363]; Curran is said to be descended from English Cromwellian settlers, associated with the name and place of Curwen; account concludes with an encomium by Rev George Croly [‘which] elicited our admiration so strongly’ [356-64], dated Oct 20 1817, Curran’s death having fallen on 13 Oct. in his lodgings at No.7 Amelia Place, Brompton.

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1: selects ‘The Deserter’s Meditation’, 485; ‘Speech in Favour of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, 930-33; , biog., cites L Hale, John Philpot Curran, His Life and Times (Lon. 1958). FDA2, includes incidental references at 217 (Lecky), 870 (Lady Morgan), 932 (Yeats), 973 (Rolleston), 990 (Thomas MacDonagh).

Library of Herbert Bell, Belfast holds John Philpot Curran, Collection of Speakers [?] (London 1819); also Shades of John Philpot Curran (Dublin 1805)

Hyland Catalogue (Dec. 1996) lists Speeches of John Philpot Curran, on Interesting State Trials &c., with a memoir of His Life (new edn. 1817); W. H. Curran, ed. R. S. Mackenzie, The Life of John Philpot Curran [1st edn.] (NY: 1858), port.; Leslie Hale, John Philpot Curran, His Life and Times (1st edn. 1958), ills.; also Speeches of the Rt. Hon. J. P. Curran, edited, master of the Rolls in Ireland, on the late very interesting State Trials [2nd edn., with adds.] (Dublin: Stockdale 1808), 475pp. [covering commerical relations between England and Ireland, Catholic Emancipation, Archibald Rowan Hamilton, Lady Pamela Fitzgerald, &c.]; Do., 4th edn. (London: Longman 1815), 486pp.

Belfast Public Library holds Speeches (1811, 1865); Speeches ... on the late interesting State Trials (1815) Life of the Rt. Hon. J. P. Curran (1846) by T. Davis; also Speeches of ... (n.d.), by Thomas Davies. Also George Croly, ed., Irish Eloquence as Illustrated by the Speeches of J. P. Curran (1852); also, Life of the Rt. Hon. J. P. Curran, by W. H. Curran (1819) [See W. H. Curran, infra.]

Thomas Lawrence's oil portrait of J. P. Curran was presented to the National Gallery of Ireland by Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Lord Iveagh, 1901; see also an oil portrait on canvas by Hugh Douglas Hamilton Ann Cruikshank and the Knight of Glin, Irish Portraits 1600-1860 [Catalogue] (1969), p.52; bibl. Thomas Bodkin, The Burlington Magazine, LXIX, Dec 1936, p.251 [for discussion of Curran’s iconography.]

Robert Farren, Course of Irish Verse (1948), Curran spoke Irish as a native [and] the internal rhyming and unbroken roll of [Drinking Song] were Gaelic facets. (p.4)

Monks of the Screw forms the subject of one of the episodes in Charles Lever’s Jack Hinton, set in a house in Kevin St. among the ‘monks’ in a ‘type of grey serge’; with characters besides the hero and his guide Phil O’Grady including Yelverton, Chief Baron; Wellesley Poole, Sec. of State; Plunket, Parsons, Toler, ‘in a word, all those whose names were a guarantee for everything that was brilliant, witty and amusing, were there; while, conspicuous among the rest, the prior himself was no other than John Philpot Curran!’; also, ‘the epigrammatic terseness and nicety of Curran, the jovial good humour and mellow raciness of Lawrence Parsons, the happy facility of converting all before him into a pun or a repartee so eminently possessed by Toler, and perhaps more striking than all, the caustic irony and peiercing sarcasm of Yelverton’s wit, relieve and displayed each other [...] With what satifaction do I yet look back upon the brilliant scene, nearly all the actors in which have since risen to high rank and eminence in the country.’ (See extract copied in Justin McCarthy, Irish Literature, 1904, under “Lever”, Vol. 5; pp.1952-64).

John Hackett Pollock’s play The Moth and the Star (1937) concerns the relationship between John Philpot Curran’s daughter Amelia and the poet Shelley.

Lord Byron’s remarks on his death, ‘I have heard that man speak more poetry than I have seen written’, quoted in Arthur Symons, The Romantic Movement in English Poetry, p.36 [See Rafroidi, 1980, Vol. 1., p.293; also Byron, in AUTHOR]; AND NOTE that the death of Curran is lamented by Lord Byron in his letters to Thomas Moore [source of same?]

Political sympathies: Curran’s misplaced harangue against French sympathizers at the Emmet trial is cited in Code’s Insurrection [a work characterized as a travesty of the trial and the speeches by some writers; see Cheryl Herr, ed., For the Land They Loved, 1991]. Note that it is not clear why his defence of Emmet and the other insurgents is often spoken of as a feat of patriotism, since he expressly calls the duty odious.

Lord Byron wrote, ‘I feel, as your poor Curran said, before his death, "a mountain of lead upon my heart, which I believe to be consitutional, and that nothing will remove it but the same remedy." [Letter to Thomas Moore, 1 Oct. 1821]; and further, on the same subject: '... too many of our acquaintance had taken the same path. Lady Melbourne, Grattan, Sheridan, Curran, &c., &c., - almost everybody of much name of the old school. [idem, 21 Oct. 1821.]

Karl Marx recommended Engels to read the speeches of John Philpot Curran, edited by Thomas Davies, writing in December 1869: 'You must get Curran's Speeches edited by Davies ... I consider Curran the only great advocate of the eighteenth century and the noblest nature.' (Selected Correspondence, 1934, p.281 and n.250; quoted in account of papers of T. A. Jackson in Working Class Movement Library, “Irish Collection” [online]).

Irish Penny Journal contains an article on ‘the tomb of Curran’, noted by Barbara Hayley, in ‘Irish Periodicals’, Anglo-Irish Studies, II, (1976), pp.83-108, p.103.

An Anecdote from The Life of Curran: ‘I see, sir, how it is with you’ [said a judge to an arraigned Irishman]. ‘you are more ashamed of knowing your own language than of not knowing the other.’ (William Henry Curran, The Life of John Philpott [sic] Curran, ed. R. Shelton Mackenzie, Chicago 1882, p.523; cited in Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland, 1995, p.115.)

Richard Kearney, Richard Kearney, ‘Irish Heritage in the French Revolution: The Rights of the People and the Rights of Man’ (1992), quotes a Defenders confessions to John Philpot Curran in the Louth trials of 1774: ‘I expected I would get what livings the likes of you have, for myself [...] We planned to knock the protestants on the head and take their places.’ (Op. cit., in Barbara Hayley & Christopher Murray, eds., Ireland and France - A Bountiful Friendship: Essays in Honour of Patrick Rafroidi, Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1992, p.36.)

James Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy or Bardic Remains of Ireland (London: Robins 1831) contains an epigraph taken from Curran: ‘I will give thee a book - it containeth the Songs of the bards of erin, of the bards of the days that are gone.’ [Vol. I, title-page.]

Conor Farrington's verse play Aaron They Brother is a study of John Philpot Curran, featuring a chorus of Irish soldiers in the Congo (Peacock 1969; publ. Proscenium, Newark, Del., 1975).

John Larkin (ed. The Trial of William Drennan, 1991), calls Curran's defence of William Drennan in 1792, one of the most brilliant pieces of Irish forensic oratory. Larkin remarks: on that occasion, Curran opened by asserting that no association with Drennan or his principles, but an insistence that a lawyer must not be subborned by fear of rumours against his honour, persuaded him to plead in his defence. He made a like assertion in the opening of his defence of the lesser defendents in the Robert Emmet Rising trials (see H. B. Code’s Insurrection of 23rd July 1803).

Arthur Symons commented on J. P. Curran’s ‘The Deserter’s Meditation’, ‘If anyone can read the refrain of this song without a stirring in the blood, there must be ice in him.’ (The Romantic Movement in English Poetry,, p.36; see Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, Vol 1 1980, p.57.)

Death to Erin, anon, a cartoon printed by Williamson, Dublin, shows John Philpot Curran leading the pall-bearers with Grattan and Foster ad chief mourners, while their beloved constitution of 1782 is laid to rest, with Clare and Castlereagh as gravediggers in the distance. (See Nicholas Robinson, ‘Marriage against inclination: the union and caricature’, in Dáire Keogh & Kevin Whelan, eds., Acts of Union: The Causes, Contexts and Consequences of the Act of Union, Dublin: Four Courts Press 2001, plate 22 [p.144ff.]).

Liturgical: A copy of La liturgie, c'est à dire, le formulaire des prières publiques, de l'administration des sacremens / selon l'usage de l'Eglise d'Irlande; avec le Psautier (Dublin: chez André Crook, imprimeur de la Reine 1704), formerly owned by Edward Hudson [infra], belonged at one time to John Philpott Curran and is now held at Trinity College Library as part of the Purser Shortt Bequest.

Rev. Alexander Leeper, DD, Canon of St Patrick’s, Historical Handbook of St Patrick’s Cathedral (1891), The first monument in the north aisle of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, is Curran’s, with a bust by C. Moore (1841); inscription describes him as Master of the Rolls, and among the most illustrious of Irish orators, and mentions that his remains are interred in Glasnevin; monument erected in 1842 by public subscription, S.M. Praehonorabilis Johannis PhilpotCurran; Roulorum Magistri; et inter Hiberniae oratores eximii; Cujis reliquiae sepultae sunt apud Glasnevin; Hoc monumentum erectum fuit a.d. 1842; ex dono publico et amore; Obiit 1817; Aet. 67; MP Rathcormac, 1790; MP Kilbeggan, 1794 [sic]; d. London, 17 Oct. 1817; remains deposited in vault of Paddington Church during 20 years; conveyed to Ireland and bur. Glasnevin; large monument in the cemetery, inscribed only with his name and date of death; the martial trophies above the monument in St. Patrick’s erected to memory of bros. Cpt. Dudley Ryder Madden and Lieut. Wm. Wolseley Madden of 8th King’s Regt., obiit 1874.

Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)