Author: Kavanagh, Morgan Peter
Biography:
KAVANAGH, Morgan Peter (1800-74: ancestry.com)
His family origins are obscure, but he was born in Thurles, co. Tipperary, Ireland, to a "respectable" (McDermot) Roman Catholic family. He married Bridget Fitzpatrick (d 1887) in 1819 and their only child, Julia, was born in Thurles in 1824. Kavanagh was well read and had literary ambitions, but his lack of a standard classical education held him back when he went to London in search of a publisher for The Wanderings of Lucan and Dinah. Luckily M. McDermot (q.v.) undertook his case and introduced him to a patron who paid for publication. It was probably on the strength of that success that Kavanagh brought his wife and child to London, but none of his works ever sold well and the family were in such distress that Kavanagh made the first of several applications to the RLF in 1825 to pay for their return to Ireland, and received £25. (Similar appeals were made from London addresses, with similar results, in 1839, 1844, 1847, and finally--with no record of a grant--1850.) He made his living primarily as a language teacher in France; although death notices elevate him to a professorship at a university, there is no confirming evidence and it seems improbable. Julia Kavanagh was educated there. After Kavanagh left his wife and daughter to settle on his own in London in 1844, she became a prolific popular writer of fiction specializing in tales set in France. In the late 1850s father and daughter were involved in a public quarrel in which he tried to trade on her popularity. He seems to have been an irascible man, even in his letters to the RLF. Other writings include one more poem, The Reign of Lockrin (1839); two novels; and speculations about the origin of languages which some readers hailed as highly original, The Discovery of the Science of Languages (1844) and Myths Traced to their Primary Source through Language (1856). He died in an accident in London on 10 Feb. 1874. (ancestry.com 29 Mar. 2021; findmypast.com 29 Mar. 2021; "Kavanagh, Julia," ODNB 29 Mar. 2021; M. McDermot, "Prefatory Note," The Wanderings of Lucan and Dinah [1824]; RLF 16/548; O'Donoghue; DIB) HJ
Other Names:
- M. P. Kavanagh