William Carleton, the youngest of a family of fourteen children, was born in the townland of Prolusk, near Clogher in Co.Tyrone, on 20th February, 1794. Although there is little suggestion that the Carletons were upwardly mobile, they did move house frequently within the Clogher area and were established at the townland of Springtown before William left the family home.

His primary education was got in the local hedge-schools, of which he was later to write uproariously funny descriptions. In his teens he attended more formal, and rigorous, Classical Schools at Donagh and Glaslough in north Monaghan.

Following an abortive excursion in 1814 as a poor scholar aspiring to the priesthood, Carleton returned to his somewhat leisurely life in the Clogher Valley before leaving home permanently in 1817.

During the next year he wandered southwards, through the counties between Clogher and Dublin, picking up work where he could. Tutoring the children of the middle-classes he sometimes found happy and secure situations and at other times suffered humiliation and extreme wretchedness. For some months he experienced abject poverty and near starvation when he tried his hand as a hedge- schoolmaster.

His early life and the years until he arrived in Dublin are told, somewhat in the style of the Giles Blas adventures, in his lively autobiography.

In Dublin, after trying various occupations, he became a clerk in the Church of Ireland Sunday School Office in Dublin. It was during this time that he began to write professionally

In 1820 he married Jane Anderson who bore him several children.