Gideon Ouseley

His father, although a deist, intended that his son enter the clergy,[1] but Ouseley spent much of his childhood in the cabins of peasant neighbours.[2] He was tutored with his cousins Gore and William, and all three had notable careers.[3]

Married at age 20, Ouseley led a wild life that dissipated both his own and his wife's fortunes. After losing an eye when shot in a tavern brawl, a loss that reputedly left him with a frightening appearance,[2] Ouseley left his wild ways behind him. In 1791 he was converted to Methodism by English soldiers stationed in Dunmore,[4] and he set out in turn, to convert and reform others. Ouseley preached the gospel, mostly in Ulster, until his death, preaching up to 20 sermons a week.[1] His knowledge of the Irish language and of peasant mores— not to mention his eccentric preaching astride a white horse— won him renown as Methodism's 'apostle to the Irish'.[2]

• A Short Defence Of The Old Religion (1812, 2nd Ed. 1829)
• Rare discoveries (1823)
• Old Christianity (1827)
• Four letters (1829)

Oliver St. John Gogarty wrote an autobiographical novel Tumbling in the Hay and two plays under the pseudonym Gideon Ouseley, 'A Serious Thing' and 'The Enchanted Trousers'.[5]

The writer John Mulvey Ousley was of a later generation of the same family.[6]

• Gideon Ouseley, From A Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878
• Dun Laoghaire Methodist Church: How it began