Sheridan, Thomas

(1687-1738)

   Irish poet, grandfather of the dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan (see entry), he was born in the Ulster town of Cavan. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he graduated B.A. (1711); M.A. (1714); B.D. (1724); D.D. (1726), and around 1711 he opened a school in Dublin, which was attended by sons of the best families in Dublin. He and Jonathan Swift became friends when Swift (see entry) was appointed dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin. Sheridan had a number of different schools and when he was kept by illness from being present in his school, Swift took his place. A serious illness took Sheridan to stay with Swift just before he died at the dinner table in the house of a former pupil at Rathfarnham, Dublin. Some of his publications: Prologue Spoken, 1720. The Blunderful Blunder of Blunders, 1721. The Philoctetes of Sophocles, 1725. A True and Faithful Inventory, 1726. Tom Punsibi's Letter to Dean Swift, 1727. An Answer to the Christmas-Box, 1729. The Simile, 1748. Some of his poems: "Figures of Speech," "My Hens are Hatching," "Of the Genders of Nouns," "The Sick Lion and the Ass."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Poems of Thomas Sheridan. Robert Hogan, ed. Associated University Presses, 1994.