Life
1794-1827; b. Ballylough, between Enniscorthy and Ferns, Co. Wexford;
son of ‘respectable farmer’ [Hardiman]; family moved early c.
1803 to Clovass, nr. Scarawalsh Bridge in barony of that name, the ruins
of the home at Brogue-maker’s Hill being extant; travelled to Dublin
with his father, a small farmer and carman, and there made acquaintance
of Dublin grocer called Hart of Bolton St., who provided him with an apprenticeship
and supported his education in Dublin from the age of 15; later given
position in Jameson’s distillery on publication of elegy for Hart
(d. 1821, eliciting Furlong’s poem ‘The Burial’, (Gentleman’s
Magazine) which attracted the distiller’s notice; became journalist;
contrib. ‘The Ruined Village’ to The Irish Magazine or Asylum
of Neglected Biography, ed. Watty Cox, 1814; solicited and received
encouragement from Thomas Moore; contr. The New Monthly Magazine;
founding member and contrib. to The New Irish Magazine and Monthly
National Advocate, ed., 1822; contrib. The Dublin and London Magazine,
ed., M. J. Whitty (1824-1828), often as ‘The Hermit of Ireland’
(pseud.); trans. Irish poetry, and wrote much verse for Irish and English
journals; 42 translations in Hardiman’s Minstrelsy (1831-1825),
being most of the translations in the first volume, incl. ‘Eileen
a Roon Roisin Dubh’, ‘The Coolin’, ‘Molly A Store’,
‘Mary Maguire’, ‘Planxty Stafford’, ‘Carolan’s
Monody on the Death of his Wife Mary Maguire’, et al.; a short original
poem of Furlong’s in Hardiman’s Minstrelsy, ‘The
Spirit of Irish Song’, calls for the ‘unborrowed loveliness’
of the originals; issued The Misanthrope (1819), printed for the
author and withdrawn due to ‘errors entirely attributable to the
printer’ (Intro., 2nd edn., 1821); submitted his poetry to Moore
and received kindly letter; likewise received letter from Lady Morgan
for ‘Lines written in a blank page of Lady Morgan’s Italy’,
March 1822; wrote ‘translations’ for Hardiman, incl. many translations
of songs of Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin [Carolan] and
the Jacobite version of ‘Roisín Dubh’ that Ferguson so
vigorously contested; wrote and delivered address at Dublin banquet in
honour of Thomas Moore; issued The Plagues of Ireland (1824), self-published;
and The Doom of Derenzie (1829), a romantic narrative in blank
verse, incorporating literary advice given to the poet by C. R. Maturin,
posthumously published by by M. J. Whitty with Hardiman’s printer
Robins (who also printed The Dublin and London Magazine); wrote
sketches for Morning Star, ed. Michael Staunton; trusted friend
of Daniel O’Connell; d. 25 July, of consumption, in Dublin, where
he worked on a paper; deeply lamented by Jameson and others; bur. in Drumcondra
Graveyard [behind Cat and Cage], nr. Grose; obituary notices were written
by Michael James Whitty in the Literary Gazette, Dublin and
London Magazine, &c. 1827; a ‘Memoir of Thomas Furlong’
appeared in Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy with an engraved portrait.
DNB PI JMC DBIV GBI IF DIW MKA RAF OCIL FDA
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Works
The Misanthrope with Other Poems [1st edn.] (Dublin: Cumming 1819)
[withdrawn]; Do., rep. (London: H. Colburn 1819; Dublin: W. Underwood,
19, St. Andrew St. 1821); The Plagues of Ireland, An Epistle
by Thomas Furlong (Dublin: for the Author 1824) [infra];
long poem, Doom of Derenzie, A Poem, by the Late Thomas Furlong
(London: Joseph Robins, Bride, Bridge St. 1829) [aepigraph, ‘To wit,
reviving from its author’s dust,/Be kind, ye judges, or, at least,
be just.] [same printer as Hardiman]. A Poem, ‘The Drunkard’,
first printed in Dublin and London Magazine, is rep. in G. G. Duffy,
ed., The Ballad Poetry of Ireland (1845). Also, Sean Mythen, ed.,
Thomas Furlong, the Forgotten Wexford Poet: the Life and Work of Thomas
Furlong 1794-1827, foreword by Bruce Stewart (Ferns, Co. Wexford:
Clone Publications 1998), 247pp.
The Plagues of Ireland, An Epistle by Thomas Furlong (Dublin: Printed for the Author 1824) [epigraphs from Churchill: ‘When justice draws the dart/E’en tho’ ’tis doom to pierce a -’s heart,/I know it duty, and I feel it fame’; and Pope: ‘Nay! while I live, no rich or noble knave/Shall walk the world in credit to his grave.’]
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Criticism
James Hardiman, ‘Memoir of Thomas Furlong’, in Irish Minstrelsy
(1831), Vol. 1, pp.lxix-lxxx [eng. port.].
Matthew Russell, ‘Thomas Furlong’ in ‘Our Poets’, No. 17, Irish Monthly 18 (1888), pp.421-26 [being an unacknowledged transcription of an article in The Nation, 1842].
Aodh de Blacam, Two Poets who Discovered Their Country’, in Irish Monthly, 74 (1946), pp.357-65.
P. C. Power, The Story of Anglo-Irish Poetry 1800-1922 (Cork: Mercier Press 1967) [q.p.].
Cathal Ó Háinle, ‘Towards the Revival: Some Translations of Irish Poetry, 1789-1897’, in Peter Connolly ed., Literature and the Changing Ireland (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1982), pp.37-57.
Samuel Ferguson, review of Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy, in Dublin University Magazine (Vol. 4, No. 22, October 1834, pp.444-67).
Thomas Furlong’ [O’Sullivan’s Letters from Dublin, Letter II], in Captain Rock in London, or the Chieftain’s Gazette, 1827, pp.36-43).
Anon, ‘National Gallery, No. 3’, in The Nation, Vol. 1, No. 22, Sat. 11 March 1843; rep. as ‘Thomas Furlong’ [Our Poets, No. 17], in Irish Monthly, Vol. XVI [q.d.], pp.431-36).
Charles Gavan Duffy, ‘ Preface toBallad Poetry of Ireland, 1845.)
J. McCall, ‘JMC’, memoir of Furlong, in The Dublin Journal of Temperance, Science and Literature, 25 June 1845; prob. John McCall). [all the foregoing in Sean Mythen, UUC, diss. [draft] 1997.]
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Notes
Henry
Riddell Montgomery, ed., Specimens of the Early Native Poetry of
Ireland, in English Metrical translations, with hist. and biog. notices
(Dublin McGlashan, 1846).
Dictionary of National Biography, 1794-1827; Plagues of Ireland (1824) and English metrical versions of Irish poets; his Doom of Derenzie appeared posthumously in 1829.
Brian Cleeve & Anne Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985), cites Plagues &c. (1834) [err.] - hence ‘last two posthumously’, a strenuous inference from a copying error, where DNB has 1824, and not in the final place; note FDA &c., also 1824.
D. J. O'Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); cites the papers with which he was connected: contrib. to The Morning Register, a Dublin Catholic paper; Dublin and London Magazine (London 1825-27), ed. by M. J. Whitty, in which he appeared as he was ‘The Hermit in Ireland’; wrote political and other verse over his own name in Ulster Register, ed., John Lawless, 1816-17; a poem by him in Watty Cox’s Magazine [sic]; The New Irish Magazine, founded by him, 1822; PI also provides a list of biographical notices of him and lists works, The Misanthrope, poems (London 1819, Dub. 1821); Lines Written on the Blank Pages of Lady Morgan’s ‘Italy’ (1821); The Plagues of Ireland (London 1824)[?1834]; The Doom of Derenzie (1829); ‘Hermit of Ireland’ in The Dublin and London Magazine. cites a notice and a number of translations in Hardiman, and a biog. sketch in The Dublin Journal of Temperance [... &c.]. According to O'Donoghue Hardiman arranged his MSS, which were part of Edward Evans’s library.
Irish Literature, Justin McCarthy, ed., (Washington: University of America 1904); gives a substantial biography and translations from O’Carolan and O’Neachtan; b. near Ferns, given sinecure by the distiller Jameson on reading his elegy on the death of his master, a grocer; The Misanthrope (1819) gained him the friendship of Thomas Moore and Lady Morgan; contrib. New Monthly Magazine; assisted in founding The New Irish Magazine in 1821; His Plagues (1824) is levelled against the state of parties in the country at the time; member of Catholic Association, and strenuous emancipist; friend of O’Connell; translations in the Remains of O’Carolan; also, translations in Hardiman.’ McCarthy cites Doom of Derenzi [sic]; cites also ‘Tales of Low Life’, true, simple, powerful; assisted O’Connell with his cool and observant judgement; translation of O’Carolan’s Remains [in Hardiman]; wrote a few songs for Hardiman; died 25 July after a few months illness; low stature, eyes of remarkable brilliancy; biography in The Nation, ‘He was powerful, quick, impulsive, and impetuous, while he had a judgement cool and discriminating’; Charles Gavan Duffy, ‘In public life his course was earnest and independent; in political literature he was an able but somewhat unscrupulous writer. But no man is more entitled to a charitable judgement, for his youth was undisciplined and unguided, and he died in his thirty-fourth year.’ Selects ‘Bridget Cruise’, from O’Carolan [‘Young bud of beauty forever bright/the proudest must bow before thee ... &c.’, 2nd of four varying stanzas’]; ‘Margaret Maguire’, from O’Carolan [‘O! that my love and I/From life’s crowded haunts could fly ...’]; ‘Roisin Dubh’, JMC quoting Hardiman’s explanatory note on the long-forgotten allegorical sense, below; viz., written to celebrate our Irish hero, Hugh Ruadh O’Donnell of Tirconnell; by Roisin Dubh, supposed to be a beloved female, is meant Ireland’]; ‘John O’Dwyer of the Glen’ [‘War and confiscation/Curse the fallen nation;/Gloom and desolation/Shade the lost land o’er/Chill the winds are blowing,/Death aloft is going/Peace or hope seem growing/For our race no more/Hark! the foe is calling,/Fast the woods are falling/Scenes and sights appalling/Throng our blood-stained shore (refrain with var.)]; ‘Magy Laidir, from Irish of John O’Neachtan; ‘Eileen Aroon’ [ftn. called the old ‘Eileen Arron’ in Hardiman]; ‘Peggy Browne, from Irish of O’Carolan’; ‘O’More’s Fair Daughter, from O’Carolan [‘.. Bright daughter of the princely Gael/What words thy beauty can declare?’]
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. I; Furlong, friend of Maturin, contributed to Hardiman poems incl. ‘The Spirit of Irish Song’, ‘Fling, fling, the form of art aside,/Dull is the ear that these forms enthral;/Let the simple songs of our sires be tried,/They go to the heart - and the heart is all./Give me the full responsive sign,/The glowing cheek and moisten’d eye ..’ (Irish Minstrelsy, Vol. I, pp.lxxx). ALSO, HB Code, a particularly detested character, spy and informer placed by Furlong among the sores that give The Plagues of Ireland its name; author of an official ode to George IV on his Irish visit of 1812, to music by Sir John Stevenson. [27]. FURTHER, Thomas Furlong’s address at dinner in honour of Moore, ‘What a glorious contrast does he offer to the spiritless, slavish race that have preceded him. We have had our poets ... distinguished and celebrated in their days; but these, Irishmen, as they were, scorned even to name the ill-fated land of their birth. It remained to Moore to tread the unbeaten path, and believe it, his example will not be lost upon others. The fine mind of the nation is already unfolding itself. Irish literature is no longer unfashionable; the demand increases, the supply is certain. (‘Memoir of Thomas Furlong’, in J. Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy, p.lxxviii.) [117]. Thomas Furlong, passable poet, did version of O’Carolan’s ‘To Grace Nugget’, following Charlotte Brooke’s prose, then verse versions of the original supplied by JC Walker [175]. Furlong’s version begins, ‘Oh! the [?] to the blossom of white-bosom’d maids,/To the girl whose young glance is endearing,/Whose smile, like enchantment, each circle pervades,/She who makes even loneliness cheering.’ (See Hardiman, pp.57-9.) [177]. BIOG & BIBL, Rafroidi (1980), Vol. 1: b. Scarawalsh, Co. Wexford, son of farmer, apprenticed in Dublin at 14; corresponds with Moore, friends with Maturin and Lady Morgan; contrib. New Monthly Magazine, New Irish Magazine, Morning Register, and Dublin and London Mag.; fought for Catholic Emancipation; later concentrated on Gaelic literature, producing English versions Hardiman, which were disparaged by Ferguson (‘Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy,’ No. 3, Dublin University Magazine, Oct. 1834). See ‘Remains of Carolan’ and other Gaelic [Bards] trans. in Irish Minstrelsy, pp.lxix-lxxx; also translations in The Dublin Penny Journal, which includes a ‘Memoir’ (Vol. 1 no. 6, Aug. 1832, p.43); though aware of O’Connell’s failings, fought for Catholic Emancipation[!]. RAF Lists The Misanthrope & Other Poems (London: H. Colborn 1819; Dublin: Underwood 1821), 4, 40pp., 2nd ed.; [Lines Written in a Blank Page of Lady Morgan’s Italy (?) 1821]; The Plagues of Ireland [printed for the author] (Dub, 1824), 6, 38pp.; Poems and Miscellania ‘by the author of The Plagues of Ireland’, in Dublin and London Magazine, London: Robins [cf. I. March 1825, p.46; April p.68, 79 (review of Fairy Legends by Croker); May, p.138 (‘Fancy’); July p.240 (‘Stanzas’); Oct., p.371 (‘Tales of Low Life’; Nov., p.398. The Doom of Derenzie, a poem (London: J. Robins, 1829 xii, 155pp.), 1829, xii, 155pp; A translation of the ‘Remains of Carolan’ and of a certain number of Gaelic poems in, Irish Minstrelsy, pp.lxix-lxxx), [with] ‘Memoir of Thomas Furlong’, by Hardiman (1831); also other translations in The Dublin Penny Journal, and article on the author, ‘Memoir of Thomas Furlong, 1794-1827, Vol. I, No.6 (4 Aug. 1832), p.43.
Robert Hogan, Dictionary of Irish Literature, 1979; Doom of Derenzie (1829) tells a powerful Wordsworthian tale, with fluent blank verse; born Scarawalsh [sic] co. Wexford; friend and confident of O’Connell following appearance of Plagues of Ireland; graceful translation of remains of Carolan. d. 25 July, 1827 [sic].
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2; selects ‘The Spirit of Irish Song’ [see RAF, supra], ‘Roisin Dubh’ [‘Oh, sweet little rose, cease to pine for the past’]; and quotes Ferguson’s review, ‘Mr Furlong was a man of strong poetic feeling, but slender poetic art. He had but little fancy, less imagination, and, we had almost said, no judgement. In raciness, naiveté, in quaint characteristic expression, his versions fall immeasurably short of the original; and were not their mawkish poverty in this respect relieved by the genuine flow of sentiment with which his good feeling often redeems his bad taste, would deservedly call under unmitigated censure. Furlong is now no more, and as he left behind him nothing worthy to live, so must his name also soon pass from the precincts of an obscure fame, to which it has been fondly elevated to the admiration of sanguine but incompetent admirers.’ The anonymous introduction to The Misanthrope (2nd ed., n.d.) the writer gives a brief account of Furlong’s withdrawal from the world, he lived in London from about 1819, ‘excluded from all society, reviling and abusing his species and shunning their company and conversation; he never stirred out but when he went to the office of a Newspaper, of which he was assistant editor, he admitted neither man nor woman servant into his apartments; he would listen to no physician in his illness; nor would he allow any minister of religion to come near him - and to sum up his character, he died as he had lived! Yet this man was once cheerful and open-hearted, but early disappointments had soured his temper and altered his disposition.’ Deane comments, Furlong is an exemplary case of a writer entrapped within a dark and inexpressible subjectivity. One of the chief translators of Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy [ed., Seamus Deane; 16-17]; Furlong was 33 when he died of consumption, 2; Furlong’s version in Hardiman was one of the sources, together with Ferguson’s literal translation, of Mangan’s Roisin Dubh (1849) and Dark Rosaleen (1946) [ital. sic], 26; Ferguson’s ‘Lament over the Ruins of ... Timoleague’ anticipated by Furlong translation, 45; Furlong gives a six stanza version of ‘An Chúilfhionn [The Coolun]’ in Hardiman, p.96. FDA2 BIOG & COMM, 111-112, 1794-1827 [as supra].
Brian McKenna, Irish Literature, (1978) cites ‘Memoir of Thomas Furlong’ in James Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy (1831), 1, lxix-lxxx. See among others, Matthew Russell, ‘Our Poets , No. 17, in Irish Monthly 16 (1888), and Aodh de Blacam, ‘Two Poets Who Discovered their Country’, Irish Monthly, 74 (1946) [argues that Furlong is the first translator to catch a truly Gaelic effect]. Works, Plagues of Ireland, printed for the author (1824) 6, 38pp.; The Misanthrope and other Poems (1819); The Doom of Derenzie ... (1829).
P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland (1994), comments on Furlong, Mangan, and Ferguson’s versions of Seán Ó Coileáin’s ‘Musings of a Melancholy Man’, rendered by Mangan as ‘Lament over the Ruins of the Abbey of Teach Molaga’, given by Ferguson as ‘... Timoleague’ (p.170).
Several biographical notices state or reiterate that his
birthplace was Scarawash, where DIL has Scarawalsh; Cf. Scarawalsh Bridge,
from Ir. ‘Scair Sholais’ (Shallow of Light), is located by Shell
Guide (1965) in Co. Wexford. FDA and JMC state his birthplace as being
nr. Ferns only. Cf. PI: 'b. Wexford 1794'.
‘Not long since’, said Sir Walter, in a feeling tone, ‘you might have numbered poor Maturin among your resident literati, but he is gone to that bourne from whence no traveller returns. The mention of his name reminds me of a particular friend of his, Mr. Furlong. He lives in Dublin, I believe.’ ‘He does, Sir Walter’, replied Harstonge. ‘Then I must see him’ said Sir Walter ‘before I leave it. I admire some specimens of his poetry sent me by Maturin, and, as a "brother poet" I shall pay him a visit.’ ‘He writes for the Dublin and London’, said Lockhart. ‘It is so reported,’ returned the host, ‘at least some of the poetry is his; and though I dislike the political turn of Furlong’s muse, I cannot but admire his talents. "The Love of Life" beginning ‘Oh life thou art as the broken dreams’ is particularly beautiful.’ Sir Walter requested to see this poem and after perusing it declared his admiration for it. ‘Byron’ said he, ‘is right; the Irish mind is peculiarly poetical. The common conversation of your peasantry abounds with imagery and metaphor.’ (Whitty, ed, Dublin and London Magazine, Aug. 1825; reporting a conversation at the dinner given by a Mr. Harstronge and commented on by D. J. O’Donoghue in Sir Walter Scott’s Tour of Ireland, 1905, Chap., 4, and there called apocryphal though expressing views characteristic of the novelist; copied in Sean Mythen, Diss. UUC 1997.]
Account of ‘the plagues of Ireland’ (priests, politicians, pawnbrokers and publicans) under Abraham J. Johnston.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco): 2002