Page:A Compendium of Irish Biography.djvu/181

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DOY
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Doyle, John, well known as a caricaturist under the pseudonym of "H. B.," was born in Dublin in 1797. In early manhood he paid much attention to art, and obtained some success in portraiture and in the representation of horses. His chief celebrity, however, arose from his caricatures of political personages, besides illustrations, in Punch. The physiognomies of numerous British celebrities of the day have been perpetuated by him. It was generally understood that he threw up his connexion with Punch in consequence of his Catholic principles being outraged by the Pope being mercilessly caricatured in its pages. He lived a quiet, retired life, and died at his residence, Clifton Gardens, London, 2nd January 1868, aged about 71. The Annual Register says: "The charm of H. B. was the excellence of the humour shown in his portraits, added to the fact that he did not, as too many political satirists have been prone to do, degenerate into coarseness and vulgarity—His sons, inheriting a good name, have inherited also much of the fun to be seen in their father's drawings, but with much greater technical skill in drawing, in which Mr. John Doyle was rather deficient." 7 40

Drelincourt, Peter, LL.D., Dean of Armagh, son of the well known Charles Drelincourt, a Huguenot pastor in France, was born in Paris, 22nd July 1644. He came to Ireland as chaplain of the Lord-Lieutenant, the Duke of Ormond. In 1681 he was appointed Precentor of Christ Church, Dublin; in 1683 he was collated to the further preferment of Archdeacon of Leighlin, which he resigned 28th February 1690-'1, on being appointed Dean of Armagh. The only work published of this eminent divine was A speech to the Duke of Ormond and the Privy Council, to return the humble thanks of the French Protestants arrived in this Kingdom, and graciously received (Dublin, 1682). He died 7th March 1722 [1720, aged 76 323†] and was buried in Armagh Cathedral, where a handsome monument has been raised to his memory, surmounted by a life-like representation of him in a recumbent posture, executed by Rysbrach. His widow founded the Drelincourt Charity School in Armagh, in 1732. 118 323†

Drennan, William, M.D., a United Irishman, poet and writer, was born in Belfast, 23rd May 1754. His father, Rev. Thomas Drennan, was a Presbyterian minister. William Drennan took his degree of M.D. at Edinburgh in 1778, and practised two or three years in Belfast, then for seven years at Newry, and ultimately removed to Dublin in 1789. Being impressed with a conviction of the necessity of Catholic Emancipation, and Parliamentary Reform, he originated the establishment of the Society of United Irishmen, and published a prospectus in June 1791. Many of the most stirring addresses connected with the organization were drawn up by him, and his were the beautiful lyrics, "When Erin First Rose," "Wake of William Orr," "Wail of the Women after the Battle." In 1794 he was tried for sedition, but was acquitted. Though depressed by subsequent events, and by the Union, his spirit was not subdued, and his principles remained unchanged. Relinquishing his practice about 1800, he returned to Belfast, where he joined head, pen, and purse in the foundation of the Belfast Academical Institution, and in conjunction with John Templeton, a botanist, and John Hancock, of Lisburn, commenced the Belfast Magazine. In 1815 he published a volume of Fugitive Pieces, and in 1817 a translation of the Electra of Sophocles. He died in Belfast, 5th February 1820, aged 65, and was there buried. He first applied to Ireland the epithet, "Emerald Isle." Dr. Drummond says: "He wrote some hymns of such excellence as to cause a regret they were not "more numerous, and in some of the lighter kinds of poetry showed much of the playful wit and ingenuity of Goldsmith." 39 254(2) 331

Dromgoole, Thomas, M.D., a physician, a nationalist, was born in Ireland the middle of the 18th century, and took his medical degree at Edinburgh. He spoke at the meetings of the Catholic Board with a spirit and ability not often met with, and was one of those who offered the earliest and most strenuous opposition to the "Veto" compromise. "The weapon he delighted in was the double-edged sword of scholastic dialectics. The councils, the fathers, the dusty library of ancient and modern controversy, were his classics. Valiant, uncompromising, headstrong, he bore with a sulky composure, on his sevenfold shield of theology, all the lighter shafts of contemporary ridicule." 208 Shell spoke of him thus: "Dromgoole's countenance was full of medical and theological solemnity, and he carried a huge stick with a golden head, on which he pressed both hands in speaking; and indeed from the manner in which he swayed his body, and knocked his stick at the end of every period to the ground, which he accompanied with a guttural 'hem,' he seemed tome a kind of rhetorical paviour, busily engaged in making the great road of liberty, and paving the way to Emancipation."

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