His best-known works are: in verse, "The Sisters" (1861); "The Infant Bridal" (1864); "Irish Odes" (1869); "Legends of St Patrick" (1872); and "Legends of the Saxon Saints" (1879); and in prose, "Essays Chiefly on Poetry" (1887); and "Essays Chiefly Literary and Ethical" (1889). He also wrote a picturesque volume of travel-sketches, and two dramas in verse, "Alexander the Great" (1874); and "St Thomas of Canterbury" (1876). According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, both of these dramas, "though they contain fine passages, suffer from diffuseness and a lack of dramatic spirit." One of his best remembered poem is "Inisfail" while two of his historical poems used to be on the Junior Cycle English syllabus, "The March to Kinsale" and "The Ballad of Athlone".