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Author: Orr, James

Biography:

ORR, James (1770-1816: ODNB)

The son of James Orr, linen weaver and farmer with land near Ballycarry, County Antrim, he was born at Templecorran, County Antrim. His parents were of Scots Presbyterian descent; his mother’s name is not known. Orr never attended school but was taught at home by his parents and, like his father, became a weaver. He may have been a nephew of William Orr, a United Irishman who was executed in 1797. He took part in the Battle of Antrim on 7 June 1798 and, forced into hiding, made his way to America. One of his poems, “Song Composed on the Banks of Newfoundland,” records his experience of the journey. He soon returned to Ireland where, on the death of his father in about 1800, he inherited the tenancy of his farmland. He became known as “the Bard of Ballycarry” and published verse in Belfast newspapers and periodicals. He never married and died at Ballycarry on 24 Apr. 1816. He was buried in Templecorran churchyard where the freemasons erected a monument to him. The 1817 posthumous edition of his work includes a memoir by his friend Alexander McDowell. Orr’s verse is written in vigorous Ulster-Scots and has attracted increasing interest and admiration since his death. Three selections from his poetry were published in the twentieth century (1935, 1977, 1992). (John Fullarton, “Sketches of Ulster Poets: James Orr,” Ulster Magazine and Monthly Review of Science and Literature 2 [1861] 217-25; DIB 4 Oct. 2021; ODNB 4 Oct. 2021; Carol Baraniuk, James Orr, Poet and Irish Radical [2016])

 

Books written (2):

Belfast: printed by Smyth and Lyons, 1804