THOMAS MOORE Thomas Moore was born in Dublin in 1779, son of a prosperous grocer. Brought up a Catholic, he became a Protestant in order to enter Trinity College to study law. At TCD he became friendly with Robert Emmet, towards whom he maintained an affectionate memory all his life, but he was himself too frivolous a character to be capable of useful political activity. He was a very talented versifier, and his sentimental ballads, written to be sung to piano accompaniment, were popular and brought him in a large income. He moved to London where he took up the lifestyle of a Regency ‘buck’. In 1822 he retired to a remote part of Wiltshire where he died 30 years later. Much of his life was taken up with the writing of a gigantic verse epic set in Persia, a country he had never visited. Moore’s Melodies were popular throughout the last century, but are rarely heard of now. Though technically superb, they yet have a strange flimsiness about them. One commentator said that he had taken the wild harp of Erin and made it into a musical box. Moore was even the target of a cruel practical joke played on him by Father Francis Mahoney (‘Father Prout’), who translated a selection of his poetry into Latin, published it as the work of a little-known Roman poet and accused Moore of having translated the poems into English and passed them off as his own. Moore’s few ballads on patriotic themes have stood the test of time best. His style, too, contributed to the Irish ballad tradition.