"The Hibernian Magazine" redirects here. For other uses, see Hibernian Magazine.
Walker's Hibernian Magazine
May 1783 issue of Walker's Hibernian Magazine
Founder
James Potts
First issue
1770s
Final issue
1812
Country
Ireland
Walker's Hibernian Magazine, or Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge was a general-interest magazine published monthly in Dublin, Ireland, from February 1771 to July 1812.[1] Until 1785 it was called The Hibernian Magazine or Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge (Containing, the greatest variety of the most curious and useful subjects in every branch of polite literature). Tom Clyde called it "the pinnacle of eighteenth-century Irish literary magazines".[2]
Publishers
The founding publisher was James Potts of Dame Street, who had published the Dublin Courier from 1766.[3] From October 1772 until at least July 1773[n 1] Peter Seguin of St Stephen's Green published a rival version with differing format.[4][5] Potts ceded in March 1774[n 1] to Thomas Walker, also of Dame Street,[6] who added his surname to the magazine's title in May 1785.[7] There was some production overlap at this time with Exshaw's Magazine, since John Exshaw was selling out to Walker;[6] this has caused later confusion.[8] Thomas Walker retired from the publishing business in 1797, having ceded the Hibernian Magazine at the end of 1790 to his relative[n 2] Joseph Walker,[6] who died in 1805.[3][9]
What the Gentleman's Magazine was to England, Walker's Hibernian Magazine was to Ireland during the latter half of the eighteenth century. It has, perhaps, a more marked individuality of character and a stronger flavour of provincialism than the Gentleman's, and for these causes suits the curiosity-monger even better. It was at once a newspaper and a monthly miscellany of useful and entertaining literature. It not only gave parliamentary debates and the latest births, deaths, and marriages, but also tit-bits of London and Dublin gossip, the newest outrages, the most thrilling sentimental tales à la Werther, along with scraps of poetry and tête-à-tête portraits of the leading fashionable belles and beaux of the day.
It is a primary source for Irish history of the period; its unofficial report of the trial of Robert Emmet in September 1803 differs from the official trial transcript and includes the first version of his celebrated speech from the dock.[13] An index to marriages announced in its pages was compiled by Henry Farrar in the 1890s.[14]
References
Footnotes
^ ab
Clyde lists Peter Seguin as the publisher from October 1773, and Thomas Walker from June 1778.[1] This conflicts with Gargett and Sheridan[4] and Pollard.[5][6]
^John Thomas Gilbert says Joseph was Thomas Walker's son,[3] and Pollard says he "probably" was.[9] Louis D. Melnick says that Thomas died in 1817, unmarried but with sons named Thomas, George and Rev. Thomas Frederick.[10]
^Melnick, Louis D. (1993). "Walker". NGS Newsletter. 19. National Genealogical Society: 86.
^O'Dowd, Mary (2002). "The Political Writings and Public Voices of Women, c.1500–1850: Introduction". In Bourke, Angela; Kilfeather, Siobhán; Luddy, Maria; Mac Curtain, Margaret; Meaney, Gerardine; Ní Dhonnchadha, Mairín; O’Dowd, Mary; Wills, Clair (eds.). Irish Women's Writing and Traditions. The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing. Vol. 5. NYU Press. pp. 1–12: 12, fn.33. ISBN9780814799079. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
^Farrar, Henry. Irish marriages, being an index to the marriages in Walker's Hibernian magazine, 1771 to 1812. With an appendix, from the notes of Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster King of Arms, of the births, marriages, and deaths in the Anthologia Hibernica, 1793 and 1794. London: Phillimore. Vol. 1 (A–K; 1897) and Vol. 2 (L–Z and Appendix; 1898)