Irish writer, born in Griffinrath, County Kildare, Ireland, on the 31st of August 1830. He received his education in Ireland, at both Protestant and Roman Catholic schools, and became a lawyer, and a magistrate for the counties of Longford and Dublin. His fame, however, rests upon his work as a biographer and miscellaneous writer. Two of his later historical works, Correspondence of Daniel O’Connell: His Life and Times (1888) and Secret Service under Pitt (1892), attracted widespread comment, and placed him among the best of British historians. Others of his works are Ireland before the Union (1869); Irish Wits and Worthies (1873); and The Sham Squire and the Informers of 1798 (1866).
