Life
1810-1864 [pseud. ‘Paul Peppergrass’]; b. Donegal; ord. Maynooth,
1837; emig. America c.1845; wrote Catholic novels including Shandy
M’Guire, or Tricks upon Travellers (1848), The Spaewife
(1853), and Mary Lee, or Yankee in Ireland (1864),
all publ. in America as ‘Paul Peppergrass’; as well as works
of piety and historical biography; published fiction and lectures on the
influence of Catholicism; assisted John Banim with the second series of Tales of the O’Hara Family; Shandy M’Guire, which
concerns the activities of a ring of Protestant proselytisers in the rural
North of Ireland, was dramatised by James Pilgrim, as Shandy Maguire,
or the Bould Boy of the Mountain, 2 acts (q.d.); d. in America. DIW
IF MKA DUB OCIL
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Works
as ‘Paul Peppergrass’, Shandy McGuire, or Tricks upon Travellers
[ ... &c.] (NY: P. Donahoe 1848); The Spaewife [ ...
&c.] ([NY: P. Donahoe] 1852); Mary Lee; o,r the Yankee
in Ireland ([NY: P. Donahoe] 1860); also James Pilgrim, as Shandy
Maguire, or the Bould Boy of the Mountain, 2 acts (NY: Samuel French
[q.d.]).
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Criticism
A Biographical Sketch of the Rev. John Boyce, D. D. 1810-64, [rev.
edn.] (Dublin 1941). 113pp., shows him to have been a friend of Dickens
and Thackeray.
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References
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919),
lists with summaries Shandy Maguire (1848), The Spaewife
(1853), and Mary Lee (1864); all pseud. John Peppergrass.
Brian McKenna, Irish literature, 1800-1875: a Guide to Information Sources (Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978), lists Shandy McGuire, or Tricks upon Travellers, &c. (1848); The Spaewife ... (1852); Mary Lee, or the Yankee in Ireland (1860), all publ. in America, and all by ‘Paul Peppergrass’; also A Biographical Sketch of the Rev. John Boyce, D. D. 1810-64, [rev. edn.] (Dublin 1941). 113pp., shows him to have been a friend of Dickens and Thackeray.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2 cites him as co-author with John Banim of Tales by the O’Hara Family, 2 series (London: Simpkin & Marshall 1825; Colborn 1826), and The Bit o’ Writing (London: Saunders & Otley 1838).
University of Ulster Library holds Shandy M’Guire, or Tricks upon Travellers, being a story of the North of Ireland (P. Donahoe, 1853); by [pseud.] Paul Peppergrass. Catl, Belfast Central holds holds Shandy McGuire [1853] and identical title by John Stirling Coyne.
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Notes
Shandy Maguire was dramatised by James Pilgrim, as Shandy Maguire,
or the Bould Boy of the Mountain, 2 acts (Samuel French NY).
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