Life
1791-1851, b. 16 Aug., Bellevue House, Drumdowney, Co. Kilkenny [nr. Waterford];
br. Sir Justin Sheil; entered TCD 1807; spoke for Catholic Emancipation
at the Historical Society, 1809; BA 1811; Lincoln’s Inn, 1813 [vars.
1814 DNB; 1811-17 DIH]; returned to Ireland, 1813; mbr. Catholic Board,
1813; protested O’Connell’s refusal of concessions to Protestant
supporters (i.e., conditional emancipation), but joined him whole-hearted
in Emancipation movement; opposed him on the Veto question, 1813-15; earned
£2,000 from dramatic writings, Adelaide, or the Emigrants (Theatre
Royal, Dublin, 1814), five-act tragedy in verse; The Apostate (Covent
Garden, 1817), do.; Bellamira, or the Fall of Tunis (1818); Evadne,
or the Statue (London 1819); m. Miss O’Haloran, niece of master
of the Rolls, 1814; assisted John Banim with Damon and Pythias (Covent
Garden, 1821); critical picture of O’Connell drew unflattering retort;
laudatory portrait [of same] in ‘Sketches of the Irish Bar’,
anon., but written by Sheil in collaboration with William H. Curran, issued
serially in The New Monthly, 1822; death of his wife, 1822; fnd.
Catholic Association with Daniel O’Connell, 1823; travelled from
county to county making Emancipation speeches; visited France, 1826; indictment
for libel not proceeded with by Canning, 1827; addressed hostile Protestant
audience at Penenden Heath, 1830; contrib. anon. on Ireland to L’Etoile,
for Abbé Genoude; took silk, 1830; adopted name of Lalor, marrying
a widow whose father of Crenagh, Co. Tipperary, bequeathed her a property,
1830; defeated for Louth seat, 1830; took Mi[l]borne Port offered by Marquis
of Angelsey; secured Louth a year after in 1831; maiden speech on Reform
Bill, March 1831; Repeal MP Tipperary, 1833-41 [var. 1832 CAB]; assisted
O’Connell at Lichfield House Compact with Whigs against Conservative
ministry of Robert Peel, 1835; acquitted by Parliamentary committee on
charge of double-dealing; opposed Irish Corporation Bill, 1836; accepted
office, Vice-President Board of Trade, 1839 [var. 1838-41 DNB]; opposed
Repeal, 1840, since he though the House of Commons would not concede it;
Judge Advocate[-General], 1841; defended John O’Connell in state
trial, 1844, exposed system of packing jury, bringing forward as an example
the trial of Charles Gavan Duffy for article in Belfast Vindicator;
MP Dungarvan, 1841; important speeches on Corn Laws, 1842; Repeal of the
Unions, 1843; Orange Lodges and Church of Ireland, 1839; Turkish Treaties,
1843; Vote by Ballot, 1843; Income Tax, 1845; death of only son in Madeira;
could not be induced to leave the island in his deep depression; returned
to England, 1846; Master of the Mint on accession of Lord John Russell,
1846-50, giving rise to controversy when he omitted to have the florin
coin of 1849 stamped with ‘Fidei Defensatrix Dei Gratia’ (the
‘godless florin’); ambassador to the court of Tuscany, Florance,
1850; d. 25 May, 1851; bur. Long Orchard, Tipperary, conveyed by ship
of war; ‘Sketches Legal and Political’ [i.e., ‘Sketches
of the Irish Bar’], orig. contributed to New Monthly, collected
posthumously; Speeches, ed. with memoir by T. MacNevin; Sketches
of the Irish Bar (1854). also Memoir and Speeches of Richard Lalor
Sheil, ed. by William Torrens McCullagh, 2 vols. (1855). CAB DNB
JMC PI NCBE DIB RAF DIW DIH FDA OCIL
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WorksPlays, Adelaide; or, The Emigrants (Dublin: Coyne 1814); The Apostate [3rd edn.] (London: J. Murray 1817); Bellamira: or, The Fall of Tunis (London: J. Murray 1818); Evadne; or, the Statue (London: J. Murray 1819); with John Banim, Damon and Pythias (London: J. Warren 1821) [but see Carleton’s remarks, infra]. Collected Prose, Marmion W. Savage, ed., Political and Social Sketches of Richard Lalor Sheil (1855). Miscellaneous, Thomas Mac Nevin, ed., The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. R. L. Sheil M.P (Dublin: Duffy 1845); R. S. Mackenzie, ed., Sketches of the Irish Bar (NY: W. J. Middleton 1854).
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Criticism
W. T.McCullagh, Memoirs of the Rt. Hon. R. L Sheil, 2 vols.
(London: H. Colburn 1855); also memoirs by T. MacNevin, R. S. MacKenzie
and M[armion] W. Savage, in editions of his works and speeches; Irish
Book Lover vols. 3, 13.
William Carleton, ‘The Late John Banim’ [National Gallery,
No. V], The Nation, 23 September, 1843), writes of Banim’s Damon and Pythias (1821).
Tom Garvin, ‘O’Connell and Irish Political Culture’, in Daniel O’Connell, Political Pioneer, ed. Maurice R O’Connell (Inst. Publ. Relations 1991), pp.pp.7-12.
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Notes
Anthologised in Irish Literature, ed. Justin McCarthy
(Washington: University of America 1904); extracts of speeches, ‘Ireland’s
Part in English Achievement’, commons 1837 [‘Wherever we turn
our eyes ... never did a liberated nation spring on in the career that
freedom throws open towards improvement with such a bound as we have;
in wealth, in intelligence, in high feeling, in all the great constituents
of a state, we have made in a few years an astonishing progress. The character
of the country is completely changed; we are free, and we feel as if we
never had been slaves. Ireland stands erect as if she had never stooped;
although she once bowed her forehead to the earth, every trace of her
prostration has been effaced ... &c; lists offices filled by Roman
Catholics]; ‘Pen and Ink Sketch of Daniel O’Connell [from ‘Sketches
of the Irish Bar’].
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1: selects ‘A Speech made in Cork’ (1825), pp.906; 949-50; notes at pp.1138n, 1170, 1205, 1254; Vol 2, p.990.
H. Hovelaque [professeur au lycée Saint-Louis], Anthologie de la Littérature irlandaise des Origines au XXe siècle (Paris Libraire Delagrave 1924), extracts: ‘Evadné etle roi’, pp.275ff.
Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature (London, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast & Edinburgh: Blackie & Son [1876-78]), notes that he assisted W. H. Curran with Sketches of the Irish Bar; Sheil was born at his father’s house, Bellevue, near Waterford. 1791-1851; abandoned idea of priesthood [vide The Apostate] and ed. TCD; Bar in 1814; MP in 1831; Master of the Mint, and Ambassador to Florence.
Roy Foster, Modern Ireland (London; Allen Lane 1988), p.307, bio-note: ed. Stonyhurst and TCD; Bar, 1814; wrote with some success for Dublin and London stage, 1814-20; O’Connell’s chief opponent on veto question, attempted to conciliate liberal Protestant opinion; distanced from O’Connell after 1829; MP for Irish constituencies, 1831-51; Vice Pres. Board of Trade, 1839; defended John O’Connnell, 1844; Master of Mint, 1846, Brit. Minister at Tuscay, 1851
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. I; notes that the Preface to Richard Sheil’s The Emigrants (1814) deplores literary absentees: ‘While Irish genius soars through every clime, / and gains new laurels from the hand of time, / Why should her sons to foreign nations roam, / Nor trust the native patronage of home? .. / Long time indeed our sage has been supplied / With stale productions, first in Britain tried .. / . (Prologue by J. H.–H., Esq., p.vi.); Vol. 2, lists Adelaide, or the Emigrants, trag. (Dublin 1814), performed Dublin 1814; also other works [as above].
Peter Kavanagh, The Irish Theatre (1946), Richard Lalor Sheil 1791-1851; Adelaide, or The Emigrants, trag. (Crow St., 19 Feb 1814) 1814; The Apostate,trag. (Covent Garden, 3 may 1817) 1817; Bellamira or the Fall of Tunis, trag. (CG 22 Apr 1818) 1818; Evadne or the Statue, trag. (CG 10 Feb 1819) 1819; Montoni or The Phantom (CG 3 May 1820); The Hugenots (CG 11 Dec 1822), and an adpt. of Massinger’s Fatal Dowry (Dryury Lane 1824). Hazlitt thought of Adelaide that ‘the language of this tragedy is made up nonsense and indecency,’ but it ran 30 nights; ‘sentimentality and horror’ (Kavanagh).
De Burca (Catalogue 18), lists The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. Richard Lalor Sheil with memoir by Thomas MacNevin (Duffy 1845).
Library of Herbert Bell, Belfast, holds Thomas McNevin, The Speeches of Rt. Hon. Richard Lalor (Dublin 1853); another edn. (Dublin 1868).
Belfast Public Library holds Sheil, R., The Apostate (1817); Sheil, R. L., Sketches, legal and political, 2 vols. (1855); Speeches, with a memoir, ed. Thomas MacNevin (1867).
University of Ulster Library, Morris Collection, holds Speeches (Duffy 187-).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)