AustLit

Geoghegan refutes a letter, published in the Sydney Morning Herald, that questioned the originality of 'The Hibernian Father'. The SMH letter writer, 'Tisias', had drawn parallels between 'The Hibernian Father' and the 1831 play 'Warden of Galway'.

Geoghegan lays out his limited knowledge of the 'Warden of Galway' and provides an account of how and when he came to write 'The Hibernian Father'.

At the foot of Geoghegan's correspondence, an SMH editor's note declares that 'the author's positive assertion [as to originality] must outweigh mere opinions'.

Note: The letter by 'Tisias' probably appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday, 15 May 1844. That issue of the SMH is missing from the National Library of Australia's newspaper digitisation project website.