Whether it was an acknowledgement of one's own good fortune, or fashion, or boredom, a remarkable number of Dublin's citizens were involved in the 104 "Benevolent and Charitable Institutions" listed in the Dublin Almanac (1836), mostly founded in the early 19th century.
Included were the hospitals and asylums, and whatever faults are in today's provision of health services, at least people are not dependent on benevolence or charity. Among these was the "Cow Pock Institution" and the "Society for Superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys in Sweeping Chimneys". Some 20 of the 104 were concerned with saving other persons' souls. There was the Bible Society, the Holy Bible Society, the Scripture Readers' Society, the Catholic Book Society, the Catholic Society of Ireland, the Religious Tract and Book Society for Ireland, the Hibernian Church Missionary Society and the Hibernian Auxiliary to the London Missionary Society. There was the Society for the Poor and the Society for the Sick Poor! Educational societies were The Incorporated Society for Promoting English Protestant Schools, The Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor of Ireland, The Association (for Dis countenancing Vice and Promoting the Knowledge and Practice of the Christian Religion), The Irish Society (for Promoting the Education of the Native Irish through the Medium of their Own Language).
However, not listed was The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The Rev E. Nicholson, in a letter to the secretary of this society, derided "the well-meaning project of the Rev Mr Richardson about preaching to the Irish natives in their mother tongue". Apart from promoting "that barbarous language so intimately fraught with cursing and swearing and all vile prophaneness", he believed it would be ineffectual because of the influence of the priests over "their blind zealots". He claimed that there was hardly a boy of 16 in Ireland who could understand and speak English. "Most of the old people will not learn it, or do scorn to speak it, and those are so stiff in popery and riveted by the superstition of their language and customs that they would never be converted by speaking Irish so much to them". The Rev Nicholson believed that the provision of "clothing and portion" (that which others called "the soup") was much more effective.
Nicholson could speak and read Irish from youth, and one wonders if he originally bore the Irish surname Mac Niocaill. Mac Lysaght's Surnames of Ireland informs that this is anglicised MacNicholl and MacNickle. "A Co Tyrone name. Nicholls and Nicholson are occasionally synonyms of it, but these are usually names of seventeenth century or more recent immigrants, as is Nicholl without the prefix Mac". The First Chapter Act Book of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin 1574-1634 mentions Thomas Nicholson in the 1580 reversion of a lease "upon the little forrowe", and three years later when he was leased the "Prebend, Rectory and Parsonage of Rathmighell". In 1579 and 1583, Richard Nicholson, yeoman, was leased lands in Co Dublin - "30 acres . . . arrable land with meadow more and pasture, called halfe ferme of Balmaknegin . . . Horles halfe ferme . . . pasture called Lennans (halfe) ferme . . . and the great meadow of Clondolchan . . ."
Current telephone directories south of the Border list 179 Nicholson entries; 17 McNicholl, 44 Nicholl, and two MacNiocaill. North of the Border, there are c. 300 Nicholl; 110 McNicholl and around 110 Nicholson entries. There is no way of knowing how many of all these Nicholsons were originally MacNiocaill. There were small numbers of Nickle, Nickles, McNickle and McNickles etc.
Nicholsons listed as tituladoes in A Census of Ireland c. 1659 were John and George in Kinsale, Co Cork; Edward in Bricklieu, John in Castleconnor and Henry in Anagh, all in Co Sligo. In 1660, Henry and Edward were Co Sligo Commissioners for the Poll-Money Ordinance, and Edward was a Commissioner for Co Louth. Indexes to Irish Wills (1536-1857) features 21 Nicholson wills, mainly in Co Down, with seven McNichal/McNickal/McNihel/McNickle wills, all in Co Derry. Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876) notes Nicholson holdings - both substantial, modest and small - in Carlow, Kilkenny, Meath, Wicklow, Cork, Antrim, Armagh, Donegal, Down, Tyrone, Mayo and Sligo. The holding of 402 acres at Balloo, Bangor, Co Down, had been a Nicholson residence in 1814 and appears in Taylor & Skinners 1778 Maps of the Roads of Ireland. This is the anglicised form of Baile Aodha, "the town of Hugh".