Mahony, Francis Sylvester

(1804-1866)

   Born in Camden Quay, Cork, his parents had a woolen business in Glanmire and subsequently in Blarney. He studied at the Jesuit College at Clongowes Wood, County Kildare, and at later in France and Italy, where for two years he studied philosophy. He excelled in ancient and modern languages and was ordained as a priest in 1832. Back in Cork he was hospital chaplain at the North Infirmary during the cholera outbreak of 1832. He moved to London, where he became a journalist, working for the Daily News and The Globe, and contributed a series to Fraser's Magazine called Reliques of Father Prout, the pseudonym he used for his poetry. He died in Paris and was buried in the Shadow of Shandon Steeple in Cork. His works can be found in the Cornhill Magazine and in the Athenæum. Some of his poems: "A Series of Modern Latin Poets," "Father Prout's Carousal," "The Attractions of a Fashionable Irish Watering-Place," "The Bells of Shandon," "The Rogueries of Tom Moore," "The Song of the Cossack," "The Songs of France," "The Songs of Italy."

   Sources: 19th Century British Minor Poets. W.H. Auden, ed. Delacorte Press, 1966. Biography of Francis Sylvester Mahony (Father Prout) (http://www.activate.ie/sites/corkcitylib/ecclesiastical/stannesshandon/st_annes_fatherprout.htm). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. 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 Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Reliques of Father Prout (Francis Sylvester Mahony). Oliver Yorke, ed. George Bell and Sons, 1889.