Author: HILLARY, Joseph
Biography:
HILLARY, Joseph (fl 1794-1818)
No public records indicating his dates of birth and death have been located, and he does not appear to have married. Near contemporaries thought he must have died by 1814 but there is a novel of 1818, so apparently not. His first collection of poems describes the author on the title-page as “of this city,” i.e. Cork, Co. Cork, Ireland. His father James Hillary was a prosperous silversmith in North Main Street who died when Joseph was 19, leaving him a substantial inheritance. Joseph had been educated with the intent of his becoming a physician or surgeon. Instead, he squandered his fortune in three years and was left without an occupation or profession. He is said to have hoped for success on the stage: whether that means as a dramatist or as a performer is not specified, but he failed. The Poems of 1794 have an impressive subscription list, with supporters of it seems all stripes—military men, mothers and daughters, a doctor or two, but mainly male citizens of Cork and its surrounds. His efforts in verse were not much appreciated, however, and he tried prose fiction, with The Parish Priest in Ireland (2 vols, Cork and London, 1818). Nothing further is heard of him. (O’Donoghue, 103; John Windele, Guide to the City of Cork [1849], 137-8; ancestry.com 24 Dec. 2024; findmypast.com 24 Dec. 2024; EN2) HJ
Other Names:
- J. Hillary