James Godkin

James Godkin (1806 – 2 May 1879) was an Irish author and journalist who was influential on ecclesiastical and land questions.

Early life and family

Godkin was born at Gorey in County Wexford, into a Roman Catholic farming family. As a young man he married Sarah, a daughter of Anthony Lawrence, described as a "comfortable proprietor" of County Wicklow, who was of Cromwellian settler ancestry. Together, they had three daughters and two sons, one of whom was Edwin Lawrence Godkin.

Career

In 1834, Godkin was ordained as a Congregational minister and became a pastor in Armagh. He later worked as a missionary to Roman Catholics for the Irish Evangelical Society.

In 1836, he published A Guide from the Church of Rome to the Church of Christ and in 1838 founded the Christian Patriot newspaper at Belfast. His counter-blast to the Oxford Movement, The Touchstone of Orthodoxy and Apostolic Christianity, or, The People's Antidote Against Puseyism and Romanism, appeared in 1842. His religious work was forceful but showed little bigotry.

In 1842, Godkin became an ally of Charles Gavan Duffy on the Irish land question, and his interest in religion began to give way to his involvement in political protest. In 1845 it was revealed that he had written a prize-winning essay called The Rights of Ireland, and he parted company with the Irish Evangelical Society.

Godkin became a journalist. He edited the Derry Standard, and in 1848 he decided to abandon the ministry. He next moved to London, where he worked as a contributor to many publications, including the British Quarterly Review, the North British Review, the Standard of Freedom, the Belfast Independent, and the Freeman's Journal. In 1850, he was an active member of the Irish Tenant League. After two years in England, he moved to Dublin, where he took up the chief editorial post on the city's new Daily Express newspaper. Simultaneously, he was the Dublin correspondent of The Times of London.