William Allingham was born March 19, 1824, at Ballyshannon, County Donegal, one of the oldest towns in Ireland.

He was the eldest of five children, son of a shipping merchant. His mother died when he was aged nine.

He began working in a bank in 1838 at the age of fourteen. He quit in 1846 to join the Customs Office.

In the late forties his poetry career began. While a visit in London in 1847, he met Leigh Hunt and two years later Coventry Patmore. He even dedicated his first book of poems to Leigh Hunt. Later on, from 1850 to 1853, he became friends with members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, such as Alfred Tennyson and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

From 1870 to 1879, Allingham worked as the sub-editor (and since 1874 as editor) of Fraser”s Magazine.

William Allingham married in 1874 Helen Paterson, a water-colour painter. He died 18 November 1889 at Hampstead, London, England.

He published:

1850 – Collection of Poems
1855 – Day and Night Songs
1865 – Fifty Modern Poems
1877 – Songs, Ballads and Stories
1883 – Evil May Day
1884 – Blackberries
1887 – Irish Songs and Poems
1893 – Varieties in Prose