MacCarthy, Denis Florence (1817–1882)

Irish poet and academic, born in Dublin and educated at Maynooth and King's Inns. MacCarthy was the first professor of English at the Catholic University, Dublin. Among his works were Ballads, Poems and Lyrics (1850), The Bellfounder (1857), Under-Glimpses (1857), and Poems (1882). His Shelley's Early Life (1872) chronicled an Irish visit in 1812. He also translated the plays of the Spanish dramatist Calderón de la Barca, for which he received a medal from the Royal Spanish Academy.

MacCarthy's early verse appeared in the Dublin Satirist, and by 1843 he was a regular contributor to the cultural and political journal The Nation.