Samuel Ferguson: Life

[Sir] Samuel Ferguson: 1810-1886

[Sir Samuel Ferguson]; b. 10 March 1810, the grandson of John Ferguson of Collen House, Co. Antrim, a man of means who squandered his inheritance; ed. Belfast Academical Institution, Belfast, and afterwards at TCD which he left before graduation due to his father’s declining fortunes; provided for his legal education by writing, beginning with “The Forging of the Anchor”, an industrial poem; contributed more than 90 items to Blackwood’s Magazine and Dublin University Magazine, et al., 1832-1850, promoting a view of Irishness informed by contemporary antiquarianism and Protestant conservative principles; fnd-mbr. of Protestant Repeal Association, but quickly withdrew; contrib. four-part review articles of Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy (1834) to Dublin University Magazine (April-Nov. 1834), calling it ‘politically malignant and religiously fanatical’ as well as ‘spurious, puerile, unclassical - lamentably bad’; pointed out the militant Catholicism of the more blood-thirstily anti-English poems and in the majority of Hardiman’s notes; criticises the botched translations of the versifiers and provided his own rendering of some originals in an appendix; published Hibernian Nights’ Entertainments in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine [1833-34], and Dublin University Magazine [1834-36], later printed piratically in New York (1859) and finally reissued by Lady Ferguson (1887); qualified at King’s Inns and called to the Irish Bar, 1838; issued Cromlech on Howth (1841), a poem; withdrew his assistance from the editorship of the Dublin University Magazine, then in Charles Lever’s hands, at the latter’s acceptance of the dedication of Thackeray’s The Irish Sketch Book (1842); active in Irish Council of 1847; published a “Lament for Thomas Davis” (Feb. 1847), composed earlier; m. Mary Catherine Guinness [b.1823], Aug. 1848; attended sole meeting of Protestant Repeal Association, declaring repeal of the Union to be ‘the great principle of self-government to counter the anti-national and servile spirit in the land’ (Warder, 13 May, 1848); issued Dublin (1849) and Inheritor and Economist (1849), verse satires; practised successfully for many years; defended Richard D’Alton Williams against treason-felony; QC, 1859; issued Father Tom and the Pope; or, A Night in the Vatican (1865), a burlesque in prose, soon after reprinted piratically in New York; published Lays of the Western Gael (1865), containing poems on Irish themes printed over the thirty previous years; also Deputy Keeper of Dublin Records, 1867; lectures on Dublin architecture, 1867; published his poetic version of Ulster epic Congal (1872), based on O’Donovan’s translation but without many supernatural passages, and accompanied by notes acknowledging Macpherson’s ‘grandeur of thought’; elected Vice-President of RIA and Chairman of Manuscript Committee, 1876; wrote preface to facsimile edn. of An Leabhar Breac; knighted 1878; hon degree of LLD (TCD); issued Poems (1880), with ded. to George Fox, his boyhoood friend; elected RIA President, 1882; d. 9 Aug. 1886, at Strand Lodge, Howth; funeral in St. Patrick’s Cathedral; bur. Donegore, Co. Antrim; an anonymous obit. [by J. P. Mahaffy], appeared in Athenaeum (14 April 1886); collected Ogham casts and wrote extensively on Ogham controversies viz., Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland (1887), edited by his widow; also The Remains of St. Patrick (1888), being the “Confessio” translated into blank verse; other posthumous publications were Lays of the Red Branch (1897); introduced by Lady Ferguson, and Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson (1917), introduced by A. P. Graves; called by Yeats ‘the greatest poet Ireland has produced, because the most central and most Celtic’, and thus a national author ‘unjustly neglected by his fellow-countrymen’; close friend of Frederick William Burton, Petrie, and others; Padraic Colum issued edited a modern selection as Poems (1963); the Dictionary of National Biography article is is by Norman Moore. CAB PI JMC IF NCBE DIB DIW DIH DIL MKA OCEL FDA DUB OCIL

[ top ]

Works
Poetry, The Cromlech on Howth (London: Day & Son 1841; 1864); On the Expediency of Taking Stock: A Letter to James Pim, Jun., Esq.: A Satire (Dublin: McGlashan 1847) [pamph.]; Dublin: A Satire (Dublin 1849); Inheritor and Economist (Dublin: McGlashan 1849); Father Tom and the Pope, or a Night in the Vatican (Baltimore: Robinson 1865); Do. [pirated edn.] (NY: Morhead, Simpson & Bond 1868); Alfred M. Williams, ed. and intro., Lays of the Western Gael and Other Poems (London: Bell & Daldy 1865), and Do. [2nd Edn.] (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers and Walker 1888 [var. 1880]) [infra]; Congal: A Poem in Five Books (Dublin: E. Ponsonby; London: G. Bell & Daldy 1872), incl. 48pp. poetry & 85pp. notes]; Do. [2nd edn.] (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers and Walker 1893), and Do. [another edn.] (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers & Daldy 1907); Deirdre: A One-Act Drama of Old Irish Story (Dublin: Roe 1880); Poems (Dublin: McGee; London: G. Bell 1880), with ded. to George Fox; The Forging of the Anchor (London, Paris, NY: Cassell 1883) [ill. edn. of the early poem]; The Confession of St. Patrick, translated into blank verse by Sir Samuel Ferguson, LLD, Pres. Royal Irish Academy, Transactions of RIA, Vol. XXVII [Polite literature and Antiquities VI] (Dublin: RIA 1885), rep. as The Remains of St. Patrick (Dublin: Sealy Bryers & Walker; London: G. Bell 1888) [infra]; Lady Ferguson, intro., Lays of the Red Branch (London: T. Fisher Unwin; Dublin: Sealy Bryers & Walker 1897); A. P. Graves, intro. [signed 1916], Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson (Dublin: Talbot/London: R. Fisher Unwin 1917) [vars. 1914, 1918]; Padraic Colum, ed. and intro., Poems (Dublin: Alan Figgis [for An Chomhairle Ealaíon] 1963). Also, Ian Adamson, ed., Congal [rep. of 1872 edn.], (Newtownards: Pretani Press 1980); Michael Hall, The Battle of Moyra: An Adaptation of Sir Samuel Ferguson’s Congal (Island Publ. 1995), 31pp.

Literary prose, Hibernian Nights’ Entertainments [1st, 2nd, & 3rd ser.] (Dublin: Sealy, Bryer & Walker; London: G. Bell 1887), prose stories orig. in Dublin University Magazine and Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine [infra]; Lady Ferguson, ed., Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales and Scotland (Edinburgh: Douglas 1887).

Miscellaneous, Ireland's claims to an Adequate Parliamentary Representation of Learning: in a letter to James Mac Cullagh [... &c.]; with an appendix containing correspondence with Mr. Hallam on the claims of Archbishop De Londres to a niche in the New House of Lords; and a letter to Lord Morpeth on the formation of a Museum of National antiquities in Dublin, by Samuel Ferguson (Dublin: James McGlashan [&c] 1847), 27pp.; Our Architecture: Dublin Afternoon Lectures (London: Bell & Daldy 1867); Preface to RIA facsimile edn. of An Leabhar Breac [The Speckled Book of Lecan] (Irish MSS Commission 1876).

Prose (Journal publication): “Ireland No. 1”, Blackwood’s Magazine, Vol. XXXIII, No. CCIII (Jan. 1833), pp.66-87, and [anon.,] “The Good Old Cause”, Dublin University Magazine, Vol. II, No. IX (Sept. 1833), pp.241-47; “Nora Boyle” (Blackwood"s Magazine, Sept. 1833); “A Dialogue Between Head and Heart of An Irish Protestant”, Dublin University Magazine, Vol. II, No. XI (Nov. 1833), pp.586-93 [anon.], rep. in W. J. McCormack, ed., ‘The Intellectual Revival’ [sect.], Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, pp.1177-85; “Return of Claneboy”, Blackwood"s Magazine, Dec. 1833); “Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy” [review in 4 Pts.], Dublin University Magazine (April 1834-Nov. 1834) [infra]; “Irish Storyists” (Dublin University Magazine, Sept. 1834); “Shane O'Neill” (Blackwood, Feb. 1834); “Hibernian Nights Entertainments” (Dublin University Magazine, Jan., Feb., March, April, June, July, Aug., Sept., Nov., Dec. 1835) [infra]; “Scotic Controversy” (Dublin University Magazine, June, Oct. 1836); “Attractions of Ireland” (Dublin University Magazine, July, Sept., Dec. 1836); “Curiosities of Irish Literature: The Mere Irish”, Dublin University Magazine, IX (1837 [var 1836]), pp.546-58; “Gallery of Illustrious Irishmen: [George] Petrie” (Dublin University Magazine, Dec. 1839); “Dublin Penny Journal”, Dublin University Magazine (Jan. 1840); “Our Portrait Galley” No. XLII, Dublin University Magazine, Vol. 29 (Feb. 1847), pp.190-99; “Petrie’s Round Towers” (Dublin University Magazine, April. 1845); “Letter to Arthur Hallam: Henri de Londres” (Dublin University Magazine, Nov. 1845); “Irish Novelists” (Dublin University Magazine, Dec. 1845); “Architecture in Ireland” (Dublin University Magazine, June 1847); review of William Reeves Ecclesiastical Antiquities [of Down, Connor and Dromore] (1847), in Dublin University Magazine, Vol. 31 (Feb. 1848), pp.207-77; “Annals of the Four Masters” (Dublin University Magazine, March, May 1848); review of Ruskin"s Seven Lamps of Arch. (Dublin University Magazine, July 1849); review of Ruskin"s Stones of Venice (Dublin University Magazine, Sept. 1851).

Poetry (Journal publication): “The Forging of the Anchor”, Blackwood's Magazine [Edinburgh] (Feb. 1832);"An Irish Garland”, Blackwood’s Magazine, Vol. 33, No. 203 (January 1833), pp.87-8 [containing a virulent attack on Irish Nationalism]; [anon.,]; “Father Tom and the Pope” (Blackwood, May 1838); “Lines on Mangan” (Dublin University Magazine, May 1847).

Bibliographical Details

Lays of the Western Gael and Other Poems, ed. & intro. Alfred M. Williams (London: Bell & Daldy 1865), and Do. [2nd Edn.] (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers and Walker 1888 [var. 1880]), with sects. entitled ‘Lays of the Western Gael’, ‘Ballads and Poems’, ‘Versions and Adaptations’, ‘Versions from the Irish’.

The Confession of St. Patrick, translated into blank verse by Sir Samuel Ferguson, LLD, Pres. Royal Irish Academy, Transactions of RIA, Vol. XXVII [Polite literature and Antiquities], VI (Dublin: RIA 1885) [cited in Rev. George Thomas Stokes, DD., and the Rev. Charles H. H. Wright, DD, Writings of St Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland, a revised translation, with Notes, critical and historical (London: James Nisbet & Co.; Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co., publ. to Dublin Univ., 1887].

Hibernian Nights Entertainments [1st, 2nd, & 3rd ser.] (Dublin: Sealy, Bryer & Walker; London: George Bell 1887 [another edn. 1907]), consisting of 1] “Death of Children of Usnach”; “Return of Claneboy”; “Captive of Killeshin” . 2] “Carby MacGilmore; “An Adventure of Shane O’Neill” . 3] “The Rebellion of Silken Thomas”; Lays of the Western Gael, with revw. notice: ‘Sir Samuel Ferguson is head and shoulders taller than any of the Anglo-Irish poets (Truth). See also endpage advertisements in Congal (Dublin: Sealy Bryers & Walker 1907), indicating that parts of the collection first appeared in Blackwood's (“The Return of Claneboy”, 1833; and “Shane O’Neill"s Last Amour”, 1834) and in Dublin University Magazine (“The Death of the Children of Usnach”, 1834; “The Captive of Killeshin”, 1835; “The Rebellion of Silken Thomas”, 1835; “Corby Mac Gillmore”, 1835, “Rosabel of Ross”, 1836); first issued jointly, NY 1859; reissued Lady Ferguson, 1887.

Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson, ed. A. P. Graves (Dublin: Talbot/London: R. Fisher Unwin [1918]) [vars. 1914, 1917]; port.; Memorial Sonnet by Graves; Biographical and Bibliographical Note, [x]-xv; Introduction, pp.xvii-xxxvii, ; signed as from Red Branch House, Wimbledon; St. Patrick's Day, 1916. Introduction, LAYS OF THE WESTERN GAEL: “The Burial of King Cormac”; “Aideen's Grave”; “The Death of Dermid”; “The Welshmen of Tirawley”; “Fergus Wry-Mouth”; “The Gascon O'Driscol”; “The Downfall of the Gael”; “O'Byrne's Bard to the clans of Wicklow”; “Lament over the Ruins of the Abbey of Timoleague”; “To the Harper O'Connellan”; “Grace Nugent”; “Mild Mabel Kelly”; “The Fair Hair'd Girl”; “Pasteen Finn”; “Molly Astore”; “The Coolun”; “Cean Dubh Deelish”; “Boatman's Hymn”; “The Dear Old Air”; “The Lapful of Nuts”; “Hopeless Love”; “The Fair Hills of Ireland.” BALLADS AND POEMS: “The Fairy Thorn”; “Willy Gilliland”; “The Pretty Girl of Loch Dan”; “Adieu to Brittany”; “Westminster Abbey”; “The Morning's Hinges”; “Bird and Brook”; “Three Thoughts”; “Three Seasons”; “The Hymn of the Fisherman”; “The Window's Cloak”; “Paul Veronese”; “The Little Maiden”; “Dear Wilde”; “To Mr Butt.” LAYS OF THE RED BRANCH: “The Twins of Macha”; “The Naming of Cuchullin”; “The Abdication of Fergus Mac Roy”; “Mesgedra”; “Deirdre”; “Deirdre's Farewell to Alba”; “Deirdre's Lament over the Sons of Usnach”; “Conary”; “The Healing of Conall Carnach”; “The Tain-Quest. CONGAL [5 Books].

[ top ]

"Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy” [Part 1], in Dublin University Magazine, Vol. III, No. XVI (April 1834), pp.455-78; “Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy” [Part II], Dublin University Magazine, Vol. IV, No. XX (August 1834), pp.152-67; “Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy” [Part III], Dublin University Magazine, Vol. IV, No. XXII (Oct. 1834), pp.444-67; “Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy” [Part IV], Dublin University Magazine, Vol. IV, No. XXIII (Nov. 1834), pp.514-42 [with trans. from Irish as app., incl. some poems later printed in Lays of the Western Gael, 1864; infra]. Extract reprinted in Mark Storey, Poetry and Ireland since 1800: A Source Book, London: Routledge 1988, pp.34-38.

Writings on Ogham: Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland [Rhind Lectures, Edinburgh 1884] (Edinburgh: David Douglas 1887). Papers incl. ‘Fasciculus of Prints from Photographs of Casts of Ogham Inscriptions’ (RIA Transactions, 1880); ‘Account of Ogham Inscriptions in the Cave of Rathcroghhan, Co. Roscommon’ (RIA Proceedings, 1864); ‘On the Difficulties Attendant on the Transcription of Ogham Legends, and the Means of Removing them’, (RIA Proceedings, 1870-71); ‘On Paper Casts of Ancient Inscriptions in the Counties of Galway and Mayo’ (RIA Proceedings, 1872); ‘On the Ogham-Inscribed Stone of Callan Mountain, Co. Clare’ (RIA Proceedings, 1873); ‘On the Collateral Evidences corroborating the Biliteral Key to the South British Ogham Alphabet’ (RIA Proceedings, 1873); ‘On the Evidences bearing on Sun-worship at Mount Callan, Co. Clare’ (RIA Proceedings, 1873); ‘On an Ogham-Inscribed Stone from Mount Music, Co. Cork’ (RIA Proceedings, 1874); ‘On a Recently Discovered Ogham Inscription at Breatagh, in the Co. of Mayo (RIA Proceedings, 1874); ‘On an Ogham-inscribed Stone (No. 1) at Monataggart, Co. Cork’, and ‘On Further Ogham Inscriptions discovered at Monataggart’ (RIA Proceedings, 1874); ‘Additional Note on Ogham Inscriptions at Monataggart, Co. Cork’ (RIA Proceedings, 1875); ‘On an Ogham Inscription at Mullagh, Co. Cavan’ (RIA Proceedings, 1875); ‘On the Alleged Literary Forgery respecting Sun-Worship on Mount Callan’ (RIA Proceedings, 1875).

[ top ]

Criticism
[ J. P. Mahaffy,] obituary, Athenaeum (14 April 1886), p.205.

W. B. Yeats, ‘The Poetry of Sir Samuel Ferguson’, Irish Fireside (9 Oct. 1886), rep. in Dublin University Review (Nov. 1886) [rep. in John Frayne, ed., Uncollected Prose, 2 vols. (1970-75), Vol. 1, pp.81-87; infra].

Lady Mary C. Ferguson, Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of His Day, 2 vols. (Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood 1896).

A. P. Graves, ‘Introduction’, Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson (Dublin: Talbot; London: T. Fisher Unwin [1918]) [infra].

Robert Farren, ‘Sir Samuel Ferguson’, in The Course of Irish Verse (NY: Sheed & Ward 1947; London Edn. 1948), pp.23-27.

Padraic Colum, ‘Introduction’, Poems of Samuel Ferguson [Cu Comhairle Ealaíon ser. of Irish Authors, No. 2] (Dublin: Allen Figgis 1963), pp.1-10 [infra].

Terence Brown, ‘Samuel Ferguson: Cultural Nationalism’, Northern Voices: Poets from Ulster (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1975), pp.28-41.

Robert O’Driscoll, An Ascendancy of the Heart: Ferguson and the Beginnings of Modern Irish Literature in English (Dublin: Dolmen 1976).

Malcolm Brown, Sir Samuel Ferguson [Irish Writers Series] (Lewisburg: Bucknell UP 1973).

Frank O’Connor, The Backward Look: A Survey of Irish Literature (London: Macmillan 1967) [infra].

Robert O’Driscoll, ‘Ferguson and the Idea of an Irish National Literature’, Éire-Ireland, 6, 1 (Spring 1971), pp.82-95 [infra].

Robert O’Driscoll, An Ascendancy of the Heart, Ferguson and the Beginnings of Modern Irish Literature in English (Dublin: Dolmen 1976).

Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. 1, pp.161-67.

Terence Brown & Barbara Hayley, eds., Samuel Ferguson: A Centenary Tribute (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy 1987).

Robert Welch, A History of Verse Translation from the Irish, 1789-1897 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1988) [q.p.].

David Cairns & Shaun Richards, Writing Ireland, Colonialism, Nationalism and Culture (Manchester UP 1988), 26-33 [infra].

Peter Denman, Samuel Ferguson: The Literary Achievement (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1990), 229pp.

Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland: Translations, Languages, Cultures (Cork UP 1996), pp.108-13 [infra].

Gerry Smyth, Decolonisation and Criticism: The Construction of Irish Literature (London: Pluto Press 1998), pp.65-67.

Eve Patten, Samuel Ferguson and the Culture of Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2004), 208pp.

A. P. Graves, Ferguson Centenary Address, in The Irish Book Lover, Vol. I, No. 9 (April, 1910).

F. J. Bigger, Ferguson Centenary Address, in The Irish Book Lover, Vol. I, No. 10 (May, 1910), 125.

See also biography in Irish by Greagoir Ó Duill (Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar 1994), and Ó Duill, Samuel Ferguson: An Introduction to his Life and Work, Fortnight, 322 (Nov. 1993), 15pp. [supplement].

Máire Mac an tSaoi, 'Introduction' to James Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy [rep. of 1831 1st edn.] (Shannon: Irish University Press 1971), pp.v-xii.

Thomas Kinsella, “The Divided Mind”, in Sean Lucy, Irish Poets in English (1973), espec. pp.212-13 [infra].

Chris Morash, ed., The Hungry Voice (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1989), pp.18-19 [infra].

W. B. Yeats, ‘The Poetry of Sir Samuel Ferguson - II’, in Dublin University Review (Nov. 1886).

W. B. Yeats, ‘An Irish Patriot’ (Bookman, May 1896).

See also Yeats’s review of Lady Ferguson's Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of His Day (in Dublin University Review, Nov. 1886), Rep. in John Frayne, ed., collected Prose, Vol. 1, p.104).

John O’Leary, ‘Sir Samuel Ferguson is, as I understand, a Unionist, but he is a better patriot than I am; he had done more for Ireland than I have ever done or ever hope to do.’ (See John Frayne, Uncollected Prose, 1970, Vol. 1, p.405; cited by Richard Mitchell, BA Diss., Univ. of Ulster, 1997.)

Edmund Dowden (letter to Samuel Ferguson), printed in Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature, Catholic Univ. of America 1904, p.1170.)

Aubrey de Vere on Ferguson’s poetry, cited Justin McCarthy, ed., Irish Literature, Catholic Univ. of America 1904, p.1169.

A. P. Graves, in T. W. Rolleston and Stopford Augustus Brooke, eds., A Treasury of Irish Verse in the English Language (1900; 1905), p.278.

A. P Graves, ‘Introduction’, Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson (Dublin: Talbot; London: R. Fisher Unwin [1918]).

A. P. Graves (Centenary Address, 1910): “The Ferguson Centenary”, in The Irish Book Lover, Vol. I, No. 9, April, 1910.)

Padraic Colum, ed. & intro., Poems of Samuel Ferguson [Cu Comhairle Ealaíon ser. of Irish Authors, No. 2] (Dublin: Allen Figgis 1963), Introduction, pp.1-10.

James Joyce: Writing on Ferguson in the Freeman’s Journal at the poet’s centenary, Padraic Colum recalled James Joyce’s comment when he met Colum carrying the poet’s works: ‘I couldn’t read this’. (See Colum’s piece in Ulick O’Connor, ed., The Joyce that We Knew, Cork: Mercier 1967, p.76.)

George A Little, Dublin Before the Vikings (1957), p.148.

Frank O’Connor, The Backward Look, A Survey of Irish Literature (London: Macmillan 1967). Note that O’Connor selects on “Ceann Dilis/Dear Dark Head” in his anthology, The Book of Ireland (London: Nelson 1979).

Robert O’Driscoll, ‘Ferguson and the Idea of an Irish National Literature', in Éire-Ireland, 6, 1 (Spring 1971), pp.82-95.

Thomas Kinsella, ‘The Divided Mind’ (1973). Rep. in Sean Lucy, Irish Poets in English, 1973, pp.212-13.)

Dominic Daly, The Young Douglas Hyde: The Dawn of the Irish Revolution and Renaissance, 1874-1893 (Shannon: IUP 1974), p.132.

Richard Ellmann: ‘Sir Samuel Ferguson had been writing dull narratives based on Irish subjects for many years ...’ (Yeats: The Man and the Masks, Faber 1948).

Hugh Kenner, A Colder Eye: The Modern Irish Writers (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books 1983), pp.93-94.

Roy Foster, Modern Ireland (London: Allen Lane 1988), p.315.

David Cairns & Shaun Richards, Writing Ireland, colonialism, nationalism and culture (Manchester UP 1988), pp. 26-33.

Chris Morash ed., The Hungry Voice (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1989), Preface.

P. J. Kavanagh (Voices in Ireland, 1994).

Thomas Hofheinz, James Joyce and the Invention of Irish History (Cambridge UP 1995), pp.75-78.

Gerry Smyth, Decolonisation and Criticism: The Construction of Irish Literature (London: Pluto Press 1998), pp.65-67.

Notes
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), lists 7 fiction titles, viz., Hibernian Nights and six tales therein, with pagination from Hibernian Nights, Sealy Bryer & Walker ed., 1887; contents, ‘Children of Usnach’, ‘The Captive of Killeshin, ‘Corby MacGillmore’, ‘An Adventure of Seaghan [sic] O’Neill’s’, and ‘The Rebellion of Silken Thomas’, all popular in style and treatment. Separately listed [note that the pagination is irrational], ‘The Return of Claneboy’, pp.43-98, how Aodh Bui O’Neill regained his territory on the death of William de Burgh; ‘The Captive &c.’, pp.98-146, Leinster Clans v. English, esp. the O’Nolans, 14th c.; ‘Corby MacGillmore’, pp.140 [err.], a warlike abbot preaches to a relapsed McGillmore, warring with the Clan Savage, 15th c.; ‘The Rebellion of Silken Thomas’, pp.278, the real hero is Sir John Talbot; ‘The death of the Children of Usnach’, pp.14-92, the beautiful saga; ‘An Adventure of Shane O’Neill’s, pp.143-84, Shane and Irish in general appearing in unfavourable light. Biog. & bibl, son of John Ferguson, Collen House, Co. Antrim; ed. Acad. Inst., Belfast, and TCD; first deputy keeper of public records; besides the Hibernian Nights, sir Samuel also wrote a very amusing if not very reverent sketch, ‘Father Tom and the Pope’, which had the unique distinction of being rep. in Blackwood’s Magazine, 1910, without the author’s name. There was an American ed. which contains stories not included in the Irish ed.

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, ed. A. W. Ward & A. R. Waller, 18 vols. (1907–21), Vol. XIV [“The Victorian Age, Pt. 2”], IX: Anglo-Irish Literature; Sect. 20, ‘Sir Samuel Ferguson’: ‘[...] The elegy on Davis certainly shows Ferguson at his highest as a lyric poet, and is rightly described by Gavan Duffy as “the most Celtic in structure and spirit, of all the poetical tributes to the lost leader.” Ferguson was held back from his higher literary work by the exigencies of the Irish potato famine and expressed his feelings at its mismanagement in verse full of bitter invective; but he lived to turn his fine satiric gift against the successors of the Young Ireland poets and patriots, with whom he had sympathised, when he found them descending to what he characterised as “a sordid social war of classes carried on by the vilest methods.” In his satiric poems At the Polo Ground, he analyses, in Browning’s manner, Carey’s frame of mind before giving the fatal signal to the assassins of Burke and lord Frederick Cavendish; and, in his Dublin eclogue In Carey’s Footsteps, and in The Curse of the Joyces, he unsparingly exposes the cruelties of the Boycotting system. In 1864 appeared Lays of the Western Gael, containing a series of Irish ballads full of much finer work than he had yet achieved. Of these, The Tain Quest is, perhaps, the noblest effort; but the magnificently savage lay The Welshmen of Tirawley is the most striking. In 1872 appeared Congal, a splendid story of the last heroic stand by Celtic paganism against the Irish champions of the Cross, in which the terrible shapes of Celtic superstition, “the Giant Walker” and “the Washer of the Ford,” loom monstrously before us, and in which the contending hosts at Moyra are marshalled with fine realism. But Ferguson’s genius was to break into even finer flower at the last, and, in Deirdre and Conary, published in his final volume of 1880, he reaches his fullest height as a poet. [...]’ Further notes that Lady Ferguson [née Guinness] published a History of Ireland Before the Normans in which she included illustrative poetry by Ferguson prior to their marriage. [Go to Bartleby.com Great Books Online: link.]

Brian McKenna, Irish Literature, 1800-1875: A Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), cites John Pentland Mahaffy, ‘Sir Samuel Ferguson,’ Athenaeum 88 (1886), 205, an ‘elegant tribute [which] not only conveys a vivid impression of the man but also a neatly summarizes his literary career’; [Fr.] Matthew Russell, ‘In Memoriam,’ Irish Monthly 14 (1886); W. B. Yeats, ‘The Poetry of S. F.’, in Dublin University Review, 2 (1886), rep. in Uncollected Prose (1970); also essays by Aubrey de Vere (Irish Monthly, 1887), A. P. Graves (Irish Book Lover, 1910), and Eleanor Hull (New Ireland Review, 1897).

Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. 2, lists works prior to 1850, none of which are in book-form. See also Romanticism, Vol. 1, pp.161-67. Commentaries cited include W. B. Yeats (Uncollected Prose); Irish Book Lover, 1, 9 & 10 (1910); A. Deering (1931); Malcolm Brown (Bucknell 1973); Robert O’Driscoll (1976).

Chris Morash, ed., The Hungry Voice (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1989), selects “Dublin, A Poem” [omitting 106-310, exc. 126-150], which appeared in Dublin University Magazine Vol. 34. No. 199 (July 1849); “Inheritor and Economist”, in Dublin University Magazine, Vol. 33, No. 197 (May 1849) [omitting 500-620].

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, selects “A Dialogue Between the head and Heart of an Irish Protestant” (1833) [1177-85]; Hibernian Nights' Entertainment (1833) [extracts, “The First Night” & “The Death of the Children of Usnach” [1186-91, 1191-1200]. Ed. Notes that Ferguson’s four-part review of Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy appeared in Dublin University Magazine between April and November 1834 but does not supply extract; FDA, 1991, Vol. 2 selects “The Burial of King Cormac”, “Lament over the Ruins of the Abbey of Timoleague”, “Pastheen Finn”, “Ceann Dubh Deelish”, “Cashel of Munster”, “The Coolun”, “The Death of Dermid”, all from Lays of the Western Gael, and also “Lament for the Death of Thomas Davis” [here 43-51] from Dublin University Magazine (1847). Numerous references passim here and in in FDA3 [see indexes].

COPAC lists An account of further explorations at Locmariaquer, in Brittany [account of inscribed stones in the sepulchral monument, called Mane Nelud, at Lochmariaker, Brittany] ((1863); Aideen's Grave, etc. (1925); The book of Irish ballads, / edited by D. F. McCarthy.. (1846 Congal. A poem in five books, etc. (1872; 1907); The Cromlech on Howth: A Poem (London: Day 1861);; The Cromlech on Howth: A poem. With illuminations from the Books of Kells and of Durrow, and drawings from nature by M. S. [i.e. Miss M. M. Stokes.] With notes on Celtic ornamental art, revised by G. Petrie. (London: 1864); Fasciculus of prints from photographs of casts of Ogham inscriptions (1881); Father Tom and the pope, (1906) The Forging of the Anchor. A poem ... illustrated, etc. (1883); “Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy” (1834); The Hibernian nights’ Entertainment (1857; 1887); Ireland’s claims to an adequate parliamentary representation of learning in a letter to James Mac Cullagh ...; with an appendix containing correspondence with Mr. Hallam on the claims of Archbishop De Londres to a niche in the new House of Lords; and a letter to Lord Morpeth on the formation of a museum of national antiquities in Dublin (1847); Lays of the Red Branch. ... With an introduction by Lady Ferguson (1897); Lays of the Western Gael, and other poems (1865), and Do., With an introduction by A. M. Williams (1888); and Do. (rep. 2001); Leabhar breac: The Speckled book, otherwise styled Leabhar mór dúna doighre, the Great book of dún doighre; a collection of pieces in Irish and Latin, comp. from ancient sources about the close of the fourteenth century: now for the first time published from the original manuscript in the library of the Royal Irish academy (1876); Ogham inscriptions in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland (1887); The Ogham monuments of Kilkenny, with remarks on certain Ogham formulas, in a letter to John G. A. Prim (1872); On the Patrician documents (1885); On the rudiments of the common law discoverable in the published portion of the Senchus Mor (1867); Our Architecture (1864); Poems (1880); Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson: with an introduction by Alfred Perceval Graves (Dublin: Talbot Press [1918]); Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson (Every Irishman's Library 1916); The Poems of Samuel Ferguson. Edited with an introduction by Padraic Colum. (1963); The Remains of St. Patrick ... The Confessio and Epistle to Coroticus. Translated into English blank verse (1888); Report to the Council from the Committee of Polite Literature and Antiquities : on inaccuracies of transcription alleged to exist in the Academy's edition of Leabhar na h-Uidhri / Royal Irish Academy. (1875); Selections [from Samuel Ferguson], edited by A. H. Miles. (1891); Shakespearean Breviates. An adjustment [in verse] of twenty-four of the longer plays of Shakespeare to convenient reading limits, by Samuel Ferguson [1810-1886] (1882); John O’Hagan, The Poetry of Sir Samuel Ferguson (1887); Arthur Deering, Sir Samuel Ferguson, poet and antiquarian. A thesis &.c. (1931); Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of his Day, etc. Lady Mary Catharine Ferguson (1896).

University of Ulster Library (incl. Morris & Hewitt Collections) holds: Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson (Dublin Phoenix [Talbot] [1916; prop. 1918]); Lays of the Red Branch (London: Fisher Unwin 1897); Lays of The Western Gael, and Other Poems (London: Bell & Daldy 1865); Congal by Sir Samuel Ferguson (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers and Walker 1907); Congal: A Poem in Five Books [2nd edn.] (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers & Walker London: G. Bell 1893); Hibernian Nights’ Entertainments (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers & Walker; London: George Bell & Sons 1887) [originally published in Dublin University Magazine and Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine]; by Alfred M. Williams, ed., & intro., Lays of The Western Gael And Other Poems (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers & Walker 1888) [copy with introduction soigned by editor]; oems edited with an Introduction by Padraic Colum ([An Chomhairle Ealaíon series of Irish authors] Dublin: Allen Figgis 1963); Poems of Sir Samuel Ferguson, with an introduction by Alfred Perceval Graves [Every Irishman’s Library] (Dublin: Talbot Press 1918). Also, Sir Samuel Ferguson In The Ireland of His Day by Lady Ferguson [Mary Catharine Ferguson (née Guinness)] 1823- (Edinburgh & London: W. Blackwood 1896); Robert O’Driscoll, An Ascendancy of the Heart: Ferguson and the Beginnings of Modern Irish Literature (Dublin: Dolmen Press 1976); [Congal] The battle of Moira, being the epic poem Congal [by Sir Samuel Ferguson] with an historical introduction by Ian Adamson ([Ian Adamson] Newtownards Chronicle 1980) JORD 821.8; Poems (Dublin: McGee; London: Bell 1880) HEW PR4699.F2A6 18; Terence Brown and Barbara Hayley, eds., Samuel Ferguson: A Centenary Tribute (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy 1987) UUC PR4699.F2ZS2; Peter Denman, Samuel Ferguson: The Literary Achievement [Series: Irish literary studies 39] (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1990), UUC PR4699.F2ZD25; Malcolm Brown, Sir Samuel Ferguson [Irish writers series] (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press 1973), HEW PR4699.F2ZB76; JORD 821.8.[Belfast Central Public Library holds poetry but no fiction titles.]

Pearse St. Library (Dublin), holds among the Madden Papers of the Gilbert Collection Samuel Ferguson’s pamphlet letter to James Pim, Jnr., On the Expediency of Taking Stock [...] (Dublin 1847) [MS 282].

A portrait in black chalk heightened with white, signed F. W. Burton and inscribed ‘to his friend Samuel Ferguson, June 1848’, bequeathed to National Gallery of Ireland by Lady Ferguson (printed in Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, Vol. 1, 1980); another by Sarah Purser, signed 1888, in the possession of the RIA; also an oil by Kate Morgan (1880), cited in A. P. Graves, Poems of Ferguson [1916], p.400.

22 MSS lines of Congal, dating from 1844, are held in National Archives, Dublin (Cat. No. M6055); MS of the final version, written 1852-58, and published 1872, Linen Hall Library; Congal founded on O’Donovan, The Banquet of Dun na n-Gedh and The Battle of Magh Rath (Irish Archaeological Society 1842), whereas Domnal, high king, is at the centre of the middle Irish text, Congal, therein a minor character, is central to Ferguson; Congal in the original has a squint and one blind eye; the dispute between the two is placed by Ferguson on the more positive grounds that Congal defends the Bardic Order against Christianity, espoused by Domnal, instead of the insult received at a feast when he receives a lowly place. [See Christopher Corr, ‘English Literary Culture and Irish Literary Revival’, PhD Thesis, UUC 1995].

Ferguson’s response to the Phoenix Park Murders of 1882 are encapsulated in the poem "In Carey’s Footsteps" [‘A hideous thought ... such crimes are cowardly, and Irishmen, / Having the true faith, should be bold to act / The manlier part // Yes, here I’m in the Park.’ (Cited in full in Brian Walker et al., eds., Faces of Ireland, 1992, pp.106-07.)

Ferguson attempted to suppress some of his patriotic poems ‘lest my any means, the Nationalists should claim them for their own’; but, according to Yeats, ‘The supppression was not carried far enough. We claim him in every line. Irish singers, who are genuinely Irish in thought, subject and style, must, whether they will or no, nourish the forces that make for the political liberties of Ireland.’ [Q. source.]

W. B. Yeats’s poem "Fergus and the Druid" is based on the then recent poem "The Abdication of Fergus MacRoy", in which Ferguson makes the Irish king a poet; ‘as the legend was shaped by Ferguson ... he gave up his throne that he might live at peace, hunting the woods (Uncollected Prose, ed. J. Frayne, vol. II, p.161; cited Daniel Albright, ed., Poems of W. B. Yeats, 1992, Notes p.430); note further that the story is told in the Book of Leinster, trans. Whitley Stokes, Eriu, IV, p.22 (Jeffares, New Comm., 1984, p.24).

Namesakes. The Rev. Samuel Ferguson of Waterside, Londonderry, author of Some Items of historic interest about the Waterside. Lecture (1902); Brief Biographical Sketches of some Irish Covenanting Ministers who laboured during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Rev., of Waterside, Londonderry (1897); William Stavely: Brief biographical sketch and other material on the Ferniskey man [1743-1825] known as the Apostle of the Covenanters (1993); Burt Castle, County Donegal [from Londonderry Sentinel, 5 April, 1906] (1906). Also, Samuel Ferguson, Dissertatio medica inauguralis de siphylide (1806).

[ top ]

Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)