KIRWAN, Walter Blake

KIRWAN, Walter Blake, a celebrated Irish preacher, was born in the county of Galway about the year 1754. He was descended of an ancient family of the Roman Catholic persuasion, and, in early youth, went to the college of the English Jesuits at St Omer, where he received the rudiments of his education. At the age of seventeen, he embarked for the Danish island of St Croix, in the West Indies, where a relation of his father had large possessions; but, after a residence of six years, during which he suffered severely

from the baneful influence of the climate, he returned to Europe. He then entered the university of Louvain, where he took priest's orders, and was soon afterwards promoted to the chair of natural and moral philosophy. In 1778, he was appointed chaplain to the Neapolitan ambassador at the British court; and having obtained some reputation as a preacher, he published several sermons, which, however, do not appear to have attracted any notice. In 1787, he resolved to conform to the established religion, from "a conviction that he would thus obtain more extensive opportunities of doing good;" and was introduced by Dr Hastings archdeacon of Dublin, to the congregation of St Peter's church, where he preached on the 24th of June. His audience were impatient to hear him relate the causes of his conversion, but they were disappointed; for, neither at this nor at any other time, did he ever breathe a syllable of contempt or reproach against any religious persuasion whatsoever. For some time after he had conformed to the established religion, he preached every Sunday in St Peter's church; but his reputation as a pulpit orator increased so rapidly that, before the expiration of a year, he was exclusively employed to preach charity sermons, a duty in the discharge of which his success had been unprecedented. In 1788, he was preferred to the prebend of Howth, and in the following year to the parish of St Nicholas Without, the joint incomes of which amounted to about £400 a year; but he resigned the prebend on being presented, in 1800, to the deanry of Killala. His popularity as a preacher appears to have been extraordinary. Whenever he appeared in the pulpit, multitudes crowded to hear him. He was presented with addresses and pieces of plate from several parishes, and with the freedom of different corporations; his portrait was painted and engraved by the most eminent artists; and the collections made, when he preached, exceeded anything that had ever been known. Even at periods of public distress, his irresistible powers of persuasion produced, by a single sermon, contributions exceeding a thousand or twelve hundred pounds; and his auditors, not content with emptying their purses into the plate, sometimes threw in jewels or watches, as earnest of future benefactions. But the fire which burned in his bosom at length consumed him, and he died on the 27th of October 1805, exhausted by the fatigues of his vocation, leaving a widow with two sons and two daughters, to whom the king granted a pension of £300 a year, with reversion to the daughters. In 1814, a volume of his sermons was printed for the benefit of his sons, who were not included in this provision; but from these it would be difficult to discover the cause of his unexampled popularity, since, in point of literary merit, they bear no sort of proportion to the effects which, when delivered by him, they appear to have produced. The master-charm no doubt consisted in the manner, of which it is impossible for us to form any opinion. One thing is certain, however, that, in recommending charity, he was successful beyond all precedent, and that his private character corresponded, in all respects, with the humane and benevolent sentiments expressed in his public discourses. (A.)