Life
1815-1872 [J. F. M. Maguire]; b. Cork, issued Total Abstinence Justified
(1838) in support of Fr. Theobald Mathew’s Temperance Campaign; fnd.
and ed. Cork Examiner, 1841; bar, 1843 (CC); supported Daniel O’Connell;
MP Dungarvan, Co. Waterford, 1852-65; The Industrial Movement in Ireland
(1853); Mayor of Cork, 1853, also in 1862-1864; MP Cork, 1865-72; opposed
British monopoly of shipping in Cork harbour; brought about change in
law effecting Irish paupers in England, reducing qualification for relief
in English parishes from 5 years’ to six months’ residence;
supported Tenant Right and Disestablishment; visited Pius IX and published
Rome and Its Ruler [1856]; appt. Commander of St. Gregory by Pius,
1856; re-published Rome [&c.] in 3rd edn. as The Pontificate
of Pius the Ninth [1870]; issued Life of Father Mathew (1862);
visited America, 1866, publishing The Irish in America (1868);
advocated women’s rights in The Next Generation (1871); d.
his home at Stephen’s Green, Dublin; bur.Cork. CAB DNB JMC DIB
DIH
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Notes
Charles Read, ed., A Cabinet of Irish Literature (3 vols.,
1876-78) speaks of The Next Generation (1871), as ‘a feminst
novel on the conditions of society in which such rights exist; In this
novel, he sketches a feminist parliament where English, Scottish, Irish,
and Jewish subjects of the Queen live harmoniously, having pursued meliorist
policies to the atonement of ancient wrongs in all quarters of the realm’;
duly elected representatives of colonial countries are present at Westminster;
Maguire applies Grattan’s Esto in Perpetua! to the Gladstonite
Union of Hearts in a truly ‘United Kingdom’.
Irish Literature, gen. ed., Justin McCarthy (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America 1904) copies A Cabinet of Irish Literature - verbatim in places - and adds that his articles on Home Rule appeared in The Examiner, and were published in book form shortly before his death. Maguire’s Pauper Bill altered the qualification from 5 yrs to six months. JMC selects "The Irish in the War" from The Irish In America, which includes a passage on ‘Meagher of the sword’ [see Meagher, Rx.]
Henry Boylan, A Dictionary of Irish Biography [rev. edn.] (Gill & Macmillan 1988), calls him a journalist and politician; biog. details as above; in Parliament he supported nationalist policies on land, disestablishment, and reform of the Poor Law; made three visits to Rome to see Pius IX, and was named Commander of St. Gregory the Great on publication of his book; elected Mayor of Cork four times; DIH relates the story of how he sustained abuse from opponents in Mallow and holds his peace but finally, at the railway station on departing, joins his hands and says, ‘Sed libera nos a malo [but deliver us from evil ...]’.
Belfast Central Public Library holds Life of Father Mathew (1862); The Next Generation (1871); The Industrial Movement in Ireland (1853); The Irish in America (1868), and Maguire, J. F. M., Total Abstinence Justified (1838).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)