The Times/1895/Obituary/Mr. W. J. Fitzpatrick

Layout 2

Mr. W. J. Fitzpatrick

Mr. William John Fitzpatrick, J.P., LL.D., a well-known writer, who was the author of a number of biographical and historical works, died yesterday morning at his residence in Fitzwilliam-square, Dublin.

Mr. Fitzpatrick was an industrious and prolific writer, and a memoir of the late Father Healy, P.P., of Bray, which is published this week, is from his pen. He was a careful and minute compiler of anecdotes and circumstances which illustrated the character and inner life to the persons whom he selected as the subjects of his literary labours. He was chiefly known as the author of The Sham Squire and the Informers of 1798, of which 16,000 copies were sold. The "sham squire" was a spy in the service of the Government at the time of the rebellion of 1798. His Life, Times, and Companions of Bishop Doyle, in two volumes has been lately been republished. He also wrote The Life, Times, and Contemporaries of Lord Cloncurry; The Friends, Foes, and Adventures of Lady Morgan; anecdotal Memoirs of Archbishop Whately, in two volumes; Lord Edward Fitzgerald and His Betrayers: or, Notes on the Cornwallis Papers; Ireland before the Union, with the Unpublished Diary of Lord Chief Justice Clonmel, 1774-1798, which has gone into six editions; Irish Wits and Worthies, with Dr. Lanigan: his Life and Times; Charles Lever: a Biography; and Life of Father Tom Burke. In 1888 he published The Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell, with His Life and Times. Mr. Gladstone wrote an article in the Nineteenth Century on this book, and alluded to it in public speeches. Leo XIII. When he was Papal Nuncio, had known Daniel O'Connell, and to mark his satisfaction with Mr. Fitzpatrick's book he conferred on him in 1889 the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great. In 1892 Mr. Fitzpatrick issued Secret Service under Pitt, which was welcomed by Home Rulers on account of the revelations which it contained as to the methods by which the Act of Union passed.

Mr. Fitzpatrick was the son of Mr. John Fitzpatrick, of Thomas-street, Dublin and Griffinwrath, co. Kildare. He was born on August 31, 1830, was educated first at a Protestant school and afterwards at the Roman Catholic College of Clongowes Wood. He was a magistrate and grand juror for the counties of Dublin and Longford, a member of the Royal Irish Academy, an honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Arts, and one of the executive of the Royal Dublin Society. In 1876 he was appointed by the Viceroy for the second time High Sheriff of the county of Longford.