Richard Daly (1758–1813) was an Irish actor and theatrical manager who, between 1786 and 1797, held the Royal patent for staging dramatic productions in Dublin and became such a dominant figure in Irish theatre that he was referred to as "King Daly".
Birth and family background Richard Daly was born in County Westmeath in 1758, the third son of Joseph and Frances () Daly of Castle Daly, Kilcleagh, near Athlone.George Dames Burtchaell and Thomas Ulick Sadleir (eds.), Alumni Dublinenses, Alex. Thom & Co. Ltd., Dublin, 1935, p. 208. His family were descendants of Bryan O’Dailaigh who, at the time of his death in 1619, possessed the castle and demesne of Kilcleagh. Ownership of that property (later called Castle Daly) was confirmed to the family at the Restoration, and they converted to Protestantism during the Williamite confiscations. By the 19th century their estate exceeded 3,000 acres.Edmund Emmet O'Daly, History of the O’Dalys, The Story of the Ancient Sept, The Race of Dalach of Corca Adaimh, New York, 1937, pp. 87, 249, 252; James Woods, Annals of Westmeath, Ancient and Modern, Sealy, Bryers & Walker, Dublin, 1907, p. 216; Upton Papers (Royal Irish Academy), 21/23; The Freeman's Journal, 10 September 1850, p. 1 (particulars of the estate of Castle Daly, Co. Westmeath, to be sold in the Court of the Commissioners for Incumbered Estates).
Trinity College and the Middle Temple Daly entered Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of fifteenBurtchaell and Sadleir, Alumni Dublinenses, p. 208. and was a turbulent student. The playwright John O'Keeffe remembered him as "so given to riot and commotion that he was the terror of all public places". O'Keeffe was present when, at the head of a party of undergraduates, Daly forced his way through the stage-door of the Smock Alley Theatre, assaulted the doorkeepers, and rushed into the green room, causing the actress Jane Pope to be "greatly terrified".John O’Keeffe, Recollections of the Life of John O’Keeffe, written by himself, Henry Colburn, London, 1826, Vol. II, pp. 42–43.
The judge Sir Jonah Barrington, his contemporary at Trinity College, later recalled Daly's appetite for single combat. Before the pair had even spoken to one another, Daly sent Barrington a written challenge to a duel. Barrington, who had not previously fought, was somewhat intimidated on beholding his opponent's striking figure, turnout and distinctive squint when they met at Donnybrook – an encounter which ended without Daly discharging his gun, but saw him sustain minor injury when Barrington's shot was deflected. According to Barrington this was one of sixteen duels fought by Daly at Trinity in the space of two years, three with swords and thirteen with pistols.Sir Jonah Barrington, Personal Sketches of His Own Times, W. J. Widdleton, New York, 1857, pp. 297–301.
The circumstances in which Daly quit Trinity in 1776 and lived in London until 1779 are not clear. A claim that he fled Dublin after killing a billiard-table marker was among several allegations that prompted him to bring libel proceedings in 1789.John C. Greene, "The Trials of Richard Daly and John Magee, involving the Sham Squire, the Lottery Swindle of 1788, the Billiard Marker's Ghost, and the Grand Olympic Pig Hunt", Eighteenth Century Ireland, Vol. 24 (2009), p. 147. More probable is the explanation that he left to pursue legal studies in LondonAnon., Thespian Dictionary; or Dramatic Biography of the Eighteenth Century, J. Cundee, London, 1802, unpaginated, entry for "Daly (Richard)"; "Actors and the Drama. Richard Daly, Patentee and Manager of Crow-Street Theatre, from 1786 to 1798", The Warder, Dublin, 10 March 1866, p. 5. where he was admitted a student of the Middle Temple in November 1776.H. A. C. Sturgess (comp.), Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, Vol. I, Butterworth & Co., 1949, p. 384. Jonah Barrington (who, like Daly, left Trinity without a degree) spoke of him as a fellow Templar,Barrington, p. 297. and there is later reference to his commencing practice at the English Bar but finding few clients.Thespian Dictionary, "Daly (Richard)"; Commercial Journal and Family Herald, Dublin, 15 July 1854, p. 2. Other sources report a London meeting with the celebrated Irish actor Charles Macklin who encouraged Daly to seek his fortune on the stage, following which he made an anonymous debut in the role of Othello at Covent Garden in March 1779. His performance on that occasion is said to have been poorly received, but in the following month his benefit night was successful, and shortly afterwards he returned to Ireland in the company of Thomas and Ann Crawford who had also been playing at Covent Garden.Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim and Edward A. Laughans, A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, Southern Illinois University Press, 1973, Vol. 4, p. 128 ; Thomas Gilliland, The Dramatic Mirror: containing the History of the Stage from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, C. Chapple, London, 1808, Vol. I, p. 246; John C. Greene, "Daly, Richard (1758–1813)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Marriage and early career in theatre He made his Dublin stage debut in May 1779 when, at the Crow Street Theatre, he appeared in the role of Lord Townly in The Provok'd Husband, playing opposite Mrs Crawford who had inherited the theatre from her previous husband, Spranger Barry.Saunders's News-Letter, Dublin, 13 May 1779, p. 2; James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs Siddons, Henry Colburn, London, 1827, Vol. I, pp. 90–92.
Soon afterwards Daly married the "beautiful and fashionable" actress Jenny Barsanti, a daughter of the musician Francesco Barsanti.J. T. Gilbert, A History of the City of Dublin, McGlashan and Gill, Dublin, 1859, Vol. II, p. 182; Highfill, Burnim and Laughans, Vol. IV, p. 129; Lady Morgan's Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries and Correspondence, W. Hepworth Dixon (ed.), Wm. H. Allen & Co., London, 1862, Vol. I, p. 61. She was the widow of John Richard Kirwan Lyster, who had died in January that year, and brought Daly both a stepdaughter (Lyster's posthumous child) and an annuity.Gillian Skinner, "'An Unsullied Reputation in the Midst of Danger': Barsanti, Propriety and Performance in Burney's Early Journals and Letters", Durham Research Online , 2017, p. 12 (originally published in Women's Writing 19(4), 2012; Highfill, Vol. 4, p. 128. She had made her stage debut at Covent Garden seven years earlier, had delivered the Epilogue when George Colman retired as manager there, and had been the original Lydia Languish in Sheridan's The Rivals.Annie Raine Ellis (ed.), The Early Diary of Frances Burney, 1768–1778, Vol. I, George Bell & Sons, London, 1889, pp. 182–183 ; Oxford Journal, 4 June 1774, p. 1. She possessed talent which her friend Frances Burney was "sure will in time raise her to the highest pitch of fame".
Mrs Daly immediately devoted herself to instructing her new husband "in the mechanical and technical points of the dramatic art and succeeded in rendering him a respectable actor".The Warder, 10 March 1866, p. 5. The couple made their first stage appearance together in November 1779 as Beverly and Belinda in the Crow Street production of Arthur Murphy's All in the Wrong, and in the following February they played in George Farquhar's The Inconstant.Saunders's News-Letter, 3 November 1779, p. 2, and 2 February 1780, p. 2. In April 1780 they appeared in John Burgoyne's The Maid of the Oaks and Sheridan's The School for Scandal.Saunders's News-Letter, 15 April 1780, p. 2, and 22 April 1780, p. 1.
These productions were staged under the management of Thomas Ryder who, while leasing Crow Street from Ann Crawford, also occupied the Smock Alley Theatre. Although "esteemed the best hearing house in Europe",Saunders's News-Letter, 23 June 1780, p. 1. Smock Alley stood idle and was rented by Ryder simply to prevent it falling into a competitor's hands.Thespian Dictionary, "Ryder (Thomas)"; Gilbert, Vol. II, p. 104. In order to escape this double burden, Ryder elected to give up the Smock Alley tenancy when his landlord offered to release him from liability for rent arrears of £3,615 if he surrendered the premises. Unknown to Ryder, Daly had been in negotiation with the landlord and had agreed to assume responsibility for the arrears on being granted possession of the playhouse. By "stratagem and inducements" he then persuaded the best of Ryder's players to join him in a new company at Smock Alley.Thespian Dictionary, "Daly (Richard)"; Gilbert, Vol. II, p. 105; J. D. Herbert, Irish Varieties, for the Last Fifty Years: written from recollections, William Joy, London, 1836, p. 8.
Manager of Smock Alley Early success Under Daly's management the redecorated Smock Alley Theatre opened in November 1780 with a prelude bearing the title "Smock Alley Secrets" (written by Rev. Peter Le Fanu, a fashionable Dublin clergyman) followed by Richard Cumberland's comedy The West Indian and Isaac Bickerstaffe's farce The Sultan, Daly and his wife playing in the first two of these.Hibernian Journal, or Chronicle of Liberty, Dublin, 30 October 1780, p. 1. A week later they appeared in a production of The School for Scandal, in which Daly's performance was reckoned by the critic for the Hibernian Journal to be "all the Author intended or the Audience could wish. He is a most promising young Actor and receives the Applause his Merit justly Claims".Hibernian Journal, 4 December 1780, p. 4. In the following month the couple featured in the first Irish production of Hannah Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem, which had been the major success of that year's London theatre season and was staged by Daly "with magnificence not at all inferior to Covent Garden".Thespian Dictionary, "Daly (Richard)".
Daly's management of Smock Alley was quickly rewarded with commercial success: "he not only had the best company Ireland could then produce but engaged the principal London stars and got up the most celebrated pieces as soon as they were established in London".Thomas Marshall, Lives of the Most Celebrated Actors and Actresses, E. Appleyard, London, 1848, p. 3. To increase interest in his productions he sometimes reversed gender in comedies and light opera, having men play female characters and vice versaO'Keeffe, Vol. II, pp. 43–44; Gilbert, Vol. II, pp. 106–107; The Sketch, London, 26 September 1894, p. 468. – though when he cast his wife in male roles she refused to wear men's clothing.Gilbert, Vol. II, p. 107; John Doran, "Their Majesties' Servants": Annals of the English Stage from Thomas Betterton to Edmund Kean, Wm. H. Allen & Co., London, 1864, Vol. II, p. 269.