Gideon Ouseley (1762 – 1839) was born into an Anglican gentry family in Dunmore, County Galway.
He spent much of his childhood in the cabins of peasant neighbours. Later, during a wild youth, he lost an eye in a tavern brawl, a loss that reputedly left him with a frightening appearance. Ouseley was tutored with his cousinns Gore and William. All three had notable careers.[1]
In 1791, Ouseley left his wild ways behind him when he was converted to Methodism by English soldiers stationed in Dunmore. Setting out, in turn, to convert and reform others, his knowledge of the Irish language and of peasant mores— not to mention his eccentric preaching astride a white horse— won him renown as Methodism's 'apostle to the Irish'.
Oliver St. John Gogarty wrote two plays under the pseudonym Gideon Ouseley, 'A Serious Thing' and 'The Enchanted Trousers'. [1]
The writer John Mulvey Ousley was of a later generation of the same family.