James McCarroll

James McCarroll

James McCarroll, fiction writer, journalist, poet, musician, inventor (b at Lanesboro, Ireland 3 Aug 1814; d at New York City, US 10 Apr 1892). Once one of Canada's most published and praised authors, James McCarroll has been largely forgotten since the 1870s. In particular, his poems and comic letters in the Irish brogue were popular in the decade before CONFEDERATION. His political observations and his sense of humour were welcomed by many readers.

Raised in County Leitrim, Ireland, McCarroll came to UPPER CANADA in 1831. He settled in PETERBOROUGH, where he married, began a family, and worked as a shoemaker, schoolmaster, music teacher and journalist. He started a REFORM newspaper, The Peterboro Chronicle (1843-46), but was bankrupted by a fire that destroyed his printing office. In 1849 he was appointed a landing waiter at the Port of COBOURG by Francis HINCKS. His fifteen-year career with CUSTOMS included appointments at Port Stamford (NIAGARA FALLS), Port Credit and TORONTO, where he was made an outdoors surveyor in 1856.

Wherever McCarroll lived he wrote for local NEWSPAPERS and built up a network of journalist friends, many of them of IRISH birth. In Toronto he became very popular as a many-faceted writer. His stories and serialized novels appeared in periodicals like The Anglo-American Magazine. Many of his poems were written for The Toronto Leader (1853-65), and his comic letters appeared in several satiric papers, notably The Grumbler and his own short-lived weekly paper, The Latch-Key (1864). Written from 1861-65, these amusing letters from the hand of "Terry Finnegan" used the Irish vernacular (or stage-Irish) to cajole and advise the Hon. Thomas D'Arcy MCGEE, Canada's leading Irish politician of the time, on how best to serve the ongoing interests of the Irish in Canada. The letters were popular with both PROTESTANTS and CATHOLICS. The first series of The Letters of Terry Finnegan (1864) was published as a book in Toronto; in all, McCarroll wrote some 60 Terry Finnegan letters, though a number of them have been lost.

Things changed dramatically for James McCarroll when he lost his Customs position in 1863. Angry, humiliated and suddenly without an income, he saw himself as the victim of anti-Irish politics. He spent his final years in Toronto writing for various newspapers (notably The Irish Canadian and Pick) and speaking out as an Irishman against Confederation. An acclaimed flautist, he also took his one-man musical and comedic show to cities and towns across Canada West.

McCarroll left Toronto in February 1866 for Buffalo, New York. There he aligned himself with FENIAN insurgents and wrote his second book, RIDGEWAY: An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada (1868). Branded a traitor by some in Canada, he lived his final 25 years in New York City, where he continued his literary, musical and journalistic endeavours. He published 2 more books, a play entitled Nearly a Tragedy: A Comedy (1874), and a collection of his poetry, Madeline and Other Poems (1889). He was also an inventor: he filed American patents for improving elevators and introduced a fire-proof gauze for elevators and walls.