Life
?1820-1875 [Robert Arthur Wilson; pseud. ‘Barney Maglone’];
b. Falcaragh, Donegal, 1820; emigrated to America, 1840; contrib. to The
Nation on his return; established role as humorous writer under pseud.
of ‘Barney Maglone’; leader writer to Morning News and
editor for 14 months before his death; poems Reliques of Barney Maglone (1894); d. 10 aug., in consequence of ‘too vigorous participation
in the O’Connell centenary celebrations in Dublin’ (O’Byrne).
PI ODNB DIL MKA OCIL DUB
[ top ]
Works
Barney Maglone’s Almeynack for all Irelnd (London 1871); John S.
Crone, ed., The Reliques of Barney Maglone, with preface by D.
J. O’Donoghue (Belfast: T. Dargan 1894). COMM, Robert McGahan, Life
of Barney Maglone [n.d.]
[ top ]
Commentary
D. J. O’Donoghue, preface to J. S. Crone’s edition of
The Reliques of Barney Maglone (Belfast: T. Dargan 1894), givies
biographical data, from which DIL is compiled, b. Dunfanaghy, Donegal;
a Presbyterian; teacher at Ballycastle; journalist on American Boston
Republic, settled in Enniskillen in 1847; sub-ed. the Nation, 1849 ;
Impartial Reporter, Enniskillen; Fermanagh Mail, commenced
Barney Maglone articles; Morning News, Belfast, 1865; Almeynack
for all Ireland, an’ Whoever else wants it (1871); author of
temperance poems, and poems praising poteen; O’Donoghue admits that
his poetry was damaged by carelessness. SEE also ‘barney Maglone
of the old ‘Morning News’, in Cathal O’Byrne, As I Roved
Out (Dublin: Three Candles 1946), pp.115-_
McKenna, Irish Literature (1978), cites Crone, in IBL 12 (1921); and Ruddick Millar, in Irish Bookman 2 (1947), giving affectionate picture. SEE ALSO Life, by R. McGahan (n.d.); Reliques, ed. Crone, J. S., with memoir by D. J. O’Donoghue.
[ top ]
References
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis
1912), cites Reliques of Barney Maglone, ed. F. J. Bigger & John S.
Crone, with memoir by D. J. O’Donoghue [1894].
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (1904), gives ‘The Irish Cry’.
Ulster Libraries: Belfast Central Public Library holds R. A. Wilson (pseud. Barney Maglone) ed. F J Bigger and J S Crone (1894); also, Belfast Linen Hall Library, cuttings: ‘Maglone Minor, Antrim v. McMullen’, in Ulster Weekly News.
[ top ]
Quotations
Poems incl., ‘Father O’Carroll, a Legend of Ballycastle, Co.
Antrim’; ‘To Ireland’ [‘Of all the lands the sun shines
on/Ireland is the fairest one/though not so grandly splendid.’; ‘Bee
and the Flowerlet’ is pleasantly indecent [‘He kissed her, he
teased her, he rumpled her too’; some Burns poems, ‘I wann,
maunna, canna change/In my fond thoughts of thee, lass’. ‘Potheen’
includes the lines, ‘I love the tender crayther/All in her punchy
dhress/And when she’s mother naked/I love her none the less’;
also a piece on the death of G[ustavus]. V[aughan]. Brooke, who went down
in the SS London; ‘The Green’ shows him a patriot, ‘The
orange lily rears its head the pride of many a walk,/And bends its lady
head above its proud and splendid stalk;/But what’s the colour of
the stem, itself and earth between?/The stalk that bears the lily up is
still the glorious green. ... When Earth and Faction cease for us, and
we are all alone,/The mantle that our Mother spreads above our grave/Is
still the colour of our land, our own sad, lovely green!’ (From Poetry
of Barney Maglone.)
[ top ]
Notes
Wilson dressed fancifully with slope hat and coloured scarves, and died
of drink (JS Crone, Pref. to Reliques.)
[ top ]