Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hay, Edward
HAY, EDWARD (1761?–1826), historiographer, member of a respectable catholic family of Wexford, was born at Ballinkeele in that county about 1761. He studied in France and Germany, and returning to Ireland took part in the public movements for effecting a relaxation of the penal laws against catholics. In 1791 he was appointed by the Wexford catholics to act as a member of the committee whose exertions led to the Catholic Relief Bill. Hay endeavoured at this period to suppress the disturbances in Wexford and to restore peace in the county, and was one of the delegates who, on behalf of the Irish catholics, presented an address to Lord Fitzwilliam, and laid a petition before George III at London in 1795. Edmund Burke in a letter in that year referred to him as a ‘zealous, spirited, and active young man.’ Hay also devised a project for obtaining a statistical enumeration of the population of Ireland. His plan received the commendation of Lord Fitzwilliam and Burke, as well as of Bishop Milner, but was not carried out. During the commotions in Wexford in 1798 Hay exerted himself in the cause of humanity. He was, however, arraigned on a charge of treason, and, although acquitted, suffered protracted imprisonment till he obtained his liberation through the interference of Lord Cornwallis. In 1803 he published at Dublin ‘History of the Insurrection of the County of Wexford, A.D. 1798, including an Account of Transactions preceding that event, with an Appendix,’ 8vo; reprinted at Dublin in 1842. To it he appended statements in contravention of allegations made against him by Sir Richard Musgrave in his book on Ireland. Hay subsequently acted as secretary to various associations for the emancipation of the Irish catholics. He was somewhat unjustly superseded as secretary to the catholic board in 1819, nominally for having without authority opened communication with a cabinet minister. In his latter years he was reduced to penury, suffered imprisonment for debt, and died in very necessitous circumstances at Dublin in 1826. An engraved portrait of Hay was twice published at Dublin.
[Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 1790; Milner's Inquiry into Certain Vulgar Opinions, 1808; Correspondence of Edmund Burke, 1844; Madden's United Irishmen, 1860; Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell, London, 1888.]