Robert Dwyer Joyce

He was born in County Limerick, Ireland, where his parents, Garret and Elizabeth (née O'Dwyer) Joyce, lived in the northern foothills of the Ballyhoura Mountains, west of Ballyorgan.

[citation needed] Robert Joyce became a civil servant and succeeded his brother Patrick as principal of the Model School, Clonmel.

To finance his studies he contributed poems, stories and articles to a number of periodicals, including the Nation and the Harp.

Disappointed with the results of the 1866 Fenian rising in Ireland, [clarification needed] he emigrated to Boston, where he practised medicine.

His poem "The Battle of Benburb" commemorating a victory of Owen Roe O'Neill in the Irish Confederate Wars was later set to music as a popular ballad.