Other Bards and Poets

Other Ward poets can be found recorded in "The Poets of Ireland--A Biographical Dictionary" compiled by David J. O'Donoghue, and printed by the Paternoster Steam Press, London, in 1892. Some will come as a surprise, beginning with C. A. Ward, described by the dictionary's compiler as "An Orange poet apparently, some of whose anti-Catholic poems are in Wm. Johnston's "Boyne Book of Poetry and Song" (1859)." He used the pseudonym--wait for it--"Feltham Burghley". 'Nuff said.

Next comes Rev. James Ward, B.A., T.C.D., 1711; M.A. 1714. Of him O'Donoghue wrote: "There are about sixteen of this writer's poems in Matthew Concanen's collection of "Miscellaneous Poems"' 1724, one of them, a long one, being on "Phoenix Park".

Another T.C.D. man was Samuel Ward, LL.D., whose post graduate studies ended in 1796. The dictionary simply notes: "A poet of this name is represented in Joshua Edkin's collection of poems in two vols, 1789-90."

The last of four entries counter-balanced the previously mentioned Orange poet. He was Thomas Ward, and the entry began with: " 'England's Reformation' a poem in four cantos, Hamburg, 1710. Many other editions, including one at Dublin in 2 vols, 1814. Ward was styled "the Catholic Souldier", and may not have been Irish."

At this remove it is difficult to take issue with the assertion that Thomas Ward may not have been Irish, but a hundred years later a namesake, Thomas Edward Ward, a native of Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, certainly was Irish. As noted by Brenda O'Hanrahan in her "Bibliography of Donegal Authors", 1982, this Thomas Ward was born in the 1890s, was a painter by trade, and a poet, whose "Blossoms from the Song Time" was printed by "The Derry Journal" in 1914.