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{{Short description|Irish poet, singer and songwriter (1779–1852)}}
{{For-multi|the 16th-century saint and philosopher|Thomas More|||other people of the same name|Thomas Moore (disambiguation)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2023}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Thomas Moore
| image            = Thomas Moore, after Thomas Lawrence.jpg
| caption          = Thomas Moore, painting by [[Thomas Lawrence]]
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1779|5|28|df=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Dublin]], Ireland
| resting_place    = St. Nicholas' Churchyard, Bromham, Wiltshire, England 
| nationality      = Irish
| language         = English 
| period           = [[Georgian era]], [[Victorian era]]
| movement         = [[Romanticism]]
| alma_mater       = [[Trinity College, Dublin]] (B.A., 1799) <br>  [[Middle Temple]], London (LLB)
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|1852|2|25|1779|5|28|df=yes}}
| death_place      = Sloperton Cottage, [[Bromham, Wiltshire]], England
| occupation       = Poet, writer, lyricist
| notableworks     = Irish Melodies<br />''[[Memoirs of Captain Rock]]'' (1824)<br />''[[Lalla Rookh]]'' (1817)<br />Letters & Journals of Lord Byron <br> ''[[The Last Rose of Summer]]'' (1803)
| spouse           = Elizabeth Dyke
}}

'''Thomas Moore''' (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852) was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist, widely regarded in his lifetime as Ireland's "[[National poet|national bard]]". The acclaim rested primarily on the popularity of his ''Irish Melodies'' (with the first of ten volumes appearing in 1808). In these, Moore set to old Irish tunes verses that spoke to a nationalist narrative of Irish dispossession, loss, and resistance. With his romantic work ''[[Lalla Rookh]]'' (1817), in which these same themes are explored in an elaborate [[Orientalism|orientalist]] allegory, Moore achieved wider critical recognition. Translated into several languages, and adapted and arranged for musical performance by, among others, [[Robert Schumann]], the [[Chivalric romance|chivalric verse-narrative]] established Moore as one of the leading exemplars of European [[romanticism]].

In England, Moore moved in aristocratic [[Whigs (British political party)|Whig]] circles where, in addition to a [[Salon (gathering)|salon]] performer, he was appreciated as a [[Squib (writing)|squib writer]] and master of [[political satire]]. Chief among his targets, in successive [[Tories (British political party)|Tory]] governments, was [[Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh|Lord Castlereagh]] in whose promises of [[Catholic emancipation|"emancipation"]] Moore believed his fellow [[Catholic Church in Ireland|Catholics]] in Ireland had been deceived. In the verse novel ''[[The Fudge Family in Paris]]'' (1818), and its sequels, he pillories the [[Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom)|Foreign Secretary]] for employing the same "faithless craft" used to press Ireland into a [[Acts of Union 1800|union with Great Britain]] to accommodate [[Bourbon Restoration in France|restoration]] and [[Holy Alliance|reaction]] in Europe.

Wary in Ireland of an overtly Catholic place-seeking nationalism, Moore refused a nomination to stand with [[Daniel O'Connell]] and his [[Repeal Association]] for the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Westminster parliament.]] His broader sympathies were expressed in his several prose works, including a biography of the [[Society of United Irishmen|United Irish]] leader [[Lord Edward Fitzgerald]] (1831) and the ''Memoirs of Captain Rock'' (1824). Complementing [[Maria Edgeworth]]'s ''[[Castle Rackrent]]'' (1800), the satirical novel is the story, not of [[Anglo-Irish]] landowners, but of their exhausted tenants driven to the semi-insurrection of [[Whiteboys|Whiteboyism]].

Moore continues to be remembered chiefly for his ''Melodies'' (typically "[[The Minstrel Boy]]" and "[[The Last Rose of Summer]]"). He is also recalled, less generously, for the role he is thought to have played in the destruction of the memoirs of his friend, [[Lord Byron]].

==Early life and artistic launch==
Thomas Moore was born to Anastasia Codd from [[Wexford]] and John Moore from [[County Kerry]] over his parents' [[grocery shop]] in Aungier Street, [[Dublin]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.wnet.org/ihas/composer/moore.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080520112734/http://www.wnet.org/ihas/composer/moore.html|url-status=dead|title=I Hear America Singing|archive-date=20 May 2008}}</ref> He had two younger sisters, Kate and Ellen. Moore showed an early interest in music and performance, staging musical plays with his friends and entertaining hope of being an actor. In Dublin he attended Samuel Whyte's co-educational English grammar school,<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Geohegan|first=Patrick|date=2009|title=Whyte, Samuel {{!}} Dictionary of Irish Biography|url=https://www.dib.ie/biography/whyte-samuel-a9027|access-date=1 February 2022|website=www.dib.ie}}</ref> where he was schooled in Latin and Greek and became fluent in French and Italian. By age fourteen he had had one of his poems published in a new literary magazine called the ''Anthologia Hibernica'' (“Irish Anthology”).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Thomas Moore Critical Essays |url=https://www.enotes.com/topics/thomas-moore/critical-essays|access-date=11 April 2021|website=eNotes.com|language=en}}</ref>

Samuel Whyte had taught [[Richard Brinsley Sheridan|Richard Barnsley Sheridan]], Irish playwright and English [[Whigs (British political party)|Whig politician]], of whom Moore later was to write a biography.<ref name="Poetry Foundation">{{cite web |title=Thomas Moore |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/thomas-moore |website=poetryfoundation.org |publisher=Poetry Foundation |access-date=10 August 2020}}</ref>

===Trinity College and the United Irishmen===
In 1795, Moore was among the first Catholics admitted to [[Trinity College Dublin]], preparing, as his mother had hoped, for a career in law. Through the literary salon of the poet and satirist [[Henrietta Battier]],<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Linkin |first=Harriet Kramer |date=2014 |title=Mary Tighe, Thomas Moore, and the Publication of "Selena" |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24541145 |journal=The Review of English Studies |volume=65 |issue=271 |pages=711–729 |doi=10.1093/res/hgt098 |jstor=24541145 |issn=0034-6551|url-access=subscription }}</ref> and his friends [[Robert Emmet]], with him at Trinity, and [https://www.dib.ie/biography/hudson-edward-a4131#:~:text=Hudson%2C%20Edward%20(1772–1833,Hudson%20(née%20de%20Tracy). Edward Hudson], Moore was connected to the popular politics of the capital agitated by the [[French Revolution]] and by the prospect of a French invasion. With their encouragement, in 1797, Moore wrote an appeal to his fellow students to resist the proposal, then being canvassed by the English-appointed [[Dublin Castle administration]], to secure Ireland by incorporating [[Kingdom of Ireland|the kingdom]] in a union with [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]].<ref name="Kelly 2013" /> At the same time, in what he was later to describe in a preface to his Melodies as his "ardour for the national cause", he had popped "privately into the letterbox" of the United Irish paper, ''The Press,'' "a short Fragment in imitation of Ossian".<ref>{{Cite web |title=Preface to Irish Melodies by Thomas Moore |url=https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moorepre2.html |access-date=2025-08-16 |website=www.musicanet.org}}</ref> Mirroring the conceit of [[James Macpherson]]'s [[Ossian|Ossian cycle]] (poems which the Scottish writer claimed to have discovered and translated from [[Scottish Gaelic|Gaelic]]), it called on the Irish to recall the heroism of their ancestors and strike for freedom.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=O'Donnell |first=Kathleen Ann |title=The Influence of Thomas Moore in the Nineteenth-Century Greek-Speaking World |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=9780367353407 |editor-last=McCleave |editor-first=Sarah |location=New York |pages=204–214 |chapter=Young Ireland and the Superannuated Bard: Rewriting Thomas Moore in The Nation |editor-last2=O'Hanlon |editor-first2=Triona}}</ref>

In April 1798, Moore was interrogated at Trinity but acquitted on the charge of being a party, through the [[Society of United Irishmen]], to sedition.<ref name="Kelly 2013">{{Cite web |last=Kelly |first=Ronan |date=22 February 2013 |title=Another side of Thomas Moore |url=https://www.historyireland.com/another-side-of-thomas-moore/ |access-date=31 July 2022 |website=History Ireland}}</ref> Though a friend of Emmet, he had not taken the United Irish oath with Emmet and Hudson, and he was to play no part in the [[Irish rebellion of 1798|republican rebellion of 1798]] (Moore was at home, ill in bed),<ref name="Kelly 2013" /> or in [[Irish rebellion of 1803|the uprising in Dublin]] for which Emmet was executed in 1803.<ref name=":7">Anon., March 1853, "Lord John Russell's Memoirs of Moore" in ''Dublin Review'', vol. 34.</ref>{{rp|123}} Later, in a biography of the United Irish leader [[Lord Edward Fitzgerald]] (1831),<ref>{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Thomas |title=The Life and Death of Edward Fitzgerald. Volume 1 |date=1831 |publisher=Longman, Reese, Orme, Brown & Green |location=London}}</ref> he made clear his sympathies, not hiding his regret that [[French expedition to Ireland (1796)|the French expedition]] under  [[Lazare Hoche|General Hoche]] failed in December 1796 to effect a landing.<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings">{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Thomas |title=Political and Historical Writings on Irish and British Affairs by Thomas Moore, Introduced by Brendan Clifford |date=1993 |publisher=Athol Books |isbn=0-85034-067-5 |location=Belfast |pages=}}</ref>{{rp|132, 152–153}} Moore pays homage to Emmet's sacrifice on the gallows in the song "O, Breathe Not His Name" (1808).

===London society and first success===
[[File:Thomas Moore from NPG.jpg|150px|thumb|left|Moore as a young man]]In 1799, Moore continued his law studies at [[Middle Temple]] in [[London]]. The impecunious student was assisted by friends in the expatriate Irish community in London, including Barbara, widow of [[Arthur Chichester, 1st Marquess of Donegall]], the landlord and borough-owner of [[Belfast]].<ref name=":7" />{{rp|126}}

Moore's translations of [[Anacreon]], celebrating wine, women and song, were published in 1800 with a dedication to the [[Prince of Wales]]. His introduction to the future [[prince regent]] and [[George IV|King, George IV]] was a high point in Moore's ingratiation with aristocratic and literary circles in London, a success due in great degree to his talents as a singer and songwriter.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" /> In the same year he collaborated briefly as a librettist with [[Michael Kelly (tenor)|Michael Kelly]] in the comic opera, ''[[The Gypsy Prince]]'', staged at the [[Haymarket Theatre|Theatre Royal, Haymarket]],<ref>Eric Walter White: ''A Register of First Performances of English Operas'' (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1983), {{ISBN|0-85430-036-8}}, p. 59.</ref>

In 1801, Moore hazarded a collection of his own verse: ''Poetical Works of the Late Thomas Little Esq.''. The pseudonym may have been advised by their juvenile eroticism. Moore's celebration of kisses and embraces skirted contemporary standards of propriety. When these tightened in the [[Victorian era]], they were to put an end to what was a relative publishing success.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" /><ref name=":8">Brendan Clifford, Introduction to ''Political and Historical Writings on Irish and British Affairs by Thomas Moore'', {{ISBN|0-85034-067-5}}, Belfast: Athol Books..</ref>

==Travels and family==
===Observations of America and duel with critic===
In the hope of future advancement, Moore reluctantly sailed from London in 1803 to take up a government post secured through the favours of [[Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings|Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Earl of Moira.]] Lord Moira was a man distinct in his class for having, on the eve of the rebellion in Ireland, continued to protest against government and loyalist outrages,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Curtin |first1=Nancy |title=The United Irishmen: Popular Politics in Ulster and Dublin, 1791–1798 |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-820736-8 |page=217}}</ref> and to have urged a policy of conciliation.<ref>Dickson, Charles (1997), ''Revolt in the North, Antrim and Down in 1798'', London, Constable, {{ISBN|0094772606}}, p. 103</ref> Moore was to be the registrar of the [[Admiralty court|Admiralty Prize Court]] in [[Bermuda]]. Although as late as 1925 still recalled as "the poet laureate" of the island, Moore found life on Bermuda sufficiently dull that after six months he appointed a deputy and left for an extended tour of North America.<ref name="Harry White">{{cite web |last1=White |first1=Harry |title=Moore, Thomas |url=https://dib.cambridge.org/viewReadPage.do?articleId=a5948&searchClicked=clicked&quickadvsearch=yes |website=Dictionary of Irish Biography |publisher=Royal Irish Academy |access-date=18 August 2020}}</ref>

As in London, Moore secured high-society introductions. But of many of his hosts he had a low opinion including, with reports of a slave mistress ([[Sally Hemings]]), of President [[Thomas Jefferson]]: "The weary statesman for repose has fled/ From the halls of council to his negro shed . . . / And dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace!"<ref name=":5">{{Cite news |last=Montague |first=John |date=April 26, 2008 |title=The Man and his Melodies |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/archive/2008/0426/Pg049.html#Ar04900 |newspaper=The Irish Times |pages=49}}</ref><ref name=":62">{{Cite book |last=Kelly |first=Ronan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YtaqRhv1oQYC&dq=Ronan+Kelly,+Erin's+Bard,&pg=PT98 |title=Bard of Erin: The Life of Thomas Moore |date=2009 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=978-0-14-103134-7 |language=en}}</ref> Moore later conceded that, having consorted too closely in America with émigré European aristocrats and their friends among the opposition [[Federalist Party|Federalists]], he had developed a somewhat "tainted", somewhat partisan, view of the new republic.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" /> United Irish exiles, among them Robert Emmet's brother, [[Thomas Addis Emmet]], a prominent [[Abolitionism|abolitionist]],<ref name=":02">{{Cite web |title=Thomas Addis Emmet |url=https://history.nycourts.gov/figure/thomas-addis-emmet/ |access-date=2023-01-10 |website=Historical Society of the New York Courts |language=en-US}}</ref> were in Jefferson's [[Democratic-Republican Party|Democratic-Republican]] camp.<ref name=":16">{{Cite thesis |last=MacGiollabhui |first=Muiris |title=Sons of Exile: The United Irishmen in Transnational Perspective 1791–1827 |publisher=UC Santa Cruz (Thesis) |url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/75x28210 |pages= |year=2019}}</ref>

Following his return to England in 1804, Moore published ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Epistles_Odes_and_Other_Poems/z4K5zStZqO8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg Epistles, Odes, and Other Poems]'' (1806). In addition to complaints about America and Americans, this catalogued Moore's real and imagined escapades with American women. [[Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey|Francis Jeffrey]] denounced the volume in the ''[[Edinburgh Review]]'' (July 1806), calling Moore "the most licentious of modern versifiers", a poet whose aim is "to impose corruption upon his readers, by concealing it under the mask of refinement."<ref name="Poetry Foundation" /> Moore challenged Jeffrey to a duel but their confrontation was interrupted by the police. In what seemed to be a "pattern" in Moore's life ("it was possible to condemn [Moore] only if you did not know him"), the two then became fast friends.<ref name=":8" />{{rp|14}}

Moore, nonetheless, was dogged by the report that the police had found that the pistol given to Jeffrey was unloaded. In his satirical ''[[English Bards and Scotch Reviewers]]'' (1809), [[Byron]], who had himself been stung by one of Jeffrey's reviews, suggested Moore's weapon was also "leadless": "on examination, the balls of the pistols, like the courage of the combatants, were found to have evaporated". To Moore, this was scarcely more satisfactory, and he wrote to Byron implying that unless the remarks were clarified, Byron, too, would be challenged. In the event, when Byron, who had been abroad, returned there was again reconciliation and a lasting friendship.<ref name=":62"/>{{rp|139–147}}<ref name="Poetry Foundation" />

In 1809, Moore was elected as a member to the [[American Philosophical Society]] in [[Philadelphia]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Thomas+moore&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2 April 2021|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

One of the pieces in Epistles, Odes and Other Poems—later gathered together as “Poems Relating to America” in the second volume of Moore's Poetical Works (1840)—became a recognised influence in nineteenth-century French-Canadian poetry. A source of Irish-Canadian pride, “A Canadian Boat Song. Written on the River St. Lawrence” also contributed to the rhetoric of Canadian nationalism (which, paradoxically, was to heightened by the cross-border raids of [[Fenian raids|Irish-American Fenians]]).<ref name=":63">{{Cite book |last=Bentley |first=D. M. R. |title=The Reputations of Thomas Moore: Poetry, Music, and Politics |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=9780367353407 |editor-last=McCleave |editor-first=Sarah |location=New York |pages=46–63 |chapter=“A Canadian Boat Song” |editor-last2=O'Hanlon |editor-first2=Triona}}</ref>

===Marriage and children===
Between 1808 and 1810, Moore appeared each year in [[Kilkenny]], Ireland, with a charitable mixed repertory of professional players and high-society amateurs. He favoured [[comedy (drama)|comic roles]] in plays like [[Richard Brinsley Sheridan|Sheridan]]'s ''[[The Rivals]]'' and [[John O'Keeffe (Irish writer)|O'Keeffe]]'s ''[[The Castle of Andalusia]]''.<ref name=":62"/>{{rp|170–175}} Among the professionals, on stage in Kilkenny with her sister, the tragedienne-to-be [[Mary Ann Duff]], was Elizabeth "Bessy" Dyke.<ref name=norton>Joseph Norton Ireland: ''Mrs. Duff'' (Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1882).</ref> In 1811, Moore married Bessy in [[St Martin-in-the-Fields]], London. Together with Bessy's lack of a dowry, the Protestant ceremony may have been the reason why Moore kept the match for some time secret from his parents. Bessy shrank from fashionable society to such an extent that many of her husband's friends never met her (some of them jokingly doubted her very existence). Those who did held her in high regard.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" />

The couple first set up house in London, then in the country at [[Kegworth]], [[Leicestershire]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Thomas Moore (1779–1852) |url=http://victorian-studies.net/Moore.html |access-date=20 November 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Bloy |first=Marjorie |title=Biography: Thomas Moore (1779–1852) |url=http://www.historyhome.co.uk/people/moore-t.htm |access-date=20 November 2020 |website=A Web of English History}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=2 December 2011 |title=House historian: Vicars, framework knitters and a poet |url=https://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/country-houses-for-sale-and-property-news/house-historian-vicars-framework-knitters-and-a-poet-14961 |access-date=20 November 2020 |website=Country Life}}</ref> and in Lord Moira's neighbourhood at Mayfield Cottage in [[Staffordshire]], and finally in Sloperton Cottage in [[Wiltshire]] near the country seat of another close friend and patron, [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne]]. Their company included Sheridan and [[John Philpot Curran]], both in their bitter final years.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Webb |first=Alfred |date=1878 |title=John Philpot Curran – Irish Biography |url=https://www.libraryireland.com/biography/JohnPhilpotCurran.php |access-date=9 February 2023 |website=www.libraryireland.com}}</ref>

Thomas and Bessy had five children, none of whom survived them. Three girls died young, and both sons lost their lives as young men. One of them, Thomas Landsdowne Parr Moore, as a lowly officer fought first with the British Army in [[First Anglo-Afghan War|Afghanistan]], and then with [[French Foreign Legion]] in [[French Algeria|Algeria]]. He was dying of tuberculosis that riddled the family when, according to Foreign Legion records, he was killed in action on 6 February 1846.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20557536 | jstor=20557536 | title=Thomas Landsdowne Parr Moore, Son and Legionnaire | last1=Ryan | first1=George E. | journal=New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua | year=1998 | volume=2 | issue=3 | pages=117–126 | doi=10.1353/nhr.1998.a926632 | url-access=subscription }}</ref>
Despite these heavy personal losses, the marriage of Thomas Moore is generally regarded to have been a happy one.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" />

===Debt exile, last meeting with Byron===
In 1818, it was discovered that the man Moore had appointed his deputy in Bermuda had embezzled 6,000 [[pounds sterling]], a large sum for which Moore was liable. To escape [[debtor's prison]], in September 1819, Moore left for France, travelling with [[John Russell, 1st Earl Russell|Lord John Russell]] (future Whig [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|prime minister]] and editor of Moore's journals and letters). In [[Venice]] in October, Moore saw Byron for the last time. Byron entrusted him with a manuscript for his memoirs, which, as his literary executor, Moore promised to have published after Byron's death.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maurois |first1=André |author-link1=André Maurois |translator-last1=Miles |translator-first1=Hamish |year=1984 |orig-year=1930 |title=Byron |location=London |publisher=Constable |pages=331–332 |isbn=0-09-466010-7 }}</ref>

In Paris, Moore was joined by Bessy and the children. His social life was busy, often involving meetings with Irish and British and travellers such as [[Maria Edgeworth]] and [[William Wordsworth]]. However, his attempt to bridge the gulf in his connections between his exiled fellow countrymen and members of the British establishment was not always successful. In 1821, several emigres, prominent among them [[Myles Byrne]] (a veteran of [[Battle of Vinegar Hill|Vinegar Hill]] and of [[Napoleon]]'s [[Irish Legion]]) refused to attend a [[Saint Patrick's Day|St Patrick's day]] dinner Moore had organised in Paris because of the presiding presence of Wellesley Pole Long, a nephew of the [[Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington|Duke of Wellington]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Thomas Moore – Irish Paris|url=http://www.irishmeninparis.org/composers-and-musicians/thomas-moore|access-date=23 March 2021|website=www.irishmeninparis.org}}</ref> Byrne relented, only to engage in a row over a toast proposed to Thomas Reynolds, a reputed '98 informer.<ref name=":22">{{Cite book |last=Bartlett |first=Thomas |title=The Mighty Wave: the 1798 Rebellion in Wexford |publisher=Four Courts Press |year=1996 |isbn=1851822542 |editor-last=Keogh |editor-first=Daire |location=Dublin |pages=118–138 |chapter=Miles Byrne: United Irishman. Irish Exile and Beau Sabreur |editor-last2=Furlong |editor-first2=Nicholas}}</ref>{{rp|132}}

Once Moore learned the Bermuda debt had been partly cleared with the help of Lord Lansdowne (whom Moore repaid almost immediately by a draft on Longman, his publisher), the family, after more than a year, returned to Sloperton Cottage.

==Political and historical writing==
===Squib writer for the Whigs===
To support his family Moore entered the field of political [[Squib (writing)|squib writing]] on behalf of his Whig friends and patrons. The [[Whigs (British political party)|Whigs]] had been split by the divided response of [[Edmund Burke]] and [[Charles James Fox|Charles Fox]] to the French Revolution. But with the antics of the Prince Regent, and in particular, his highly public efforts to disgrace and divorce [[Caroline of Brunswick|Princess Caroline]], proving a lightning rod for popular discontent, they were finding new unity and purpose.

From the "Whigs as Whigs", Moore claimed not to have received "even the semblance of a favour" (Lord Moira, they "hardly acknowledge as one of themselves"). And with exceptions "easily counted", Moore was convinced that there was "just as much selfishness and as much low-party spirit among them generally as the Tories".<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|237, 248}} But for Moore, the fact that the Prince Regent held fast against Catholic admission to parliament may have been reason sufficient to turn on his former friend and patron.<ref name="Harry White" /> Moore's [[Satire|Horatian mockery]] of the Prince in the pages of ''[[The Morning Chronicle]]'' were collected in ''Intercepted Letters, or the Two-Penny Post-Bag'' (1813).

===The lampooning of Castlereagh===
[[File:Bloody Castlereagh (2).png|175px|thumb|right|Bloody Castlereagh, 1798]]Another, and possibly more personal, target for Moore was the [[Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs|Foreign Secretary]] [[Lord Castlereagh]]. A reform-minded [[Ulster]] [[Presbyterian Church in Ireland|Presbyterian]] turned Anglican [[Tories (British political party)|Tory]], as [[Chief Secretary for Ireland|Irish Secretary]] Castlereagh had been ruthless in the suppression of the United Irishmen and in pushing the [[Acts of Union 1800|Act of Union]] through the [[Parliament of Ireland|Irish Parliament]].

In what were the "verbal equivalents of the political cartoons of the day",<ref name="Poetry Foundation" /> ''Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress'' (1818), ''[https://verse.press/poem/to-the-ship-in-which-lord-castlereagh-sailed-for-31871 To the Ship in Which Lord Castlereagh Sailed to the Continent]'' (1818) and ''[[iarchive:fablesforholyal00moor/page/n15/mode/2up|Fables for the Holy Alliance]]'' (1823), Moore lampoons Castlereagh's deference to the reactionary interests of Britain's continental allies.<ref name=":62"/>{{rp|332–337}} At the [[Congress of Vienna]], the Foreign Secretary had signed "away the Rights of Man/ To Russian threats and Austrian juggle" and, content with but a [https://opil.ouplaw.com/page/498 declaration against the slave trade], had left "the sinking African/ To fall without one saving struggle--".<ref>{{Cite web |title=To The Ship In Which Lord Castlereagh Sailed For The Continent |url=https://verse.press/poem/to-the-ship-in-which-lord-castlereagh-sailed-for-31871 |access-date=2025-05-02 |website=verse.press}}</ref>

Widely read, so that Moore eventually produced a sequel, was the verse novel ''[[The Fudge Family in Paris]]'' (1818). The family of an Irishman working as a propagandist for Castlereagh in Paris, the Fudges are accompanied by an accomplished tutor and classicist, Phelim Connor. An upright but disillusioned Irish Catholic, his letters to a friend reflect Moore's own views.

Connor's regular epistolary denunciations of Castlereagh have two recurrent themes. The first is Castlereagh as "the embodiment of the sickness with which Ireland had infected British politics as a consequence of the union":<ref name="Bew 2011">{{cite book |last1=Bew |first1=John |title=Castlereagh: Enlightenment, War and Tyranny |date=2011 |publisher=Quercas |location=London |isbn=978-0-85738-186-6 |pages=530–531}}</ref> "We sent thee Castlereagh – as heaps of dead Have slain their slayers by the pest they spread". The second is that at the time of the Acts of Union Castlereagh's support for Catholic emancipation had been disingenuous. Castlereagh had been master of "that faithless craft", which can "court the slave, can swear he shall be freed", but then "basely spurns him" when his "point is gain'd".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Thomas |title=The Fudge Family in Paris |date=1818 |publisher=Longmans |location=London |pages=69, 76}}</ref>

Through a mutual connection, Moore learned that Castlereagh had been particularly stung by the verses of the Tutor in the ''Fudge Family.''<ref name="Bew 2011" /> For openly casting the same dispersions against the former Chief Secretary—that he bloodied his hands in 1798 and deliberately deceived Catholics at the time of the Union—in 1811 the London-based Irish publisher, and former United Irishman, [[Peter Finnerty]] was sentenced to eighteen months for libel.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Peter Finnerty – Irish Biography|url=https://www.libraryireland.com/biography/PeterFinnerty.php|access-date=27 March 2021|website=www.libraryireland.com}}</ref>

===''The Memoirs of Captain Rock''===
[[File:Maclise, Capt Rock, 1834 (2).jpg|thumb|left|''[[The Installation of Captain Rock]]'' by [[Daniel Maclise]], 1834]]
{{Main|Memoirs of Captain Rock}}

As a partisan squib writer, Moore played a role not dissimilar to that of [[Jonathan Swift]] a century earlier. Moore greatly admired Swift as a satirist, but charged him with caring no more for the "misery" of his Roman Catholic countrymen "than his own [[Gulliver's Travels|Gulliver]] for the sufferings of so many disenfranchised [[Yahoo (Gulliver's Travels)|Yahoos]]".<ref name="Moore 1835">{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Thomas |title=Memoirs of Captain Rock |date=1835 |publisher=Baudry's European Library |location=Paris |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eMmqG9-0jiEC&q=Memoirs+of+Captain+Rock&pg=PA146 |access-date=20 August 2020}}</ref><ref>Book the First, Chapter XIII, {{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Thomas |title=Political and Historical Writings on Irish and British Affairs by Thomas Moore, Introduced by Brendan Clifford |date=1993 |publisher=Athol Books |location=Belfast |isbn=0-85034-067-5 |pages=49–50}}</ref> ''[[Memoirs of Captain Rock|The Memoirs of Captain Rock]]'' (1824) might have been Moore's response to those who questioned whether the son of a Dublin grocer entertaining English audiences from his home in [[Wiltshire]] was himself connected to the great mass of his countrymen – to those whose remitted rents helped sustain the great houses among which he was privileged to move.

''The Memoirs'' relate the history of Ireland as told by a contemporary, the scion of a Catholic family that lost land in successive English settlements. The character, [[Captain Rock]], is folkloric but the history is in earnest.<ref name=":8" />''{{rp|15}}'' By the end of the  [[Penal Laws against Irish Catholics|Penal Law]] era his family has been reduced to the "class of wretched [[Cotter (farmer)|cottiers]]". Exposed to the voracious demands of spendthrift Anglo-Irish landlords (pilloried by [[Castle Rackrent|Maria Edgeworth]] in ''[[Castle Rackrent]]''), both father and son assume captaincies among the "White-boys, Oak-boys, and Hearts-of Steel", the tenant conspiracies that attack tax collectors, terrorise the landlords' agents and violently resist evictions.<ref>from ''Memoirs of Captain Rock'', Book the Second, Chapter I, {{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Thomas |title=Political and Historical Writings on Irish and British Affairs by Thomas Moore, Introduced by Brendan Clifford |date=1993 |publisher=Athol Books |location=Belfast |isbn=0-85034-067-5 |pages=53–55}}</ref><ref name="Moore 1835" />

''The Memoirs'' arose out of a tour of rural Ireland on which Moore had been was accompanied by Lansdowne, whose estates in Ireland were extensive.<ref name=":9">{{Cite book |last=Dungan |first=Myles |title=Land Is All That Matters: The Struggle That Shaped Irish History |date=2024-05-09 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-80110-816-4 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|177}} For Landsdowne, as for Russell and other of Moore's Whig friends who celebrated his novel's success, it may have been significant that when the 300-year chronicle finally catches up with Captain Rock in the [[Post-Napoleonic Depression|post-Napoleonic depression]], the focus of violent discontent is no longer Catholic dispossession or [[Anglo-Irish people|Anglo-Irish]] landlordism per se. The Rockites' fury is directed at the tithes levied on top of rents on behalf of the Anglican clergy. But for this shift to "safer ground", it is unlikely that ''[[The Times]]'' of London would have praised the author for his "love of justice".<ref name=":9" />{{rp|177, 180}}

In Ireland, [[Protestant Ascendancy|Ascendancy]] opinion was outraged. Moore's work elicited a riposte, dramatising the  "Popish" and "heartless" character of the "village banditti": [[Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna]]'s ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Rockite/jvhBAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=The+Rockite&pg=PA25&printsec=frontcover The Rockite; An Irish Story]'' (1829)''.''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Elizabeth |first=Charlotte |url=https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Rockite/jvhBAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq |title=The Rockite: An Irish Story |date=1844 |publisher=J.S. Taylor & Company |pages=7 |language=en}}</ref>''<ref name=":9" />{{rp|181–182}}''

Low-level agrarian warfare continued through, and beyond, the [[Great Irish Famine]] of the 1840s. It was only after this catastrophe which, as Prime Minister, Russell failed in any practical measure to allay,<ref>{{Cite book |title= The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849 |last=Woodham-Smith |first=Cecil |publisher=Penguin |year=1962 |location=London |isbn=978-0-14-014515-1|pages=410–411}}</ref> that British governments began to assume responsibility for agrarian conditions. At the time of ''Captain Rock'''s publication (1824), the commanding issue of the day was not tithes or tenant rights. It was the final instalment of [[Catholic Emancipation]]: Castlereagh's unredeemed promise of Catholic admission to parliament.

===''Letter to the Roman Catholics of Dublin''===
[[File:Terrrors of Catholic Emancipation.jpg|thumb|right|"Terrors of Emancipation" – The Roman Catholic Relief Act, 1829]]
Since within a united kingdom, Irish Catholics would be reduced to a distinct minority, Castlereagh's promises of their parliamentary emancipation seemed credible at the time of [[Acts of Union 1800|the Union]]. But the provision was stripped out of the union bills when in England the admission of Catholics to the "Protestant Constitution" encountered the standard objection: that as subject to political direction from Rome, Catholics could not be entrusted with the defence of constitutional liberties. Moore rallied to the "liberal compromise" proposed by [[Henry Grattan]], who had moved the enfranchisement of Catholics in the old Irish parliament. Fears of "Popery" were to be allayed by according the Crown a "negative control", a veto, on the appointment of Catholic bishops.

In an open ''Letter to the Roman Catholics of Dublin'' (1810), Moore noted that the Irish bishops (legally resident in Ireland only from 1782) had themselves been willing to comply with a practice otherwise universal in Europe. Conceding a temporal check of papal authority, he argued, was in Ireland's [[Gallicanism|Gallican]] tradition. In the time of "her native monarchy", the Pope had had no share in the election of Irish bishops. "Slavish notions of papal authority" developed only as a consequence of the English conquest. The native aristocracy had sought in Rome a "spiritual alliance" against the new "temporal tyranny" at home.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Thomas |title=Letter to the Roman Catholics of Dublin |date=1810 |publisher=Gilbert and Hodges |location=Dublin |pages=12–13 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cbnARspo3BwC}}</ref>

In resisting royal assent and in placing "their whole hierarchy at the disposal of the Roman court", Irish Catholics would "unnecessarily" be acting in "remembrance of times, which it is the interest of all parties [Catholic and Protestant, Irish and English] to forget". Such argument made little headway against the man Moore decried as a [[demagogue]],<ref name=":62"/>{{rp|504}} but who, as a result of his uncompromising stand, was to emerge as the undisputed leader of the Catholic interest in Ireland, [[Daniel O’Connell]].

Even when, in 1814, the [[Roman Curia|Curia]] itself (then still in silent alliance with Britain against [[Napoleon]]) proposed that bishops be "personally acceptable to the king", O'Connell was opposed. Better, he declared, that Irish Catholics "remain for ever without emancipation" rather than allow the king and his ministers "to interfere" with the Pope's appointment of Irish prelates. At stake was the unity of church and people. "Licensed" by the government, the bishops and their priests would be no more regarded than the ministers of the established Church of Ireland.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=MacDonagh |first1=Oliver |title=The Politicization of the Irish Catholic Bishops, 1800–1850 |journal=The Historical Journal |date=1975 |volume=18 |issue=1 |page=40 |doi=10.1017/S0018246X00008669 |jstor=2638467|s2cid=159877081 }}</ref>

When final emancipation came in 1829, the price O'Connell paid was the disenfranchisement of the [[Forty-shilling freeholders]] – those who, in the decisive protest against Catholics exclusion, defied their landlords in voting O'Connell in the [[1828 Clare by-election]]. The "purity" of the Irish church was sustained. Moore lived to see the exceptional papal discretion thus confirmed reshaping the Irish hierarchy culminating in 1850 with the appointment of the Rector of the [[Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples|Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith]] in Rome, Paul Cullen, as [[Primacy of Ireland|Primate Archbishop of Armagh]].

===''Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion''===
[[File:Thomas Moore c1817.jpg|thumb|Thomas Moore by Martin Archer Shee c 1817, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.]]
In a call heeded by Protestants of all denominations, in 1822 the new Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, [[William Magee (archbishop of Dublin)|William Magee]], declared the absolute necessity of winning an Irish majority for the Reformed faith — a "Second Reformation".<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Bible War in Ireland: the "Second Reformation" and the Polarization of Protestant-Catholic Relations, 1800–1840 |last=Whelan |first=Irene |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |year=2005 |location=Madison WI}}</ref> Carrying "religious tracts expressly written for the edification of the Irish peasantry", the "editor" of Captain Rock's Memoirs is an English missionary in the ensuing "bible war".<ref name=":8" />{{rp|18}} Catholics, who coalesced behind O'Connell in the [[Catholic Association]], believed that proselytising advantage was being sought in hunger and distress (that tenancies and food were being used to secure converts), and that the usual political interests were at play.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Irish Unionism-1920 |last=Good |first=James Winder |publisher=T Fisher Unwin |year=1920 |location=London |pages=106}}</ref><ref>Desmond Bowen: ''The Protestant Crusade in Ireland, 1800–70: A Study of Protestant–Catholic Relations between the Act of Union and Disestablishment'' (1978).</ref>

Moore's narrator in ''[[iarchive:travelsofirishge01mooruoft|Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion]]'' (1833) is again fictional. He is, as Moore had been, a Catholic student at Trinity College. On news of Emancipation (passage of the 1829 Catholic Relief Bill), he exclaims: "Thank God! I may now, if I like, turn Protestant". Oppressed by the charge that Catholics are "a race of obstinate and obsolete religionists […] unfit for freedom", and freed from "the point of honour" that would have prevented him from abandoning his church in the face of continuing sanctions, he sets out to explore the tenets of the "true" religion.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Thomas |title=Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion (in Two Volumes) |date=1833 |publisher=Longman |location=London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9TIJAAAAQAAJ}}</ref><ref name=":8" />{{rp|161–162}}

Predictably, the resolve the young man draws from his theological studies is to remain true to the faith of his forefathers (not to exchange "the golden armour of the old Catholic Saints" for "heretical brass").<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|178}} The argument, however, was not the truth of Catholic doctrine. It was the inconsistency and fallacy of the bible preachers. Moore's purpose, he was later to write, was to put "upon record" the "disgust" he felt at "the arrogance with which most Protestant parsons assume […] credit for being the only true Christians, and the insolence with which […] they denounce all Catholics as [[Idolatry|idolators]] and [[Antichrist]]".<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|248}} Had his young man found "among the Orthodox of the first [Christian] ages" one "particle" of their rejection of the supposed "corruptions" of the Roman church – justification not by [[sola fide|faith alone]] but also by [[good works]], [[transubstantiation]], and veneration of saints, relics and images — he would have been persuaded.<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|178}}

Once again, the success of Moore's work elicited an Ascendancy response. The ''Second Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of Religion'' (1833)<ref>{{Cite book |last=White |first=Joseph Blanco |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YOGSTJNloE4C&pg=PA1 |title=Second travels of an Irish gentleman in search of a religion / |date=1833 |publisher=R. Milliken |series= |location=Dublin}}</ref> is a vindication of the reformed faith by an author described as "not the editor of ''Captain Rock's Memoirs''" — the Spanish exile and Protestant convert [[Joseph Blanco White]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Whelan |first=Brian |date=2017 |title=The Faith Journey of Joseph Blanco White |url=https://www.ireland.anglican.org/news/7212/the-faith-journey-of-joseph |access-date=2023-04-11 |website=Church of Ireland}}</ref>

In 1816, Moore had published a ''A Series of Sacred Songs, Duets and Trios'' of which the first, [https://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/t/thou-art,-o-god,-the-life-and-light "Thou art, O God"], became a popular hymn.<ref name=":2" /> But despite acknowledging Catholicism as Ireland's "national faith",<ref>Moore, as "Their Devoted Servant", dedicates ''The Travel of an Irish Gentleman'' "to the People of Ireland" as a "Defence their Ancient and National Faith", {{cite book |last1=Moore |first1=Thomas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9TIJAAAAQAAJ |title=Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion (in Two Volumes) |date=1833 |publisher=Longman |location=London}}</ref> and the example of a devout mother, Moore appears to have abandoned the formal practice of his religion as soon as he entered Trinity.<ref name="Harry White" />

[[Brendan Clifford]], editor of Moore's political writings, interprets Moore's philosophy as "cheerful paganism", or, at the very least, "''à la carte'' Catholicism" in which Moore favoured "what scriptural Protestantism hated: the music, the theatricality, the symbolism, the idolatry".<ref name=":8" />{{rp|15}}

===Sheridan, Fitzgerald and ''The History of Ireland''===
In 1825, Moore's ''[[Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan]]'' was finally published after nine years of work on and off. It proved popular, went through a number of editions, and helped establish Moore's reputation among literary critics. The work had a political aspect: Sheridan was not only a playwright, he was a Whig politician and a friend of [[Charles James Fox|Fox]]. Moore judged Sheridan an uncertain friend of reform. But he has Sheridan articulate in his own words a good part of what was to be the United Irish case for separation from England.

Writing in 1784 to his brother, Sheridan explains that the "subordinate situation [of Ireland] prevents the formation of any party among us, like those you have in England, composed of person acting upon certain principles, and pledged to support each other". Without the prospect of obtaining power – which in Ireland is "lodged in a branch of the English government" (the Dublin Castle executive) – there is little point in the members of parliament, no matter how personally disinterested, collaborating for any public purpose. Without an accountable executive the interests of the nation are systematically neglected.<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|81–82}}

It is against this, the truncated state of politics in Ireland, that Moore sees [[Lord Edward Fitzgerald]], a "Protestant reformer" who wished for "a democratic [[House of Commons]] and the Emancipation of his Catholic countrymen", driven toward the republican separatism of the [[United Irishmen]].<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|132–134}} He absolves Fitzgerald of recklessness: but for a contrary wind, decisive French assistance would have been delivered by [[Lazare Hoche|General Hoche]] at [[Bantry]] in December 1796.<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|153–154}} In his own ''Memoirs'', Moore acknowledges his ''Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald'' (1831) as a "justification of the [[Irish Rebellion of 1798|men of '98]] – the ''ultimi Romanorum'' of our country".<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|248}}

Moore's ''History of Ireland'', published in four volumes between 1835 and 1846, reads as a further and extended indictment of English rule. It was an enormous work (consulted by [[Karl Marx]] in his extensive notes on Irish history),<ref>Karl Marx (1869), "Notes on Irish History" (1869), [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/ireland/ireland.pdf ''Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Ireland and the Irish Question,''] New York, International Publishers, 1972, pp. 316, 360.</ref> but not a critical success. Moore acknowledged scholarly failings, some of which stemmed from his inability to read documentary sources in Irish.<ref name="Harry White" />

== On Reform and Repeal ==

=== Parliamentary reform ===
In his journal, Moore confessed that he "agreed with the Tories in their opinion" as to the consequences of the first [[Reform Act 1832|Parliamentary Reform Act (1832)]]. He believed it would give "an opening and impulse to the revolutionary feeling now abroad" [England, Moore suggested, had been "in the stream of a revolution for some years"] and that the "temporary satisfaction" it might produce would be but as the calm before a storm: "a downward reform (as [[John Dryden|Dryden]] says) rolls on fast".<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|234–237}} But this was a prospect he embraced. In conversation with the Whig grandee [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne|Lord Lansdowne]], he argued that while the consequences might be "disagreeable" for many of their friends, "We have now come to that point which all highly civilised countries reach when wealth and all the advantages that attend it are so unequally distributed that the whole is in an unnatural position: and nothing short of a general routing up can remedy the evil."<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|236}}

Despite their initially greater opposition to reform, Moore predicted that the Tories would prove themselves better equipped to ride out this "general routing". With the young [[Benjamin Disraeli]] (who was to be the author of the [[Reform Act 1867|Second Reform Act]] in 1867) Moore agreed that since the [[Glorious Revolution]] first led them to court an alliance with the people against the aristocracy, the Tories had taken "a more democratic line". For Moore this was evidenced by the prime-ministerial careers of [[George Canning]] and [[Robert Peel]]: "mere commoners by birth could never have attained the same high station among the Whig party".<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|251–252}}

===O'Connell and Repeal===
In 1832, Moore declined a voter petition from [[Limerick]] to stand for the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Westminster Parliament]] as a [[Repeal Association|Repeal]] candidate. When [[Daniel O'Connell]] took this as evidence of Moore's "lukewarmness in the cause of Ireland", Moore recalled O'Connell's praise for the "treasonous truths" of his book on Fitzgerald.<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|248}} The difficulty, Moore suggested, was that these "truths" did not permit him to pretend with O'Connell that reversing the Acts of Union would amount to something less than real and lasting separation from Great Britain. Relations had been difficult enough after the old Irish Parliament had secured its [[Constitution of 1782|legislative independence from London in 1782]]. But with a Catholic Parliament in Dublin, "which they would be sure to have out and out", the British government would be continually at odds, first over the disposal of [[Church of Ireland]] and [[Absentee landlord|absentee]] property, and then over what would be perennial issues of trade, foreign treaties and war.<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|241–242}}

So "hopeless appeared the fate of Ireland under English government, whether of Whigs or Tories", that Moore declared himself willing to "run the risk of Repeal, even with separation as its too certain consequence".<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|241–242}} But with Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Moore believed independence possible only in union with the "Dissenters" (the Presbyterians) of the north (and possibly then, again only with a prospect of French intervention). To make "headway against England" the "feeling" of Catholics and Dissenters had first to be "nationalised". This is something Moore thought might be achieved by fixing upon the immediate abuses of the (Anglican and landed) "Irish establishment". As he had O'Connell's uncompromising stance on the Veto, Moore regarded O'Connell's campaign for Repeal as unhelpful or, at best, "premature".<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|233}}

This perspective was shared by some of O'Connell's younger lieutenants, dissidents with the [[Repeal Association]]. [[Young Ireland]]er [[Charles Gavan Duffy (Australian politician)|Charles Gavan Duffy]] sought to build a "[[Tenant Right League|League of North and South]]"<ref>{{Cite book |title=The League of North and South |last=Duffy |first=Charles Gavan |publisher=Chapman & Hall |year=1886 |location=London}}</ref> around what [[Michael Davitt]] (of the later [[Land League]]) described as "the programme of the Whiteboys and Ribbonmen reduced to moral and constitutional standards"—tenant rights and land reform.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The fall of feudalism in Ireland; or, The story of the land league revolution |last=Davitt |first=Michael|publisher=Dalcassian Publishing Company |year=1904|location=London|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bqTIDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA70|pages=70}}</ref>

==''Irish Melodies'' ==
===Reception===
{{Listen
| type         = music
| filename     = Stevenson-Moore-Adelina Patti-The last rose of summer-(1906).ogg
| title        = "The Last Rose of Summer"
| description  = sung by [[Adelina Patti]] in 1906
}}
In the early years of his career, Moore's work was largely generic, and had he died at this point he would likely not have been considered an Irish poet.<ref name=":62"/>{{rp|151}} From 1806 to 1807, Moore dramatically changed his style of writing and focus. Following a request by the publishers James and William Power, he began to write lyrics to a series of Irish tunes in the manner of [[Joseph Haydn|Haydn]]'s settings of British folksongs, with Sir [[John Andrew Stevenson]] and, following Stevenson's death in 1833, [[Henry Bishop (composer)|Henry Bishop]], as arranger of the music. The principal source for the tunes was [[Edward Bunting]]'s ''A General Collection of the Ancient Irish Music'' (1797) to which Moore had been introduced at Trinity by Edward Hudson.<ref name=":62"/>{{rp|50}}

The ''Melodies'' were published in [https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html ten volumes], together with a supplement, over 26 years between 1808 and 1834. There were an immediate success, [https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/eire/taraharp.htm "The Harp that did once through Tara's Hall"], [[The Last Rose of Summer|"]][[The Minstrel Boy]]" and "[[The Last Rose of Summer]]" becoming immensely popular.

Encouraged, Moore and his publisher employed the same formula with lyrics and melodies described as Indian, Spanish, Portuguese, Sicilian, Venetian, Scotch, Italian and Hungarian. Beginning in 1818, their ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/National_Airs/rztNAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1&printsec=frontcover National Airs]'' appeared in six volumes with Stevenson and Bishop again responsible for the musical arrangement.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kloss |first=Jürgen |date=2015-04-29 |title=...Humming A Diff'rent Tune: Thomas Moore's "Irish Melodies" & "Popular National Airs" – What is available online? |url=https://hummingadifferenttune.blogspot.com/2015/04/thomas-moores-irish-melodies-popular.html |access-date=2025-04-29 |website=...Humming A Diff'rent Tune}}</ref> Already in 1826, a German publisher had produced a complete volume of Moore's works (albeit with the "great lyric talents" of the bard advertised as "the pride of the English nation").<ref>{{Cite book |last=Thomas |first=Moore |title=The works of Thomas Moore, accurately printed from the last original editions. With additional notes. |publisher=Ernst Fleischer |year=1826 |location=Leipzig |publication-date=1826 |pages=1}}</ref>

There were parodies in England, but translations into German, Italian, Hungarian, Czech, and French, and settings by [[Ludwig van Beethoven]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Beethoven National Airs · The dissemination of Thomas Moore's National Airs in nineteenth-century Europe · Digital Exhibitions at Special Collections & Archives, Queen's University Belfast |url=https://omeka.qub.ac.uk/exhibits/show/the-dissemination-of-thomas-mo/beethoven-national-airs |access-date=2025-04-29 |website=omeka.qub.ac.uk}}</ref> and [[Hector Berlioz]] guaranteed a large European audience. In the United States, "The Last Rose of Summer" alone sold more than a million copies.<ref>James W. Flannery: ''Dear Harp of My Country: The Irish Melodies of Thomas Moore'' (Nashville, TN: J. S. Sanders & Co., 1995).</ref>

Byron said he knew the ''Melodies'' all "by rote and by heart"; setting them above epics and Moore above all other poets for his "peculiarity of talent, or rather talents, – poetry, music, voice, all his own". They were also praised by [[Sir Walter Scott]] who conceded that neither he nor Byron could attain Moore's power of adapting words to music.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" />

Moore was in no doubt that the ''Irish Melodies'' would be "the only work of my pen […]  whose fame (thanks to the sweet music in which it is embalmed) may boast a chance of prolonging its existence to a day much beyond our own".<ref name="Harry White" /> They distinguished him in his lifetime, as his country's national poet,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Love |first1=Timothy M. |year=2017 |title=Gender and the Nationalistic Ballad: Thomas Davis, Thomas Moore, and Their Songs |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44807357 |publisher=University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies) |journal=New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=68–85 |location=Dublin |jstor=44807357 |issn=1092-3977}}</ref> a popular honour he sought to maintain by declining an offer from [[Dublin Castle administration|Dublin Castle]] to become Ireland's first poet laureate. He believed that to occupy the salaried position he would have to tone down his political views.<ref name=":62"/>{{rp|89–90}}

===Ireland's "national music"===
[[File:Moore's Melodies, Centenary Edition 1880.png|thumb|right|Moore's Melodies, Centenary Edition, 1880]]The "ultra-Tory" ''The Anti-Jacobin Review'' ("Monthly Political and Literary Censor")<ref>{{Cite ODNB|chapter=Gifford, William (1756–1826), satirist and editor|author=John Strachan|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |chapter-url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-10669|access-date=9 March 2023|year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/10669 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 |language=en|editor1=H. C. G. Matthew|editor2=Brian Harrison}}</ref> discerned in Moore's ''Melodies'' something more than innocuous drawing-room ballads: "several of them were composed in a very disordered state of society, if not in open rebellion. They are the melancholy ravings of the disappointed rebel, or his ill-educated offspring". Moore was providing texts to what he described as "our national music", and his lyrics did often "reflect an unmistakable intimation of dispossession and loss in the music itself".<ref name="Harry White" />

Despite Moore's difficult relationship with O'Connell (privately he suggested that "O'Connell and his ragamuffins" brought "tarnish upon Irish patriotism"),<ref name=":62"/>{{rp|291}} in the early 1840s his ''Melodies'' were employed in the "Liberator's" renewed campaign for Repeal. The [[Repeal Association]]'s monster meetings (crowds of over 100,000) were usually followed by public banquets. At [[Mallow, County Cork]], before the dinner speeches, a singer performed Moore's [https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/eire/ohwheres.htm "Where Is the Slave?":] <blockquote>Oh, where's the slave so lowly, Condemned to chains unholy, Who could be burst His bonds accursed, Would die beneath them slowly?</blockquote> O'Connell leapt to his feet, threw his arms wide and cried "I am not that slave!" All the room followed: "We are not those slaves! We are not those slaves!"<ref name="Bardon">{{cite book |last1=Bardon |first1=Jonathan |title=A History of Ireland in 250 Episodes |date=2008 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |location=Dublin |isbn=978-0-7171-4649-9 |pages=362–363}}</ref>

In the greatest meeting of all, at the [[Hill of Tara]] (by tradition the inaugural seat of the [[High Kings of Ireland]]), on the [[Assumption of Mary|feast-day of the Assumption]], 15 August 1843, O'Connell's carriage proceeded through a crowd, reportedly of a million, accompanied by a harpist playing Moore's [https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/eire/taraharp.htm "The Harp that once through Tara's Halls".]<ref name="Bardon" />

Although, like Moore, distancing themselves from O'Connell, the [[Young Ireland]]ers did not embrace Moore's ''oeuvre'' with the same enthusiasm. Seeking to promote a national poetry with a "more vehement diction", in the pages of ''[[The Nation (Irish newspaper)|The Nation]]'', Charles Gavan Duffy and [[Thomas Davis (Young Irelander)|Thomas Davis]] ranged in their appraisal of Moore from "from critical detraction to tacit emulation".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Benatti |first=Francesca |title=The Reputations of Thomas Moore: Poetry, Music, and Politics |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |isbn=9780367353407 |editor-last=McCleave |editor-first=Sarah |location=New York |pages=215 |chapter=Young Ireland and the Superannuated Bard: Rewriting Thomas Moore in The Nation |editor-last2=O'Hanlon |editor-first2=Triona}}</ref>

=== Later criticism and reappraisal ===
The ''Melodies'' setting of English-language verse to old Irish tunes has been seen as one of the chief cultural expressions of the linguistic transition in Ireland from [[Irish language|Gaelic]] to English.<ref name=":1">{{cite journal |last1=M. Love |first1=Timothy |year=2017 |title=Gender and the Nationalistic Ballad: Thomas Davis, Thomas Moore, and Their Songs |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44807357 |publisher=University of St. Thomas (Center for Irish Studies) |journal=New Hibernia Review|volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=68–85 |doi=10.1353/nhr.2017.0005 |jstor=44807357 }}</ref>

In the new lyrics, some critics detected a tone of national resignation and defeatism: a "whining lamentation over our eternal fall, and miserable appeals to our masters to regard us with pity". [[William Hazlitt]] observed that "if Moore's ''Irish Melodies'' with their drawing-room, lackadaisical, patriotism were really the melodies of the Irish nation, the Irish people deserve to be slaves forever".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Quinn |first=James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y260DQAAQBAJ&dq=The+Nation,+Young+Ireland,+robert+Emmet&pg=PT64 |title=Young Ireland and the Writing of Irish History |date=2015 |publisher=University College Dublin Press |isbn=978-1-910820-92-6 |language=en}}</ref> Moore, in Hazlitt's view had "convert[ed] the wild harp of Erin into a musical snuff box".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Vail |first=Jeffery |date=4 July 2019 |title=Sources and Style in Moore's Irish Melodies / The Gothic Novel in Ireland, c. 1760–1829 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/10509585.2019.1638099 |journal=European Romantic Review |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=(465–469) 465 |doi=10.1080/10509585.2019.1638099 |s2cid=203049115 |issn=1050-9585|url-access=subscription }}</ref> It was a judgement later generations of Irish writers appeared to share.<ref name="Nolan 2009">{{Cite journal |last=Nolan |first=Emer |date=2009 |title='The Tommy Moore Touch': Ireland and Modernity in Joyce and Moore |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/467087 |journal=Dublin James Joyce Journal |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=64–77 |doi=10.1353/djj.2009.0002 |s2cid=194076424 |issn=2009-4507|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

In [[A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man|''A'' ''Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'']], as he passes "the droll statue of the national poet of Ireland" in [[College Street, Dublin|College Street]], [[James Joyce]]'s biographic protagonist, [[Stephen Dedalus]], remarks on the figure's "servile head".<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Vaill |first=Jeffrey |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-irish-poets/34A91B2E1FDAAB4EF2CA583F8F8FE3EB |title=The Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets |date=2017 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-42035-8 |editor-last=Dawe |editor-first=Gerald |series=Cambridge Companions to Literature |location=Cambridge |pages=61 |chapter=Thomas Moore |doi=10.1017/9781108333313}}</ref> Yet in his father's house, Dedalus is moved when he hears his younger brothers and sisters singing Moore's [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44782/oft-in-the-stilly-night-scotch-air "Oft in the Stilly Night".] Despite Joyce's occasional expressions of disdain for the bard, critic Emer Nolan suggests that the writer responded to the "element of utopian longing as well as the sentimental nostalgia" in Moore's music. In ''[[Finnegans Wake]]'', Joyce has occasion to allude to virtually every one of the ''Melodies.<ref name="Nolan 2009" />''

While acknowledging that his own sense of an Irish past was "woven . . . out of Moore's ''Melodies",'' in a 1979 tribute to Moore, [[Seamus Heaney]] remarked that Ireland had rescinded Moore's title of national bard because his characteristic tone was '"too light, too conciliatory, too colonisé" for a nation "whose conscience was being forged by James Joyce, whose tragic disunity was being envisaged by [[W. B. Yeats|W.B. Yeats]] and whose literary tradition was being restored by the repossession of voices such as [[Aogán Ó Rathaille|Aodhagán O Rathaille]]'s or [[Brian Merriman]]'s".<ref>Heaney, Seamus (1979, "Introduction" in David Hammond (ed) ''A Centenary selection from Moore's Melodies,'' Dublin, G. Dalton, p. 9</ref><ref name="Nolan 2009" />

More recently, there has been a reappraisal sympathetic to Moore's "strategies of disguise, concealment and historical displacement so necessary for an Irish Catholic patriot who regularly sang songs to London glitterati about Irish suffering and English 'bigotry and misrule'".<ref name="Vail 2019">{{Cite journal |last=Vail |first=Jeffery |date=4 July 2019 |title=Sources and Style in Moore's Irish Melodies / The Gothic Novel in Ireland, c. 1760–1829 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/10509585.2019.1638099 |journal=European Romantic Review |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=465–469 |doi=10.1080/10509585.2019.1638099 |s2cid=203049115 |issn=1050-9585|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The political content of the ''Melodies'' and their connections to the United Irishmen and to the death of Emmet have been discussed in Ronan Kelly's biography of the poet, ''Bard of Erin'' (2008), by Mary Helen Thuente in ''The Harp Restrung: the United Irishmen and the Rise of Literary Nationalism'' (1994); and by Una Hunt in ''Literary Relationship of Lord Byron and Thomas Moore'' (2001).<ref name="Vail 2019" />

Eóin MacWhite<ref>{{Cite journal |last=MacWhite |first=Eóin |date=1972 |title=Thomas Moore and Poland |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25506260 |journal=Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature |volume=72 |pages=49–62 |jstor=25506260 |issn=0035-8991}}</ref> and Kathleen O'Donnell<ref>{{Cite journal |last=O'Donnell |first=Kathleen Ann |date=30 December 2019 |title=Translations of Ossian, Thomas Moore and the Gothic by 19th Century European Radical Intellectuals: The Democratic Eastern Federation |url=https://journals.umcs.pl/lsmll/article/view/8916 |journal=Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature |volume=43 |issue=4 |pages=89 |doi=10.17951/lsmll.2019.43.4.89-104 |s2cid=214352160 |issn=2450-4580|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name=":6" /> have found that the political undertone of the ''Melodies'' and of other of Moore's works was readily appreciated by dissidents in the imperial realms of eastern Europe. [[Greeks in Romania|Greek-Rumanian]] conspirators against the [[Ottoman Sultanate|Sultan]], [[Decembrist revolt|Russian Decembrists]] and, above all, Polish intellectuals recognised in the Gothic elements of the ''Melodies'', ''[[Lalla Rookh]]'' (“a dramatization of Irish patriotism in an Eastern parable”)<ref>MacWhite (1971), p. 50.</ref> and ''Captain Rock'' (all of which found translators) "a cloak of culture and fraternity".<ref>O'Donnell (2019), p. 91.</ref>

== ''Lalla Rookh'' ==
Next to the ''Melodies'', ''[[Lalla Rookh]]'' (1817) was Moore's greatest contemporary success. In a testimony to the literary reputation his ''Melodies'' had already established, [[Longman]]s, the publishers, agreed to largest advance, £3150,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rossetti |first=William |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8187/pg8187.html |title=The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore&#10;Collected by Himself with Explanatory Notes |date=2005 |publisher=The Project Gutenberg eBook |chapter=Biographical Sketch}}</ref> yet commanded by a book of verse.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Thomas Moore |url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10553b.htm |access-date=2025-04-29 |website=www.newadvent.org}}</ref>

Possibly the most translated epic verses of its time,<ref name="eb2">{{cite web |date=24 May 2020 |title=Thomas Moore |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Moore |access-date=30 January 2021 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref> the work was the basis for the [[operas]] ''Lalla-Rûkh'' (1821) by [[Gaspare Spontini]], ''[[Lalla-Roukh]]'' by [[Félicien David]] (1862), ''[[Feramors]]'' by [[Anton Rubinstein]] (1863), and ''[[The Veiled Prophet (opera)|The Veiled Prophet]]'' by [[Charles Villiers Stanford]] (1879).  One of the interpolated tales, ''[[Paradise and the Peri]]'', was interpreted in a choral-orchestral work by [[Robert Schumann]] (1843).<ref name="eb2" />

Written with the encouragement of Byron,<ref name="eb2"/> and drawing on ''[[The Garden of Knowledge]]'' by [[Shaikh Inayat Allah Kamboh|Inayatullah Kamboh]] (1608–1671), it is ostensibly a  [[chivalric romance]] concerning the daughter of the 17th-century [[Mughal Empire|Mughal]] emperor [[Aurangzeb]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Irwin |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Irwin (writer) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bDjAzgEACAAJ |title=The Arabian Nights: A Companion |date=2010 |publisher=[[I.B. Tauris|Tauris Parke Paperbacks]] |isbn=978-1-86064-983-7 |edition=2nd |series= |location=London |page=191}}</ref> But set against the backdrop of the enduring conflict between the Mughal throne and its [[Zoroastrianism|Zoroastrian]] subjects — "a theme that had much to recommend it to an Irishman"<ref name=":3" />—scholars read it as a political allegory. Hidden references are found to the [[French Revolution]], to the United Irish [[Irish Rebellion of 1798|Rebellion of 1798]],<ref name=":0" /> and to Moore's martyred friend [[Robert Emmet]].<ref name="Kelly 2013" />

==Byron's Memoirs==
[[File:Lord Byron by Henry Pierce Bone.jpg|150px|thumb|left|[[Lord Byron|Byron]]: "When you read my Memoirs you will learn the evils of true dissipation."<ref name="Knight" />]]Moore was much criticised by contemporaries for allowing himself to be persuaded, on the grounds of their indelicacy, to destroy [[Byron's Memoirs]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mayne |first1=Ethel Colburn |author-link1=Ethel Colburn Mayne |year=1969 |orig-year=1924 |title=Byron |url=https://archive.org/details/byron0000mayn |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Barnes & Noble |isbn=0-389-01071-5|pages=452 }}</ref> Modern scholarship assigns the blame elsewhere.

In 1821, with Byron's blessing, Moore sold the manuscript, with which Byron had entrusted him three years before, to the publisher [[John Murray (1778–1843)|John Murray]]. Although he himself allowed that it contained some "very coarse things",<ref name="Knight">{{cite book |last1=Knight |first1=G Wilson |title=Lord Byron's Marriage: The Evidence of Asterisks |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-1-138-67557-5 |page=214 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YiYFDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA214 |access-date=20 August 2020}}</ref> when, following Byron's death in 1824, Moore learned that Murray had deemed the material unfit for publication he spoke of settling the matter with a duel.<ref>Cochran, Peter (2014). ''The Burning of Byron's Memoirs: New and Unpublished Essays and Papers''. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. {{ISBN|978-1-4438-6815-0}}. pp. 6–7</ref> But the combination of Byron's wife [[Lady Byron]], half-sister and executor [[Augusta Leigh]] and Moore's rival in Byron's friendship [[John Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton|John Cam Hobhouse]] prevailed. In what some were to call the greatest literary crime in history, in Moore's presence the family solicitors tore up all extant copies of the manuscript and burned them in Murray's fireplace.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Marchand |first1=Leslie |title=Byron: a Portrait |date=1970 |publisher=Knopf |location=New York |isbn=978-0-394-41820-9 |pages=466–467}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kells |first1=Stuart |year=2017 |title=The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3kHcDgAAQBAJ&q=%22burning+of+the+personal+memoirs%22&pg=PA158 |location=Melbourne |publisher=Text Publishing |page=158 |isbn=978-1-925355-99-4 |access-date=12 July 2018 }}</ref>

With the assistance of papers provided by [[Mary Shelley]], Moore retrieved what he could. His ''[[iarchive:lettersjournalso01byro|Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: With Notices of His Life]]'' (1830) "contrived", in the view of [[Thomas Babington Macaulay|Macaulay]], "to exhibit so much of the character and opinions of his friend, with so little pain to the feelings of the living".<ref name="Harry White" /> Lady Byron still professed herself scandalised<ref name="Poetry Foundation" />—as did ''[[The Times]]''.<ref name="Moore, Political and Historical Writings" />{{rp|232}}

With Byron an inspiration, Moore previously published a collection of songs, ''[https://www.public-domain-poetry.com/thomas-moore/evenings-in-greece-27139 Evenings in Greece]'' (1826), and, set in 3rd-century Egypt, his only prose novel ''[[The Epicurean]]'' (1827). Supplying a demand for "semi-erotic romance tinged with religiosity" it was a popular success.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hawthorne |first1=Mark |title=Thomas Moore's "The Epicurean": The Anacreontic Poet in Search of Eternity |journal=Studies in Romanticism |date=1975 |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=249–272 |doi=10.2307/25599975 |jstor=25599975 }}</ref>

==1844 photograph by Henry Fox Talbot==
[[File:Thomas Moore 1844.jpeg|thumb|right|250px|Moore stands centre in a photograph by William Henry Fox Talbot dated April 1844]]
Moore stands in the centre of a [[calotype]] dated April 1844.

Moore is pictured with members of the household of [[Henry Fox Talbot|William Henry Fox Talbot]], the photographer. Talbot, a pioneer of photography (the inventor of the [[Salt print|salted paper]] and [[calotype]] processes) was Moore's neighbour in Wiltshire. It is possible that the lady to the lower right of Moore is his wife Bessy Moore.<ref name="Schaaf">{{Cite web|last=Schaaf|first=Larry J.|title=Thomas Moore & the Ladies of Lacock|date=16 September 2016 |url=https://talbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/2016/09/16/thomas-moore-the-ladies-of-lacock/|access-date=23 March 2021|language=en-GB}}</ref>

To the left of Moore stands Henrietta Horatia Maria Fielding (1809–1851), a close friend of the Moores, Talbot's half-sister<ref name="Schaaf" /> and the daughter of Rear-Admiral Charles Fielding.

Moore took an early interest in Talbot's photogenic drawings. Talbot, in turn, took images of Moore's hand-written poetry possibly for inclusion in facsimile in an edition of ''[[The Pencil of Nature]],''<ref>{{Cite web|title=Talbot Correspondence Project: MOORE Thomas (poet) to TALBOT William Henry Fox|url=http://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/letters/transcriptDocnum.php?docnum=5028|access-date=23 March 2021|website=foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk}}</ref> the first commercially published book to be illustrated with [[photograph]]s.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Daniel|first=Malcolm|title=William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) and the Invention of Photography |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/tlbt/ho_1994.197.htm|access-date=6 October 2008|website=Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History|date=October 2004 |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art|location=New York|language=en}}</ref>

==Death and receding reputation==

In the late 1840s (and as the catastrophe of the [[Great Irish Famine|Great Famine]] overtook Ireland), Moore's powers began to fail. He was reduced ultimately to senility, which came suddenly in December 1849.  Moore died on 25 February 1852, in his seventy-third year, having outlived his wife, his five children and most of his friends and companions.  [[File:Ottawa Public Library.jpg|thumb|left|Window at [[Ottawa Public Library]] features Moore with [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]], [[Archibald Lampman]], [[Walter Scott]], [[Lord Byron|Byron]], [[Alfred, Lord Tennyson|Tennyson]], and [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] ]]
He was buried in Bromham churchyard within view of his cottage home, and beside his daughter Anastasia (who had died aged 17), near Devizes in Wiltshire.<ref name=":2">{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Thomas Moore|url=https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10553b.htm|access-date=9 March 2023|encyclopedia=The Catholic Encyclopedia|volume=10|date=1911}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Thomas Moore – Irish Biography|url=https://www.libraryireland.com/biography/ThomasMoore.php|access-date=11 April 2021|website=www.libraryireland.com}}</ref>

His epitaph at his St. Nicholas churchyard grave is inscribed with his [https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/eire/dearharp.htm own verse]:

{{Blockquote|text=Dear Harp of my Country! in darkness I found thee,<br>
The cold chain of silence had hung o'er thee long,<br>
When proudly, my own Island Harp, I unbound thee,<br>
And gave all thy chords to light, freedom and song!}}

Moore had appointed as his literary executor'','' [[John Russell, 1st Earl Russell|Lord John Russell]], the Whig leader who, just four days before Moore's death, had ended his [[First Russell ministry|first term as Prime Minister]]. Russell dutifully published Moore's papers in accordance with his late friend's wishes. The ''Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore'' appeared in eight volumes, published between 1853 and 1856.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moore |first=Thomas |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/memoirs-journal-and-correspondence-of-thomas-moore/37A11AE62C8919C62BDA12EB5D1D739E |title=Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-05894-0 |editor-last=Russell |editor-first=John |series=Cambridge Library Collection – Literary Studies |volume=3 |location=Cambridge |doi=10.1017/cbo9781139567343}}</ref> But, while popular editions of his ''Melodies'' and ''Airs'' continued for some time to appear, in post-famine Ireland Moore's literary stock "crashed".<ref name=":4" />

Not only did the bathos and nostalgia of Moore's verse appear suspect, as a form of home and public entertainment its reading and recitation did not survive the developments in mass media: cheap print, the recorded voice, the moving image. As a form, the verse narrative was almost entirely abandoned.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-03-04 |title="A Two-Way Street in Time": A Conversation with Poet and Translator Andrew Frisardi |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-two-way-street-in-time-a-conversation-with-poet-and-translator-andrew-frisardi/ |access-date=2025-04-30 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books}}</ref> Describing his burial site in 1937, Moore's biographer [[Howard Mumford Jones]] wrote: "To the grave of a Catholic buried in a Protestant churchyard, of an Irishman at rest in Wiltshire, of the genius once thought to be immortal and now no longer read, almost no one comes".<ref name=":4" />

Almost "totally forgotten, except in parish halls, or Hibernian evenings in Brooklyn or Melbourne", a major biography of Moore does not appear until 2008,<ref name=":5" /> ''The Bard of Erin, The Life of Thomas Moore'' by Ronan Kelly.<ref name=":62"/>

==Commemoration==
[[File:Thomas Moore Statue, Dublin.jpg|right|thumb|Statue of Moore in College Street, Dublin]]
Moore is commemorated in several places: by a plaque on the house where he was born, by busts at [[River Avoca|The Meetings]] and [[Central Park]], New York, and by a bronze statue near Trinity College Dublin. There is a road in [[Walkinstown]], Dublin, named Thomas Moore Road, in a series of roads named after famous composers, locally referred to as the Musical Roads. In addition to the window in the Ottawa Public Library, there is also a small window (along with windows to Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott) beneath the big English literature stained glass window in the former Carnegie Public Library in Vancouver.
* Many composers have set the poems of Thomas Moore to music. They include [[Ludwig van Beethoven]], [[Gaspare Spontini]], [[Robert Schumann]], [[Friedrich von Flotow]], [[Felix Mendelssohn]], [[Hector Berlioz]], [[Charles Ives]], [[William Bolcom]], [[Benjamin Britten]], and [[Henri Duparc (composer)|Henri Duparc]].
* As noted above (Irish Melodies / Later criticism and reappraisal), many songs of Thomas Moore are cited in works of [[James Joyce]], for example "Silent, O Moyle" in ''Two Gallants'' (''Dubliners'')<ref>''The James Joyce Songbook'', edited and with a commentary by Ruth Bauerle (New York: Garland Publishing, 1982), pp. 158–160.</ref> or "[[The Last Rose of Summer]]".
* Irish American scholar, singer and critic [[James W. Flannery]] (born 1936) is widely recognized as a skilled interpreter of Thomas Moore's art songs.  In 1997 he released a book and recording named  ''Dear Harp of My Country: The Irish Melodies of Thomas Moore''.<ref>[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/traditional-1.247483 TraditionalTuath: Reels & Rondo] by Mic Moroney, [[The Irish Times|Irish Times]], Nov 6 1999</ref>
* [[Oliver Onions]] quotes Moore's poem "Oft in the Stilly Night" in his 1910 ghost story "The Cigarette Case".<ref>Norman Donaldson, "Oliver Onions" in: [[E. F. Bleiler]] (ed.): ''Supernatural Fiction Writers'' (New York: Scribner's, 1985); {{ISBN|0-684-17808-7}} (pp. 505–512).</ref> It is also referenced in Bob Shaw's 1966 science-fiction story "[[Light of Other Days]]".
* The earliest known photograph taken by a woman ([[Constance Fox Talbot]]) is an albeit somewhat unclear image of a few lines from one of his poems.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/dec/09/bodleian-library-bid-fox-talbot-archive |first=Maev |last=Kennedy |title=Bodleian Library launches £2.2m bid to stop Fox Talbot archive going overseas| newspaper=The Guardian |date=9 December 2012 |access-date=21 May 2020}}</ref>
* [[Letitia Elizabeth Landon]] offers a tribute in her poem {{ws|[[s:Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839/Thomas Moore, Esq.|Thomas Moore, Esq.]]}}, in Fisher's ''Drawing Room Scrap Book'', 1839.<ref>{{cite book|last =Landon|first=Letitia Elizabeth|title=Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=ufpcAAAAcAAJ&pg=GBS.PA10-IA12|section=poetical illustration|page=14|year=1838|publisher=Fisher, Son & Co.}}{{cite book|last =Landon|first=Letitia Elizabeth|title=Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=ufpcAAAAcAAJ&pg=GBS.PA10-IA14|section=picture|year=1838|publisher=Fisher, Son & Co.}}</ref>
* [[Edna O'Brien]] wrote a short story entitled "Oft in the Stilly Night" in her 1990 story collection ''[[Lantern Slides]]''.<ref>''Orientation in European Romanticism'' by Paul Hamilton (2022), p. 113, publ. [[Cambridge University Press]]</ref>

==In fiction==
The character Tickle Tommy in ''John Paterson's Mare'', [[James Hogg]]'s allegorical satire on the [[Edinburgh]] publishing scene first appearing in the ''Newcastle Magazine'' in 1825, is based on Thomas Moore. [[Percy French]] wrote several parodic versions of Moore's melodies in a comic paper he edited for two years ''The Jarvey'', including at least six versions of "The Minstrel Boy". He also parodied Moore in his stage shows.<ref>Hunter, Adrian (ed.) (2020), ''James Hogg: Contributions to English, Irish and American Periodicals'', [[Edinburgh University Press]], pp. 19–34 & 212, {{isbn|9780748695980}}</ref> As noted above, Moore and his melodies also figure in the works of James Joyce: ''A'' ''Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'' and ''Finnegans Wake.''<ref name="Nolan 2009" />

==List of works==
{{wikisource|Author:Thomas Moore (1779–1852)}}

===Prose ===
* ''[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=fzsyAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false A Letter to the Roman Catholics of Dublin]'' (1810)
*
* ''[[Memoirs of Captain Rock]]'' (1824)
* ''[[Memoirs of the Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan]]'' (2 vols) (1825)
* ''[[The Epicurean]], a Tale'' (29 June 1827)
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=_hTxZIoOnrwC Letters & Journals of Lord Byron, with Notices of his Life]'' (2 vols.) (1830, 1831)
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=_z8qAAAAYAAJ Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald]'' (1831)
* ''[[iarchive:travelsofirishge01mooruoft)|Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion]]'' (2 vols.) (1833)
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=49lOAAAAcAAJ The History of Ireland]'' (vol. 1) (1835)
* ''The History of Ireland'' (vol. 2) (1837)
* ''The History of Ireland'' (vol. 3) (1840)
* ''The History of Ireland'' (vol. 4) (1846)
* ''Political and Historical Writings on Irish and British Affairs by Thomas Moore, Introduced by Brendan Clifford'' (1993).

===Lyrics and verse===
* ''[[iarchive:bim eighteenth-century odes-of-anacreon-transl anacreon 1800|Odes of Anacreon]]'' (1800)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Poetical_Works_of_the_Late_Thomas_Li/piFDQCM7az4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&p Poetical Works of the Late Thomas Little, Esq].'' (1801)
* ''[[The Gypsy Prince]]'' (a [[comic opera]], collaboration with [[Michael Kelly (tenor)|Michael Kelly]], 1801)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Epistles_Odes_and_Other_Poems/z4K5zStZqO8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&p Epistles, Odes and Other Poems]'' (1806)
* ''[https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html A Selection of Irish Melodies, 1 and 2]'' (April 1808)
* [https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Corruption_and_Intolerance/8hdWAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg ''Corruption and Intolerance, Two Poems with Notes Addressed to an Englishman by an Irishman''] (1808)
* ''[https://verse.press/poem/the-sceptic-a-philosophical-satire-27665 The Sceptic: A Philosophical Satire]'' (1809)
* ''[https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html A Selection of Irish Melodies, 3]'' (Spring 1810)
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=LQ5gAAAAcAAJ A Melologue upon National Music]'' (1811)
* ''[[M.P. (opera)|M.P., or The Blue Stocking]]'', (a [[comic opera]], collaboration with Charles Edward Horn, 1811)
* ''[https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html A Selection of Irish Melodies, 4]'' (November 1811)
* ''[https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/parody-of-a-celebrated-letter-63784048138 Parody of a Celebrated Letter]'' (privately printed and circulated, February 1812, ''[[The Examiner (1808–86)|Examiner]]'', 8 March 1812)
* ''[https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/anacreontic-to-a-plumassier-34651240669 Anacreontic to a Plumassier]'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 16 March 1812)
* ''[https://www.readbookonline.org/readOnLine/31762/ Extracts from the Diary of a Fashionable Politician]'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 30 March 1812)
* ''[https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/the-insurrection-of-the-papers-a-dream-39729566964 The Insurrection of the Papers]'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 23 April 1812)
* ''Lines on the Death of [[Spencer Perceval|Mr. P[e]rc[e]v[a]l]]'' (May 1812)
* ''[https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/the-sale-of-the-tools-63790094976 The Sale of the Tools]'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 21 December 1812)
* ''[https://verse.press/poem/to-the-ship-in-which-lord-castlereagh-sailed-for-31871 Correspondence Between a Lady and a Gentleman]'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 6 January 1813)
* ''[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=37YNAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Intercepted Letters, or the Two-Penny Post-Bag]'' (March 1813)
* ''[https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/reinforcements-for-lord-wellington-14359716350 Reinforcements for Lord Wellington]'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 27 August 1813)
* ''[https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html A Selection of Irish Melodies, 5]'' (December 1813)
* ''A Collection of the Vocal Music of Thomas Moore'' (1814)
* ''[https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html A Selection of Irish Melodies, 6]'' (1815, April or after)
* ''Sacred Songs, 1'' (June 1816)
* ''[https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/lines-on-the-death-of-sheridan-91998511567 Lines on the Death of Sheridan]'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 5 August 1816)
* ''[[Lalla Rookh]], an Oriental Romance'' (May 1817)
* ''[[The Fudge Family in Paris]]'' (verse novel, 1818)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/National_Airs/rztNAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP7&printsec=frontcover National Airs, 1]'' (23 April 1818)
* [https://verse.press/poem/to-the-ship-in-which-lord-castlereagh-sailed-for-31871 ''<nowiki>To the Ship in which Lord C[A]ST[LE]R[EA]GH Sailed for the Continent</nowiki>''] (''Morning Chronicle'', 22 September 1818)
* ''Lines on the Death of Joseph Atkinson, Esq. of Dublin'' (25 September 1818)
* ''Go, Brothers in Wisdom'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 18 August 1818)
* ''[https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html A Selection of Irish Melodies, 7]'' (1 October 1818)
* ''To Sir [[Hudson Lowe]]'' (''[[The Examiner (1808–86)|Examiner]]'', 4 October 1818)
* ''The Works of Thomas Moore'' (6 vols) (1819)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Tom_Crib_s_Memorial_to_Congress/PbF2AMoZ6TAC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg Tom Crib's Memorial to Congress]'' (March 1819)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/National_Airs/rztNAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP7&printsec=frontcover National Airs, 2]'' (1820)
* ''[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DK3cRI-2f0gC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Irish Melodies, with a Melologue upon National Music]'' (1820)
* ''[https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html A Selection of Irish Melodies, 8]'' (on or around 10 May 1821)
* [https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Irish_Melodies_With_an_appendix_containi/k8BgAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq ''Irish Melodies'' ''with an Appendix, containing the original advertisements and the prefatory letter on music''] (1821)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/National_Airs/rztNAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP7&printsec=frontcover National Airs, 3]'' (June 1822)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/National_Airs/rztNAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP7&printsec=frontcover National Airs, 4]'' (1822)
* ''The Loves of the Angels, a Poem'' (23 December 1822)
* ''The Loves of the Angels, an Eastern Romance'' (5th ed. of ''Loves of the Angels'') (1823)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Fables_for_the_Holy_Alliance/zMPHx64UqDwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg Fables for the Holy Alliance, Rhymes on the Road, &c. &c].'' (7 May 1823)
* ''Sacred Songs, 2'' (1824)
* ''[https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html A Selection of Irish Melodies, 9]'' (1 November 1824)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/National_Airs/rztNAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP7&printsec=frontcover National Airs, 5]'' (1826)
* [https://www.public-domain-poetry.com/thomas-moore/evenings-in-greece-27139 ''Evenings in Greece''] (1826)
* ''[https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/a-dream-of-turtle-51268304823 A Dream of Turtle]'' (''The Times'', 28 September 1826)
* ''A Set of Glees'' (circa 9 June 1827)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/National_Airs/rztNAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP7&printsec=frontcover National Airs, 6]'' (1827)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Odes_Upon_Cash_Corn_Catholics_and_Other/gKw-AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP9&printsec=frontcover Odes upon Cash, Corn, Catholics, and other Matters]'' (October 1828)
* ''Legendary Ballads'' (1830)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Summer_Fete_a_Poem_with_songs_by_T_M/m51YcZm5LO4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq The Summer Fête. A Poem with Songs]'' (December 1831)
* ''Irish Antiquities'' (''The Times'', 5 March 1832)
* ''From the Hon. Henry ---, to Lady Emma ---'' (''The Times'', 9 April 1832)
* ''To Caroline, Viscountess Valletort'' (''The Metropolitan Magazine'', June 1832)
* ''Ali's Bride...'' (''The Metropolitan Magazine'', August 1832)
* ''Verses to the Poet Crabbe's Inkstand'' (''The Metropolitan Magazine'', August 1832)
* ''[https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/tory-pledges-50338337285 Tory Pledges]'' (''The Times'', 30 August 1832)
* ''[https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/late-tithe-case-43949147158 Song to the Departing Spirit of Tithe]'' (''The Metropolitan Magazine'', September 1832)
* ''The Duke is the Lad'' (''The Times'', 2 October 1832)
* ''St. Jerome on Earth, First Visit'' (''The Times'', 29 October 1832)
* ''St. Jerome on Earth, Second Visit'' (''The Times'', 12 November 1832)
* ''[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Poetical_Works_of_Thomas_Moore_Eveni/WPrzniwlljIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Thomas+Moore,+Evenings+in+greece&pg=PA46&printsec=frontcover Evenings in Greece, 2]'' (December 1832)
* ''To the Rev. Charles Overton'' (''The Times'', 6 November 1833)
* ''[https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/moore.html Irish Melodies, 10]'' (with Supplement) (1834)
* ''Vocal Miscellany, 1'' (1834)
* ''The Numbering of the Clergy'' (''Examiner'', 5 October 1834)
* ''[[The Fudge Family in England]]'' (verse novel,1835)
* ''Vocal Miscellany, 2'' (1835)
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=PXRMAAAAcAAJ Irish Melodies]'' (1835)
* ''[https://internetpoem.com/thomas-moore/the-song-of-the-box-poem/ The Song of the Box]'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 19 February 1838)
* ''Sketch of the First Act of a New Romantic Drama'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 22 March 1838)
* ''[https://titixa.com/thoughts-on-patrons-puffs-and-other-matters-by-thomas-moore/ Thoughts on Patrons, Puffs, and Other Matters]'' (''Bentley's Miscellany'', 1839)
* ''[[iarchive:alciphronpoem00moorrich|Alciphron, a Poem]]'' (1839)
* ''The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore, collected by himself'' (10 vols) (1840–1841)
* ''Thoughts on Mischief'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 2 May 1840)
* ''[https://www.simple-poetry.com/poems/religion-and-trade-88420244145 Religion and Trade]'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 1 June 1840)
* ''An Account of an Extraordinary Dream'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 15 June 1840)
* ''The Retreat of the Scorpion'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 16 July 1840)
* ''Musings, suggested by the Late Promotion of Mrs. Nethercoat'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 27 August 1840)
* ''The Triumphs of Farce'' (1840)
* ''Latest Accounts from Olympus'' (1840)
* ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=V3mWCa238F8C The poetical works of Thomas Moore, complete in three volumes]'', [[Paris]], Baudry's European Library (1841)
* ''A [[Threnody]] on the Approaching Demise of [[Corn Laws|Old Mother Corn-Law]]'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 23 February 1842)
* ''Sayings and Doings of Ancient Nicholas'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 7 April 1842)
* ''More Sayings and Doings of Ancient Nicholas'' (''Morning Chronicle'', 12 May 1842)
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=j5A2_4visdYC ''Prose and verse, humorous, satirical and sentimental, by Thomas Moore, with suppressed passages from the memoirs of Lord Byron, chiefly from the author's manuscript and all hitherto inedited and uncollected. With notes and introduction by Richard Herne Shepherd''], (London: Chatto & Windus, Piccadilly, 1878).

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Bibliography==
* Benatti, Francesca, and Justin Tonra. "English Bards and Unknown Reviewers: A Stylometric Analysis of Thomas Moore and the ''Christabel'' Review", in: ''Breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies'' 3 (2015). [http://breac.nd.edu/articles/61533-english-bards-and-unknown-reviewers-a-stylometric-analysis-of-thomas-moore-and-the-christabel-review/ URL].
* Clifford, Brendan (ed.): ''Political and Historical Writings on Irish and British Affairs by Thomas Moore'', (Belfast: Athol Books, 1993).
* Dowden, Wilfred S. (ed.): ''The Letters of Thomas Moore'', 2 vols, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964).
* Dowden, Wilfred S. (ed.): ''The Journal of Thomas Moore'', 6 vols, (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1983–91).
* Gunning, John P.: ''Moore. Poet and Patriot'' (Dublin: M.H. Gill and Son, 1900).
* Hunt, Una: ''Sources and Style in Moore's Irish Melodies'' (London: Routledge, 2017); {{ISBN|978-1-4094-0561-0}} (hardback), {{ISBN|978-1-315-44300-3}} (e-book).
* [[Howard Mumford Jones|Jones, Howard Mumford]]: ''The Harp that Once: A Chronicle of the Life of Thomas Moore'' (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1937).
* [[Linda Kelly (author)|Kelly, Linda]]. ''Ireland's Minstrel: A Life of Tom Moore, Poet, Patriot and Byron's Friend'' (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006); {{ISBN|978-1-84511252-3}}
* Kelly, Ronan: ''Bard of Erin. The Life of Thomas Moore'' (Dublin: Penguin Ireland, 2008), {{ISBN|978-1-84488-143-7}}.
* McCleave, Sarah / Caraher, Brian (eds): ''Thomas Moore and Romantic Inspiration. Poetry, Music, and Politics'' (New York: Routledge, 2018); {{ISBN|978-1-138-28147-9}} (hardback), {{ISBN|978-1-315-27113-2}} (e-book).
* Ní Chinnéide, Veronica: "The Sources of Moore's Melodies", in: ''Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland'' 89 (1959) 2, pp.&nbsp;109–54.
* [[Leonard Strong (writer)|Strong, L. A. G.]]: ''The Minstrel Boy. A Portrait of Tom Moore'' (London: Hodder & Stoughton, & New York: A. Knopf, 1937).
* Tonra, Justin: "Masks of Refinement: Pseudonym, Paratext, and Authorship in the Early Poetry of Thomas Moore", in: ''European Romantic Review'' 25.5 (2014), pp.&nbsp;551–73. [https://doi.org/10.1080/10509585.2014.938231 doi:10.1080/10509585.2014.938231].
* Tonra, Justin: "Pagan Angels and a Moral Law: Byron and Moore's Blasphemous Publications", in: ''European Romantic Review'' 28.6 (2017), pp.&nbsp;789–811. [https://doi.org/10.1080/10509585.2017.1388797 doi:10.1080/10509585.2017.1388797].
* Tonra, Justin: ''Write My Name: Authorship in the Poetry of Thomas Moore'' (New York; Abingdon: Routledge, 2020). [https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003090960 doi:10.4324/9781003090960]
* Vail, Jeffery W.: ''The Literary Relationship of Lord Byron and Thomas Moore'' (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001).
* Vail, Jeffery W.: "Thomas Moore in Ireland and America: The Growth of a Poet's Mind", in: ''Romanticism'' 10.1 (2004), pp.&nbsp;41–62.
* Vail, Jeffery W.: "Thomas Moore: After the Battle", in: Julia M. Wright (ed.), ''The Blackwell Companion to Irish Literature'', 2 vols (New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), vol. 1, pp.&nbsp;310–25.
* Vail, Jeffery W. (ed.): ''The Unpublished Letters of Thomas Moore'', 2 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2013), {{ISBN|978-1-84893-074-2}}.
* Vail, Jeffery W.: "Thomas Moore", in: Gerald Dawe (ed.), ''The Cambridge Companion to Irish Poets'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp.&nbsp;61–73.
* White, Harry: ''The Keeper's Recital. Music and Cultural History in Ireland 1770–1970'' (Cork: Cork University Press, 1998), {{ISBN|1-85918-171-6}}.
* [[Terence de Vere White|White, Terence de Vere]]: ''Tom Moore: The Irish Poet'' (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977).

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{wikiquote}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=2185}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Thomas Moore}}
* {{Librivox author |id=505}}
* {{cite web | title=Introducing Project ERIN: Thomas Moore in Europe| website=Thomas Moore in Europe (QUB Blog) |publisher= [[Queen's University Belfast]] | date=16 June 2017|url=https://blogs.qub.ac.uk/erin/ |quote=ERIN documents two of Thomas Moore’s song series – the Irish Melodies (1808–1834) and National Airs (1818–1827) – as well as music inspired by his ‘oriental romance’ Lalla Rookh (1817).}}
* [http://theotherpages.org/poems/poem-mn.html#moore Thomas Moore index entry at Poets' Corner]
* [http://www.libraryireland.com/Irish-Melodies/Home.php/ Moore's Irish Melodies, arranged by C. V. Stanford]
* [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=machinehay+%22thomas+moore%22 Thomas Moore melodies] by 'machinehay' on [[YouTube]]
* {{ChoralWiki}}
* {{IMSLP|id=Moore, Thomas}}
* [[hdl:2345/2794|Thomas Moore collection, 1813–1833]] (John J. Burns Library, Boston College)
* [https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/names/102361 Thomas Moore recordings] at the [[Discography of American Historical Recordings]].
{{Irish poetry}}
{{Thomas Moore|state=expanded}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moore, Thomas}}
[[Category:1779 births]]
[[Category:1852 deaths]]
[[Category:18th-century Irish poets]]
[[Category:18th-century Irish male writers]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish classical composers]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish novelists]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish poets]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish writers]]
[[Category:Burials in Wiltshire]]
[[Category:Irish expatriates in England]]
[[Category:Irish male novelists]]
[[Category:Irish male poets]]
[[Category:Irish satirical poets]]
[[Category:Irish satirists]]
[[Category:Lord Byron]]
[[Category:People from Hornsey]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)]]
[[Category:Writers from Dublin (city)]]
[[Category:International members of the American Philosophical Society]]