Author: O'Kelly, Patrick
Biography:
O’KELLY, Patrick (c. 1746-1837: DIB)
He was born in Loughrea, County Galway, probably in 1746 although one of his poems gives his birth year as 1754. Nothing is known about his parents. Modelling himself on the ancient Irish bards, he developed a reputation as a travelling poet—many of his poems are occasional pieces celebrating landowners and their homes—and his first published books have extensive subscription lists. The Prince of Wales heads the list with 50 copies of Giant’s Causeway (1808) and when the prince visited Dublin as George IV in 1821, O’Kelly hand-delivered the copies. His best-known poem was “The Doneraile Litany,” a string of curses about a town in County Cork where his watch was stolen. When his watch was recovered, he countered the curses in “The Palinode,” published in The Aonian Kaleidoscope. In later life his popularity waned and the subscription lists, while still long, did not match those for his first books. He seems to have remained unmarried. He died in Limerick on 25 Apr. 1837. (DIB 11 Feb. 2022; Enniskillen Chronicle 17 Aug. 1826) SR
Other Names:
- Pat O'Kelly