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BUCK WHALEY
David Ryan was born in Galway and holds an MA degree in history from NUI Galway. His first book, Blasphemers and Blackguards: The Irish Hellfire Clubs, was published by Merrion Press in 2012. David currently lives in Dublin where he works as a television producer and scriptwriter.
BUCK WHALEY
IRELAND’S GREATEST ADVENTURER
DAVID RYAN
First published in 2019 by
Merrion Press
An imprint of Irish Academic Press
10 George’s Street
Newbridge
Co. Kildare
Ireland
© David Ryan, 2019
9781785372292 (Paper)
9781785372308 (Kindle)
9781785372315 (Epub)
9781785372322 (PDF)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved
alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or
introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise)
without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Cover front: Portrait of Thomas Whaley as a youth (Mervyn Whaley).
Cover back: Jerusalem from the north by David Roberts, 1839 (New York Public Library).
For Karla
‘Know, my friends, that my father … died whilst I was still a child, leaving me great wealth and many estates and farmlands. As soon as I came of age and had control of my inheritance, I took to extravagant living. I clad myself in the costliest robes, ate and drank sumptuously, and consorted with reckless prodigals of my own age, thinking that this mode of life would endure for ever.
It was not long before I awoke from my heedless folly to find that I had frittered away my entire fortune … I sold the remainder of my lands and my household chattels for the sum of three thousand dirhams, and, fortifying myself with hope and courage, resolved to travel abroad.’
— The First Voyage of Sinbad the Sailor
CONTENTS
A Note on Sources, Citations and Abbreviations
