Dowling, Vincent (1756–1825), parliamentary reporter and satirist, was born in Queen's Co. (Laois); there are no details of his parents. He began his long and successful journalistic career in Dublin in the 1780s, where he became a parliamentary reporter, memorising speeches and writing up the text for the newspapers. Moving to London temporarily, he returned to Dublin in the 1790s. In 1797 he began the Apollo circulating library at 13 Suffolk St., Dublin. A lifelong bibliophile, Dowling ran the library for three years, latterly at 5 College Green. Vigorously opposed to the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland, he applied his considerable wit and writing talents to attacking the measure. Although against its abolition, he nonetheless satirised the Irish house of commons in his Proceedings and Debates of the Parliament of Pimlico. This famous publication ran to twenty-eight issues (1799–1800), and poked fun at the ‘house of nobs’ and the foibles of politicians. He also published a periodical, The Olio, or Anythingarian Miscellany. Disillusioned after the passing of the union, he left Ireland in 1801 and returned to London, where he became a bookseller and patent medicine vendor at his premises at 30 Lincoln's Inn Fields. He later returned to journalism, and worked for The Times, moving house to Salisbury Square.
His wit and malicious sense of humour were renowned; perhaps his most significant prank occurred after the death (1816) of Patrick Duigenan (qv), the controversial lawyer and politician. Dowling wrote a detailed account of ‘The melancholy circumstances of the last moments and death of Dr Patrick Duigenan, MP’, which he sent to his godson in Dublin who published it in the Dublin Journal. The article speculated that Duigenan had converted to catholicism on his death-bed, an extraordinary volte-face for the extremist defender of protestantism. The story was impossible to disprove, although John Giffard (qv) denied it vehemently.
Dowling lived in London for the remainder of his life, in affluent retirement at his Kentish Town house. He died there on 29 March 1825. He married, and had two sons; both of whom achieved some distinction in England. Vincent George Dowling (1785–1852) was a prominent journalist, the author of Fistiana, or The oracle of the ring, a history of boxing, and was also editor of Bell's Life, the sporting newspaper, from 1824 until his death. He was present in the house of commons on 11 May 1812 when John Bellingham shot the prime minister, Spencer Perceval, and was one of the first people to apprehend the assassin. The second son, Sir James Dowling (1787–1844), also pursued a career in journalism, becoming a parliamentary reporter in London, followed by a successful career as a colonial judge.