Davis, THOMAS

Davis, THOMAS, Irish poet and patriot, was born at Mallow, 14th October 1814, the son of an army surgeon. At Trinity College, Dublin, he read hard and graduated, and, after spending nearly three years in London and on the Continent, was called to the bar after his return to Dublin in 1838. Next year, though a Protestant, he joined the Repeal Association, and in 1841 became for a short time joint-editor with John Dillon of the Dublin Morning Register. In the July of 1842, with Dillon and Duffy, he founded the famous Nation newspaper, the chief aim of which was 'to direct the popular mind and the sympathies of educated men of all parties to the great end of nationality.' It was the first time that conspicuous literary ability had been devoted to the cause, and ere long its bright vigorous articles and stirring as well as pathetic songs, many of them from the pen of Davis himself, made the pages of the Nation dear to Irishmen all over the island. Davis started a projected series of Irish orators with the Speeches of Curran (1844), and wrote a good 'Essay on Irish Songs' for Barry's Songs of Ireland (1845). But his bright and promising career was soon closed by his premature death of fever, in Dublin, September 16, 1845. His Poems were published in 1846 in 'Duffy's Library'; his Essays in 1847. See the Memoir by Sir C. G. Duffy (1890).