Author: Halpin, Nicolas John
Biography:
HALPIN, Nicolas John (1790-1850: ODNB)
He was the son of William Henry Halpin and his wife Anne Crosthwaite and was born on 18 Oct. 1790 at Portarlington, Co. Laois (formerly Queen’s county). He graduated BA from Trinity College Dublin in 1815; after ordination he became curate at Oldcastle, County Meath. In 1817 he married Anne Greham; they had three sons and four daughters. Anne Halpin’s application to the RLF after her husband’s death gives his annual income at Oldcastle as £75 and the family relied on his writing as a supplement. He published prolifically, including commentary on Shakespeare (Mary Cowden Clarke, the Shakespeare scholar, wrote in support of the RLF application). He was also a keen amateur botanist and recorded the flora he observed in Meath. In about 1843 or earlier, the rector at Oldcastle died and Halpin found himself without a position; the family moved to Dublin where he wrote for the Dublin Evening Mail and may have served as editor. He was a member of the Royal Irish Academy. In early 1850 he suffered a stroke and remained incapacitated until his death in Nov. at home in Upper Gloucester Street. His widow was awarded £50 by the RLF. Of his sons, William Henry was ordained in Ireland but moved to London, Ontario, where he was a classics professor at Huron College, and Charles Graham Halpine (sic) emigrated to America where he became a journalist (writing as Miles O’Reilly) and served with distinction in the civil war. (ODNB 10 Mar. 2021; ancestry.co.uk 26 Mar. 2021; GM 190 [1851] 212; Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 5 [1853] 89-90; RLF file 1263; P. A. Reilly, “Nicholas John Halpin: A Little Known Irish Botanist,” Glasra: Contributions from the National Botanic Gardens 1-2 [1990] 165-71)
Other Names:
- Nicholas John Halpin