Edward Walsh

Alfred Webb

A Compendium of Irish Biography

1878

Walsh, Edward, editor of the Jacobite Relics of Ireland, and author of poems, was born in Londonderry in 1805. The son of a Cork militiaman, he received a tolerable education, taught school at Mill-street, County of Cork, and removed in 1837 to Toureen, where he first began to write for the magazines. He was afterwards schoolmaster to the convict station at Spike Island, and ended his days as teacher in the Cork workhouse. He was proficient in the fairy and legendary lore of the country, and published two volumes of poetical translations from the Irish, with the original text. Hayes says in his Ballads of Ireland: "There is a singular beauty and fascinating melody in his verse, which cheers and charms the ear and heart. His translations preserve all the peculiarities of the old tongue, which he knew and spoke with graceful fluency. His ballads are the most literal and characteristic which we possess." Edward Walsh died in Cork, 6th August 1850, aged 44.

Sources

159a. Hayes, Edward: Ballads of Ireland. 2 vols. Dublin, N.D.

Featured Books

An American widow’s account of her travels in Ireland in 1844–45 on the eve of the Great Famine:

Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger

Sailing from New York, she set out to determine the condition of the Irish poor and discover why so many were emigrating to her home country.

Mrs Nicholson’s recollections of her tour among the peasantry are still revealing and gripping today.

The author returned to Ireland in 1847–49 to help with famine relief and recorded those experiences in the rather harrowing: Annals of the Famine in Ireland.

See more of our books »

The Ocean Plague: or, A Voyage to Quebec in an Irish Emigrant Vessel is based upon the diary of Robert Whyte who, in 1847, crossed the Atlantic from Dublin to Quebec in an Irish emigrant ship. His account of the journey provides invaluable eyewitness testimony to the trauma and tragedy that many emigrants had to face en route to their new lives in Canada and America. The book is also available in Kindle.

The Irish in America by John F. Maguire provides a substantial and invaluable account of the extreme difficulties faced by pioneer Irish immigrants in North America during the 19th Century. The book is also available in Kindle.

The Scotch-Irish in America tells the story of how the hardy breed of men and women, who in America came to be known as the ‘Scotch-Irish’, was forged in the north of Ireland during the seventeenth century. It relates the circumstances under which the great exodus to the New World began, the trials and tribulations faced by these tough American pioneers and the enduring influence they came to exert on the politics, education and religion of the country.

Show fewer titles