Life

The son of Daniel Shea, a farmer, he was born in County Limerick

County Limerick

It is thought that humans had established themselves in the Lough Gur area of the county as early as 3000 BC, while megalithic remains found at Duntryleague date back further to 3500 BC...

. He entered Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

 on 3 June 1793, and in 1797 obtained a scholarship in classics. Several of his friends belonged to the Society of United Irishmen. In April 1798 John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare

John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare

John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare PC , later known as Earl of Clare or Lord Clare, was Attorney-General for Ireland in 1783, then Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1789, in which capacity he was first promoted to the Irish peerage.He was a controversial figure in Irish history, being described...

, vice-chancellor of the university, held a visitation, at which he required students to take an oath that they would inform against anybody whom they knew to be connected with the society. Shea, refusing to comply, was expelled from the university.

He came to England, and found a mastership in a private school. His knowledge of Italian gained him the post of chief clerk in a large mercantile establishment at Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

. While there he mastered Arabic, acquiring a knowledge not only of the classical language, but also of current dialects. A project on the part of his employers to open a factory on the east coast of the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

 induced him to study Persian also. But the firm being compelled to withdraw from the Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

 altogether, he was recalled to England.

He made the acquaintance of Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke

Adam Clarke was a British Methodist theologian and Biblical scholar, born in the townland of Moybeg Kirley near Tobermore in Ireland...

, who found him employment as a private tutor in the house of Dr. Laurell, and afterwards by his interest procured him an assistant professorship in the oriental department of the East India Company's Haileybury College. On the institution of the Oriental Translation Fund, Shea was made a member of committee, and started by translating Mirkhond

Mirkhond

Mīr-Khvānd, Moḥammad ibn Khvāndshāh ibn Maḥmūd was a noted Persian-language historian of the fifteenth century. Born in 1433 in Bukhārā, present-day Uzbekistan, the son of a pious man belonging to an old Bukhāran family of sayyids, or direct descendants of Muḥammad, Mīr-Khvvānd grew up and died in...

's ‘History of the Early Kings of Persia,’ which was published in London in 1832. He moved on to the translation of the Dabistán. Before finishing however, he died at Haileybury College on 11 May 1836. The translation of the Dabistán was completed by Anthony Troyer, and published in Paris in 1843, and in London in 1844.