Author: O'Flaherty, Charles
Biography:
O’FLAHERTY, Charles (c. 1794-1828: Dublin Weekly Register)
Information about his life is from O’Donoghue where he is described as the son of a pawnbroker in Ross Lane, Dublin. He was apprenticed to a bookseller in Parliament Street and contributed verse—reprinted in Trifles in Verse (1821)—to the Dublin Morning Post. A death notice in the Belfast Newsletter states that he "was for many years attached to the literary department" of the newspaper but he also worked as a reporter and it was in that capacity that in Dec. 1824 he was called as a witness in the trial of Daniel O’Connell for sedition. O'Donoghue identifies him as likely the "C.O.F." who contributed verse to the Dublin and London Magazine in 1825-26. In about 1826 he moved to Wexford where he was proprietor and editor of the Evening Post. He died in Wexford on 21 Apr. 1828 and was buried in Saint John's churchyard. O'Donoghue correctly attributes to him "The Humours of Donnybrook Fair," printed in Trifles. He is, however, incorrect in stating that the song is usually attributed to Edward Lysaght (q.v.). Lysaght's song about the fair is not printed in his posthumous Poems of 1811--its place of first publication is unknown and may have been a periodical--but it is called "The Sprig of Shillelah" not "The Humours of Donnybrook Fair." T. Crofton Croker (q.v.) includes "The Sprig of Shillelah" in his The Popular Songs of Ireland (1839). (O’Donoghue; ancestry.co.uk 3 Sept. 2025; Morning Advertiser 25 Dec. 1824; Dublin Weekly Register 3 May 1828; Belfast Newsletter 9 May 1828) SR