John Pentland Mahaffy
| Sir John Pentland Mahaffy | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
26 February 1839 Vevey, Switzerland |
| Died | 30 April 1919 (aged 80) Dublin, Ireland |
| Occupation | Irish classicist and polymathic scholar |
Sir John Pentland Mahaffy GBE CVO (26 February 1839 – 30 April 1919), was an Irish classicist and polymathic scholar.
He was born near Vevey in Switzerland on 26 February 1839 to Irish parents, receiving his early education privately in Switzerland and Germany, and later and more formally at Trinity College, Dublin. As an undergraduate, he became President of the University Philosophical Society. He was elected a scholar in 1857, graduated in classics and philosophy in 1859, and was elected a fellow in 1864.
Mahaffy held a chair in Ancient History at Trinity from 1871, and eventually became Provost in 1914, at the age of 75. He was a distinguished classicist and papyrologist as well as a Doctor of Music. He wrote the music for the Grace in chapel. Mahaffy, a man of great versatility, published numerous works across a range of subjects, some of which, especially those dealing with the 'Silver Age' of Greece, became standard authorities.
He was High Sheriff of County Monaghan for 1900 and a Justice of the Peace for county Dublin. He was president of the Royal Irish Academy from 1911 to 1916.
He was regarded as one of Dublin's great curmudgeons and also one of its greatest wits. When aspiring to be Provost of Trinity College, upon hearing that the incumbent was ill, he is said to have remarked, "Nothing trivial, I hope?" In his academic years, he was acquainted with TCD undergraduate Oscar Wilde, with whom he discussed homosexuality in ancient Greece, and Wilde described him as his "first and greatest teacher". Like his protégés, Wilde and Oliver Gogarty, Mahaffy was a brilliant conversationalist, coming out with such gems as "in Ireland the inevitable never happens and the unexpected constantly occurs." When asked, by an advocate of women's rights, what the difference was between a man and a woman he replied, "I can't conceive." Gerald Griffin records him as saying “James Joyce is a living argument in defence of my contention that it was a mistake to establish a separate university for the aborigines of this island – for the corner boys who spit into the Liffey.”
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