Croker, THOMAS CROFTON

Croker, THOMAS CROFTON, Irish folklorist, was born at Cork, 15th January 1798, and in 1814 was apprenticed to a Quaker merchant, but four years later got a clerkship in the Admiralty through John Wilson Croker, a friend, though no relation, of his father's. He retained this post till 1850, and died at Old Brompton, 8th August 1854. As a boy of fourteen he had begun to collect songs and legends of the Irish peasantry; in 1818 he sent Moore nearly forty old Irish melodies; and in 1825 published anonymously his Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland, a work which charmed Scott, and was translated into German by the brothers Grimm (1826). A second series followed in 1827, and the whole reached a 6th edition in 1882. Of nearly twenty more works of which Croker was either the author or editor, the best were Researches in the South of Ireland (1824); Legends of the Lakes (1829), illustrated by his friend Maclise, and re-issued as Killarney Legends (1876); The Adventures of Barney Mahoney (1832); A Memoir of Joseph Holt, General of the Irish Rebels (1837); and Popular Songs of Ireland (1839; new ed. by Professor H. Morley, 1885). Croker was a zealous antiquary, a member of many learned societies. See the Life by his son, prefixed to the 1859 edition of the Fairy Legends.