Justin Huntly McCarthy


Justin Huntly McCarthy was an Irish author and nationalist politician. He was a Member of Parliament from 1884 to 1892, taking his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
He was the son of Justin McCarthy. Since both father and son were authors, historians, and Members of Parliament, they are sometimes confused in lists and compilations.

Political career

McCarthy was first elected to Parliament at a by-election on 12 June 1884, when he was returned unopposed as the Home Rule League member for Athlone, following the death of the Liberal MP Sir John James Ennis.
Athlone lost its status as a parliamentary borough under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, and at the 1885 general election McCarthy stood instead in the borough of Newry in County Down, where he was returned unopposed for the Irish Parliamentary Party. He was re-elected in 1886, with a comfortable majority over the Liberal Unionist Reginald Saunders, but did contest the 1892 election.

Writing

McCarthy wrote various novels, plays, poetical pieces and short histories. He was briefly married to the actress Cissie Loftus. They married in Edinburgh in 1894, and though they divorced in 1899, she originated the role of Katherine de Vaucelles, the heroine in If I Were King in 1901.
Among other works, he wrote biographies of Sir Robert Peel, Pope Leo XIII and William Ewart Gladstone. In 1889 he published prose translations of 466 quatrains of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He also wrote:
In 1893, he translated some Gazels from Divan of Hafiz, the 14th century Persian poet, which was published in a 152-page volume by David Nutt. 1000 copies were made, 800 for England and 200 for America.
see internet catalogue for details :

Family life

McCarthy married musical artist Cecilia Loftus in 1893 in Edinburgh, Scotland, but the marriage did not last long and was dissolved in 1899. He married again in 1908 to Loullie Killick. McCarthy died at his home in Putney on 20 March 1936.