Walker's Hibernian Magazine
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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 magazines".Clyde 2003 p.10


Publishers

The founding publisher was James Potts of
Dame Street Dame Street (; ) is a large thoroughfare in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, 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 1 ...
, 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 ...
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 musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed Book, books or Pamphlet, pamphlets ...
. It gave early encouragement to
Thomas Moore Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852), was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist who was widely regarded as Ireland's "National poet, national bard" during the late Georgian era. The acclaim rested primarily on the popularity of his ''I ...
. According to Tom Clyde, "very little of the
creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the boundaries of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on craft and technique, such as narrative structure, character ...
is worth reading"; it often featured
Orientalism In art history, literature, and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world (or "Orient") by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle ...
and rarely
Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
. Much of the non-Irish material was reprinted from the '' European Magazine''. 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 1907, ceasing publication altogether in 1922. It was the first to use the term '' ...
'' 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 In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
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'', 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 Entitlement (fair division), 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 c ...
and Catholic emancipation. Afterwards it became more reactionary in opposition to the
United Irishmen The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association, formed in the wake of the French Revolution, to secure Representative democracy, representative government in Ireland. Despairing of constitutional reform, and in defiance both of British ...
.Clyde 2003 p.13 With the onset of the
Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...
, news and patriotic coverage crowded out cultural and
antiquarian An antiquarian or antiquary () is an 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 artefacts, archaeological and historic si ...
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 (archaeology), artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was cre ...
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 Prote ...
in September 1803 differs from the official trial transcript 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

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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. Its holdings include content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digit ...
: **
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 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

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