John Banim

John Banim was born in Kilkenny on 3 April 1798, the son of a farmer and shopkeeper who pushed a quick-minded boy into dame schools, the English Academy, and a strict seminary before he could breathe. He read like a hungry dog, burned his bad poems every birthday, and at ten carried manuscript poetry to Thomas Moore, who laughed, encouraged him, and handed over a theatre ticket. Love struck young when Anne left town and died of tuberculosis; Banim caught the same sickness in his spine, lay wasted for months, then rose to paint portraits and fill the Leinster Gazette with stories until Dublin called him in 1820.