Denis Florence MacCarthy

Denis Florence MacCarthy (1817–1882) was an Irish poet, translator, and biographer, born in Lower O'Connell Street, Dublin.

MacCarthy was born in Lower O'Connell Street, Dublin, on 26 May 1817, and educated there and at St Patrick's College, Maynooth. He acquired an intimate knowledge of Spanish from a learned priest, who had spent much time in Spain, which he was later to turn to good advantage. In April 1834, before turning seventeen, MacCarthy contributed his first verses to the Dublin Satirist. He was one of a coterie of writers whose works appeared in the Nation, which had been started by Charles Gavan Duffy in 1842. Writing under the pseudonym "Desmond", most of MacCarthy's patriotic verse appeared in this organ.

In 1846, he was called to the Irish bar, but never practised. In the same year he edited The Poets and Dramatists of Ireland, which he prefaced with an essay on the early history and religion of his countrymen. About this time he also edited The Book of Irish Ballads (by various authors), with an introductory essay on ballad poetry in general. His Ballads, Poems, and Lyrics, appeared in 1850, original and translated. His attention was first directed to Pedro Calderón de la Barca by a passage in one of Percy Bysshe Shelley's essays, and from then on the interpretation of the "Spanish Shakespeare" claimed the greater part of his attention.

The first volume of his translations, containing six plays, appeared in 1853, and was followed by further instalments in 1861, 1867, 1870, and 1873. His version of Daybreak in Capacabana was completed only a few months before his death.

Until 1864, he resided principally on Killiney Hill, overlooking Dublin Bay. The delicate health of some members of his family then rendered a change of climate imperative, and he paid a prolonged visit to continental Europe. On his return MacCarthy settled in London, where he published – in addition to his translations – Shelley's Early Life, which contains an account of that poet's visit to Dublin in 1812. MacCarthy had already resettled in his native land of Ireland for some months, when he died on Good Friday, 1882 at Blackrock, Dublin. His poetical gifts were inherited by his daughter, who became a nun, and wrote as Sister Mary Stanislaus.

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