Life
1686-1761; Irish historian, ed. Kilkenny Grammar School, 1701; and TCD,
1704; scolar, 1707; expelled for rioting; m. Elizabeth Ware, gt-gd.-dg.
of Sir James Ware, 1716; Hon LL.D.; vicar-general of the Protestant bishop
of Meath, 1753; devoted himself to publishing a translationed-edition
of The Whole Works of Sir James Ware Concerning Ireland, Vol. 1
(1739), published with 522 subscribers; issued, with Charles Smith,
The Ancient and Present State of the County of Down (Dublin 1744);
also Ware, The Writers of Ireland, Parts I & II (1746); his
History of the Life and Reign of William Henry, Prince of Orange (1749),
published by subscription of 260 names, having first appeared in an truncated
form against his wishes in 1747; replied to Dr John Curry’s A
Brief of Account from the Most authentic Protestant Writers [on]
the Irish Rebellion [of] 1641, with Fiction Unmasked
(1747), a pamphlet characterised as Faction Unmasked in a letter
from Charles O’Conor to Curry (13 Jan. 1757) [see under Richard Bartett,
Rx.]; received government pension of £100, 1748; petitioned Parliament
for funds to produce a new ‘History of Ireland’, 1755; his History
and Antiquities of the City of Dublin, assembled from manuscript remains,
was published posthumously (1766); first writer to call ‘Lo. Barrey
[David Barry]’ an Irishman; also Hibernica (1747-50), being
a collection of ‘antient pieces relating to Ireland’, published
with 533 subscribers; see Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish
Worthies (1821), Vol. II; also Irish Book Lover, Vol. 2; and
Sir James Ware [RX]. RR DNB DIW DIB OCIL
[ top ]
Works
The Antient and Present State of the County of Down: containing a chorographical
description, with the natural and civil history of the same. Illustrated
by observations made on the baronies, parishes, towns, villages [...
&c.] with a survey of the new canal; as also, a new and correct
map of the county (1744) [infra]; The History
of the Life and Reign of William-Henry (Dublin: Edward Bate for the
author 1749), folio [infra]; Fiction Unmasked:
or An Answer to a Dialogue ... published by a Popish Physitian, and pretended
to have passed between a Dissenter, and a Member of the Church of Ireland:
wherein the ... mischiefs of the Irish Rebellion and Massacres in 1641
are laid ... upon the Protestants [... &c.] (1752) [infra];
The History and Antiquities of Ireland: Illustrated with Cuts of Ancient
Medals, Urns, &c. [...] with The History of the Writers of Ireland
... written in Latin by Sir James Ware; newly translated into English,
revised and improved ... and continued down to the beginning of the present
century (1764, 1766) [infra]; Historiographorum
aliorumque scriptorum Hiberniae commentarium: or, A history of the Irish
writers (1736), 80pp. [infra]; Hibernica,
Some Ancient Pieces Relative to Ireland, 2 pts. (1770) [infra];
ed., Whole Works of Sir James Ware concerning Ireland (1739-46);
Do., ‘revised and improved’ [by] Robert Bell and John
Fleming in 1764. Reprint, Charles McNeill, ed., Collectanea de rebus
Hibernicis (1934).
[ top ]
Criticism
Robert Ward and Catherine Ward, Letters of Charles O’Conor
(1988): cites The History of the Bishops of Ireland and Writers of
Ireland, advertised by Faulkner’s Dublin Journal, 21 Oct.-4
Nov. 1749 Ward & Ward, p.66, n.3); this work is styled Bishops
and Antiquities by O’Conor, who remarks, ‘I have compared
[B&A] with the annals in my hands. Through the ignorance of our language,
he has more mistakes than pages, many of which I marked in the margin
from the original works I had before me. The ignorance of our language
and the virulence of faction apart, he certainly had good talents for
a compiler and I often wonder how well he has succeeded. Poor man! he
was under the necessity (through poverty) of joining the hussar to the
Swiss, of giving up his conscience to satiate the party lusts of patron
[65] who could not be gained but by such sacrifice.’ (Letter to Curry,
31 March 1759, Letters, p.65-66).
Thomas Sheridan, The Life of Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patric[k]’s Dublin, by Thomas Sheridan, MA (London 1734).
Russell K. Alspach, Irish Poetry from the English Invasion to 1798 (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania UP [1943] 1959), , p.83.
Séamas Ó Saothraí, ‘William Neilson, DD, MRIA 1774-1831’, in Meascra Uladh (Monaghan 1974).
J.T.H. Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fíor Ghael, 1986).
George A. Little, Dublin Before the Vikings (1957), p.10.
Gerard McCoy, ‘"Patriots, Protestants and Papists": Religion and the Ascendancy, 1714-60’, in Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal, Vol. 1 No. 1 (Spring 1994), pp.105-18.
[ top ]
Notes
Alan Eager, 1980, lists that Sir James Ware, History of the
Writers of Ireland, 2 bks., contains i) those born in that kingdom,
2) foreigners who enjoyed preferment or office, or were educated in it;
continued to the present date by Walter Harris, 2 vols. (Dublin 1764).
COPAC lists works incl. 1] Hibernica, or, Some antient pieces relating to Ireland [2 vols. in 1] (Dublin: Printed for John Milliken 1770), copy held at University of London Library with Preface signed and dated, Walter Harris, Clarendon-Street, February 1st, 1747 and note: A third part was prepared for the press but never published; cites Dictionary of National Biography: ‘An essay on the defects in the histories of Ireland [...]’; has own t.p. [and] contains 13 pieces about Ireland and its history pt. 1. History of Ireland/Maurice Regan - Story of King Richard II/French gentleman - Voyage of Sir Richard Edgecombe - Breviate of the getting of Ireland, and of the decaie of the same/Patrick Finglass - Project of King James I, for the division and plantation of the six escheated counties of Ulster--Orders and conditions to be observed by the undertakers, &c. of the said plantation - Commission of inquiry in order to the establishment of the said plantation - Instructions to the said commissioners - Survey of the said six escheated counties after the settlement of the said plantation/Nicholas Pynnar - Letter from Sir Thomas Philips to King Charles I concerning the defects of the Londoners in their plantation - Essay on the defects in the histories of Ireland - pt. 2. A declaration setting forth how, and by what means, the laws and statutes of England, from time to time, came to be of force in Ireland/Sir Richard Bolton - Answer of Sir Samuel Mayart [...] to a book intitled -... &c. 2] John Curry, Historical Memoirs of the Irish Rebellion in the year 1641; extracted from Parliamentary Journals, State Acts, and ... the most eminent Protestant historians ... In a letter to Walter Harris, Esq; occasioned by his answer to a late Dialogue on the causes, motives, and mischiefs of this rebellion: “A reply to W. Harris's Fiction unmasked: or, an Answer to a dialogue lately published, etc.” With a dedicatory preface signed M. R. (London, 1758), pp. xiv, ix-316pp., 8o., and Do. [another edn.] (London, 1765), iv, 279pp., 12o. [Other listings as supra.]
Belfast Central Public Library holds Hibernica (1770); History of Dublin (1766); Topographical and chorographical survey of the county of Down (1740). University of Ulster (Morris Collection) holds Hibernica, or some ancient pieces relation to Ireland, never hitherto made publick [2 vols. in 1] (1747). Library of Herbert Bell (Belfast) holds The History of the Life of King William III (Dublin 1749); The Ancient & Present State of Co. Down (Dublin 1745); Hibernica (Dublin 1770).
Cathach Books (Cat. 12, 1994) lists History & Antiquities of the City of Dublin from the Earliest Accounts (Dublin 1766) [£295].
Sir James Ware, The Annals of the Affairs of Ireland (1705) with a Brief Chronology added to 1702, was issued by his son Robert
Ware - not by Harris. Note also err., Stanford, err., Whole Works,
Vol. 2, 1764 for 1746.
T. C. Croker, The Popular Songs of Ireland (London: Routledge), contains a first chapter on St Patrick in which Walter Harris is cited as recommending that a life of Patrick be published as ‘the means of rectifying our deluded countrymen, who spend the festival of this most abstemious and mortified man in riot and excess, as if they looked upon him only in the light of a jolly companion.’ (See Croker, pp.9-34.)
E. Estyn Evans writes of ‘Harris’ as ‘a prejdiced but nevertheless valuable work of 1744’, in Mourne Country (Dundalgan Press 1951).
J. Blaymires illustrated Harris’s new edition of Works of Ware [1736-37], drawing Cashel and other plates; see Toby Barnard, ‘Art, Architecture, Artifacts and Ascendancy’, in Bullán: An Irish Studies Journal, 1, 2 (Autumn 1994), p.26. [Details from correspondence reported in Strickland.]
Namesakes: Among several namesakes of the older period, one wrote on medicine in works such as De morbis acutis infantum (London: S. Smith & B. Walford 1705) and An exact enquiry into, and cure of the acute diseases of infants (1694) and another, being First Paster of the Congregationalists in Dunbarton, New Hampshire, offered A Discourse [on Exod. xx. 8-11], delivered at Londonderry East-Parish, at a meeting ... convened for the purpose of devising measures to prevent the profanation of the Sabbath; to which is added, the address and resolves adopted at said Meeting (Concord 1814).
[ top ]
Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)