The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 25, December 19, 1840

by Various

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

Number 25.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1840.

Volume I.

THE MONUMENT TO THE MEMORY OF DR DOYLE, BY HOGAN.

In presenting our readers with a drawing, made expressly for the purpose, of the Monumental Sculpture intended to memorise the mortal form of an illustrious Irishman, who was beloved and honoured by the great mass of his countrymen, and respected for his talents by all, we have done that which we trust will give as much pleasure to most of our readers, as it has afforded gratification to ourselves.

This monument is indeed a truly interesting one, whether considered in reference to its subject—the character of the distinguished individual whose memory it is designed to honour—the circumstances which have given it existence—or, lastly, as a work of high art, the production of an Irishman whose talents reflect lustre on his country. It is, however, in this last point of view only, that, consistently with the plan originally laid down for the conduct of our little periodical, we can venture to treat of it; and considered in this way, we cannot conceive a subject more worthy of attracting public attention or more legitimately within the scope of one of the primary objects our Journal was designed to effect—namely, to make our country, and its people, without reference to sect or party, more intimately known than they had been previously, not only to strangers, but even to Irishmen themselves.

In our present object, therefore, of lending our influence, such as it is, to make the merits of a great Irish artist more thoroughly known and justly appreciated, by our countrymen in particular, than they have hitherto been, we are only discharging a duty necessarily imposed upon us; and the pleasure which we feel in doing so would be great indeed, if it were not diminished by the saddening reflection that it should be so necessary in the case of an artist of his eminence. But, alas! the scriptural adage, that no man is a prophet in his own country, is unfortunately nowhere so strikingly illustrated as in Ireland, and of this fact Mr Hogan is a remarkable example. Holding, as he unquestionably does, a high place among the most eminent sculptors of Europe, he is as yet unpatronized by the aristocracy of his native country—is indeed perhaps scarcely known to them.

Mr Hogan is not, as generally supposed, a native of Cork: he was born at Tallow, in the county of Waterford, in 1800, where his father carried on the business of a builder. He is of good family, both by the paternal and maternal sides; his father being of the old Dalcassian tribe of the O’Hogans, the chiefs of whom were located in the seventeenth century at Ardcrony, in the county of Tipperary, four miles and a half to the north of Nenagh, where the remains of their castle and church are still to be seen. By the mother’s side he is descended from the celebrated Sir Richard Cox, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland in the reign of William and Mary, and Lord Chancellor in that of Queen Anne, his mother, Frances Cox, being the great-granddaughter of that eminent individual.

Having received the ordinary school education, he was placed by his father, in the year 1812, under an attorney in Cork, named Michael Footte, with a view to his ultimately embracing the legal profession, and in this situation he remained for two years. This was the most unhappy period of his existence; for, like Chantrey, the greatest of British sculptors, who was also articled to an attorney, being endowed by nature expressly to become an artist, the original bias of his mind to drawing and carving had by this time become a passion; and despite of the frequent chastisements his master bestowed on him, in the exuberance of his zeal to curb what he considered his idle propensities, his whole soul was given, not to law, but to the Fine Arts, and an artist he became accordingly. His father and his master seeing the utter uselessness of any further attempts to divert his mind from its apparently destined course, he was released from his irksome employment, and at the age of fourteen entered the office of Mr Deane, now Sir Thomas Deane, of Cork, as an apprentice, where he was soon employed as a draughtsman and carver of models, with a view to his becoming ultimately an architect. In Mr Deane he found a master who had the intellect to enable him to appreciate his talents, and the good feeling to induce him to encourage them; and the first use he made of the chisels with which his patron supplied him, was to produce a carving in wood of a female skeleton the size of life, on which Dr Woodroffe for a season was able to lecture his pupils, as if it were, what it actually seems, a real skeleton in form and colour. Under the instruction of this gentleman Mr Hogan studied anatomy for several years, during which period he made for his improvement many carvings in wood of hands and feet, and also essayed his talents on a figure of Minerva the size of life, which still remains over the entrance of the Life and Fire Insurance Office in the South Mall.