Denis Aloysius McCarthy was born in Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary, Ireland on July 25, 1871. He attended the Christian Brothers School before emigrating to the United States at the age of 15. McCarthy initially settled in Boston, Massachusetts, before moving to Omaha, Nebraska when he was nineteen. He struggled with loneliness and unemployment in Omaha, and it was there that he wrote his first poem, “When Mother Sleeps”, which was published under an assumed name in the Omaha World Herald.
McCarthy continued writing poems and, upon his return to Boston, published several in the Boston Globe’s “Under the Rose” column. He became editor of the Sacred Heart Review, a Catholic periodical with wide distribution in New England. He also lectured frequently for the State Department of Education, addressing graduating high school and college classes. McCarthy received an honorary doctorate of laws from Boston College in 1922. Some of McCarthy’s most well-known poems include “This is the Land Where Hate Should Die”, “America First”, and “A Song For the Flag”.
In 1901, McCarthy married Ruphine Antonia Morris and together they had a daughter, Rufina. McCarthy died on August 18, 1931 in Arlington, Massachusetts.
