Francis Davis (7 March 1810 – 1881) was an Irish poet and editor.

Life

Francis Davis was born the son of a soldier in Ballincollig,

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns are ...

. His father was a Presbyterian from the north of Ireland, probably near

Hillsborough Hillsborough may refer to: Australia *Hillsborough, New South Wales, a suburb of Lake Macquarie Canada *Hillsborough, New Brunswick *Hillsborough Parish, New Brunswick * Hillsborough, Nova Scotia, in Inverness County *Hillsborough (electoral d ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...

. His mother, Jane MacFee, whose brother Daniel had been a United Irishman, was from Belfast.Francis Davis, "The Belfast Man" by Matthew Russell, ''The Irish Monthly'', Vol. 5, (1877), pp. 569-576 When his father was away during the Napoleonic wars the family lived in Belfast and Hillsborough. His mother died when he was but a boy, and his father then consigned him to the care of a rich but miserly relative, for whom he had to work at the loom. On his father's death, he escaped from this drudgery to Belfast, from where he travelled through England and Scotland, earning his living by his trade as a weaver, and writing poems all the while. At the same time he studied French, Latin, Greek and

Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...

.The Cambridge History of English and American Literature (1907–21). Volume XIV. The Victorian Age, Part Two. p. 71 In 1843 he settled in Belfast where he became editor of ''The Belfastman's Journal'', and then became a contributor to many periodicals. He contributed many poems to ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

'' under the pen-name "The Belfast Man". His poems were collected in several volumes between 1847 and 1863. He died in Belfast and was buried in Milltown Cemetery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Francis Irish editors Writers from County Cork 1810 births 1881 deaths 19th-century Irish poets