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Thomas Moore was born in Dublin, the son of John Moore, a grocer and wine merchant, and Anastasia Codd Moore, both were Roman Catholics. Moore never varnished his background and in the poem 'Epitaph on a Tuft-Hunter' he mocked snobbery: "Heaven grant him now some noble nook / For, rest his soul! he'd rather be / Genteelly damn'd beside a Duke, / Than sav'd in vulgar company." Moore studied at Trinity College, where he was registered as a Protestant, receiving his B.A. degree in 1799. During this period he became frinds with Robert Emmet, who was later hanged for activities with the United Irishmen. Moore's first poems were published in 1793 in the Dublin periodical Anthologia Hibernica. Moore's first book, THE POETICAL WORKS OF THE LATE THOMAS LITTLE, ESQ., appeared in 1801.

In 1799 Moore moved to London, where he studied law at the Middle Temple. In 1803 Moore was appointed a civil officer to Bermuda, where he stayed for a year, and then returned to England after travels in the U.S. and Canada. In EPISTLES, ODES AND OTHER POEMS (1806), born from his journeys, Moore satirized Americans and condemned the treatment of the Native peoples and the African Americans. "To think that man, thou just and gentle God! / Should stand before thee with a tyrant's rod / O'er creatures like himself, with souls from thee, / Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty". After Francic Jeffrey, the editor of The Edinburgh Review, criticized the work for its moral tone, Moore challenged him for a duel. While waiting the pistols to be loaded they become friends. In 1813 Moore issued THE TWOPENNY POST BAG, a collection of satires directed against the prince regent. He also mocked his countrymen living in Paris and the Holy Alliance of 1815, a political agreement created after the fall of the Napoleonic empire.

In 1811 Moore married the actress Elizabeth "Bessy" Dyke, whom he had met at the Kilkenny theater festival in 1808; she was fourteen at that time. Moore acted in the farce The Lady Godiva; Or, Peeping Tom of Coventry, Elizabeth was the Lady Codiva. With his wife, who was a Protestant, he settled first in Kegworth, then Derbyshire. For a few months, Moore kept the marriage a secret from his parents.

Moore's songs, based on folk tunes, became very popular and gained sympathy for the Irish nationalists. Best known of them are perhaps 'The Last Rose of Summer', written around 1805, and 'Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms', which Moore wrote to Elizabeth after she contracted a skin disease and began to fear that he would no longer love her.

Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdant still.
(from 'Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms')

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