IRISH FICTION UNDER NAMES OF AUTHORS, ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY. (continued 6)

“LISTADO, J. T.”

⸺ MAURICE RHYNHART. Two Vols. (Chapman & Hall). 1871.

“Or, A few passages in the life of an Irish rebel.” The hero, descended from a Williamite soldier, “in every respect the very model of a respectable young Protestant,” is a clerk in Selskar (Wexford) and in love with Miss Rowan, socially much above him. An ardent young Irelander, he joins the local branch and works might and main for the movement. Soon he is “on his keeping,” but escapes to London. There he marries Miss Rowan. After many hardships they go to Australia, where he rises to be Premier and is knighted. Returns, and is made M.P. for Selskar. Reminds one of the career of Sir C. Gavan Duffy. Splendidly told, the interest never flagging. Protestant dissenting tea-parties hit off cleverly. The whole atmosphere of the critical summer of ’48 is reproduced with vividness and fidelity. Dialogue good and characterisation life-like.

LOCHHEAD, A.

⸺ SPRIGS OF SHILLELAH. Pp. 158. (Dundee: Leng). 1907. 6d.

Sixteen humorous sketches, “founded on fact—more or less,” reprinted from the People’s Friend.

LOGAN, J.

⸺ THE McCLUSKY TWINS. Pp. 112. (Drane). 1912. 1s.

A tale of twin tomboys, who provide gossip for an Ulster countryside. Dialect well handled.—(I.B.L.).

LOUGH, Desmond.

⸺ THE BLACK WING. (“Ireland’s Own” Library). 6d. n.d. (1914).

A story of secret societies and of revenge. Scene: Kerry and Corsica. Unconvincing, but unobjectionable.

⸺ RED RAPPAREE. Pp. 179. (“Ireland’s Own” Library). 6d. n.d.

Thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes of Cahir Ronayne, who has taken to the road in revenge for his father’s execution. A fair lady is involved, also a dissolute lord, and there are plenty of plots and counter plots, duels and combats.

LOUGHNAN, Edmond Brenan.

⸺ THE FOSTER SISTERS. Three Vols. (Tinsley). 1871.

Opens in Sligo, near Lough Arrow. Largely concerned with an intricate family history and mysteries of identity. Scene soon shifts to Paris, where many of the personages have gone and where most of the action takes place. The chief interest is a very melodramatic murder in the secret room of the Chat Noir, and the subsequent tracing of the crime to the murderer, a typical stage villain. The story is pretty well told, but the conversations are most artificial.

LOVER, Samuel. B. in Dublin, 1797. Was not only a novelist but a musician, a painter, and a song-writer (he wrote some 300 songs, and composed the music for most of them). He ed. the Dublin National Magazine and the Saturday Magazine. D. 1868. See “Lives” by J. A. Symington and Bayle Bernard. “Lover,” says Mr. D. J. O’Donoghue, “is first and last an Irish humourist.” Readers should bear this fact in mind. His humour is of the gay, careless, rollicking type. He is sometimes coarse, but never merely dull. He does not caricature the Irish character, for his sympathies were strongly Irish; but wrote to amuse his readers, not to depict Irish life. He was often accused by his friends of exaggerating the virtues of his countrymen, and it may be admitted that he sometimes did so. “The chief defect of his novels,” says Maurice Francis Egan, q.v., “is that they were written with an eye on what the English reader would expect the Irish characters to do.”

⸺ RORY O’MORE. Pp. 452. (Constable). 3s. 6d. [1837]. (N.Y.: Dutton). 1.00. 1897.

Introduction and notes by D. J. O’Donoghue, who considers this to be Lover’s best long story. A tale of adventure in 1798, with a slight historical background. National in sentiment, without being unfairly biased. Contains some of Lover’s best humour, especially the endless drollery and whimsicalities of the hero, Rory. Some of the types are very true to life. There are passages of genuine pathos. Tries to prove that the more heinous atrocities in ’98 were due to a few desperadoes.

⸺ HANDY ANDY. Pp. 460. (Constable). 3s. 6d. Portrait of Lover. [1842]. 1898. Critical Introd. and Notes by D. J. O’Donoghue. (N.Y.: Dutton). 1.00.

A series of side-splitting misadventures of a comic, blundering Irishman. Does not pretend to be a picture of real Irish life, yet, though exaggerated, it is not without truth. Besides Andy’s adventures there are scenes from the life of the harum-scarum gentry, uproarious dinners, a contested election, practical jokes. The characters include peasants, duellists, hedge-priests, hedge-schoolmasters, beggars, and poteen distillers. There is a good deal of vulgarity.

⸺ TREASURE TROVE; or, He Would be a Gentleman. Pp. 469. (Constable). 3s. 6d. [1844]. Many since. (Boston: Little, Brown). 1.00. 1899.

Critical introduction by D. J. O’Donoghue. Adventures of a somewhat stagey hero, Ned Corkery, with the Irish Brigade in the service of France and of the Young Pretender. Fontenoy, and the ’45 in Scotland, are introduced. The novel, says the editor, can only be called pseudo-historical. The writer had but imperfectly mastered the history, and treats it unconvincingly. The humour is below the author’s usual standard, but the interest is well sustained. It is coarse and vulgar in parts.

⸺ LEGENDS AND STORIES OF IRELAND. Two Vols. Pp. xix. + 240, and xvi + 274. (Constable). 3s. 6d. each. [1832 and 1834; many editions since]. 1899. (N.Y.: Sadlier). 1.50.

Introductions by the Author and by the editor, D. J. O’Donoghue. A miscellany consisting chiefly of humorous stories with regular plots. It contains also some old legends told in comic vein, yarns told by guides and boatmen, and several serious stories. There is nothing to offend Catholic feeling. There is a most sympathetic sketch of a priest and a story about the secret of the confessional that any Catholic might have written. The peasantry are seen only from outside, though the author mixed much among them. They are not caricatured, though chiefly comic types are selected. There is plenty of brogue, faithfully rendered on the whole. The first volume contains a humorous essay on Street Ballads, with specimens. Lover is at his best in uproariously laughable stories such us “The Gridiron” and “Paddy the Sport.”

⸺ FURTHER STORIES OF IRELAND. Pp. 220. (Constable). 3s. 6d. 1899. Critical and biographical introduction (pp. xxviii.) by D. J. O’Donoghue.

Chiefly very short, humorous sketches. Some are stories written around various national proverbs.

⸺ IRISH HEIRS: A Novel. Pp. 173. (N.Y.: Dick & Fitzgerald). Illustr. 187-.

Mentioned in catal. of N. Y. Library. Treasure Trove bore on original title-page the announcement that it was “the first of a series of accounts of Irish Heirs.”

LOVER and CROKER.

⸺ LEGENDS AND TALES OF IRELAND. Pp. 436. (Simpkin, Marshall, &c.). n.d. Now in print.

Contains:—Lover’s Legends and Tales of Ireland (twenty-four in all), and Croker’s Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland. “Croker and Lover,” says W. B. Yeats, “full of the ideas of harum-scarum Irish gentility, saw everything humourized. The impulse of the Irish literature of their time came from a class that did not—mainly for political reasons—take the people seriously, and imagined the country as a humorist’s Arcadia; its passion, its gloom, its tragedy they knew nothing of. What they did was not wholly false; they merely magnified an irresponsible type, found oftenest among boatmen, carmen, and gentlemen’s servants, into the type of a whole nation, and created the Stage-Irishman.”—(Introd. to Fairy and Folk-tales of the Irish Peasantry).

LOWRY, Frank M.

⸺ THE DUBLIN STATUES “AT HOME”: A New Year’s Tale. 4to. (Sealy, Bryers). Illustr. with Seven Cartoons. 1912.

LOWRY, Mary.

⸺ THE ENCHANTED PORTAL. Pp. 142. (Sealy, Bryers). 6d. Paper. c. 1910.

Scene: Antrim coast, whose scenery is vividly pictured. A novel of romance, intrigue, and adventure, pleasant and healthy in tone, but fanciful and somewhat unreal.

Author has also written The Clans of Ireland, Old Irish Laws and Customs, and The Story of Belfast.

“LYALL, Edna”; Ada Ellen Bayley. Was born and educated at Brighton, and resided there and at Eastbourne. Her first story, Won by Waiting, appeared in 1879. Titles of eighteen of her books are to be found in Mudie’s List.

⸺ DOREEN. Pp. 490. (Longmans). Various prices from 6d. to 6s. [1894]. 1902.

Doreen, daughter of an old ’48 man and Fenian, and herself an ardent Nationalist, is a professional singer, but helps the Home Rule cause by her singing. The chief interest is a love story, but in the background there is the national struggle and a vivid picture is drawn of the feelings of those engaged on both sides. The author is on the nationalist side, and the most striking figure in the book is Donal Moore, a Nationalist member. The first ed. was dedicated to Gladstone.

LYNAM, Col. William F. Belonged to the 5th Royal Lancashire Militia. Lived at Churchtown Ho., Dundrum, 1863-87, and then at Clontarf till his death in 1894. He was a Catholic and a man of much piety. He lived a very retired life.

⸺ MICK McQUAID.

Magazine stories that have never been published in a volume do not come within the scope of this work. But I think an exception must be made in this case. The serial or series of serials centering in the character of Mick McQuaid has made a record in literature. It began in the pages of the Shamrock on Jan. 19th, 1867. With short interruptions it has been running ever since in the pages of that periodical, and is running still, though the Author died in 1894. The following are some of the series that appeared:—1. “M. McQ.’s Conversion,” 1867; 2. “M. McQ., the Evangeliser,” 1868-9; 3. “M. McQ. Under Agent,” 52 chapters, 1869-70; 4. “M. McQ., M.D.,” 28 ch., 1872; 5. “M. McQ., M.P.,” 51 ch., 1872-3; 6. “M. McQ., Solicitor,” 43 ch., 1873-4; 7. “M. McQ.’s Spa,” 91 ch., 1876-8; 8. “M. McQ., Alderman,” 61 ch., 1879-80; 9. “M. McQ., Moneylender,” 47 ch., 1880-1; 10. “M. McQ., Gombeen Man,” 48 ch., 1881-2; 11. “M. McQ.’s Story,” 1884; 12. “M. McQ., Workhouse Master,” 1885; 13. “M. McQ., Sub-Sheriff,” pt. 1, 47 ch., 1888-9; 14. “M. McQ., Sub-Sheriff,” pt. 2, 1889; 15. “M. McQ., Stockbroker,” 61 ch., 1889-90; 16. “M. McQ., Removable,” 1890.

The Author himself tired of Mick McQuaid, and tried to put other creations in the field:—“Dan Donovan,” “Corney Cluskey,” “Japhet Screw,” “Sir Timothy Mulligan,” and so on. But after a few chapters the readers invariably demanded “Mick” again, and, if the Author had not new adventures ready, he had to reproduce the already published adventures. More than once editors tried to drop the series, but the circulation which was 60,000 fell at once, and “Mick” had to appear again. Apart from their issue in the Shamrock many of “Mick’s” adventures were reproduced in penny numbers, and sold far and wide. After the Author’s death the editors simply reproduced the series over again. Harry Furniss began his artistic career by illustrating Mick McQuaid. Besides Mick McQ. another humorous series, Darby Darken, P.L.G., ran in the Irish Emerald.

LYNCH, E. M.

⸺ KILBOYLAN BANK; or, Every Man his own Banker. Pp. 240. (Kegan Paul). 3s. 6d. 1896.

Father O’Callaghan returning from Italy greatly impressed by what he has seen of the Raffeisen Banking System at work, tries to start a similar system in Kilboylan. The book is the story of his efforts, difficulties, and final success. The local types—landlord, strong farmer, miller, publican, schoolmaster, “pote,” and “chaney merchant” are cleverly hit off, and their conversation rings true. The book is primarily a lesson in economics, but the characters are well brought out, and a little love-story runs through the whole. Miss Lynch also wrote for Sir Charles Gavan Duffy’s “New Irish Library” a story adapted from the French—A Parish Providence. It was intended to teach certain economic lessons to Irishmen.

LYNCH, Hannah. B. in Dublin. Lived much in Spain, in Greece, and in France, publishing various articles and books about them, notably a book on Toledo and French Life in Town and Country. Among her novels are Prince of the Glades, Dr. Vermont’s Fantasy, Daughters of Men, Jimmy Blake, Clare Monroe. She was associated with Miss Anna Parnell in the Ladies’ Land League in the eighties. When United Ireland was suppressed she carried the type to Paris, and the paper was issued there. Mrs. Hinkson says of her,[6] “She was one of the few people I have known who eat, drink, and dream books, and not many can have given to literature a more passionate delight and devotion.”

⸺ THROUGH TROUBLED WATERS. Pp. 460. (Ward, Lock). 1885.

Scene: chiefly Carantrila House, Dunmore (“Cardene”) near Tuam, Co. Galway. Opens with an impending lawsuit about the inheritance of “Cardene.” It is settled by Mrs. St. Leger giving it up to her brother-in-law for a large sum. Henceforth she plots to get it back for her son. In later years he comes on a visit to the place. He falls in love with Nora Dillon, but carries on an innocent flirtation with a peasant girl. He is accused of seduction, the real culprit being Nora’s brother, and denounced from the altar. This latter scene is well done. But the truth comes out, and all is well with Hartley and Nora. The portrait drawn of one of the two priests introduced is rather satirical, but the tone is Catholic throughout.

⸺ AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CHILD. Publ. Anon. Pp. 306. (Blackwood). 6s. 1899.

Clearly genuine autobiography. Begins in little village in Kildare, but at five or six the child is taken to Dublin. Story of an unhappy childhood, for she was treated with great harshness by sisters and mother. Had some friends, however, among them an old gentleman, who believed himself to be Hamlet and O’Donovan Rossa, then a young lad. (See p. 609 in Blackwood’s Magazine, vol. 164, where the story appeared serially). Her unhappiness was continued at the convent school, near Birmingham, where she was educated. Everything is set down, including a flogging she received and an account of her first confession. A very curious book, very well written.

LYON, Capt. E. D. Late 68th Durham Light Infantry.

⸺ IRELAND’S DREAM: a Romance of the Future. Two Vols. (Sonnenschein). 1888.

A forecast of Ireland under Home Rule. Contains much about relations of Orangemen and Catholics, the National League, secret societies, emigration, and so on. Represents an Ireland hopelessly “gone to the dogs”—no security for life or property, murder rife, prosperity gone, &c. Written in flippant style, betraying bitter contempt for Irish nationalism.

LYSAGHT, Mrs.

⸺ REX SINGLETON; or, The Pathway of Life. (Wells, Gardner). 2s. Illustr. Third ed., c. 1911.

Thoroughly a boy’s book, full of the adventures and pranks of an Irish boy.—(Publ.).

LYSAGHT, Sidney Royse. Eldest son of T. R. Lysaght, of Mintinna, Co. Cork. Has published three volumes of verse between 1886 and 1911. Lives in Somerset.

⸺ HER MAJESTY’S REBELS. Pp. 488. (Macmillan). 6s. 1907.

In a prefatory note the Author tells us that though the career of his hero resembles that of Charles Stewart Parnell, Connor Desmond is not intended as a portrait of Parnell. “There is an historical basis for the structure of the story—not for the persons.” A political novel, written mainly about the course of national life in Ireland, 1875-1891. The central figure most obviously reproduces the career and even the personal characteristics of Parnell, who is well and even sympathetically portrayed. The writer’s view-point is free, on the whole, from party bias. He is convinced that a Royal residence in Ireland would be a sure antidote to seditious tendencies. There is a strong love interest. The Author depicts many scenes of Irish life among various classes. The hero is “involved in flagitious relations with several women.”—(Baker, 2).

LYTTLE, Wesley Guard; “Robin.” Born, 1844, at Newtownards, Co. Down. Was successively a junior reporter, a school teacher, a lecturer on Dr. Corry’s Irish Diorama, a teacher of shorthand, an accountant, an editor. Started, in 1880, The North Down and Bangor Gazette, a strong Liberal and Home Rule paper. Afterwards owned and edited The North Down Herald. Died 1896.

⸺ ROBIN’S READINGS. Eight Vols.

Series of humorous stories, poems, and sketches in the dialect of a Co. Down farmer, of which he had a thorough mastery. Some verse as well as prose. The Author gave several thousand recitals in various parts of the three kingdoms. The success of the above books was immediate and remarkable. They have enjoyed great popularity ever since. The character of these readings may be seen from the following titles:—V. I. “Adventures of Paddy McQuillan”—“a simple country fellow”—“his trip tae Glesco”—“his courtships”—“his wee Paddy”—“his twins”—“his tay perty.” V. II. “The adventures of Robin Gordon”—“Peggy and how I courted her”—“Wee Wully”—“the fechtin’ dugs”—“Robin on the ice”—“dipplemassy.” V. III. “Life in Ballycuddy, Co. Down”—“my brither Wully”—“kirk music”—“the General Assembly of 1879” (exciting scenes, Robin’s oration)—“the royal visit to Ireland”—“the Ballycuddy Meinister”—“wee Paddy’s bumps,” &c., &c.

⸺ SONS OF THE SOD: a Tale of County Down. (Bangor). 1s. Paper. 1886.

A racy story dealing with the peasantry of North Down which the Author knew well, and could depict admirably. The tale gives a picture of their merry-makings, courtships, humours, joys, and sorrows—wakes, weddings, evictions, &c., &c.

⸺ BETSY GRAY. Pp. 116. (Bangor). 1s. 3d. [1888]. New ed. (Belfast: Carswell). Revised by F. J. Bigger. 1913.

Betsy Gray, the heroine (founded on a real personage) takes part in the rebellion, and fights at Ballynahinch. A story of thrilling interest. Relates events that preceded rebellion, dwelling much on the atrocities of the yeomanry, then describes in full the chief incidents of the rebellion. Introduces Wm. Steele Dickson, William Orr, H. Joy McCracken, Henry Munro, and Mick Maginn—the informer. “The Author has gone over every inch of the ground, and has hunted up old documents and old traditions indefatigably.” In entire sympathy with rebels. There is a good deal of local dialect, and much local colour.

⸺ THE SMUGGLERS OF STRANGFORD LOUGH.

“A melodramatic romance of an old-fashioned type, founded on facts. What with murder, robbery, abduction, smuggling, secret societies, and underground caverns, the reader is carried breathlessly along from start to finish. The local dialect is well conveyed.”—(I.B.L.). The headquarters of the smugglers was Killinchy, and the period of the story the end of the eighteenth century.

⸺ DAFT EDDIE. Pp. 162. (Belfast: Carswell). 6d. 1914.

A re-issue of The Smugglers of Strangford Lough.

MACALISTER, R. A. Stewart, M.A., F.S.A. B. Dublin, 1870. At present Professor of Irish Archæology in the National University. Author of a series of learned works on Palestine exploration, the Philistines, Ecclesiastical Vestments, Irish Epigraphy and Archæology, &c.

⸺ TWO IRISH ARTHURIAN ROMANCES. Pp. ix. + 207. (Nutt, for Irish Texts Society). 10s. 6d. net. 1908.

Text and transl. on opposite pages. Contains two stories:—The Story of the Crop-eared Dog and The Story of Eagle-Boy. They are of the Wonder-voyage type. Arthur plays a secondary part. “The dreamland of gruagachs and monstrous nightmare shapes is here as typically a creation of Irish fancy as in any of the stories of the Finn cycle.”... “Eagle-Boy is a striking story, displaying ... no small constructive ingenuity and literary feeling.”—(Introd.).

M’ANALLY, D. R., Jr.

⸺ IRISH WONDERS. Pp. 218. (Ward, Lock). Illustr. (pen and ink), H. R. Heaton. 1888.

“The ghosts, giants, pookas, demons, leprechawns, banshees, fairies, witches, widows, old maids, and other marvels of the Emerald Isle. Popular tales as told by the people. Collected during a recent lengthy visit, in the course of which every county in the Island was traversed from end to end.”—(Title-page and Pref.). Very broad brogue. Somewhat “Stage-Irish” in tone.

“MACARTHUR, Alexander”; Mrs. Nicchia, née Lily MacArthur. At present residing in New York.

⸺ IRISH REBELS. Pp. 219. (Digby, Long). 3s. 6d. n.d. (1893).

“O’Donoghue,” the hero, a young Catholic T.C.D. student, is deputed by the secret societies to shoot a landlord. He escapes at the time, and has a successful career at the bar, in parliament, and also in love, for he marries the girl of his choice, a daughter of “Judge Kavanagh,” a bitter Orangeman. But years afterwards his crime becomes known to some of his friends, and the discovery kills his wife. The Author is entirely favourable to the national cause. Parnell is mentioned several times. The central figure is not O’D., but “Lowry,” a remarkable portrait, probably drawn from life.

M’AULIFFE, E. F.

⸺ GRACE O’DONNELL: A Tale of the 18th Cent. Pp. 220. (Cork: Guy & Co.). 1891.

Ireland in Penal times, middle of 18th century (Fontenoy, 1745, is introduced). Period fairly well illustrated—sufferings of Catholics, tithe-proctors, hedge-schools, etc. Scene varies between Galway, Madrid, London, Dublin, and Paris. The characters all belong to the better class, and the tone of the story may be described as “genteel”: there is nothing specially national about it. Author wishes to show “how many claims each [Catholic and Protestant] has on the other for love and admiration.” Some poems are included.

MACCABE, William Bernard. B. in Dublin, 1801. Was a journalist for the greater part of his life, first in Dublin, then for fifteen years in London, and again in Dublin from 1852-57. Wrote many Catholic works. Died at Donnybrook, 1891.

⸺ AGNES ARNOLD. Three Vols. (Lond.: Newby). 1861.

A well constructed plot, with many fine dramatic scenes and much truthful character drawing. Shows the courses by which the people were driven into rebellion in 1798. The Author tells us that much of the materials were gleaned from his conversations in his boyhood with Wm. Putnam MacCabe, one of the insurgent leaders. Scene: Wexford.

M’CALL, Patrick J. B. in Dublin, 1861, and ed. at Catholic University School, Leeson Street. Much better known as a poet by his Irish Noinins, Songs of Erin, Irish Fireside Songs, and Pulse of the Bards than as a prose writer. Resides in Patrick Street, Dublin.

⸺ FENIAN NIGHTS’ ENTERTAINMENTS. Pp. 132. (Dublin: T. G. O’Donoghue). [1895].

Twelve evenings of story-telling at a Wexford fireside. The stories are mostly Ossianic legends, but there are a few fairy tales. They purport to be told by a farmer with all the arts of the shanachie—the quaintness, the directness, the pithy sayings, the delightful digressions, and the gay humour. They are, of course, in dialect.

M’CALLUM, Hugh and John. Ed. an original collection of the poems of Ossian, Orrann, Ullin, and other bards who flourished in the same age. (Montrose). 1816.

M’CARTHY, Justin. B. in Cork, 1830, and ed. there. Began there his literary career of over sixty years. In 1853 he went to Liverpool, and thence to London in 1860. From that time till his death in 1912 he lived almost exclusively in England. But he never lost touch with Ireland. For many years he was a Nationalist M.P., and from 1890-96 was Chairman of the Party. His works number over forty, many of them dealing with Ireland—novels, history, biography, reminiscences, &c.

⸺ A FAIR SAXON. Pp. 386. (Chatto & Windus). 3s. 6d. [1873]; several since. New ed. about 1907.

Main theme: the love of an English girl for Maurice FitzHugh Tyrone, an Irish M.P., famous in the House as a clever and insuppressible opponent of the Government. Much of the story (a complicated one) is concerned with the efforts of another lover of the Fair Saxon to supplant Tyrone, and also to get him to violate the conditions of a legacy. The latter are (1) that Tyrone shall not marry before forty; (2) that he shall not join the Fenians; (3) that he shall not fight a duel. His efforts meet with a wonderful succession of alternate success and failure. Incidentally we have glimpses of Fenian plotting, the Fenian movement being portrayed with little sympathy. The characters are nearly all insipid or vicious worldlings, drawn in a satirical and sometimes cynical vein. Such is Mrs. Lorn, the rich American widow, of fast life. The heroine, and to a certain extent the hero, are exceptions. The precocious young American, Theodore, is one of the best things in the book.

⸺ MAURICE TYRONE. (Benziger). 0.75. The American ed. of A Fair Saxon.

⸺ MONONIA. Pp. 383. (Chatto & Windus). 6s. [1901]. New edition, 1902.

Scene: a large Munster town, presumably Cork. Time: the attempted rising in 1848. The chief interest is the unfolding in action of the various characters. Some of these are strikingly and distinctively portrayed. The treatment of the love element is original, the course of true love being smooth from the start. Here and there are pleasant bits of description. The standpoint is Catholic and nationalist, but without anti-English feeling, several of the principal and most admirable characters being English. A happy love story runs through the book.

M’CARTHY, Justin Huntley. S. of preceding. B. 1860. Ed. University College School, London. Began writing 1881. Nationalist M.P. 1884-1892, during which period he was an ardent politician. Publ. England under Gladstone (1884), and in the same year a successful play, “The Candidate.” Then followed Hours with Great Irishmen, Ireland since the Union, The Case for Home Rule, &c., and a number of books, poems, tales, &c., on Oriental subjects. His knowledge of our myth and legend has been described as comprehensive and exhaustive. He has publ. many other novels and plays and volumes of verse. But of late years the theatrical world has claimed him wholly.

⸺ LILY LASS. Pp. 150. (Chatto & Windus). 1s. 6d. 1889.

Picture from nationalist point of view of Young Ireland movement, especially in Cork. Full of sensational incidents, told with much verve.

⸺ THE ILLUSTRIOUS O’HAGAN. (Hurst & Blackett). 1905. (N.Y.: Harper). 1.50, &c.

Melodramatic adventures of two cosmopolitan adventurers of Irish origin, in various parts of Europe and, in particular, among the courts of the petty German princes, where very fast living prevails. The picture we are given of these latter is frank enough. The colouring is brilliant, the style bright and swift. Copyrighted for the stage.

⸺ THE O’FLYNN. Pp. 352. (Hurst & Blackett). 1s. (N.Y.: Harper). 1.50. 1910.

O’Flynn is a swashbucklering, swaggering soldier of fortune, who has seen service in the Austrian army. The story tells of the varying fortunes of O’F. and of Lord Sedgemouth in their rivalry for the hand of the Lady Benedetta Mountmichael. Both suitors are in the service of King James, and the scene varies between Dublin Castle and Knockmore, a castle “in the heart of the Wicklow hills.” Full of more or less burlesque plots and stratagems and surprises. Written in a pleasant but reckless and rattling style. Smacks strongly of the stage throughout, indeed it was originally a successful play before appearing in book form. Incidents not historical. Not for young people.

⸺ THE FAIR IRISH MAID. Pp. 344. (Mills & Boon). 6s. (N.Y.: Harper). 1.30. 1911.

Ireland a few years after the Union; but not political. Mr. McC., in his usual vein of gay romanticism, takes his beautiful maiden from Kerry to London, where in the modish days of the Dandies she is for a time the reigning toast. But she is true to her Kerry lover, whom she finds in London lost and ruined, and whom she rescues and enables to produce his Irish play. Other characters are Lord Cloyne, the Irish ascendancy landlord, Mr. Rubie, the English M.P. who has come to visit and improve Ireland, and an antiquary who wants to buy a round tower and provides many amusing situations.—(Press notices).

M’CARTHY, Michael J. F. B. Midleton, Co. Cork. Ed. Vincentian Coll., Cork; Midleton College, Cork; T.C.D. After the appearance of Five Years in Ireland in 1901, “has written and spoken against the power exercised by the Roman Catholic Church in politics and in education. Started and conducted Christian Defence Effort in opposition to Home Rule, 1911-14.” Author of Priests and People in Ireland, Rome in Ireland, &c.—(Who’s Who).

⸺ GALLOWGLASS. Pp. 540. (Simpkin, Marshall). 6s. 1904.

Purports to portray the social and political life of various classes in a typical South of Ireland town (“Gallowglass”). Written in a vein of bitter satire. Peasant, shopkeeper, politician, and especially priest, are held up to unmeasured scorn. Aspersions are cast upon Catholic teachings and practices. Eviction scenes, the workings of a secret society, political meetings, a scene in Parliament, serve the writer for his purpose in various ways.

M’CHESNEY, Dora.

⸺ KATHLEEN CLARE. Pp. 286. (Blackwood). Six Illustr. by J. A. Shearman. 1895.

Story of Wentworth, Earl of Strafford’s Viceroyalty in Ireland, told in form of diary purporting to be written by a kinswoman of Strafford’s, who sees him in his home life and acquires extraordinary love and reverence for him. The tale of his execution is pathetically told. Quaint Elizabethan English. Pretty Elizabethan love-songs interspersed.

M’CLINTOCK, Letitia.

⸺ A BOYCOTTED HOUSEHOLD. Pp. 319. (Smith, Elder). 1881.

Period, c. 1880. Mr. Hamilton is a model as a man and landlord. His family is in very reduced circumstances owing to “No-Rent Campaign.” Then we have various incidents of the land war—threatening letters, burning of hay, and finally the eldest son is brutally murdered by tenants on whom favours had been heaped. The beautiful home life, sympathetic love affairs, &c., of the Hamiltons are dwelt upon as pointing the contrast with the wickedness of the League and the meaningless ingratitude of the peasantry. Sympathies of Author wholly with landlords. The Hamilton boys were all educated at Rugby, and the general outlook of the family is English. Scene: King’s Co. and Donegal alternately.

M’CLINTOCK, Major H. S.

⸺ RANDOM STORIES; chiefly Irish. Pp. 147. (Belfast: Marcus Ward). Illustr. n.d. c. 1885.

A collection of unobjectionable smoke-room yarns, more or less original, and more or less humorous. Illustr. somewhat crude.

M’CRAITH, L. M. Mrs. L. M. M’Craith Blakeney, of Loughloher, Cahir, Co. Tipperary. B. 1870. Ed. in Ireland and at Cheltenham. Has written also The Suir from its Source to the Sea, The Romance of Irish Heroines, The Romance of Irish Heroes, &c. In these and other writings her aim has been to popularise Irish local history and antiquities in the hopes of fostering a love of country, especially in the young.

⸺ A GREEN TREE. Pp. 221. (Sealy, Bryers). 3s. 6d. 1908.

A pleasant family story with a sympathetically, though somewhat dimly-sketched, Irish background. All through there is the contrast between English and Irish ideals. One or two peculiar Irish types are well drawn.

MACDERMOTT, S.

⸺ LEIGH OF LARA: a Novel of Co. Wicklow. (Gill?). 1s. 6d.

A slight but pleasant tale, told in straightforward manner, without character-study, scene-painting, problems, or politics. Deals with the false and misunderstood position of a man who has been entrusted with the charge of his sister-in-law, while his brother is abroad “on his keeping,” and the complications that arise from this position.

MACDERMOTT, W. R.

⸺ FOUGHILOTRA: A Forbye Story. Pp. 326. (Sealy, Bryers). c. 1906.

Sub-t.:—A memorial of the Ulster handloom weavers. A sociological study, in form of novel, of the history and development of a family. Scene: shore of Lough Neagh. Time: present day, though the family history goes back two hundred years. The forceful and pungent dialect in which it is written is quite natural and true to life. An unusual and noteworthy book—interesting alike for its plot, its clever character-study and the thoughtfulness that pervades it. Has considerable humour, and nothing in the least objectionable. This author also has published, under the pen name of “A. P. O’Gara,” The Green Republic.

MACDONAGH, Michael. B. Limerick, 1862. Ed. Christian Bros.’ Schools. At twenty-two joined the staff of Freeman’s Journal. From 1894 to the present has been on staff of Times, and he lives in London. His father, Michael O’Doherty MacDonagh, was a Donegal man, a printer and poet. Has been writing about Ireland all his life in an immense variety of periodicals, and has published about a dozen books, many of them relating to Parliament, of great historic value.

⸺ IRISH LIFE AND CHARACTER. Pp. 382. (Hodder & Stoughton). 6s. Many editions, the 5th being in 1905.

Object: “To give a clear, full, and faithful picture of Irish life and character, illustrated by anecdotes and by my own experience during a twelve years’ connexion with Irish journalism.” “I have admitted into my collection only anecdotes that are truly genuine, really humorous, and certainly characteristic of the Irish people.” “The face of Ireland as seen in these pages is always puckered with a smile.”—(Pref.). May be described as anecdotes, chiefly comic, classified and accompanied by a running commentary. Chapters: The Old Irish Squire; Duelling; Faction Fighting; Some Delusions about Ireland (e.g., “Stage-Irishman”); Bulls; In the Law Courts; “Agin the Government”; Irish Repartee and Sarcasm; Love-making in Ireland (its matter-of-factness, &c.); Humours of Politics In and Out of Parliament; The Ulster Irishman; The Jarvey; The Beggar; Sunniness of Irish Life, &c. It is to be observed that the laugh is often against the Irish throughout, and perhaps our national failings are rather more prominent here than our national virtues, the serious side of Irish life being scarcely touched on at all.

M’DONNELL, Randal William. B. in Dublin, 1870. Son of Randal M’Donnell, Q.C. Ed. Armagh Royal School. B.A., T.C.D. Was for a time assistant librarian in Marsh’s Library, and now a L.G.B. inspector. Has published also three volumes of verse.

⸺ KATHLEEN MAVOURNEEN. Pp. 270. (Sealy, Bryers). 2s. Frontisp. 1898.

Pictures first the causes and events that led to the rebellion, Tone’s visit to America, his schemes, the French invasion. Then vivid description of the outbreak in Wicklow, the fight at Tubberneering, the battle of New Ross, the capture and death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

⸺ WHEN CROMWELL CAME TO DROGHEDA. Pp. 147. (Gill). 2s. 6d. Map of Drogheda and map of Ireland in time of Cromwell. (N.Y.: Benziger). 0.90. 1906.

“Edited from the record of Clarence Stranger,” an officer in the army of Owen Roe O’Neill. Covers principal events from Cromwell’s landing to the Plantation, including defence of Clonmel.

⸺ MY SWORD FOR PATRICK SARSFIELD. Pp. 201. (Gill). 3s. 6d. 1907.

Adventures of Phelim O’Hara (character well drawn), a colonel in Sarsfield’s horse, who witnesses siege of Derry, battle of the Boyne, two sieges of Limerick. Much history, varied by startling adventures.

⸺ ARDNAREE. Pp. 227. (Gill). 1911.

“The story of an English girl in Connaught, told by herself.” Mainly a record of social life (tea-parties, military balls, &c.), with a good deal of fairly mild love-making. The ’98 insurrection (landing of French at Killala, &c.) forms a kind of background but is little spoken of. The Author hits off cleverly enough the outlook and language of a narrator such as the heroine.

MACDOUGALL, Rev. J.

⸺ CRAIGNISH TALES, collected by. Notes on the War Dress of the Celts by Lord A. Campbell. Pp. xvi. + 98. (Nutt). 5s. 20 plates. 1889.

⸺ FOLK AND HERO TALES. Pp. xxx. + 311. Demy 8vo. (Nutt). 7s. 6d. net. Three Illustr. by E. Griset. 1891.

Introduction by A. Nutt deals with aims of study of folk-lore, and various theories of the origin of this latter, and the value of Celtic folk-lore.

Ten tales collected in district of Duror (Argyllshire) between Summer of 1889 and Spring of 1890, obtained from a labouring man named Cameron, who had them in his boyhood from Donald MacPhie and others. As folk-lore they are thoroughly reliable and genuine, the Gaelic text given after each story being written at the narrator’s dictation with painstaking accuracy. The stories are typical folk-tales—a string of marvellous adventures of some hero with giants and enchanted castles and witches, &c., &c.—often grotesque and extravagant and devoid of moral or other significance beyond the mere narrative.... Free from coarseness. Finn is the hero in several of these tales. Good Index. 50 pp. of Notes, devoted chiefly to variant versions of the tales, explanations of terms and comparisons with other tales.

M’DOWELL, Lalla.

⸺ THE EARL OF EFFINGHAM. Pp. 280. (Tinsley). 1877.

Time: the forties, in Ballyquin, Co. Galway. It is a kind of appeal in story form to the Irish landlords to stay at home and “right Ireland’s wrongs.” The good points in the Irish character are well brought out, the brogue is well reproduced, and there is much humour. There are some glimpses of Dublin society. The bias is somewhat Protestant.

“MACEIRE, Fergus.”

⸺ THE SONS OF EIRE. Three vols. (Lond.: Newby). 1872.

Author styles himself “The last of the Sons of Eire,” an old broken-down Irish family living in Hampshire (Vol. II. brings them back to Ireland). A long autobiography, with a multitude of rather trifling incidents, much conversation, and a good deal of moralising. The portrait of the writer’s mother is interesting and curious. The Author seems Catholic and Irish in sympathies. In the end the teller marries the betrothed of his brother Brian, the real hero, who has been killed in a skating accident.

MACGILL, Patrick. “The Navvy Poet.” B. Glenties, Co. Donegal, 1891. Ed. at National school until he was twelve. At fourteen began to write verse for the Derry Journal. Soon after set out for Greenock with 10s. in his pocket. “Since then I have done all sorts of things, digging, draining, farming, and navvying.” In 1912 was a plate-layer on the Caledonian Railway.—(I.B.L., III., p. 71). His poems are Songs of a Navvy, Gleanings from a Navvy’s Scrap Book, and Songs of the Dead End. Is now a soldier in the London Irish Rifles, and has written a good account of military life in The Amateur Army. A series of sketches from the firing line, entitled The Red Horizon, is in preparation.

⸺ CHILDREN OF THE DEAD END. Pp. 305. (Herbert Jenkins). 6s. 1914.

“Most of my story is autobiographical.”—(Foreword). It opens in the Glenties with a faithful picture of the people and their hard life. The scene then shifts to Scotland and depicts the toils and temptations that beset the men, and especially the girls, in their sordid and insanitary surroundings. The hero goes on tramp with “Moleskin Joe,” a philosophic vagabond, finely described; and the shifts they are put to and the scenes they come through all bear the mark of truth, as does the wild life led by the navvies at Kinlochleven. The description of these scenes in a London newspaper led to his employment on the press. The hero’s love for Norah Ryan is purely and touchingly delineated, and, save for one unhappy gibe at the P.P., the book is unobjectionable.

⸺ THE RAT PIT. Pp. 308. (Jenkins). 1915.

The story of Norah Ryan, the heroine of The Children of the Dead End, from her childhood in Western Donegal to her death, a woman of the streets, in a Glasgow slum. A heartrending story from start to finish, with scarcely a gleam of cheer. The Author has exceptional powers of observation and gifts of description, and the book is extraordinarily realistic. But the realism and the sombreness being exclusive, the effect is exaggerated even to falseness. Farley McKeown is impossibly villainous, the picture of the wake revolting because undiscerning, Norah’s innocence overdrawn. Yet on the whole the Author’s claim that it is a transcript from life, life seen and lived by him, is doubtless well sustained. There are several needless sneers at the priests, e.g., p. 286, which is wantonly unpleasant. The Author is not prurient, but he describes plainly and vividly scenes in Glasgow brothels. Good picture of the conditions of life of the Irish migratory labourers.

[M’GOVERN, Rev. J. B.]; “J. B. S.” Of St. Stephen’s Rectory, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester. An enthusiast for Irish archæology and a frequent contributor on his favourite subject to N. & Q., Cork Archaeol. Journal, the Antiquary, &c.

⸺ IMELDA, or Retribution: a Romance of Kilkee. (Tinsley). 7s. 6d. 1883.

Scene: varies between Kilkee and Meenahela on the one hand and Italy on the other. The story is concerned with the faithlessness of Imelda Lestrange, an Irish girl, to her affianced Florentine lover, Gasper Bicchieri, whom she had met at Kilkee, and the Nemesis that befalls her in the faithlessness of her new lover—and husband—Monckton, who deserts her for his cousin, Teresa Dempsey. Most of this happens at Kilkee. The end is tragedy. Forty years later Gasper returns to Kilkee to brood in the scene of the catastrophe of his life. There is little or no characterisation or study of motive. The story opens in 1829.

M’HENRY, James, M.D. B. Larne, Co. Antrim, 1785. Ed. Dublin and Glasgow. Lived 1817-1842 in U.S.A. From 1842 till his death in 1845 he was U.S. consul at Derry. Publ. several volumes of verse (Mr. O’Donoghue enumerates nine) and several novels besides those mentioned below.

⸺ THE INSURGENT CHIEF. Pp. 128, very close print. (Gill). Bound up with HEARTS OF STEEL. n.d.

Adventures of a young loyalist during the rebellion in the North, pleasantly told, but with improbabilities and a good deal of the deus ex machina. Gives the very best description of the scenes in Belfast and Larne leading up to the Battle of Antrim and the consequent defeat of the “United men,” many of whom were personally known to the Author. The leaders are referred to by name, and the heroic death of Willy Neilson pathetically described. The famous rebel ballad of “Blaris Moor” is put into the mouth of a ballad singer in Belfast, and the northern dialect is excellently rendered.

The original title of this was O’Halloran; or, The Insurgent Chief, [1824], Philadelphia, three vols., and in same year London, one vol. Republ. frequently in Glasgow (Cameron & Ferguson) and Belfast (Henderson).

⸺ THE HEARTS OF STEEL. (Gill). 6d. [1825]. Still in print.

A story full of sensational adventure. There is a good deal about the Oak Boys and Steel Boys, Ulster Protestant secret societies which indulged in agrarian outrages as a protest against various abuses. The writer praises the Presbyterian religion somewhat at the expense of the Catholic. Some of the incidents related are rather coarse. Includes legends of Carrickfergus, also a good deal of verse.

MACHRAY, Robert. B. 1857. Formerly Prof. of Ecclesiastical History in St. John’s University College, Manitoba. War editor, Daily Mail, 1904-05. Between 1898 and 1914 has publ. a dozen novels, besides other works.

⸺ GRACE O’MALLEY, Princess and Pirate. Pp. viii. + 338. (Cassell). 6s. 1898.

Purporting to be “Told by Ruari Macdonald, Redshank and Rebel, The same set forth in the Tongue of the English.” Scene: various points on the west coast from Achill to Limerick. To a dual love story—of Grace (= Grania Waile) and Richard Burke, Ruari (the hero) and Eva, Grace’s foster-sister—are added many stirring descriptions of sea-fights and escapes, sieges and hostings. Historical personages, such as Sir Nicholas Malbie, the Earl of Desmond, and Stephen Lynch of Galway, are introduced. The moral tone is entirely good. The point of view is Grace O’Malley’s.

M’ILROY, Archibald. B. Ballyclare, Co. Antrim, 1860. Entered first the banking and then the insurance business. Took part in public life in his native county and in Co. Down. For the last three years of his life, which was ended in the Lusitania disaster, 1915, he lived in Canada.

⸺ THE AULD MEETIN’ HOOSE GREEN. Pp. 260. (Belfast: M’Caw, Stevenson & Orr). 1898.

Stories of the Co. Antrim peasantry. Time: thirty or forty years ago. Imitative of the “Kailyard” school in England. An intimate picture of Ulster Presbyterianism and its ways of thought. Has both humour and pathos. Is offensive to no creed or class. Ulster-Scot dialect true to life. Titles of some of the stories:—“Two Little Green Graves,” “At Jesus’ Feet,” “The Old Precentor Crosses the Bar.”

⸺ WHEN LINT WAS IN THE BELL. (Unwin). 1898.

⸺ BY LONE CRAIG LINNIE BURN. Pp. 153. (Unwin). 1900.

“Two series of local stories of the Scoto-Irish folk of Ulster, the chat of village gossips, character-sketches of doctor, minister, agent, and inn-keeper: quaint blends of Scottish and Irish traits. Most of the tales of idyllic kind.”—(Baker). The reviewer in the Irish Monthly says of the second of the above: “It is a wonderfully realistic picture of various grades of social life in a little country town in the North ... giving amusing glimpses of the working of practical Presbyterian theology in the rustic middle class.... Leaves on the reader a very remarkable impression of truthfulness and reality.” In this second novel there is some humour and a good deal of pathos. The same remarks apply here as to The Auld Meetin’ Hoose Green.

⸺ A BANKER’S LOVE STORY. Pp. 247. (Fisher Unwin). 1901.

The story opens in “the Union Bank, Spindleton” (the Ulster Bank, Belfast), the various types of bank directors and clerks being cleverly described—the mischief-making Blake, the jolly Harry Burke, &c. The scene shifts to “Craig Linnie” (Ballyclare), where George Dixon’s love story begins. He is transferred to Ballinasloe (good description of the big fair). Through no fault of his own he comes under a cloud, but eventually matters clear up and all ends happily. The Author knows his Ulster types thoroughly.

⸺ THE HUMOUR OF DRUID’S ISLAND. Pp. 127. (Hodges, Figgis; and Mullan, Belfast). 2s. 6d. 1902.

Scene: “Druid’s Island” is Islandmagee, Co. Antrim. A series of very short anecdotes told to one another by the Presbyterian country people, in their peculiar Scoto-Irish dialect, and full of the dry, “pawky” humour of the North. Gives glimpses of the manners and life of the place.

MACINNES, Rev. D.

⸺ FOLK AND HERO TALES. Collected, ed. (in Gaelic), and trans. by; with a Study on the Development of the Ossianic or Finn Saga, and copious Notes by Alfred Nutt. Pp. xxiv. + 497. (Nutt). 15s. net. Portrait of Campbell of Islay and two Illustr. by E. Griset. 1890.

Gaelic and English throughout on opposite pages. The tales were taken down at intervals during 1881-2, chiefly from the dictation of A. MacTavish, a shoemaker of seventy-four, a native of Mull. The tales are typical folk-tales, full of giants, monsters, and other mythic and magic beings. They are often quaint, imaginative and picturesque, but abound in extravagance and absurdity. In Mr. Nutt’s notes (pp. 443 to end) he studies chiefly—(1) What relation, if any, obtains between the folk-tales current in Scotland and the older Gaelic literature; (2) what traces of early Celtic belief and customs do these tales reveal. They are very elaborate and scholarly. Good Index.

M’INTOSH, Sophie. Born at Kinsale, where she resided for many years, until her marriage with Rev. H. M’Intosh, of Methodist College, Belfast. In her sketches she describes faithfully and vividly the people of her native town.—(Irish Lit.).

⸺ THE LAST FORWARD, and Other Stories. Pp. 152. (Brimley Johnson). Five Illustr. by Jack B. Yeats. 1902.

Ten Irish school and football stories, with plenty of schoolboy language and slang, told in lively, stirring style, never dull.

McKAY, J. G.

⸺ THE WIZARD’S GILLIE; or, Gille A’Bhuidseir and Other Tales. Ed. and transl. by J. G. McKay. (St. Catherine’s Press). 3s. 6d. 1915.

A selection from the MS. collection of the tales gathered by the late J. F. Campbell, of Islay (q.v.), and preserved in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh. The Gaelic and the translation are given on opposite pages. Some of the titles are “Donald Caol Cameron,” “The Carpenter MacPheigh,” “The Sept of the Three Score Fools.”

MACKAY, William.

⸺ PRO PATRIA: the Autobiography of a Conspirator. Two Vols. (Remington). 1883.

The narrator, Ptolemy Daly, is a weak, conceited youth, given to hysterics and poetry. Full of visions of Robert Emmet, he joins the staff of “The Sunburst,” the organ of an insurrectionary movement led by Phil Gallagher, a fine character, evidently modelled on T. C. Luby. At the critical moment Daly plays the traitor and decamps to England. Isaac Butt and John Rea are introduced, under thinly disguised names. Scene: Dublin and Wicklow. Written in ironical vein: Daly’s only “Speech from the Dock” was on a charge of drunk and disorderly. The Author was one of three brothers, all well-known London journalists. He was born in Belfast in 1846. Wrote also A Popular Idol and Beside Still Waters.

MACKENZIE, Donald A.

⸺ FINN AND HIS WARRIOR BAND; or, Tales of Old Alban. Pp. 248. (Blackie). 2s. 6d. 1910.

Stories, arranged in a connected series, of the Fenian cycle, adapted for children from twelve to fourteen or thereabouts. Told in picturesque language, but perfectly simple and direct. For the most part folklore, full of magic and wonder, nine-headed giants and fire-breathing dogs. But here and there the antique hero-tale appears, as in the Battle of Gavra and the death of Dermaid. Localities mostly Scotch. The illustrations (6 coloured, 34 in black and white) are charming in every way. Picture cover.

MACKENZIE, R. Shelton.

⸺ BITS OF BLARNEY. (N.Y.: Redfield). [1854]. (N.Y.: Alden). 1884.

“A series of Irish stories and legends collected from the peasantry,” familiar to the Author in youth (see pref.). It is a volume of miscellanies. Includes three stories of Blarney Castle told in serio-comic manner by a schoolmaster; some local legends of Finn McCool, &c.; eccentric characters (the bard O’Kelly, Father Prout, Irish dancing masters, Charley Crofts, Buck English); Irish publicists; sketches of Grattan and O’Connell (the former enthusiastic, the latter not wholly favourable—O’C. “the greatest professor of Blarney these latter days have seen or heard”). He speaks of O’C. from personal knowledge. On the whole thoroughly nationalist in tone. The Author, b. in Co. Limerick, 1809, educated Cork and Fermoy, was a journalist in London, afterwards in New York, and wrote or edited many valuable works, historical and biographical. D. 1880.

M’KEON, J. F.

⸺ ORMOND IDYLLS. Pp. 144. (Nutt). 1s. Paper. 1901.

Scene: Co. Kilkenny. Eight little sketches of peasant life, pathetic and sad. In one a glimpse is given with knowledge and sympathy of the work of a country priest.

M’LENNAN, William.

⸺ SPANISH JOHN. Pp. 270. (Harper). 6s. Eighteen v. g. Illustr. by F. de Myrbach. 1898.

Adventures of Col. John McDonnell from the Highlands, when a lieutenant in the regiment Irlandia, in the service of the K. of Spain, operating in Italy (1744-6). At the Scots College in Rome, whither he had been sent to be made a priest, he had met a young student, a Mr. O’Rourke. This latter, now a chaplain in the Irish Brigade, saves McD.’s life on the field of Villetri. Subsequently the two are sent by the Duke of York to Scotland on a mission to Prince Charlie. They find that all is lost. Characters admirably drawn, notably the humorous, warm-hearted, heroic Father O’Rourke.

“MACLEOD, Fiona”; William Sharp. B. Paisley, 1856. Ed. Glasgow Univ. Spent his boyhood in the West Highlands and Islands and became imbued with love for things Celtic. Even as late as 1899 it was positively stated that, in spite of conjectures to the contrary, William Sharp and Fiona MacLeod were not the same person, and Mrs. Hinkson says in her Twenty-five Years’ Reminiscences that she is not yet convinced that they were.

⸺ THE LAUGHTER OF PETERKIN. Pp. 288. (Constable). Four Drawings by S. Rollenson. 1897.

“A re-telling of old tales of the Celtic Wonder-World. Contains: ‘The Laughter of Peterkin’; ‘the Four White Swans (Sons of Lir)’; ‘the Fate of the Sons of Tuireann’; ‘Darthool and the Sons of Usnach.’” Told in language of great beauty and simplicity.

⸺ SPIRITUAL TALES. (Edinb.: Geddes). 1897.

⸺ TRAGIC ROMANCES. (Edinb.: Geddes). 1897.

⸺ BARBARIC TALES. (Edinb.: Geddes). 1897.

⸺ THE DOMINION OF DREAMS. (Constable). 1899.

⸺ THE SIN-EATER, and Other Tales. (Constable). 1899.

⸺ THE WASHER OF THE FORD, and Other Tales. (Constable). 1899.

⸺ The collected works written under the above pen-name (between 1894 and 1905). Ed. by his widow, and publ. by Heinemann in seven Vols., 5s. net each. Three Vols. have appeared, viz.:—I. Pharais; The Mountain Lovers. II. The Sin Eater; The Washer of the Ford (April). Pp. 450. III. The Dominion of Dreams; Under the Dark Star (April). Pp. 438. The following are announced:—IV. The Divine Adventure; Iona, &c. V. The Winged Destiny. VI. The Silence of Amor; Where the Forest Murmurs. VII. Poems and Dramas.

Some titles of the stories in these three vols.:—“Morag of the Glen,” “The Dan-nan-Ron,” “The Sin-Eater,” “The Flight of the Culdees,” “The Harping of Cravetheen,” “Silk o’ the Kine,” “Cathal of the Woods,” “St. Bride of the Isles,” “The Awakening of Angus Ogue,” “Three Marvels of Iona,” &c.

These books of Fiona Macleod’s are, for the most part, shadowy, elusive dream-poems in prose, wrought into a form of beauty from fragments of old Gaelic tales heard in the Western isles (where the Author lived for years) from fishermen and crofters. They are full of the magic of words subtly woven, of vague mystery, and of nature—wind and sea and sky. He strives to infuse into his stories the sadder and more mystic aspects of the Gaelic spirit, as he conceives it. “I have not striven to depict the blither Irish Celt.” But many of his stories are simply Irish legends, e.g., The Harping of Cravetheen. The Author thus describes his work: “In certain sections are tales of the old Gaelic and Celtic Scandinavian life and mythology; in others there is a blending of paganism and Christianity; in others again are tales of the dreaming imagination having their base in old mythology, or in a kindred mythopæic source.... Many of these tales are of the grey wandering wave of the West, and through each goes the wind of the Gaelic spirit which turns to the dim enchantment of dreams.” On the other hand, some of these stories deal with life in modern Gaelic Scotland, e.g., The Mountain Lovers, which, however poetically told, is after all a tale of seduction. The Winged Destiny, amid much matter of a different nature, contains several tales of Gaelic inspiration.

MACLEOD and THOMSON.

⸺ SONGS AND TALES OF ST. COLUMBA AND HIS AGE. By Fiona Macleod and J. Arthur Thomson. Third edition. Large paper 4to. (Edinb.: Patrick Geddes). 6d. nett.

M’MAHON, Ella. Dau. of late Rev. J. H. MacMahon, Chaplain to the Lord-Lieutenant. Ed.: home. Has written much for various magazines and periodicals, and particularly on historical and archæological subjects. Has publ. about seventeen novels. Now resides in Chelsea.—(Who’s Who).

⸺ FANCY O’BRIEN. (Chapman & Hall). 6s. 1909.

A tragedy of city life centering in the betrayal and desertion of Bridgie Doyle by Fancy O’Brien. Full of human interest, careful and skilful study of character and motive. Catholic in sympathy. “In its minor details the book is true to life, photographic in its realism.” The story is of high dramatic and literary excellence. In the account of the Easter Monday excursion to Bray “the story of Bridgie’s undoing is told with a rare combination of poetry, force, and restraint.”—(N.I.R., Aug., 1909).

⸺ THE JOB. Pp. 383. (Nisbet). 6s. 1914.

Sir Thady, a Cromwellian-Irish baronet, grows interested in his Irish surroundings on his estate of Ballymaclashin. He ceases to haunt the Bath Club, Piccadilly, and takes to starting carpet factories (The Job). Many of the incidents are furnished by the difficulties that beset the task owing to the amateurish innocence of the baronet and the stupidity of his local helpers. And besides there are the love affairs of Sir Thady and the English Miss Devereux. The point of view is Anglo-Irish, the “mere” Irish being regarded de haut en bas as rather impossible, thriftless, poor people, in short, as a problem to be dealt with philanthropically. The style is easy and pleasant.

MACMANUS, Miss L. Holds a distinct place among Irish authors of to-day as being one of the very few writers of Irish historical fiction who write from a thoroughly national standpoint. Her books are straightforward, stirring tales, enthusiastically Irish, free from tedious disquisitions, but based on considerable historical research. She is a worker in the ranks of the Gaelic League, and in her Co. Mayo (Kiltimagh) home does much for the cause of Irish Ireland. She is interested in folklore, and some of the tales she has collected have recently been publ. in the Folklore Journal. Some of her stories in the Dublin weeklies deal in the weird and the mysterious. The following have been publ. by The Educational Co. of Ireland as penny pamphlets:—In the High King’s Camp, A Battle Champion, Felim the Harper, The Prince of Breffny’s Son, How Enda went to the Iceland, The Leathern Cloaks. She has publ. two serials in Sinn Fein: The Professor in Erin and One Generation Passeth.

⸺ THE SILK OF THE KINE. Pp. 282. (Fisher Unwin). 3s. 6d. (N.Y.: Harper). 1.00. 1896.

Scene: chiefly Connaught and south-west Ulster during the Parliamentary Wars. The heroine is a daughter of the Maguire of Fermanagh. Her capture by the Roundheads, her rescue from the man-hunters by a Parliamentarian officer, her condemnation to slavery in St. Kitt’s, and her escape, are told in vivid and thrilling style. It is a story for young readers especially.

⸺ LALLY OF THE BRIGADE. (Duffy). 2s. 1s. (Boston: Page). 25c. 1899.

Adventures, during the War of the Spanish Succession, of a Colonel of the Brigade, who, after many thrilling experiences, distinguishes himself at Cremona, and marries a girl whom he had met during the war under romantic circumstances. The tale is lively and interesting, and makes one realize somewhat of the intrigues and dangers of war.... Young readers may derive a great deal of amusement and instruction from the book.—(N.I.R.). Lally is a young captain in the regiment of Dillon. “James III.,” Louis XIV., Prince Eugène, Marshall Villeroy, and General O’Mahony all appear in the story.

⸺ NESSA. Pp. 147. (Sealy, Bryers). 2s. (N.Y.: Benziger). 0.60. n.d. (1904).

A tale of the Cromwellian Plantation, characterized by a simple unpretentious style and considerable power of description, both of character and scenery.—(Press notices). The little book was highly praised by the Academy and by the Irish Times. It is, of course, strongly national in sentiment. Scene: an old castle near Lough Conn, Co. Mayo.

⸺ IN SARSFIELD’S DAYS. Pp. 306. (Gill). Illustr. 1907.

“A Passage from the Memoirs of Brigadier Niall MacGuinness of Iveagh, sometime captain in Sarsfield’s Horse.” Scene: Limerick during Siege. Includes account of Sarsfield’s Ride and of the repulse of William’s assault. The plot hinges on the disappearance of Balldearg O’Donnell’s cross, which Iveagh is suspected of having stolen. The central figure is perhaps the wayward and imperious Ethna Ni Briain. The story moves rapidly, unencumbered by descriptions or digressions. The scenes are vivid and dramatic. The Author’s play, “O’Donnell’s Cross,” is founded on this novel. Publ. in U.S.A. (N.Y.: Buckles), 1.50, under title The Wager.

⸺ NUALA. Pp. 322. (Browne & Nolan). 3s. 6d. Four Illustr. by Oswald Cunningham. 1908.

Tells how the only child, aged fifteen, of the head of the O’Donnells, then in the service of the Austrian Government, is entrusted by her father just before his death with the mission of obtaining the Cathach, or battle-book of the O’Donnells, from the monks at Louvain. On the way she passes through exciting adventures, being captured by some of Napoleon’s soldiers. Gen. Hoche figures in the story. Juvenile.

MACMANUS, Seumas. B. Mountcharles, Co. Donegal, 1870. Son of a peasant farmer. Was for some years a National School teacher, but subsequently turned entirely to journalism. Has written for most of the Irish papers and magazines and for many English and American periodicals. Is well known in the States, where he frequently goes on lecturing tours.

⸺ SHUILERS FROM HEATHY HILLS. Pp. 102. (Mountcharles: G. Kirke). 1893.

The Author’s earliest poems and three prose sketches:—“Micky Maguire” (the last of the hedge schoolmasters), “How you bathe at Bundoran,” and “A Trip with Phil M’Goldrick.”

⸺ THE LEADIN’ ROAD TO DONEGAL. Pp. 246. (Digby, Long). 3s. 6d. (N.Y.: Pratt). 2.00. [1896]. Second ed., 1908; others since.

Twelve short stories of the Donegal peasantry, full of very genuine, if somewhat broad, humour and drollery. They are not meant as pictures of peasant life. The dialect is exaggerated for humorous purposes, and at times the fun goes perilously near “Stage-Irishism.” But they are never coarse or vulgar.

⸺ ’TWAS IN DHROLL DONEGAL. (Gill). 1s. Third ed., 1897.

Eight tales dealing with the humorous side of the home-life of Donegal peasants. A few, however, are folk-tales of the Jack the Giant-killer type. Told with verve and piquancy and with unflagging humour, but the skill in story-telling is naturally not as developed in this as in the Author’s later work, drawing a good deal upon humorous padding to aid the intrinsic humour of the incidents.

⸺ THE BEND OF THE ROAD. (Gill, Duffy). 2s., 3s. (N.Y.: Pratt). 1.75. [1897].

This is a sequel to A Lad of the O’Friels,[7] but consists of detached sketches, and is not told in the first person. Most of the sketches are humorous, notably “Father Dan and Fiddlers Four”; but there is pathos, too, as in “The Widow’s Mary,” a scene at a wake before an eviction. The Introduction is an admirable summing up of the peculiarities, emotions, and vicissitudes of life in an out-of-the-way Donegal countryside.

⸺ THE HUMOURS OF DONEGAL. (Unwin). (N.Y.: Pratt). 1.50. [1898].

Seven stories admirably told, and full of the richest and most rollicking humour. In the first only, viz., “When Barney’s Thrunk Comes Home,” is there a touch of the pathetic. It would be hard to beat “Shan Martin’s Ghost,” and “Why Tómas Dubh Walked,” and “How Paddy M’Garrity did not get to be Gauger.” “One St. Patrick’s Day” gives the humorous side of Orange and Green rivalry.

⸺ THROUGH THE TURF SMOKE. (Fisher Unwin). 2s. (N.Y.: Doubleday. Toronto: Morang). 2.00. [1899]. 1901.

Simple tales of the Donegal peasantry. There is both pathos and humour—the former deep, and at times poignant; the latter always rich and often farcical. The Author writes with all the vividness of one who has lived all he writes about. He has full command of every device of the story-teller, yet never allows his personality to show except, as it should, through the medium of the actors.

⸺ IN CHIMNEY CORNERS. Pp. 281. (N.Y.: Harper). Illustr. by Pamela Colman Smith. 1899.

“Subtle, merry tales of Irish Folk-lore.”—(Pref.). The stories are very similar in kind to the same Author’s Donegal Fairy Tales. There is the same quaint, humorous, peasant language, the same extravagances and impossibilities. The illustrations are very numerous. They are very brightly coloured, but for the most part extremely bizarre.

⸺ THE BEWITCHED FIDDLE, and Other Irish Tales. Pp. ix. + 240. (N.Y.: Doubleday and McClure). 1900.

Ten short stories, humorous for the most part, but one, “The Cadger Boy’s Last Journey,” moving and pathetic. They are an exact reproduction in dialect and phraseology of stories actually heard by the Author at Donegal firesides, and the fidelity of the reproduction is perfect.

⸺ DONEGAL FAIRY STORIES. Pp. 255. (Isbister). 1902. (N.Y.: McClure).

Dedication in Irish and English. Thirty-four full-page pen and ink drawings, signed “Verbeek.” These latter are quaint and amusingly grotesque. The stories are folk-tales, told just as the peasantry tell them, without brogue, but with all the repetitions, humorous extravagances and naïveté of the folk-tale. They are just the thing for children, and are quite free from coarseness and vulgarity.

⸺ THE RED POACHER. (N.Y.: Funk & Wagnalls). 0.75. 1903.

⸺ A LAD OF THE O’FRIELS. Pp. 318. (Gill; Duffy). 2s., 2s. 6d., 3s. (N.Y.: Pratt). 2.00. [1903]. Third ed., 1906.

In this book one actually seems to have been living among the childlike and quaint yet deep-natured, true, and altogether lovable little circle of Knocknagar, and to have shared its joys and sorrows. Every character described stands out altogether distinct, old Toal a’Gallagher the sententious; his wife, Susie of the sharp tongue; their son, Toal the “Vagabone,” with his wild pranks; the grandiloquent “Masther,” and all the rest. Through it all runs the simple love story of Dinny O’Friel and Nuala Gildea, companions from childhood. The book is full of deep, but quiet and restrained, feeling. The description of the pilgrimage to Lough Derg has much beauty.

⸺ DOCTOR KILGANNON. (Gill). 1s. (Wrapper). Well illustr. 1907.

A string of loosely-connected after-dinner stories chiefly about comic duelling and electioneering. Told with pleasant drollery.

⸺ YOURSELF AND THE NEIGHBOURS. Pp. 304. (N.Y.: Devin Adair Co.). Five Illustr. by T. Fogarty. 1914.

A picture by one who has lived it of the life of the Donegal peasant—not their outward life merely, but their most intimate thoughts and beliefs, hopes and joys, their whole outlook on things. The Author is discerning and sympathetic in a high degree. “Yourself and Herself” gives a Donegal man’s life story from “the barefoot time” through love and marriage to “evening’s quiet end.” Some of the remaining stories show the Author’s humour at its best—the Homeric struggles of the “priest’s boy” with the New Curate and the Tartar of a postmistress, the “come home Yankee,” and so on.

M’NALLY, Mrs.[8]

⸺ ECCENTRICITY. Three Vols. (over 1,000 pp.). (Dubl.: Cumming). 1820.

An endless series of love affairs between charming ladies and wealthy gentlemen, all of the upper classes, very proper, very stilted, and dull. The eccentricity is on the part of an old soldier who is a misanthrope and a hermit, but resolves to return to normal life and renew acquaintance with his daughter. He descends upon the friend’s family in which he has left her, carries off another by mistake, &c. The plot never really moves on.

M’NALLY, Louisa.

⸺ THE PIRATE’S FORT. Pp. 210. (Hodges & Smith). 1854.

The fort is Dunalong, on Inisherkin, in Baltimore Bay, a stronghold of the O’Driscoll’s towards close of 16th cent. English ship captured. O’D.’s natural son, a ferocious pirate, falls in love with captain’s daughter. She is true to her English officer. The beautiful daughter of O’D. saves her from his fury. Vengeance of the English—destruction of the fort—double wedding of the two fair maids to two English officers. A prominent rôle is assigned to money-grabbing, idle, besotted Franciscan friar.

MACNAMARA, Lewis.

⸺ BLIND LARRY: Irish Idylls. (Jarrold). 3s. 6d. 1897.

“Artless records of life among the very poor in West of Ireland, the fruit of kindly observation, and, obviously, essays in the Thrums style. Larry is a poor blind fiddler, whose one joy in life is his son, and he turns out a reproach to his father. “Katty’s Wedding” is a very Irish bit of farce, and “Mulligan’s Revenge” expresses the vindictive passions of the Celt, an episode of jealousy and crime, alleviated at the close by repentance and reconciliation.”—(Baker).

MACNAMARA, Rachel Swete.

⸺ SPINNERS IN SILENCE. Pp. 317. (Blackwood). 6s. 1911.

Fingal and Lutie are lovers somewhere in the wilds of Ireland. Enter an Interloper (a danseuse of doubtful reputation), who falls genuinely in love with F., and tries to win him. She fails, and exit. The atmosphere is very ideal and the language, especially the conversations, somewhat high-flown. Author writes well, and is clearly sympathetic to Ireland. The housekeeper cousin of “county family” status, with her genteel notions, is well sketched.

M’NULTY, Edward. B. 1856, Randalstown, Co. Antrim. Ed. in the Incorporated Society’s School, Aungier St., Dublin, where he was a schoolmate and intimate of G. B. Shaw. Contributes to various periodicals—Irish Society, The Occult Review, &c., and has written a play, “The Lord Mayor,” for the Abbey Theatre. Satirizes Irish failings, but is proud of being an Irishman himself. Resides in Ranelagh, Dublin.

⸺ MISTHER O’RYAN. Pp. 271. (Arnold). 3s. 6d. 1894.

A priest, squat, red-faced, whiskey-loving, unspeakably vulgar, and a ruffian to whom he is disgracefully related, organize a branch of the “Lague,” and boycott a farmer who will not join. The latter’s daughter dies tragically in consequence. The typical “pesint” is introduced as cringeing, priest-ridden, and wholly degraded. Impossible brogue throughout.

⸺ SON OF A PEASANT. Pp. 342. (Arnold). 1897.

A great advance on Misther O’Ryan, q.v. A tragic-comedy of life among lower middle class people in a small provincial town. The “son of a peasant” is Clarence Maguire, an obscure young schoolmaster, who in the end comes in for great wealth and all but wins the daughter of Sir Herbert O’Hara, an impoverished gentleman. A sub-plot is furnished by the love affairs of Constable Kerrigan and his determined efforts after promotion. The plot affords the Author scope for many genuinely humorous scenes, especially those in the Flanagan family, which are admirably done, and for the clever portrayal of some of the meaner aspects of human nature—class pride, servility, the worship of the moneyed man, time serving, &c. The plot largely turns on an absurd superstition about changelings. This leads to the hideous tragedy of the close. The book is marred by a travesty of the brogue. Otherwise it is not anti-national.

⸺ MAUREEN. Pp. 343. (Arnold). 6s. 1904.

Of the same type as Misther O’Ryan. One of the priests introduced trades with a miraculous statue on the superstition of the people; the other is a sleek, smooth fop, thoroughly and heartlessly vicious. There is little else besides this in the book.

⸺ MRS. MULLIGAN’S MILLIONS. (Hurst & Blackett). 6s. 1908.

A broad farce, with Irish people (of the worst stage-Irish type) as actors, and a small, vulgar Irish town for scene. Mrs. Mulligan is a very low species of tramp. She is supposed suddenly to come in for a fortune, and her relations tumble over one another in efforts to gain her favour—until the bubble bursts. There is much caricature of Irish traits and manners. Local journalism is specially ridiculed.—(News cuttings).

M’SPARRAN, Archibald.

⸺ THE LEGEND OF M’DONNELL AND THE NORMAN DE BORGOS. Pp. 213, close print. 16mo. (Gill). 1s. [Belfast, 1829]. Still in print.

Writer (1795-1850?) was a school-master in Derry, who emigrated to America in 1830, where he published Tales and Stories of the Alleghenys and The Hermit of the Rocky Mountains. A tale of the struggles between O’Neills, O’Donnells, O’Cahans, M’Quillans, M’Donnells, and other Ulster septs. Scene: northern portions of Antrim, Derry, and Donegal. The work of a half-educated man. A rambling story marked by frequent lapses from literary good taste and numerous grammatical mistakes. The peasantry talk in broad modern brogue, full of “arrah,” “musha,” “tare-an-ouns,” &c. Shows a considerable though undigested knowledge of Irish history and topography. The book had considerable vogue both here and in U.S.A.

MACSWEENEY, Rev. Patrick M., M.A. One of the most erudite of Irish priests. Was Chancellor’s Gold Medallist in the Royal University. Was afterwards Professor of Mod. Lit. in Holy Cross College, Clonliffe. Is at present editor of the Irish Ecclesiastical Record.

⸺ THE MARTIAL CAREER OF CONGHAL CLÁIRINGHNEACH. Pp. lxvii. + 225. (Nutt, for Irish Texts Society). 1904.

Ed. for the first time with all the apparatus of scholarship—critical study of the Tale or Saga, literary study of the text, grammatical study, notes, glossary, and index. The story belongs to the pre-Cuchulainn stage of the Red Branch Cycle. Conghal is supposed to have reigned from 177 to 162 B.C.

MACWALTER, J. G., F.R.S.L., &c.

⸺ TALES OF IRELAND AND THE IRISH. Pp. 224. (Farquhar Shaw). 1854.

Wrote also The Irish Reformation Movement, 1852; Modern Mystery, 1854, &c. The object of these three stories is to point out the wickedness and the evil influence, especially in Ireland, of the Catholic Church. In “Betty Bryan’s Fortune,” Thady becomes a Protestant, and all goes well with him: the sign of the Cross is called a charm; and there is a description of Beltaine superstitions. In “The Terry Alt,” a girl is seized just after marriage and immured in a convent for life: the conspirators are a monk, a priest, and “Blackboys.”

MADDEN, M. S.

⸺ THE FITZGERALD FAMILY. (R.T.S.). 2s. Three cold. ill. by Victor Prout. 1910.

The family is left very poor on death of father, a C. of I. clergyman. Rich and vulgar relations adopt Barry and Moya, the former of whom becomes an unbearable bounder, the latter a heartless flirt. The rest of the family remains very poor, very good, and rather dull. There is an occasional mention of Irish peasants and the Irish language. Apart from this, the persons, their doings, and the atmosphere are wholly un-Irish. The story has a moral purpose that is good and not too obtrusive.

MAGENNIS, Peter. A retired National School teacher. B. near Derrygonnelly, Co. Fermanagh, in 1817, the son of a farmer. D. 1910, aged 93, at his birth-place.

⸺ THE RIBBON INFORMER: a Tale of Lough Erne. Pp. 158. (London). 1874.

An unskilfully constructed, rambling narrative, interspersed with indifferent verse. The Author says in his Preface: “This novel is founded on fact, almost every incident in it actually occurred, and many of them within the recollection of the writer. It contains local traditions and legendary lore. It treats of highway robbery, illicit distilling, rural manners, party feeling, and a rather disorganized state of society.”

⸺ TULLY CASTLE: a Tale of 1641. Pp. 266. (Enniskillen: Trimble). 1877.

A very crude, rambling tale, bringing in a few incidents of the Confederate War and several historic characters, but mainly taken up with private love affairs, abductions, &c. No character study and no real portrayal of the times. Occasional vulgarity. Scene: chiefly the shores of Lough Erne.

MAGINN, J. D.

⸺ FITZGERALD, THE FENIAN. Two Vols. Pp. 576. (Chapman & Hall). 1889.

Deals with Fenian and Land League movements. The Author is unacquainted with the history and organization of Fenianism. The land agitation he represents as forced upon an unwilling peasantry by a kind of murder-club in America. Scene: mainly Co. Sligo. Parnell and Biggar are brought in under assumed names, and are broadly caricatured. The portrayal of Butt is truer to reality and less marred by bias. The Author is uninformed and, on the whole, uncomprehending: hence some absurd statements about things Irish, some objectionable (but evidently unintentionally so) references to the Catholic Church, and a quite impossible Irish brogue. But he is on the whole not unfriendly to Ireland.

MAGINN, William. B. Cork, 1793. Ed. T.C.D. Began early to write for the magazines (Blackwood’s, &c.), chiefly parodies and other jeux d’esprit. Went to London, 1823, where, in 1830, he established Fraser’s Magazine, which with Carlyle, Thackeray, Maclise, Prout as contributors, for some years was at the head of English periodical literature. He fell more and more into habits of drunkenness, and engaged in disreputable journalism. Writing to the end, he died in 1842. Thackeray drew a portrait of him as Captain Shandon in Pendennis. Many memoirs of him have been written. His “Bob Burke’s Duel with Ensign Brady” is said to be the raciest Irish story ever written.

⸺ MISCELLANIES: Prose and Verse. (London). [First collection, 1840]. Selections ed. by “R. W. Montagu.” 1885. (N.Y.: Scribner). 9.60.

Contains “Bob Burke’s Duel,” “The Story without a Tail,” and other Irish stories, published in magazines between 1823 and 1842. These stories are told mostly in a vein of broad comedy. Their characters are roysterers and swaggerers. Maginn was a man of brilliant gifts. The fantastic humour and wild gaiety of his stories give them an original flavour. Maginn was a high Tory and an Orangeman.—(Krans). Dr. Mackenzie edited, in 1857, The Miscellanies of William Maginn (5 vols.), published in America. Contents:—Vols. I. and II. “The O’Doherty Papers.” III. “The Shakespeare Papers.” IV. “Homeric Ballads.” V. “The Fraserian Papers,” with a life of the Author.

MAHONY, Martin Francis; “Matthew Stradling.” B., Co. Cork, 1831. D. 1885. Was a nephew of “Father Prout.” Also wrote Cheap John’s Auction.

⸺ THE IRISH BAR SINISTER. Pp. 136. London. 1872.

“New ed. in four chapters.” The original was publ. by Gill, Dublin, 1871. Really a pamphlet showing up the place-hunting whiggery that prevailed in the Irish Bar at that time, and giving a picture of Irish politics after the Fenian insurrection, and at the outset of the Home Rule movement.

⸺ THE MISADVENTURES OF MR. CATLYNE, Q.C. An Autobiography. Two Vols. (Tinsley). 1873.

Elaborates the idea of the above-mentioned work. Depicts, under assumed names, well-known Irish lawyers of the day. Intrigues of the candidate for a small Irish borough, and his difficulty in placating all parties well described. This originally appeared in Fraser’s Magazine. There is little plot, and no romantic interest.

⸺ JERPOINT. An ungarnished Story of the Time. Three Vols. (Chapman & Hall). 1875.

A satirical study of parvenus, snobs, and various curious types, very cleverly characterised. The story is chiefly concerned with the Courtneys, risen from the publichouse to county-family importance. P. 49 sq. gives an excellent picture of a meet, with a study of the personages present. Full of close observation and excellent descriptions. Among the best portraits are those of the Hanlon family, always shabby and out-at-elbows, yet ever struggling with fortune. We are not told the situation of “the Cathedral City of Jerpoint on the Sea.”

MALONE, Molly. A Dublin lady, married to a Mr. Riordan, living in Carlow.

⸺ THE GOLDEN LAD. 16mo. (C.T.S. of Ireland: Iona Series). 1s. 1910.

A study of Dublin slum-children, told with humour, insight, and sympathy, by one who thoroughly knows their ways. The dialect is faithfully rendered.

MANNERS, T. Hartley.

⸺ PEG O’ MY HEART. Pp. 320. (Hodder & Stoughton). 1913.

“Novelized” from a popular play. Peg is daughter of an Irish agitator of the eighties who goes to America in the troubled times. On the death of Peg’s mother her father returns to Ireland, and lives there for many years, till bright prospects call him back to America. But the main part of the action is taken up with Peg’s visit of a month to her English relations in Scarborough. The Author rather overdraws the contrast between English and Irish types. There is much clever dialogue. Ends with passing of second reading of Home Rule Bill, and the glorification of the one-time agitator.

MANNIX, Mary E.

⸺ MICHAEL O’DONNELL; or, The Fortunes of a Little Emigrant. (Boston: Flynn). 0.60. [1900]. In print, 1910.

“Michael, an honest, industrious youngster, not too good to use his fists when attacked by other boys, comes to the U.S., and steps into an excellent situation after three months of walking across the Continent. By a series of innocent misunderstandings, combined with hostile malice, he is made to appear guilty of theft; but the truth is soon manifest.... Told with much animation and liveliness.”—(American Eccles. Rev.) Juvenile.

⸺ PILGRIM FROM IRELAND. (Boston: Flynn). 0.36. In print, 1910.

MAPOTHER, Mary J.

⸺ THE DONALDS: an Irish Story (Gill). 6s. c. 1879.

Not in British Museum Library.

MARSH, Mrs.

⸺ THE NEVILLES OF GARRETSTOWN. Three Vols. (Saunders & Otley). 1860.

The main plot is a somewhat slight story of a lost heir returning to claim his inheritance, which had been usurped by an intruder. But the chief interest lies in the numerous side incidents and digressions which are designed to portray various phases of the life of the times. Opens and closes at Clonmel, but the scene shifts to Dublin, Bantry, Paris, and other places. Introduces Jacobite conspiracies, street-rioting, hedge schools, city entertainments, political discussions, the working of the Penal laws, and historical personages, such as Primate Stone, Thurot, Prince Charles Edward, Archbishop Dillon, and many others. Is more or less on the side of the English colony, but is not unfair to any party. Has little or no character study, and not much human interest, but abounds in incident.

MARTIN, Miss H. L.

⸺ CANVASSING. (Duffy). Still in print. (N.Y.: Kenedy). [1832].

Published as one of the O’Hara’s tales. An elaborate tale of matchmaking and marriage among the upper classes, written with a moral purpose. Incidentally there is a good picture of an election contest in the first quarter of the nineteenth century.

MARTINEAU, Harriet.

⸺ IRELAND: a Tale. Pp. 136. (London: Fox). 1832.

Appeared in a series of illustrations of political economy. Written in the cause of the Irish poor, aiming to show “how long a series of evils may befal individuals in a society conducted like that of Ireland, and by what a repetition of grievances its members are driven into disaffection and violence.” Shows three sources of evils—thriftlessness in tenants, rapacity in landlords, misplaced benevolence.

MASON, Miss.

⸺ KATE GEARY; or, Irish Life in London. (London: Dolman). 1853.

“A Tale of 1849.” “The specific object of this work is to exemplify the various ways in which the poor are placed at a disadvantage, and the misery and, almost of necessity, the crime that ensue from their present crowded condition.” “Miss M. describes the life of one who might be called a Sister of Charity living in the world.... She tells us she has witnessed the incidents of her tale, which are described with vivacity.... The Author has entangled her heroine in a love affair, which, in itself, is very frigid and tedious.”—(D.R.).

MASON, A. E. W.

⸺ CLEMENTINA. (Methuen). 2s. Eight illustr. by Bernard Partridge. [1901]. Second ed., 1903. (Nelson). New ed., 7d. 1911.

The story of the romantic escape in 1720 of the Princess Clementina Sobieski from Austria, and how she was conducted to Rome to be married to the Pretender by the Chevalier Charles Wogan, member of an Anglo-Irish family of Clongowes Wood, in the County Kildare. Some glimpses of the Irish Brigade. A lively narrative. Mr. Baker calls it “a particularly close imitation of Dumas.”

⸺ THE FOUR FEATHERS. Pp. 338. (Smith, Elder). 6s. (Nelson). 7d. [1903]. 1912.

Scene varies between London, Devonshire, the Soudan, and Donegal (Ramelton and Glenalla), the scenery of which latter is finely described. The theme is original and striking. The hero, an English soldier, is all his life haunted by the fear of showing “the white feather” at a critical moment. He resigns his commission rather than risk in a campaign his reputation for courage. This action brings on him the dreaded imputation of cowardice. How he redeems his honour is finely told. A delicate soul-study. The heroic self-sacrifice of Jack Durance still further raises the moral worth of the book.

MASON JONES, see JONES.

MATHEW, Frank. A grand-nephew of Father Mathew, the Apostle of Temperance. B. 1865; ed. Beaumont, King’s College School, and London University. The writer of the Preface to the New Ed. of the Cabinet of Irish Literature says: “A good many people of excellent judgment look upon Mr. Mathew as the Irish novelist we have been so long awaiting.... He does not write merely from the point of view of a sympathetic outsider. He has the true Celtic temperament, with the advantage of education, inherited and otherwise, over the peasants of genius who have so long represented the Irish spirit.” Wrote also Father Mathew, his Life and Times, One Queen Triumphant, The Royal Sisters, &c. Resides in London.

⸺ AT THE RISING OF THE MOON. Pp. 240. (M’Clure). 3s. 6d. Twenty-seven good Illustr. (N.Y.: M’Clure). 1.50. 1893.

Twenty tales (memories of the old days, says the Author), picturing many phases of peasant life on the West coast: incidents of the moonlighting days, faction fights, the joke of the potheen-makers, the attachment of priests and people, the hardships of the poor, the days of sorrow, the love of home and country. Told with sympathy in simple but literary style. Dialogue clever and full of bright snatches of Celtic humour.

⸺ THE WOOD OF THE BRAMBLES. (Lane). 6s. 1896.

Gives a grotesque picture, intended for vivid realism, of the rebellion. The rebels are comic savages, their leaders (the priests included) little better than buffoons. It is a burlesque ’98. It is well, however, to add the following estimate from the prefatory essay to the new edition of The Cabinet of Irish Literature: “A born critic here and there will find out that Mr. Frank Mathew’s Wood of the Brambles is as full of wit, wisdom, observation, and knowledge as genius can make it; but to the ordinary reader it is deliberately and offensively topsy-turvy, and there’s an end of it.”

⸺ THE SPANISH WINE. Pp. 180. (Lane). 3s. 6d. 1898.

A tale of Dunluce Castle, Co. Antrim, in the days when the MacDonnells from Scotland were Lords of Antrim, and Perrott was Elizabeth’s deputy. The story is told in form of reminiscence, the actual movement of the plot occupying only a few hours. Little attempt at description of scenes or times. The Author’s sympathies are with the MacDonnells, who were on the English side at the time. The book has been greatly admired, especially for the vividness of its historical atmosphere and its poetic and romantic glamour.

⸺ LOVE OF COMRADES. (Lane). 3s. 6d. 1900.

“Ultra romantic. The sprightly daughter of a Wicklow squire, bosom friend of Lord Strafford (then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland), goes on a perilous journey disguised as a gallant, with a message of life or death to Strafford at Dublin.”—(Baker, 2).

MATURIN, Charles Robert. 1782-1824. Born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity College. Was a clergyman of the Church of Ireland, and all his life the sworn enemy of Catholicism and of Presbyterianism, both of which, especially the latter, he treats unsparingly in some of his books. Besides his novels he wrote tragedies, such as “Bertram,” and bloodcurdling melodramas, such as “Fredolpho.” In his way of life he was somewhat of an oddity—the madness of genius, his admirers said—and this is reflected in his works. “His romances attracted Scott and Byron, and many critics have given them great though qualified praise. Bombastic extravagance of language, tangled plots, and impossible incidents characterize them all. A remarkable eloquence in descriptions of turbulent passion is his strong point.” Besides the novels mentioned below, he wrote Melmoth, the Wanderer, generally considered his masterpiece, and “The Albigenses, his last and best (1824), which was pronounced by Blackwood to be ‘four volumes of vigour, extravagance, absurdity, and splendour’” (compiled from Krans and Read). It should be noted that this writer sometimes violates good morals by indecency. Mr. N. Idman, of Lotsgotan, Helsingfors, Finland, is at present engaged on a study of M. which he intends to publish. The 1892 ed. of Melmoth contains an introductory memoir of M., a bibliography, and a criticism of each of his works.

⸺ THE WILD IRISH BOY. Three Vols. 12mo. (London). [1808]. 1814, 1839.

Republ. in “The Romancists’ and Novelists’ Library,” two vols. (Clements), 1839. The original ed. was anon.—by the Author of “Montorio” [i.e., “Dennis Jasper Murphy”]. Intended as an exposition of the unhappy condition of Ireland and as a picture of the life and manners of the time. The former is soon lost sight of, but the latter is well carried out. The hero is a strong Nationalist who works wholly for Ireland’s cause. Apart from this graver purpose, interest is sustained by a succession of exciting incidents and by good character drawing. There is little plot, a great deal of sentiment, and a great many disreputable intrigues, without, however, objectionable details. The scene varies between Dublin and the W. of Ireland—life in the family of a Protestant landowner and in that of a Catholic feudal chief. Period, c. 1806-8. The society depicted is that of the aristocratic classes. Author’s standpoint full of sympathy and even admiration for Ireland, strongly Protestant (Ch. of I.) and anti-“Roman.”

⸺ LE JEUNE IRLANDAIS. Four Vols. (Paris). 1828.

Traduction per Madame la Comtesse de Molé.

⸺ THE MILESIAN CHIEF. Four Vols. 12mo. (London). 1812.

“Was generally well received by the critics. Even Talfourd, who had been rather hard on his first novel (The Fatal Revenge), said of this: ‘There is a bleak and misty grandeur about it which, in spite of all its glaring defects, sustains for it an abiding place in the soul.’”—(C. A. Read). Deals with the “prehistoric” Milesian invasion. Gustave Planche in his critique on M. says of this book, “C’est un livre où étincellent ça et là des pages magnifiques.”

⸺ CONNAL OU LES MILESIENS. Traduit de l’anglais par Madame la Comtesse [de Molé]. Four tom. (Paris). 1828.

⸺ WOMEN; or, Pour et Contre. Three Vols. [1818].

Young de Courcy rescues Eva, who had been carried off to be made a Catholic of by a fanatical grandmother, and he falls in love. This brings him into Calvinistic Methodist circles in Dublin. These the Author describes minutely and with satire. The Methodist gloom and coldness drive the hero to the company of a brilliant actress (really Zaira, Eva’s mother). He is long torn between the two, but finally goes to Paris with Zaira. There he deserts her for another. There is a fine description of Z.’s despair. Eva dies of decline, and de Courcy, repentant, soon follows. “A moral and interesting tale.” “The full praise both of invention and of execution must be allowed to Mr. M.’s sketch of Eva.” As regards Methodism, Mr. M. “has used the scalpel, not, we think, unfairly but with professional rigour and dexterity.”—(From a review by Sir Walter Scott in the Edinb. Rev., xxx., 234).

⸺ EVA; ou, Amour et Religion. Traduit de l’anglais sur la 2e éd. par M. 4 tom. (Paris). 1818.

MATURIN, Edward. Son of the preceding.

⸺ THE IRISH CHIEFTAIN; or, The Isles of Life and Death. Pp. 316, v. close print. 16mo. (Glasgow: Griffin). 1848.

A wild story, in which historical names (O’Ruarc of Breffny, Dermod MacMurrough, Strongbow, Eva, Devorgilla) are given to the personages, but which has no foundation in history. The incidents are supposed to take place some short time after the Norman invasion, but the book bristles with anachronisms. It is a series of thrilling adventures, fighting, revenge, murders, hairbreadth escapes, and so forth. Highly melodramatic, sentimental, and extravagant.

⸺ BIANCA: a Tale of Erin and Italy. Two Vols. 660 pp. (N.Y.: Harper). 1852.

An outlandish sort of story, full of murders, perhaps a dozen, if not more. Nearly all the characters have some terrible secret connected with their past; hardly any of them are legitimate children. A duel between two brothers, and banshees, and mysterious ladies with dark prophesyings, etc., and all the fee-faw-fum of the times when all this was popular.

MAXWELL, W. Hamilton. 1792-1850. He was a clergyman of the Church of Ireland, with a parish at Ballagh, in the wilds of Connaught, but was largely relieved of pastoral duties by the absence of a flock. He divided his leisure between field sports of all kinds and the writing of books. Wild Sports of the West, Stories of Waterloo, and The Bivouac were the most successful of these; they are still much read. He tells a story capitally, with verve and spirit, and his situations are as exciting as those of any modern novelist. Maxwell was the first writer of military novels: he is the forerunner and even the inspirer of Lever. Mr. Baker describes his Stories of Waterloo as “A farrago of Irish stories, sensational, with a dash of Hibernian character and local colouring.” This book is still to be had (Routledge, 2s.), and a new ed. publ. by The Talbot Press, Dublin (Every Irishman’s Library), and ed. by Lord Dunraven, has recently (Sept., 1915) appeared of his Wild Sports.

⸺ O’HARA. Two Vols. (Andrews). [1825].

A Protestant landowner casts in his lot with the United Irishmen. The Government attaints him of treason; he is tried by a jury of drunken bigots, and hanged as a traitor. His son, the hero of the tale, then throws himself heart and soul into the rebellion. The interest centres in the accounts of the fighting in the North. The hero is a leader at the battle of Antrim. Some light is thrown on the nature of the friction between the Catholic and the Protestant commanders, which constantly threatens the disruption of the rebel forces.—(Krans). Publ. anon.

⸺ THE DARK LADY OF DOONA. [1836]. Also (Smith, Elder) 1837. Pp. 306. (Belfast) 1846. (Lond.) 1854. (Warne). 6d. 1891.

“A weak historical novel, in Scott’s manner, which attempts a picture of sixteenth-century life.”—(Krans). The heroine is Grace O’Malley. The story opens in 1601, but there is a retrospective portion going back to tell the early life of the heroine. A tale of love and wild vengeance. In the story figure the heir of the Geraldines (who marries Grace’s granddaughter), Hugh O’Neill, and Sir Richard Bingham. Grace joins the latter against O’Neill. Well written on the whole.

⸺ LA DAME NOIRE DE DOONA. Roman historique traduit par Pâquis. Two tom. (Paris). 1834(!).

⸺ ADVENTURES OF CAPT. BLAKE; or, My Life. (Routledge). 6d. [Bentley, 1835]. 1838. Third ed., 1882.

Really two practically independent stories, that of Major Blake and that of his son, the Captain. The former is far the more interesting, giving a good account of Gen. Humbert’s invasion and of the manners of the peasantry at the time (especially their open-hearted hospitality and kindliness), and some nice descriptions of Connaught scenery. But for an absurd scene of confession in a courthouse no religious bias is displayed. The remaining two volumes are a rambling series of miscellaneous adventures in Portugal, Paris, and London, consisting largely of amorous episodes not edifying, to say the least, and told in a facetious and somewhat vulgar strain.

⸺ THE ADVENTURES OF HECTOR O’HALLORAN AND HIS MAN, MARK ANTONY O’TOOLE. (Warne). 6d. Paper. (N.Y.: Pratt). 0.30. [1842]. n.d. (recently reprinted).

The hero is the son of a landlord and ex-soldier living in the South of Ireland. Beginning with an attack on the castle by local malcontents, Hector and his man pass through a series of adventures (some of which are described with considerable “go”), first in Dublin, then in London, and finally in the Peninsular War under Wellington. Most of the incidents take place amid the lowest society, and some of them are distinctly coarse. There is no character-drawing and little or no attempt to picture the life of the period. The military experiences in Spain form, perhaps, the best part of the book. There is no sympathy for Ireland, and there are some gibes at Catholicism.

⸺ THE ADVENTURES OF CAPT. O’SULLIVAN. Three Vols. (Colburn). [1848]. 1855.

“Or adventures civil, military, and matrimonial of a gentleman on half-pay.” Some of these take place near “Ballysallagh,” in Connaught, where the hero is stationed, his duties being mainly to keep down the Ribbonmen and to hunt for illicit stills. Attitude towards the former somewhat bloodthirsty. The two chief houses belong to the priest and the tithe-proctor, the task of the latter being described as the grinding of money “out of the wretched serfs.” Little plot, long and tedious conversations.

⸺ ERIN GO BRAGH; or, Irish Life Pictures. Two Vols. (Bentley). Portrait. 1859.

A posthumous collection of short stories originally contributed to Bentley’s Miscellany and other magazines. Written in the light, rollicking, high-spirited vein characteristic of Maxwell. Many of them are recollections of actual experience. Prefaced by biographical sketch by Dr. Maginn.

⸺ LUCK IS EVERYTHING; or, The Adventures of Brian O’Linn. Pp. 440. (Routledge). (N.Y.: Pratt). 3.00. 1860.

An infant, child of a dying mother who had been abducted, is landed on Innisturk. He is adopted by the head man there, grows up, goes to England, and after many exciting adventures, love episodes, and hair-breadth escapes, finds out his own origin and succeeds to ancestral estates. Originally appeared as serial (with illustrations on steel by John Leech) under the title of Brian O’Linn in Bentley’s Miscellany.

MAYNE, Thomas Ekenhead. Son of a well-known bookseller of Belfast, was fast earning for himself a considerable literary reputation, but died at 32, 1899.

⸺ THE HEART O’ THE PEAT: Irish Fireside and Wayside Sketches. Pp. 214. (Belfast: W. Erskine Mayne). 1s. Paper. 1899.

“These are all Irish stories, written on the spot, with a faithfulness that can be felt in every line. There is no attempt at meretricious workmanship, no maudlin sentimentality, no mock heroics. They are simple tales, simply told; but occasionally the restraint, which is everywhere discernible, is relaxed for a moment, and the fire of the poet glows in half a dozen lines, as a landscape or a sea-piece is enthusiastically drawn, or some incident touches the gentle human heart of the writer.”—(James H. Cousins, in Sinn Fein).

“MEADE, L. T.”; Elizabeth Thomasina Toulmin Smith. She was a daughter of Rev. R. T. Meade, of Nohoval, Co. Cork. She was b. at Bandon. She lived in England from 1874 till her death in 1915. Mudie’s catalogue enumerates 185 of her novels, many of which were stories for school girls. Of these novels several, no doubt, besides those here mentioned, relate to Ireland.

⸺ THE O’DONNELLS OF INCHFAWN. (Hatchards). 6s. 1887.