William Henry, the writer of this eighteenth century account of the Antrim coast, is believed to have been a native of Gloucestershire. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he proceeded M.A. in 1748 and B.D. and D.D. 1750. His entrance and the date of his B.A. degree are not recorded. He was the friend of, and chaplain to, Doctor Josiah Hort, who was consecrated to the united sees of Ferns and Leighlin in 1721, translated to Kilmore in 1727 and finally archbishop of Tuam 1741. Henry was collated by this prelate to the benefice of Killesher in the diocese of Kilmore on October 1, 1731. He vacated Killesher in 1740 on his appointment to the rectory of Urney in the diocese of Derry and County of Tyrone; it was during his sojourn in Urney that, in 1755, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. On 9th November, 1761 he was presented by the Crown to the deanery of Killaloe, preferment which he continued to hold with the rectory of Urney until his death in 1768. A Visitation Book of 1776 – two years before Henry’s death – describes him as “not yet instituted” – a circumstance of little significance anyway, when it is borne in mind that there was not a single place of worship of the (then) Established Church in the various parishes constituting the decanal corps! I proffer the opinion that he lived in Dublin certainly in his latter years – far removed from the churchless parishes that constituted his deanery, not to mention the unpretentious, but magnificently situated cathedral of St. Flannan by the Western, or Clare, bank of the river Shannon, of which ancient religious foundation he presided over (or was supposed to preside over) as dean.
Henry was probably “Rev. Mr. Henry” who married, on April 14, 1738, a daughter of Marcus Dowling, Esq. (Reilly’s Dublin News-Letter, – 18th April). He was the author of various topographical and descriptive articles appertaining to certain counties and parishes in the north and west of Ireland. He was a great advocate of temperance, or at any rate an opponent of what he describes as “the present abuse of spirituous liquors” and a seeker after peace and unity in the Ireland of his day. “We are all the children of St. Patrick”, he wrote, “and if we are sons, and not bastards, we shall unite ourselves after the example of the great Apostle of our Nation and his companions, to promote the general good of the whole.” Henry, like “Millennium” Dobbs, ancestor of the late Miss Margaret Emmeline Dobbs of Portnagolan, Cushendall, finds a place in the Dictionary of National Biography.
At least twelve of his single sermons (accessible in the Armagh Library) were printed and three of his papers were read before that learned scientific body, founded in the reign of Charles II (and of which Sir Isaac Newton was the first President) – the Royal Society. Henry was a popular preacher, a keen observer of natural history and phenomena and an earnest advocate of civil and religious liberty. He died in Dublin in February 1768 and was interred in St. Anne’s, Dawson Street, in that city. His wife survived him and remarrying with Surgeon Doyle of Dublin (whom she also survived), died in 1793. Henry’s topographical account of the Antrim coast written during his occupancy of the rectory of Urney, is one of four valuable descriptions of the area; the others are Dobbs’ “Description of the County of Antrim in 1683” printed in extenso in Hill’s Macdonnells of Antrim, p. 377. It is evident from Henry’s account that he drew freely upon Dobbs’ description, particularly in regard to Red Bay and in one or two other instances. The remaining descriptions of the area are Rev. R.S. Dobb’s account of the parishes of Ardclinis and Layd in which Dobbs, in turn, drew upon Henry; and the Ordnance Survey Memoirs published by this Historical Society a few years ago.