John Mitchel - Early Life

Early Life

At the age of four, John Mitchel was sent to a classical school, run by an old minister named Moor, nicknamed "Gospel Moor" by the students. He read books from a very early age. When a little over five years old, he was introduced to Latin grammar by his teacher and made quick progress.

When he was seven, the family had moved to Newry, where he attended a school run by Mr McNeil. Mitchel did not get on with McNeil, who considered the topics that Mitchel was reading (Caesar) too advanced for him. John was discouraged by this and began to pay less attention in class, where McNeil pronounced him stupid. He was taken out of the school, and sent to a classical school, kept by a Dr Henderson. The encouragement and support of Dr Henderson laid the foundations of his classical scholarship which was to play such a major part in his later life. Mitchel also met at the school his lifelong friend, John Martin, who was to experience and share in much of his later career. In 1830 John, then not yet fifteen years old, entered Trinity College, Dublin, with the encouragement of Dr Henderson. He took his degree in 1834, at the age of nineteen. He decided against becoming a minister and went to work first as a bank clerk in Derry, where Mrs Mitchel's brother, William Haslett, was director of a bank, and then in late 1835 or early 1836, he entered the office of a Newry solicitor, John Quinn, who was a friend of his father.