Justin H. McCarthy

Justin Huntly McCarthy (1859–1936) was an Irish writer and politician, the son of the historian and Irish nationalist leader Justin McCarthy. He sat in Parliament for Athlone and then Newry from 1884 to 1892 before giving up politics for literature, and he wrote histories, translations of Omar Khayyam and Hafiz, novels and plays. His romance If I Were King, about the poet François Villon, was a hit on stage in 1901 and became the operetta The Vagabond King; The Dryad, Needles and Pins and The Flower of France are among his other novels. He was married for some years to the music-hall star Cissie Loftus.