The Bicentenary of Robert Browning – 7 May 2012

Would you by any chance have come across reference to Elizabeth Barrett and her brother Edward Moulton Barrett’s tutor – Daniel McSwiney, M.A. – who taught them classics when they were young teenagers. D.McS is my 4th gr-grandfather and I have been trying in vain to find when he arrived in England from Cork, Ireland, and where he earned his M.A. degree (he was R.C.). Thank you for any information.

I have the following info on him:
Daniel left Ireland with a M.A. degree (before 1817 from which University?) and was hired by Mr Barrett to tutor in the Classics his son Edward Moulton Barrett, and subsequently 12 year old Elizabeth Barrett, who became the poet,

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Poem “Miss Barrett Barrett,” by Daniel McSwiney, 19 September 1820″ http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/recorddetails.php?id=15980. “The Reading Experience Database Record Number 15980″

23 Jun 1822 Country: England Citation: Philip Kelley and Ronald Hudson (ed.), The Brownings’ Correspondence (Winfield, 1984), 1, p. 159, – States Daniel was “Professional / academic, Country of origin: Ireland , Country of experience: England ”

Edward Moulton Barrett to his sister Elizabeth Barrett (Browning), 24 June 1822: ‘Mr. McSwiney dined with us yesterday and was shown your Greek epitaph, in the first place he says Anacreontic measure is not proper for an epitaph,it ought to be Hexameters or Pentameters, in the second place you must send down the translation of it, as he cannot make out your meaning. He also saw your lines which were sent to Colburns [i.e to Henry Colburn, founder of the New Monthly Magazine] and thinks them quite beautiful but it is not adapted to the public, as it is not so interesting to them not knowing the circumstances which attended it.

Daniel subsequently moved to Brighton, England and married into the Allfree family – who owned educational establishments in Tunbridge Wells, Herstmonceux and Brighton (where he worked as a teacher).