# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Macdermott, Martin

​MACDERMOTT, MARTIN (1823–1905), Irish poet and architect, was born of catholic parents at 8 Ormond Quay, Dublin, on 8 April 1823. His father, John MacDermott (1785-1842), was a merchant; his mother, Amelie Therese Boshell, was of French descent. He was educated as a catholic in Dublin and Boulogne-sur-Mer, but became a protestant in early life. He was articled to Patrick Byrne, R.H.A., a well-known Dublin architect, but his studies were interrupted by participation in the Young Ireland movement. He occasionally wrote, chiefly in verse, for the 'Nation' from 1840 onwards. When, in 1848, the Young Irelanders desired to enlist the sympathy of the French government in their struggle for Irish independence, MacDermott was one of the delegates sent to Paris to interview Lamartine, then foreign minister in ​the now republican government. Lamartine made MacDermott and his friends a glowing speech of welcome but published so disappointingly colourless a report of the interview in the official 'Moniteur' as to convince them of the impossibility of practical help. Lamartine appears to have understood the Irishmen to ask for armed aid, whereas they only looked for moral support (cf. Gavan Duffy, Four Years of Irish History, pp. 567, 568). MacDermott remained in Paris as the representative of the 'Nation,' but soon after its suppression in 1848 went to Birkenhead, where he completed his training in a local architect's office. Coming to London after 1850, he entered the office of (Sir) Charles Liddell, and was employed chiefly on the stations of the Metropolitan railway extension. He obtained the post of chief architect to the Egyptian government, and spent some years in Alexandria from 1866 onwards. Some twelve years later he retired and settled in London. His subsequent years were devoted to literary work. In 1879 he translated Viollet-le-Duc's 'Essay on the Military Architecture of the Middle Ages.' A constant correspondent of Sir Charles Gavan Duffy [q. v. Suppl. II], he was intimately associated with him in 1892-5 in his scheme of the 'New Irish Library,' a series of books designed to continue the successful national library inaugurated in 1843. For the series, which was not well supported, MacDermott prepared an anthology of Irish poetry called 'The New Spirit of the Nation,' 1894. He died at his residence at Cotham, Bristol, on 25 April 1905.
MacDermott's poems are few and of homely quality. Two of them, 'The Coulin' and 'Exiles Far Away,' have achieved great popularity. He is represented in 'Brooke and Rolleston's Treasury of Irish Poetry' (1905) by 'Girl of the Red Mouth.' Besides the publications already cited, MacDermott edited 'Irish Poetry' for the 'Penny Poets' series ; 'Poems and Ballads of Young Ireland' (1896); and, with additions, Thomas Moore's 'Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald' (1897). He married about 1860 Miss Martha Melladew of Liverpool, and by her had nine children, of whom three sons and three daughters survived him.
[Freeman's Journal, 27 April 1905; correspondence with present writer; information kindly supplied by Miss Maud MacDermott of Taunton; the Architect and Contract Reporter, May 1905; personal knowledge; Duffy's Young Ireland.]
D. J. O'D.