Henry Richard Dawson

The Very Rev. Henry Richard Dawson (23 December 1792 – 24 October 1840) was the Church of Ireland Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin from 1828 to 1840, and Rector of Castlecomer, County Kilkenny. He was also Vice-President of the Royal Irish Academy in 1840 and a noted Irish antiquarian.

Henry Richard Dawson, born on the 23rd December 1792, was the second son and sixth child of Catherine Dawson (née Monck) and Arthur Dawson, of Castledawson, County Londonderry. His great-grandfather was Joshua Dawson, who was responsible for the development of Dublin’s Dawson Street and the surrounding area.

Dawson spent his childhood with his family at 22 Merrion Square, Dublin. He then went to Harrow to be educated, where he formed a friendship with George Sackville, 4th Duke of Dorset. They both went on to Christ Church, Oxford, where Dawson’s interest in antiquities began to develop. By the time he had completed his studies there, he had already built a valuable collection of Roman coins. He was said to have been deeply affected by the untimely death of the Duke in 1815, following a fall from his horse.

Sometime after he completed his M.A. at Christ Church, Dawson was ordained by his uncle, William Beresford, the Archbishop of Tuam. Following successive appointments at Dunmore in the Diocese of Ossory, County Kilkenny, and Drumcondra in the Diocese of Meath, he was made Rector of Castlecomer, also in the Diocese of Ossory. This culminated in his appointment as Dean of St. Patrick’s, Dublin in 1828.

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