Robert Owenson (Robert MacOwen) (1744â€"1812) was an Irish actor,
author and father of Lady Olivia Clark and novelist Sydney, Lady
Morgan.Born in Tirawley, on the Mayoâ€"Sligo border, Owenson
established a National Theatre Music Hall at Fishamble Street, Dublin,
the theatre where Handel's Messiah had been first performed in 1742.
Here plays and songs were performed in English and in Irish. Owenson
was introduced as an actor by Oliver Goldsmith and David Garrick; he
had his London debut at Covent Garden in 1774. He opened his Dublin
theatre at Fishamble Street in 1785. Owenson's elder daughter, the
novelist Sydney, Lady Morgan wrote of his theatre: "The National
Theatre Music Hall": ‘The first performance [of the National Theatre
at Fishamble St.] was to be altogether national, that is, Irish, and
very Irish it was. My father wrote and spoke the prologue in his own
character as an Irish Volunteer. The audience was as national as the
performance; and the pit was filled with red coats of the corps to
which my father belonged; and the boxes exhibited a show of beauty and
fashion, such as Ireland above all countries could produce." Hius
younger daughter was dramatist and poet Olivia Owenson. The enormously
successful theatre was shut when the British government granted an
exclusive patent to a less nationally minded competitor, Richard Daly,
for whom Owenson subsequently worked. The contemporary writer Jonah
Barrington described him as "considerably above six feet in height,
remarkably handsome and brave looking, vigorous and well shaped." When
he died in 1812, the Freeman's Journal wrote in an obituary: "The
revival of Irish music within these last thirty years was entirely
owing to his exertion, and his exquisite mode of singing his native
airs both in public and in private. His conduct as a father… went
far beyond the common line of parental duty and tenderness; his public
life considered, it was unexampled."
author and father of Lady Olivia Clark and novelist Sydney, Lady
Morgan.Born in Tirawley, on the Mayoâ€"Sligo border, Owenson
established a National Theatre Music Hall at Fishamble Street, Dublin,
the theatre where Handel's Messiah had been first performed in 1742.
Here plays and songs were performed in English and in Irish. Owenson
was introduced as an actor by Oliver Goldsmith and David Garrick; he
had his London debut at Covent Garden in 1774. He opened his Dublin
theatre at Fishamble Street in 1785. Owenson's elder daughter, the
novelist Sydney, Lady Morgan wrote of his theatre: "The National
Theatre Music Hall": ‘The first performance [of the National Theatre
at Fishamble St.] was to be altogether national, that is, Irish, and
very Irish it was. My father wrote and spoke the prologue in his own
character as an Irish Volunteer. The audience was as national as the
performance; and the pit was filled with red coats of the corps to
which my father belonged; and the boxes exhibited a show of beauty and
fashion, such as Ireland above all countries could produce." Hius
younger daughter was dramatist and poet Olivia Owenson. The enormously
successful theatre was shut when the British government granted an
exclusive patent to a less nationally minded competitor, Richard Daly,
for whom Owenson subsequently worked. The contemporary writer Jonah
Barrington described him as "considerably above six feet in height,
remarkably handsome and brave looking, vigorous and well shaped." When
he died in 1812, the Freeman's Journal wrote in an obituary: "The
revival of Irish music within these last thirty years was entirely
owing to his exertion, and his exquisite mode of singing his native
airs both in public and in private. His conduct as a father… went
far beyond the common line of parental duty and tenderness; his public
life considered, it was unexampled."
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