Gogarty, Oliver St. John

(1878-1957)

   Born in Dublin, the son and grandson of doctors, he received a Jesuit education, then went on to University College, Dublin, where he was a fellow student of James Joyce, who portrayed him as the character Buck Mulligan in Ulysses. He qualified in medicine from Trinity College, Dublin, in 1907 and built up a prosperous practice in Dublin as a throat surgeon; he was prominent in the early days of the Irish Free State. He moved to America in 1939 and died in New York. Seventeen of his poems were included in The Oxford Book of Modern Verse (1936), which he edited. Some of his publications: An Offering of Swans 1923, (poems). As I Was Going Down Sackville Street, 1937 (memoirs). Tumbling in the Hay, 1939 (memoirs). Collected Poems, 1951. It Isn't This Time of Year at All, 1954 (memoirs). Some of his poems: "After Galen," "Death May Be Very Gentle," "Elegy on the Archpoet William Butler Yeats Lately Dead," "Farrell O'Reilly," "The Airman's Breastplate," "The Crab Tree," "The Gallant Irish Yeoman," "The Plum Tree by the House."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. Fifty Years of American Poetry. Anniversary Volume for the Academy of American Poets. Harry N. Abrams, ed. American Academy of Poets, 1984. Poems to Read Aloud, Edward Hodnett, ed. W.W. Norton, 1967. 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 National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Treasury of Irish Religious Verse. Patrick Murray, ed. Crossroad, 1986.