Born: 3 January 1819
Died: 19 August 1900, 4 Roby Place, Kingstown, Co. Dublin, Ireland.
Father: Richard MacDonnell
Mother: Jane Graves
Married: Emily Ann Moylan, 18 July 1842, Gretna Green, Scotland.
Children:
Mary Frances, b. 23 April 1843, Upper Mount Street,
Dublin.
Emily Héloïse, b. 1 June 1844, Upper Mount Street, Dublin.
Richard Graves, b. 10 September 1845, Upper Mount Street, Dublin. d. 24
February 1862. Killed after falling from the topsail yard on the Victor
Emmanuel in the North Atlantic.
Jane Harriet Elizabeth, b. 13 August 1847, d. 25 July 1859, Sorrento Cottage,
Dublin of Scarlatina.
Charles Edward, b. 14 March 1849, d. 31 July 1859, Sorrento Cottage of
Scarlatina.
Hercules Henry, b. 23 March 1851 at 2, Harcourt
Place.
Alfred Creagh, b. 28 January 1855 at 61, Upper
Baggot Street, Dublin.
Frederick Theodore, b. 27 June 1860 at 61, Upper
Baggot Street, Dublin.
Education:
1835-1841 Trinity College, Dublin. Scholar, 1837: Eight First Honours in Classics and Mathematics. 1839: First Gold Medal in Ethics and Logics.
Career:
1842 Called to the Irish bar.
1846 Called to the English bar (from Lincoln's Inn), 9 June.
1853 Registrar to the Court of Bankruptcy, Dublin.
1854-1885 Secretary to the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests
for Ireland.
Other information:
Hercules MacDonnell's elopement with Emily Moylan was mentioned in the 24 July 1842 edition of The Satirist.
In 1864 Hercules visited the principal towns in Europe for the Dublin International Exhibition of 1865. He was one of the original founders of the University Choral Society in 1836. In 1856 he joined in re-organising the Royal Irish Academy of Music, of which he continued an Hon. Secretary for 20 years. In 1864 he had joined in founding the Strollers' Club and from 1885 to 1895 arranged and edited their collection of 97 Male Part songs.
He wrote, inter alia, the following:
A book of dates, operatic, dramatic and musical: compiled for the Strollers,
pub. by Browne and Nolan, Dublin, 1878 (48 pages).
Some notes on the Graves family, pub. by Browne and Nolan, 1889 (20
pages).
Notes, historical and personal on the Tynekill branch of the
MacDonnell family, pub. by Browne and Nolan, 1897 (75 pages). Full
text here.
Letter to the Strollers, pub. by Kingston, Ireland 1898 (18
pages).
Much of the genealogical information here comes from his book on the MacDonnells.
