Life
1750-1809; prop. and ed. of Magee’s Weekly Packet, 1777, and
Dublin Evening Post, 1779; fined for libellous articles on Francis
Higgins, prop. of The Freeman, from May 1788, associating him with
malfeasance in the case of Mrs. Llewellen, sentenced for procuring the
14-yr old Mary Neil for his patron Lord Carhampton; imprisoned for libel
by John Scott (later Viscount Clonmell) with an unattainable bail of £7,800;
Richard Daly of Crow St. Theatre awarded £200 in damages against Magee,
prop. the Dublin Evening Post, whom he accused of libel leading
to riots at the Crow Street Theatre; W. J. Fitzpatrick calls him ‘the
Irish Cobbett’ [PI]. DNB PI DIB OCIL
Criticism
See Sir John Gilbert, ‘Crow Street’, in History of Dublin
(1854-59; IUP rep. 1972) and Brian Inglis, Freedom of the Press
in Ireland (1954) and West Briton (1962).
Marianne
Elliott, Wolfe Tone: Prophet of Irish Independence (London & New Haven: Yale UP 1989), p.94.
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Notes
Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, gen. ed., Seamus Deane
(Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, notes that one William Magee was prosecuted
by the attorney general, William Saurin, in 1813, for his analysis of
the record of the Duke of Richmond as lord lieutenant. Daniel O’Connell
defended him, and made of his speech an occasion to challenge the attack
on the liberal press by Pitt, and to vindicate the Irish view of history
(FDA1, 941-48). Note also reference to this incident in T. W. Moody, et
al., eds., New History of Ireland. However, the FDA editors
seem to have mistaken the name. Henry Boylan, A Dictionary of Irish
Biography (1988) follows Dictionary of National Biography in
citing John Magee the elder and John Magee younger (who was defended by
Daniel O’Connell), while William Magee, is called as the archbishop
of Dublin, ed. TCD (1766-1831) in the DNB.
The Halliday Pamphlets, Vol. 592 (RIA Library) holds The Trial of John Magee for Printing and Publishing a Slanderous and Defamatory Libel against Richard Daly, Esq., Dublin, 1790 [cited in Peter Kavanagh, Irish Theatre, 1946].
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Notes
There
is an account of Magee and the Sham Squire [Francis Higgins] in
Brian Inglis, West Briton (1962), stemming from the fuller account
in his Freedom of the Press in Ireland (1954). SEE also Gilbert,
‘Crow Street,’, chp. in History of Dublin for fine of
£500 levied against attacks on Richard Daly].
The account of the Grand Olympic Pig Hunt organised maliciously by Magee on the land of Lord Clonmell, in M. J. Craig, Dublin 1660-1860 (Alan Figgis 1980), p.227f. The account derives from Lord Cloncurry. Having inherited a sum of money after his dealings with Clonmell, he set aside £10,000 for his family, and intended to spend the remaining £4000 ‘with the blessings of God, on Lord Clonmell. John Scott (Lord Clonmell) is also quoted from his diary at this point.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)