Michael Hogan (poet)

Michael Hogan (31 October 1828 – 1899) was an Irish poet. He was known as the "Bard of Thomond".

Life

He was born in Thomondgate, County Limerick. His father was a wheelwright and musician, who also made the flutes and fiddles that he played. He and his family experienced some of the ravages of the Great Irish Famine (1845–1848), about which he wrote later in life.

Hogan's first published works appeared in the Anglo-Celt, then in the Irishman, the Nation, the Munster News, and the Limerick Leader. His first volume of works, Lays and Legends of Thomond, was published in Limerick in 1861. A larger edition, under the same name, was published in Dublin in 1867. He then embarked on issuing a series of satirical publications which lampooned prominent figures in the city. They achieved an enormous circulation and caused a great sensation at the time. He continued publishing similar matter until a new version of his Lays and Legends was published in Dublin in 1880. In 1886, he went to the United States, where he stayed for three years.[1]

A life-size statue of Hogan was erected to his memory at King Johns Castle Plaza in Limerick city in 2005.[2]

Further reading
  • Frank Hamilton - The bard of Thomond: his life, times and poetry. Fercor Press, 1974
  • The Lays and Legends of Thomond at the Internet Archive (www.archive.org)

References
  1. W. J. Paul: Irish Poets (1894)
  2. Unveiling of statue Archived 2012-06-16 at the Wayback Machine
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