Hugh Porter (poet)

Hugh Porter (1780–1812) was an Ulster Scots dialects poet and weaver.[1] He was known as the Bard of Moneyslane, a village in County Down.[2]

Porter started writing poetry as a teenager, although he likely had little formal education.[1] In 1799, he dedicated a poem to his patron Reverend Thomas Tighe, who supported several local writers including Patrick Brontë.[1][3] Tighe was a friend of the translator Reverend Henry Boyd, and was part of the Dromore literary circle with Thomas Percy.[1][3]

In the 1800s, Porter's work was published in several newspapers under the pseudonym "A County Down Weaver" and "Tisander".[4] In 1813, Poetical Attempts (1813), a volume of his work,[1] was published "to exhilarate the evening of the author's life" with funds raised by Tighe.[3]

  1. ^ a b c d e Carpenter, Andrew, ed. (1998). Verse in English from eighteenth-century Ireland. Cork University Press. p. 552. ISBN 1859181031.
  2. ^ "Bard of Dunclug & Bard of Moneyslane". BBC Radio Ulster. 22 July 2011. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  3. ^ a b c Rhyming weavers & other country poets of Antrim and Down. Belfast: Blackstaff Press. 2004. p. 13. ISBN 9780856407574.
  4. ^ Ferguson, Frank (18 December 2023). "Between the Bishop's Hall and the Hurchin: Enlightenment Legacies in Post-Union Antrim and Down". Estudios Irlandeses (18.2): 99–111. doi:10.24162/EI2023-12200.