Life
1766-98 [pseud. ‘Dion’]; b. Cork, ed. TCD, grad. 1787; called
to bar, 1788; frequent contributor to the United Irishman’s Dublin
organ, The Press; arrested with his brother 21 May 1798, by a Capt.
Armstrong; tried for high treason; executed before Newgate Prison 14 July;
bur. St Michan’s, where his body was long preserved from corruption
by the special conditions of the crypt. DIB RAF
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Works
Beauties of the Press (1800) and Extracts from The Press
(1802). Anthol. in Joshua Edkins, Collection of Poems (1789); also
in R. R. Madden, Literary Remains of the United Irishmeni [1846].
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Criticism
Charles Graham Halpine, The Patriot Brothers ... Page from Ireland’s
Martyrology (Dublin 1884).
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Notes
D. J. O'Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical Dictionary (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co 1912); notes that he wrote for United
Irishmen’s papers The Press [as ‘Dion’], The
Harp of Erin, etc.; verse exemplified in Madden’s Literary
Remains of the United Irishmen (1846); others antologised in Edkins’
collection (1789-90) and signed J- S-; remained unmarried; executed 14
July; bur. St Michans; bodies preserved.
John and Henry Sheares have separate contiguous entries in Henry Boylan, Dictionary of Irish Biography (Dublin: Gill & MacMillan
1988); In Madden’s United Irishmen, the story of their pathetic
death on the scaffold, roughly treated by the executioner who jerked the
more fearful and younger brother, into the air before hanging. They held
hands. The execution was extremely well attended. They were decapitated
before burial.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)