Judge John O'Hagan 1825-1890

Born in Newry, educated at a Jesuit school in Dublin, John O-Hagan studied Law and Arts at Dublin University. There he became friendly with Thomas Davis, Gavan Duffy, and other Young Irelanders. He wrote for the Nation newspaper and was the author of some of its best known ballads. He toured Munster with Duffy and the poet Denis Florence McCarthy, and Ulster with Duffy and John Mitchel, and published accounts of both adventures, which cast light on the country side and people during the 1840s. After the 1848 revolution, O-Hagan worked as a lawyer on the Munster Circuit. Subsequently, he became friendly with John Henry Newman and lectured in Law, Literature and the Arts in Newman-s Catholic University. He stayed in touch with Newman after the latter had returned to England.

In the 1860s, O-Hagan was appointed a Commissioner for National Education, a post and subject of great interest to him up to his death. In that decade also he married Frances O-Hagan, who was much y