Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Townshend, Horatio (1750-1837)
TOWNSHEND, HORATIO (1750–1837), Irish writer, son of Philip Townshend of Ross, co. Cork, was born there in 1750, and entered Trinity College, Dublin, about 1768. He graduated B.A. in 1770, and M.A. in 1776. He was incorporated at Magdalen College, Oxford, on 15 April 1776. He took orders, and was given the living of Rosscarbery, co. Cork, where he resided for the rest of his life. His most important work is a ‘Statistical Survey of the County of Cork,’ which was first published in one volume in Dublin in 1810. A second edition of the work, in two volumes, was published in Cork in 1815. Another work by Townshend was ‘A Tour through Ireland and the Northern Parts of Great Britain,’ 8vo, London, 1821. He also wrote a good deal of local and ephemeral verse, a specimen of which may be found in ‘The Hippocrene’ (1831) by Patrick O'Kelly [q. v.] He wrote occasional articles for ‘Blackwood's Magazine’ under the signature of ‘Senex,’ and to ‘Bolster's Cork Magazine,’ 1828–31. He died on 26 March 1837.
[Windale's Cork and Killarney; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland; Foster's Alumni Oxonienses, 1715–1886; Todd's List. of Dublin Graduates.]