Justin Huntly McCarthy
Justin Huntly McCarthy (1859 – 20 March 1936)[1] was an Irish author and nationalist politician. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1884 to 1892, taking his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
He was the son of Justin McCarthy (1830–1912). Since both father and son were authors, historians, and Members of Parliament, they are sometimes confused in lists and compilations.
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[edit] Political career
McCarthy was first elected to Parliament at a by-election on 12 June 1884, when he was returned unopposed as the Home Rule League member for Athlone, following the death of the Liberal MP Sir John James Ennis.[2]
Athlone lost its status as a parliamentary borough under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, and at the 1885 general election McCarthy stood instead in the borough of Newry in County Down, where he was returned unopposed for the Irish Parliamentary Party.[3] He was re-elected in 1886, with a comfortable majority over the Liberal Unionist Reginald Saunders,[4] but did contest the 1892 election.
[edit] Writing
McCarthy wrote various novels, plays, poetical pieces and short histories. He was briefly married to the actress Cissie Loftus.[5]
Among other works, he wrote biographies of Sir Robert Peel (1891), Pope Leo XIII (1896) and William Ewart Gladstone (1898). In 1889 he published prose translations of 466 quatrains of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.[6] He also wrote:
- Modern England (1898)
- Reminiscences (2 vols., 1899)
- The Reign of Queen Anne (1902)
- If I Were King (1901, Garden Theatre (New York), 1902, St James's Theatre (London)), which was named "Best Play of the 1901-02 Broadway Season"[7], and was adapted into the 1925 operetta The Vagabond King (and its 1930 film version) and the 1938 film If I Were King
- The Dryad (1905)
[edit] References
- ^ "Historical list of MPs: constituencies beginning with "N", part 2". Leigh Rayment's House of Commons pages. http://www.leighrayment.com/commons/Ncommons2.htm. Retrieved 13 December 2009.
- ^ Brian M. Walker, ed. (1978). Parliamentary election results in Ireland 1801–1922. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. p. 129. ISBN 0 901714 12 7.
- ^ Walker, op. cit., p. 134.
- ^ Walker, op. cit., p. 140.
- ^ They married in Edinburgh in 1894, and though they divorced in 1899, she originated the role of Katherine de Vaucelles, the heroine in If I Were King in 1901. Burns Mantle and Garrison P. Sherwood, eds., (1944). The Best Plays of 1899-1909. Philadelphia: The Blakiston Company. p. 67.
- ^ Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, translated by Justin Huntly McCarthy MP. [London] : D. Nutt, 1889. (Souce: Trinity College Dublin Library).
- ^ Mantle, op. cit., pp. 66-106.
[edit] External links
- Justin Huntly McCarthy at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Works by Justin Huntly McCarthy at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Justin Huntly McCarthy in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Justin Huntly McCarthy
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir John James Ennis, Bt |
Member of Parliament for Athlone 1884 – 1885 |
Constituency abolished |
| Preceded by Henry Thomson |
Member of Parliament for Newry 1885 – 1892 |
Succeeded by Patrick George Hamilton Carvill |
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