Croker Thomas Crofton

Croker, Thomas Crofton, born at Cork in 1798, and brought up to business, obtained, through his namesake John Wilson Croker, a clerkship in the Admiralty. Thus provided for, he devoted himself to that particular branch of archaeology in which he won his fame. In 1825 he published the Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland, and this was followed by Legends of the Lakes, Popular Songs of Ireland, and an original and humorous sketch called The Adventures of Barney Mahoney. For the Camden and Percy Societies, which he helped to found, he wrote more serious papers on the social and political state of Ireland in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and he was an active supporter of the Hakluyt, Archaeological, and Antiquarian societies. He enjoyed considerable reputation as a brilliant conversationalist, and died in London in 1854.