Gideon Ouseley was born into an Anglican

Anglicanism

Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...

 gentry family in Dunmore, County Galway.

Biography

He spent much of his childhood

Childhood

Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence. In developmental psychology, childhood is divided up into the developmental stages of toddlerhood , early childhood , middle childhood , and adolescence .- Age ranges of childhood :The term childhood is non-specific and can imply a...

 in the cabins of peasant neighbours. Later, during a wild youth, he lost an eye in a tavern

Tavern

A tavern is a place of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food, and in some cases, where travelers receive lodging....

 brawl, a loss that reputedly left him with a frightening appearance. Ouseley was tutored with his cousinns Gore

Gore Ouseley

Sir Gore Ouseley, 1st Baronet GCH , was a British entrepreneur, linguist and diplomat. He was born in 1770 and died at Hall Barn Park, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire in 1844...

 and William

William Ouseley

Sir William Ouseley , was a British Orientalist.-Early life:Ouseley was born in Monmouthshire, the eldest son of Captain Ralph Ouseley and his wife Elizabeth . He was tutored at home in the company of his brother, Gore and his cousin, Gideon Ouseley. All three had notable careers...

. All three had notable careers.

In 1791, Ouseley left his wild ways behind him when he was converted to Methodism

Methodism

Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...

 by English soldiers stationed in Dunmore. Setting out, in turn, to convert and reform others, his knowledge of the Irish language

Irish language

Irish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...

 and of peasant

Peasant

A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...

 mores— not to mention his eccentric preaching astride a white

White

White is a color, the perception of which is evoked by light that stimulates all three types of color sensitive cone cells in the human eye in nearly equal amounts and with high brightness compared to the surroundings. A white visual stimulation will be void of hue and grayness.White light can be...

 horse

Horse

The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...

— won him renown as Methodism's 'apostle to the Irish'.

Oliver St. John Gogarty

Oliver St. John Gogarty

Oliver Joseph St John Gogarty was an Irish poet, author, otolaryngologist, athlete, politician, and well-known conversationalist, who served as the inspiration for Buck Mulligan in James Joyce's novel Ulysses....

 wrote two plays under the pseudonym Gideon Ouseley, 'A Serious Thing' and 'The Enchanted Trousers'. http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/ulysses/gogarty.html

The writer John Mulvey Ousley was of a later generation of the same family.