Denis Taaffe

Who was Denis Taaffe?

Denis Taaffe or Dennis Taafe was an Irish political writer, also known under the pseudonym Julius Vindex.

Educated in Franciscan colleges, Taaffe was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1782. He converted to the Church of Ireland by 1788, but returned to Catholicism shortly after. He was soon trying to scrape a living as a tutor and pamphleteer. A supporter of the French Revolution and the United Irishmen, Taaffe claimed to have fought in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. He edited a patriotic newspaper, The Shamroc, and his pamphlets against the 1800 Act of Union saw him arrested for seditious libel in 1799. He was a founder member and first secretary of the Gaelic Society of Dublin in 1806, established to research and revive traditions of Irish literature.