Merchant of Dublin, The

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Historical Records

In Brief Lives, John Aubrey noted that John Ogilby "wrot a Play at Dublin called, The Merchant of Dublin--never printed" (Bennett 617; transcribed from Bodleian MS Aubrey 8, f. 47v). Aubrey's reference is the only known early source to discuss this play.

Theatrical Provenance

Wiggins, Catalogue (#2546) notes that this play could have been written from 1633–44 or 1662–66, the two periods that Ogilby was in Dublin.

Bentley, (iv.950-951), echoed by Wiggins and Richardson, notes that during each of his periods in Dublin, Ogilby founded a theatre (Werburgh Street and Smock Alley, respectively). Wiggins and Richardson add that "It is also conceivable that he might have written it as a literary exercise before or after the years when the Werburgh Street Theatre was in operation (1635-41), without any immediate expectation that it would be produced.

For What It's Worth

Dutton suggests that the Merchant of Dublin might be an alternative title for The Irish Gentleman (134).

Terry Clavin, in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, claims that The Merchant of Dublin was staged by the Smock Alley Theatre in 1663. Clavin's source is likely Stockwell La Tourette's Dublin Theatres and Theatre Customs (1637-1820), which more cautiously suggests that Merchant of Dublin "might have been performed" at Smock Alley in 1663 on the same day as Richard Head's Hic et Ubique, or the Humours of Dublin (30).

Charles Withers notes that "it is probable" that Ogilby was admitted to Merchant Taylors' Company on 6 July 1629 ODNB.

Works Cited

Bennett, Kate, ed. Brief Lives with An Apparatus for the Lives of our English Mathematical Writers. By John Aubrey. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2015.

Clavin, Terry. "Ogilby, John." Dictionary of Irish Biography. 2009. https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.007103.v1

Dutton, Richard. “The St. Werburgh Street Theater, Dublin.” Localizing Caroline Drama: Politics and Economics of the Early Modern English Stage, 1625-1642. Ed. Adam Zucker and Alan B. Farmer. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

La Tourette, Stockwell. Dublin Theatres and Theatre Customs (1637-1820). Kingsport, Tennessee: Kingsport Press, 1938. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000449811.

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