Owenson was introduced as an actor by Oliver Goldsmith and David Garrick; he had his London debut at Covent Garden in 1774.
The audience was as national as the performance; and the pit was filled with red coats of the corps to which my father belonged; and the boxes exhibited a show of beauty and fashion, such as Ireland above all countries could produce.
The enormously successful theatre was shut when the British government granted an exclusive patent to a less nationally minded competitor, Richard Daly, for whom Owenson subsequently worked.
The contemporary writer Jonah Barrington described him as "considerably above six feet in height, remarkably handsome and brave looking, vigorous and well shaped.
"[citation needed] When he died in 1812, the Freeman's Journal wrote in an obituary: "The revival of Irish music within these last thirty years was entirely owing to his exertion, and his exquisite mode of singing his native airs both in public and in private.