Author: SHEEHAN, John
Biography:
SHEEHAN, John (c. 1812-82: ancestry.co.uk)
He was the son of Thomas Sheehan of Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, and his wife Alicia Dunn but the exact year of his birth is not known. DNB gives 1812, ODNB and DIB give 1809, censuses variously give 1810-12, and the record of his burial in 1882 gives his age as 68. Born a Catholic, he was educated at the Jesuit Clongowes Wood school. He was admitted to Trinity College Dublin in 1829 but did not graduate--possibly because he had not renounced his Catholic religion. Sheehan joined the Comet Patriotic and Literary Club, a group of young satirists who advocated for reform of the Irish established church. With Thomas Browne (q.v.) as editor, they published The Parson’s Horn-Book in two parts in 1831. It proved popular and in May 1831 they established the Comet weekly newspaper with Browne as editor and Sheehan as his assistant. Browne and Sheehan with other members of the club also collaborated on The Valentine Post-Bag (1831). However, in 1833 they were arrested for libel. Sheehan was defended by Robert Holmes, the husband of Mary Ann Holmes (q.v.). Found guilty, they were imprisoned and Sheehan served his time at Kilmainham jail in Dublin. On release, Sheehan moved to England where he was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge, on 21 Mar. 1839 (no degree) and to the Inner Temple on 20 Apr. 1841. He was called to the Irish bar on 19 Apr. 1843 and the English bar on 1 May 1846. On 16 Dec. 1848 he married Eleanor Ellen Elizabeth (Willock) Shubrick, a wealthy widow. The 1851 Census shows them living at Kensington Gore, London, with a coachman and a servant. In 1852 he was the proprietor of the Independent newspaper. He travelled in Europe and spent time in Paris. His wife died in 1869 and by 1881 Sheehan was living at the Charterhouse in London where he died on 29 May 1882. He was buried on 1 June in the Tower Hamlets cemetery. His account of the Comet club was published in GM in 1874 as by “the Knight of Innishowen.” Sheehan edited the third edition of The Bentley Ballads (1869) which includes his verse contributions to Bentley’s Miscellany where he used the pseudonym “The Irish Whiskey Drinker.” (DIB 25 Feb. 2026; ODNB, DNB 25 Feb. 2026; ancestry.co.uk 25 Feb. 2026; GM 13 [1874], 685-701; Cambridge Chronicle and Journal 22 Apr. 1843; ACAD; Inner Temple Archives) SR