William Carleton

William Carleton (4 March 1794, Prolusk (often spelt as Prillisk as on his gravestone), Clogher, County Tyrone – 30 January 1869, Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin[1]) was an Irish writer and novelist.

[1] Most of his learning was gained from a curate, Father Keenan, who taught a classical school at Glennan (near Glaslough) in the parish of Donagh (County Monaghan) which Carleton attended from 1814 to 1816.

[1] After staying in a number of cheap lodgings, he eventually found a place in a house on Francis St., which contained a circulating library.

[3] He obtained some teaching and a clerkship in a Sunday School office, began to contribute to journals, and "The Pilgrimage to Lough Derg," which was published in the Christian Examiner, attracted great attention.

[1] Carleton remained active publishing in Dublin magazines through the 1830s and 40s writing many ethnic stories often drawn from the south Tyrone locality.

Despite his conversion to Protestantism, Carleton remained on friendly terms with one of the priests there, Reverend Robert Carbery SJ, who offered to give him the Last Rites of the Catholic Church.

Carleton, in the final weeks before his death in January 1869, politely declined the offer, stating he had not been a Roman Catholic "for half a century & more".

[1] Another factor that alienated Carleton from his fellow Irishmen was his intense hatred of the Catholic Church in Ireland to which the majority of his countrymen belonged.

It has been argued (for example by Brian Donnelly[4]) that Carleton's conversion to Anglicanism may have been a pragmatic move, as it would have been difficult for an aspiring young Catholic author to receive the patronage necessary to achieve success in early 19th-century Ireland.

However, Donnelly's arguments fail when compared to Carleton's own statements in an 1826 letter to the Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel.

According to W. B. Yeats, Reverend Otway was an, "anti-papal controversialist," who encouraged Carleton to write stories to "highlight...the corrupt practices of an ignorant clergy.

[citation needed] The International Astronomical Union named a crater on the planet Mercury Carleton in his honour on 19 October 2018.