Life
?1743-1813 [var. Taffe; pseud. “Julius Vindex”]; entered noviate or actually ordained as Catholic
priest; converted to Protestantism and subsequently reverted; joined United
Irishmen and fought in Wexford; wrote An Impartial History of Ireland
from the Time of the English Invasion to the Present Time, from Authentic
Sources (1809-11), in which he represents Jonathan Swift as defender
of liberty.
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Works
Julius Vindex [pseud.], Vindication of the Irish Nation, and particularly
its Catholic Inhabitants from the Calumnies of Libellers (Dublin:
for James Fletcher 1802), Pt. I, viii, 58p.; Pt.IV, [x], cxxv-cxxxiv,
135-186pp. [presum. 5 pts.]; and Do. [another edn.] (1802)
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Notes
Anglo-Irish relations: ‘I am well aware of the rooted prejudices,
I had almost said hatred that lodges in the breast of some Englishmen
towards Ireland’ (Taafe [sic], The Probability, Causes, and Consequences
of an Union between Great Britain and Ireland Discussed, Dublin, 1798,
p.29; cited in Thomas Bartlett, ‘“An Union for Empire”:
The Anglo-Irish Union as an Imperial project’, in Hearts &
Minds: Irish Culture and Society under the Act of Union [PGIL Transactions],
Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 2001.)
British Library holds [Denis Taafe,] Vindication of the Irish nation,
and particularly its Catholic Inhabitants from the Calumnies of Libellers,
by Julius Vindex [pseud.] (Dublin: for James Fletcher 1802) [5 pts.],
Pt. I, viii, 58p.; Pt.IV, [x], cxxv-cxxxiv, 135-186pp.; also another edn.,
apparently not that issued by Fletcher.
Library of Herbert Bell, Belfast, holds Dennis Taffe [cat. sic.], Impartial History of Ireland, Vols. 1-4 (Dublin 1809); he is also given as “Taffe” in Robert Mahony, Jonathan Swift, The Irish Identity, 1995).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)