Gideon Ouseley
Born	24 February 1762 (1762-02-24) Dunmore, Galway
Died	13 May 1839 (1839-05-14) (aged 77) Dublin, Ireland
Occupation	Methodist missionary in Ireland

Gideon Ouseley (24 February 1762 – 13 May 1839)^[1] was born into an Anglican gentry family in Dunmore, County Galway.^[2]

Biography

His father, although a deist, intended that his son enter the clergy,^[1] but Ouseley spent much of his childhood in the cabins of peasant neighbours.^[3] He was tutored with his cousins Gore and William, and all three had notable careers.^[4]

Married at age 20, Ouseley led a wild life that dissipated both his own and his wife's fortunes. After losing an eye when shot in a tavern brawl, a loss that reputedly left him with a frightening appearance,^[3] Ouseley left his wild ways behind him. In 1791 he was converted to Methodism by English soldiers stationed in Dunmore,^[5] and he set out in turn, to convert and reform others. Ouseley preached the gospel, mostly in Ulster, until his death, preaching up to 20 sermons a week.^[1] His knowledge of the Irish language and of peasant mores— not to mention his eccentric preaching astride a white horse— won him renown as Methodism's 'apostle to the Irish'.^[3]

Works

• A Short Defence Of The Old Religion (1812, 2nd Ed. 1829)
• Rare discoveries (1823)
• Old Christianity (1827)
• Four letters (1829)

Oliver St. John Gogarty wrote an autobiographical novel Tumbling in the Hay and two plays under the pseudonym Gideon Ouseley, A Serious Thing and The Enchanted Trousers.^[6]

The writer John Mulvey Ousley was of a later generation of the same family.^[7]

Notes

External links

• Gideon Ouseley, From A Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878
• Dun Laoghaire Methodist Church: How it began

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