John O'Hagan (born 19 March 1822 at
Newry
Newry (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland, divided by the Clanrye river in counties Armagh and Down, from Belfast and from Dublin. It had a population of 26,967 in 2011.
Newry was founded in 1144 alongside a Cistercian monastery, althoug ...
,
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 ...
; died 10 November 1890 at
Howth
Howth ( ; ; non, Hǫfuð) is an affluent peninsular village and outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland. The district as a whole occupies the greater part of the peninsula of Howth Head, which forms the northern boundary of Dublin Bay, and includes ...
,
County Dublin
"Action to match our speech"
, image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg
, map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...
) was an Irish lawyer and writer. He was also an
Irish Nationalist
Irish nationalism is a nationalist political movement which, in its broadest sense, asserts that the people of Ireland should govern Ireland as a sovereign state. Since the mid-19th century, Irish nationalism has largely taken the form of cu ...
and
Younger Irelander, and was a founding member of the first Irish conference of the
Society of Saint Vincent de Paul
The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP or SVdP or SSVP) is an international voluntary organization in the Catholic Church, founded in 1833 for the sanctification of its members by personal service of the poor.
Innumerable Catholic parishes have ...
.
Life
He was educated in the day-school of the Jesuit Fathers, Dublin, and in
Trinity College, Dublin
, name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin
, motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin)
, motto_lang = la
, motto_English = It will last i ...
, graduating in 1842. An advocate of Catholic university education, he contributed to the ''
Dublin Review'' (1847) an article which the
Catholic Truth Society
Catholic Truth Society (CTS) is a body that prints and publishes Catholic literature, including apologetics, prayerbooks, spiritual reading, and lives of saints. It is based in London, the United Kingdom.
The CTS had been founded in 1868 by ...
of Ireland reprinted under the title "Trinity College No Place for Catholics".
In 1842 he was called to the Bar and joined the Munster Circuit. In 1861 he was appointed a Commissioner of National Education, and in 1865 he became Q.C. The same year he married Frances, daughter of the first
Lord O'Hagan
Baron O'Hagan, of Tullahogue in the County of Tyrone, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 14 June 1870 for Sir Thomas O'Hagan, then Lord Chancellor of Ireland. His younger son, the third Baron, served as a Lor ...
.
While in London in the Spring of 1845, O'Hagan, along with
John Edward Pigot
John Edward Pigot (1822–1871) was an Irish music collector and lawyer, who played a key role in the foundation of the National Gallery of Ireland.
Life
Pigot was born in Kilworth, Co. Cork, the eldest son of the Chief Baron of the Irish Excheq ...
and
Charles Gavan Duffy
Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, KCMG, PC (12 April 1816 – 9 February 1903), was an Irish poet and journalist (editor of ''The Nation''), Young Irelander and tenant-rights activist. After emigrating to Australia in 1856 he entered the politics of ...
paid a call on
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy.
Born in Ecclefechan, Dum ...
and his wife
Jane Carlyle
Jane Baillie Carlyle ( Welsh; 14 July 1801 – 21 April 1866) was a Scottish writer and the wife of Thomas Carlyle.
She did not publish any work in her lifetime, but she was widely seen as an extraordinary letter writer. Virginia Woolf ca ...
in order to defend the Irish and Irish Nationalism against Carlyle's attacks in ''
On Chartism'' and other works. In his 1892 ''
Conversations with Carlyle
Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...
'', Duffy recounts this initial meeting and quotes from Jane Carlyle's half-burnt diary that had been rescued from a general fire meant to destroy all of her personal memoirs. Here Jane commented on meeting for the first time "real hot and hot live Irishmen" such as she had "never seen before" (J. Carlyle qtd. in Duffy, 1892, p. 1). While "no blood was shed" during this friendly but combative meeting, O'Hagan's nose began to bleed profusely. Jane Carlyle writes: "while they were all three at the loudest defence
icof Ireland against the foul aspersions Carlyle had . . . 'scornfully' cast on it,
'Hagan's nose. . . burst out bleeding. He let it bleed into his pocket-handkerchief privately til nature was relieved, and was more cautious of exciting himself afterwards" (Jane Carlyle qtd. in Duffy, ''
Conversations with Carlyle
Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...
'', 1892, p. 3).
After
Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
had passed his
Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881
The Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881 (44 & 45 Vict. c. 49) was the second Irish land act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1881.
Background
The Liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone had previously passed the Landlord and Ten ...
, he chose O'Hagan as the first judicial head of the
Irish Land Commission
The Irish Land Commission was created by the British crown in 1843 to 'inquire into the occupation of the land in Ireland. The office of the commission was in Dublin Castle, and the records were, on its conclusion, deposited in the records tower t ...
, making him for this purpose a judge of Her Majesty's
High Court of Justice
The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Courts of England and Wales, Senior Cou ...
.
He was a friend of
John Kells Ingram
John Kells Ingram (7 July 1823 – 1 May 1907) was an Irish mathematician, economist and poet who started his career as a mathematician. He has been co-credited, along with John William Stubbs, with introducing the geometric concept of invers ...
, an Irish economist, poet and patriot.
[John Kells Ingram - ''Sonnets and Other Poems'' - Adam & Charles Black, London 1900, page 9]
Works
He was an earnest Catholic, as is shown in many of his writings, such as "The Children's Ballad Rosary". His poems, "Dear Land", "Ourselves Alone", etc., were among the most effective features of ''
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 ...
'' in its brilliant youth.
In his last years he published the first English translation of ''
La Chanson de Roland
''The Song of Roland'' (french: La Chanson de Roland) is an 11th-century ''chanson de geste'' based on the Frankish military leader Roland at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778 AD, during the reign of the Carolingian king Charlemagne. It is t ...
'' and a translation of the
Adoro te devote
"Adoro te devote" is a Eucharistic hymn written by Thomas Aquinas. It is one of the five Eucharistic hymns which were composed and set to music for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, instituted in 1264 by Pope Urban IV as a Solemnity for the Latin ...
References
;Attribution
* The entry cites:
**''The Irish Monthly'', XVIII;
**Duffy, ''Four Years of Irish History''
External links
*
*
Eirdata page
{{DEFAULTSORT:OHagan, John
1822 births
1890 deaths
19th-century Irish lawyers
Irish writers
Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland
Serjeants-at-law (Ireland)
People from Newry