Denis Florence McCarthy

SIR'--Perhaps some reader who
is well informed on the history and personalities of the British labour movement could enlighten me on ail interesting detail.
Denis Florence McCarthy. Young Ireland poet and contributor to The Nation, founded in 1842, was born on the site of the premises of Messrs. Clery & Co., Lower O'Connell St., Dublin. McCarthy, like all the men of light and leading" in the Ireland of his time was a highly cultured person. He was proficient in French, Italian, and Spanish. (For his admirable translation of the dramas of Calderon he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Academy of Spain).
1 was surprised to find that the two-column notice of this Young Ireland poet in the English Dictionary of National Biography was written by James Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., later Prime Minister of England. (When Mr. MacDonald was addressed in Gaelic in Nova Scotia he thought the language was lriquois!).
How did a British Prime Minister come to he so interested in a Young Ireland poet as to be recognised as an authority on the subject?
James Maher. NIullinahone, Co. Tipperary.