McCarthy, JUSTIN, a brilliant journalist and novelist, born in Cork, 22d November 1836. He became attached to the staff of the Northern Times, Liverpool, in 1853, and in 1860 entered the reporters' gallery of the House of Commons for the Morning Star, becoming its foreign editor the following autumn and chief editor three years later. He resigned his post in 1868, and devoted the next three years to an unusually complete tour of the United States, in which he visited as many as thirty-five of the thirty-seven states. Soon after his return he became connected with the Daily News, but he has also contributed among other magazines to the London, the Westminster, and the Fortnightly Reviews. He entered the House of Commons in 1879 as member for Longford, and was leader of the main wing of the Irish Home-Rule party ('Anti-Parnellite') from the deposition of Mr Parnell (q.v.) till 1896, when he resigned the post. Of his novels the best known are Paul Massie
(1866), The Waterdale Neighbours (1867), My Enemy's Daughter (1869), Lady Judith (1871), A Fair Saxon (1873), Linley Rochford (1874), Dear Lady Disdain (1875), Miss Misanthrope (1877), Donna Quixote (1879), The Comet of a Season (1881), Maid of Athens (1883), Camiola (1885), and The Right Honourable, with Mrs Campbell Praed (1886). His other works are Con Amore, a collection of essays (1868); Critical Notice of George Sand (1870); Prohibitory Legislation in the United States (1872); Modern Leaders, biographical sketches (1872); and A History of our Own Times, from the Accession of Queen Victoria (4 vols. 1879-80; vol. v. 1897), an exceedingly readable work, clear and useful, though neither erudite nor exhaustive. Without professing to be impartial, the author is unprejudiced and is unexpectedly sane on Irish questions, which he expounds rather than discusses. His literary criticisms are not always happy. Later works are The Epoch of Reform (1882) and History of the Four Georges (4 vols. 1889 et seq.). See his Reminiscences (1899).