Walker's ''Hibernian Magazine'', or ''Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge'' was a general-interest magazine published monthly in Dublin, Ireland, from February 1771 to July 1812.Clyde 2003 pp.67–68 Until 1785 it was called ''The Hibernian Magazine or Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge (Containing, the greatest variety of the most curious and useful subjects in every branch of polite literature)''. Tom Clyde called it "the pinnacle of eighteenth-century Irish

literary magazine A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letter ...

s".Clyde 2003 p.10

Publishers

The founding publisher was James Potts of

Dame Street Dame Street (; ) is a large thoroughfare in Dublin, Ireland. History The street takes its name from a dam built across the River Poddle to provide water power for milling. First appears in records under this name around 1610 but in the 14th c ...

, who had published the ''Dublin Courier'' from 1766. From October 1772 until at least July 1773 Peter Seguin of

St Stephen's Green St Stephen's Green () is a garden square and public park located in the city centre of Dublin, Ireland. The current landscape of the park was designed by William Sheppard. It was officially re-opened to the public on Tuesday, 27 July 1880 by L ...

published a rival version with differing format.Gargett and Sheridan 1999 p.237Pollard 2000 p.512
/ref> Potts ceded in March 1774 to Thomas Walker, also of Dame Street,Pollard 2000 pp.583–584
/ref> who added his surname to the magazine's title in May 1785. There was some production overlap at this time with ''Exshaw's Magazine'', since John Exshaw was selling out to Walker; this has caused later confusion. Thomas Walker retired from the publishing business in 1797, having ceded the ''Hibernian Magazine'' at the end of 1790 to his relative Joseph Walker, who died in 1805.Pollard 2000 p.582
/ref>

Content

The magazine had high production values, with regular illustrations and sometimes

sheet music Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses List of musical symbols, musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chord (music), chords of a song or instrumental Musical composition, musical piece. Like ...

. It gave early encouragement to

Thomas Moore Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852) was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist celebrated for his ''Irish Melodies''. Their setting of English-language verse to old Irish tunes marked the transition in popular Irish culture from Irish ...

. According to Tom Clyde, "very little of the

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

is worth reading"; it often featured

Orientalism In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...

and rarely

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

. Much of the non-Irish material was reprinted from the ''

European Magazine ''The European Magazine'' (sometimes referred to as ''European Magazine'') was a monthly magazine published in London. Eighty-nine semi-annual volumes were published from 1782 until 1826. It was launched as the ''European Magazine, and London Rev ...

''. In 1883 C. J. Hamilton wrote: :What the ''

Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term ''magazine'' (from the French ''magazine'' ...

'' was to England, ''Walker's Hibernian Magazine'' was to Ireland during the latter half of the eighteenth century. It has, perhaps, a more marked individuality of character and a stronger flavour of provincialism than the ''Gentleman's'', and for these causes suits the curiosity-monger even better. It was at once a newspaper and a monthly miscellany of useful and entertaining literature. It not only gave

parliamentary A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democracy, democratic government, governance of a sovereign state, state (or subordinate entity) where the Executive (government), executive derives its democratic legitimacy ...

debates and the latest births, deaths, and marriages, but also tit-bits of London and Dublin gossip, the newest outrages, the most thrilling sentimental tales à la ''

Werther ''Werther'' is an opera (''drame lyrique'') in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann (who used the pseudonym Henri Grémont). It is loosely based on Goethe's epistolary novel ''The S ...

'', along with scraps of poetry and tête-à-tête portraits of the leading fashionable belles and beaux of the day. Up to about 1795, the magazine showed sympathy for

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

and

Catholic emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...

. Afterwards it became more reactionary in opposition to the

United Irishmen The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association in the Kingdom of Ireland formed in the wake of the French Revolution to secure "an equal representation of all the people" in a national government. Despairing of constitutional reform, ...

.Clyde 2003 p.13 With the onset of the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

, news and patriotic coverage crowded out cultural and

antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...

content. It is a

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...

for Irish history of the period; its unofficial report of the trial of

Robert Emmet Robert Emmet (4 March 177820 September 1803) was an Irish Republican, orator and rebel leader. Following the suppression of the United Irish uprising in 1798, he sought to organise a renewed attempt to overthrow the British Crown and Protes ...

in September 1803 differs from the official

trial transcript A transcript is a written record of spoken language. In court proceedings, a transcript is usually a record of all decisions of the judge, and the spoken arguments by the litigants' lawyers. A related term used in the United States is docket, not ...

and includes the first version of his celebrated speech from the dock. An index to marriages announced in its pages was compiled by Henry Farrar in the 1890s.Vol. 1 (A–K; 1897)
an
Vol. 2 (L–Z and Appendix; 1898)
/ref>

References

Footnotes

Sources

* * * *

Citations

External links

{{commons category, Walker's Hibernian Magazine *Digitised volumes: **

HathiTrust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...

: **
1771-3-4-5, 1781-2-3-4-5
(1785 miscatalogued as 1786) **
1772, 1786–1811
(excluding 1791, 1795, June 1798–Dec 1799) **

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

177617771780
1770s establishments in Ireland 1810s disestablishments in Ireland Defunct magazines published in Ireland Magazines published in Ireland Magazines established in the 1770s Magazines disestablished in 1812 Mass media in Dublin (city) Literary magazines published in Ireland Defunct literary magazines published in Europe