John Boyle, the Freeholder and pre-Famine Cork society

‘This Wild Infuriate’

Neil Cronin

John Boyle was an orphan with a difficult upbringing, impoverished and a social misfit, yet he achieved great prominence in early nineteenth-century Cork. A disruptor, he doggedly challenged the status quo. In politics, he was a vehement Vetoist and a forthright opponent of Daniel O’Connell. A lapsed Catholic in a religious age, he scorned all religions and clergymen. His nimble wit and considerable powers of oratory often plunged public gatherings into mayhem. In his journalism, he suffered frequent legal and physical admonishment, yet relentlessly championed the downtrodden and exposed the rottenness of contemporary society. An unfortunate obsession with publicising the sexual proclivities of the prosperous and prominent of Cork society has soiled his reputation. Boyle’s periodical the Freeholder, exceptional in pre-Famine Ireland for longevity, provides a vivid chronicle of a city in transition, from wartime prosperity to post-Waterloo stagnation, not otherwise available for any Irish urban centre. Notwithstanding personal and professional shortcomings, Boyle remains admirable and relevant.

Neil Cronin has previously authored The medical profession and the exercise of power in early nineteenth-century Cork in the Maynooth Studies (Dublin, 2014) and Marsden Haddock and the Androides Entertainment, late Georgian Cork and the wider world in the Maynooth Local History series.