Editing Thomas Moore (section)

===Marriage and children===
Between 1808 and 1810, Moore appeared each year in [[Kilkenny]], Ireland, with a charitable mixed repertory of professional players and high-society amateurs. He favoured [[comedy (drama)|comic roles]] in plays like [[Richard Brinsley Sheridan|Sheridan]]'s ''[[The Rivals]]'' and [[John O'Keeffe (Irish writer)|O'Keeffe]]'s ''[[The Castle of Andalusia]]''.<ref name=":6" />{{rp|170-175}} Among the professionals, on stage in Kilkenny with her sister, the tragedienne-to-be [[Mary Ann Duff]], was Elizabeth "Bessy" Dyke.<ref name=norton>Joseph Norton Ireland: ''Mrs. Duff'' (Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1882).</ref> In 1811, Moore married Bessy in [[St Martin-in-the-Fields]], London. Together with Bessy's lack of a dowry, the Protestant ceremony may have been the reason why Moore kept the match for some time secret from his parents. Bessy shrank from fashionable society to such an extent that many of her husband's friends never met her (some of them jokingly doubted her very existence). Those who did held her in high regard.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" />

The couple first set up house in London, then in the country at [[Kegworth]], [[Leicestershire]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Thomas Moore (1779–1852) |url=http://victorian-studies.net/Moore.html |access-date=20 November 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Bloy |first=Marjorie |title=Biography: Thomas Moore (1779–1852) |url=http://www.historyhome.co.uk/people/moore-t.htm |access-date=20 November 2020 |website=A Web of English History}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=2 December 2011 |title=House historian: Vicars, framework knitters and a poet |url=https://www.countrylife.co.uk/property/country-houses-for-sale-and-property-news/house-historian-vicars-framework-knitters-and-a-poet-14961 |access-date=20 November 2020 |website=Country Life}}</ref> and in Lord Moira's neighbourhood at Mayfield Cottage in [[Staffordshire]], and finally in Sloperton Cottage in [[Wiltshire]] near the country seat of another close friend and patron, [[Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne]]. Their company included Sheridan and [[John Philpot Curran]], both in their bitter final years.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Webb |first=Alfred |date=1878 |title=John Philpot Curran – Irish Biography |url=https://www.libraryireland.com/biography/JohnPhilpotCurran.php |access-date=9 February 2023 |website=www.libraryireland.com}}</ref>

Thomas and Bessy had five children, none of whom survived them. Three girls died young, and both sons lost their lives as young men. One of them, Thomas Landsdowne Parr Moore, as a lowly officer fought first with the British Army in [[First Anglo-Afghan War|Afghanistan]], and then with [[French Foreign Legion]] in [[French Algeria|Algeria]]. He was dying of tuberculosis that riddled the family when, according to Foreign Legion records, he was killed in action on 6 February 1846.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20557536 | jstor=20557536 | title=Thomas Landsdowne Parr Moore, Son and Legionnaire | last1=Ryan | first1=George E. | journal=New Hibernia Review / Iris Éireannach Nua | year=1998 | volume=2 | issue=3 | pages=117–126 | doi=10.1353/nhr.1998.a926632 }}</ref>
Despite these heavy personal losses, the marriage of Thomas Moore is generally regarded to have been a happy one.<ref name="Poetry Foundation" />