Charles Wolfe (poet)

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Charles Wolfe (December 14, 1791 – February 21, 1823) was an Irish poet.

Born at Blackhall, County Kildare, he was the youngest son of Thomas (or Theobald) Wolfe of Blackhall, (of the Wolfe family of Forenaughts, Co. Kildare), by his wife Frances, daughter of The Rev. Peter Lombard. Wolfe was educated in England at Bath and then Winchester School, before attending Trinity College, Dublin, between 1809 and 1814.

He turned down the chance to read for a scholarship as he was in love and could not commit to celibacy as was then required. He was ordained as a Church of Ireland priest in 1817, first taking the Curacy of Ballyclog in Co. Tyrone before transferring almost immediately to Donoughmore, Co. Down. There he developed a close friendship with The Rev. Thomas Meredith (1777-1819), Rector of nearby Ardtrea, Co. Tyrone, and a former Fellow of Trinity College Dublin.

He is best remembered for his poem "The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna", written in 1816 and much collected in 19th and early 20th century anthologies. The poem first appeared in the Newry Telegraph on 19th April, 1817, and was re-printed in many other periodicals, but was forgotten until after his death when Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) drew the attention of the public to it.

Wolfe's only volume of verse, 'Poetical Remains' appeared in 1825 with 'The Burial of Sir John Moore' and fourteen other verses of an equally high standard.

Wolfe remained at Donoughmore until 1820, but rejected by the woman for whom he gave up his academic career, and with his friend Meredith now dead (he wrote the inscription on Meredith's monument at Ardtrea), he moved to Queenstown (now known as Cobh), where he remained until his death three years later from consumption (tuberculosis) caught from a cow at the age of 32. He is buried at Clonmel and there is a plaque to his memory in the church at Castlecaulfield, the village where he lived whilst Curate at Donoughmore.

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