Michael Clancy, M.D. (blind actor and playwright) / [T. Percy C. Kirkpatrick].

  • Percy Kirkpatrick
Date:
1938
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Michael Clancy, M.D. (blind actor and playwright) / [T. Percy C. Kirkpatrick]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    last decline of life y ’, and also that he ‘ ‘ saw him lie in state in the Church of St. Dennis ”, before his funeral in the year 1715. While at school in Paris, in 1716, he was taught the first rudiments of the Greek tongue by Dr. Michael Moore, who, in 1689, had been appointed Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, by James II. This Michael Moore, “ an Irish gentleman knowing in every useful branch of learning ”, had done Trinity College good service by pre¬ serving its library when the College was occupied by the troops of King James, and in his honour a memorial tablet has recently been erected in the new reading room. Moore left Ireland after the defeat of King James and became “ Principal of the College of Navarre”'; subsequently he was twice Rector of the University of Paris, and he died August 22, 1726. Shortly after 1716, the exact date is uncertain, Clancy’s school life in Paris ended abruptly owing to a foolish escapade. One day he and two school fellows having learned that the Duke of Ormond, who had been attainted for high treason in August, 1715, was to visit Mary, Queen of James II, at St. Germains, they escaped from school to get a glimpse of their hero. The boys succeeded in seeing the Duke, but they were too frightened of the consequences of their truancy to return to school. His companions went home, but fear and folly persuaded me to make my escape, I took place in the boat for Hunfleur in Normandy, and arrived at Havre, de Grace, where a captain of a ship from Wexford in Ireland, upon some story which I made feasible to him, brought me to Dublin.” On his arrival in Dublin Clancy, then about twelve years of age, found himself “ an absolute stranger, without relation, friend or acquaintance ”, and apparently without any money. He decided to make his» way through Kilkenny to Clare with the hope of finding his family. In Kilkenny he had the good fortune to meet ‘ ‘ Captain Tracy, I think, of Lord Nassau Pawlet’s Horse, son to Judge Tracy of London Captain Tracy was under some obligation to Clancy’s father, in return for -which he “ ordered a support for me, and put me to a school in that town, endowed by the Ormond family ” and there “ paid for my maintenance and education for near three years ”. The existing Register of pupils at Kilkenny College does not record the name of Clancy, but, although that Register extends back to 1685, unfortunately there is a gap from 1715 to 1743, the period during which the Rev. Edward Lewis was headmaster. It is pro¬ bable that Clancy was a pupil at the school, but the whole story which he tells, in connection with a boy of twelve years of age, seems to be somewhat fantastic, yet Clancy tells it as if it were not unusual. Curiously enough he does not make any further mention of his parents, nor does he name any individual member of his family. Captain Tracy later became affected with ‘1 a melancholy, which I was told, he had contracted by the terrors of shipwreck, from which he narrowly escaped with life and three years after he had undertaken the care of Clancy at Kilkenny, there was “ a sudden stop in all remittances from that gentleman Clancy never heard of his benefactor again “ till I found him, in the year 1728, in
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