IRISH FICTION UNDER NAMES OF AUTHORS, ARRANGED ALPHABETICALLY. (continued 7)

⸺ THE WILD IRISH GIRL. Pp. 444. (Chambers). 6s. Eight coloured Illustr. by the well-known Punch artist, Lewis Baumer. 1910.

Warm-hearted, impulsive Patricia has been allowed to run wild at her own sweet will in Ireland. She is brought to London, finds the conventional restraints of society too narrow for her, and as a consequence gets into many amusing and harmless scrapes, and out of them again.—(Press Notices).

⸺ DESBOROUGH’S WIFE. Pp. 319. (Digby, Long). 6s. One Illustr. 1911.

Scene: near Tralee, in Kerry. Patrick D. contracts a runaway marriage with a beautiful peasant girl. He falls heavily in debt, finds that his mother, on whom he had relied, is even more heavily involved, and that the only way out is a marriage with a rich heiress. Patrick basely yields, and the poor wife consents to “disappear,” but in a strange way, connected with a certain “silent room” in the D. mansion, whose secret we shall not divulge, things right themselves at last. Peter Maloney, Patrick’s faithful foster-brother, is curiously similar to Griffin’s Danny Mann. The moral tone is high.

⸺ PEGGY FROM KERRY. Pp. 330. (Chambers). 6s. Pretty cover and eight coloured Illustr. by Miss A. Anderson. 1912.

Peggy is the daughter of a poor Irish peasant and of an officer. She is now an orphan, but has been adopted by an English friend of her father’s and sent to an English boarding school. The story is made up of plots and petty jealousies amongst the schoolgirls. Peggy, though much ridiculed for her dreadful brogue, triumphs over her special enemy and the latter’s followers and ends by being popular and happy.

⸺ KITTY O’DONOVAN. Pp. 330. (Chambers). 5s. Six good coloured Illustr. by J. Finnemore. 1912.

Doings in a select English boarding school, where the pretty heroine from Kerry comes scatheless through the spiteful plots of her jealous rivals, and is crowned Queen of the May. There is a pretty description of Kerry scenery, but most of the action takes place outside of Ireland.

⸺ THE PASSION OF KATHLEEN DUVEEN. Pp. 284. (Stanley Paul). 6s. 1913.

“A tale of the novelette class about a young Irishman forced into crime and faithlessness to his young wife by his family’s need of money.”—[Times Lit. Suppl.]. Another “Colleen Bawn” story. Brilliant young officer marries penniless girl. Financial straits. Murder; and nemesis.

⸺ AT THE BACK OF THE WORLD. (Hurst & Blackett). 6s. n.d.

Scene: “Arranmore,” on the sea coast of Cork. Sheila O’Connor is long sundered from her lover by the suspicion, shared by herself, that he is the murderer of her father, the Squire. Whether they are ever united again we leave the reader to discover. There are many scenes that show us the life of the peasantry, in particular their religious customs. The book seems free from bias, and the brogue is not exaggerated.

[MEANY, Mary L.].

⸺ CONFESSORS OF CONNAUGHT; or, The Tenants of a Lord Bishop. Pp. viii. + 319. (Philadelphia: Cunningham). [1864]. n.d. (still in print).

Hardly a story: rather a relation of real incidents in which the names are thinly disguised. Turns chiefly on the proselytising efforts of Lord Plunkett, Protestant Archb. of Tuam, resulting in the Partry evictions. Archb. MacHale, Father Patrick Lavelle, Mgr. Dupanloup, and J. F. Maguire play parts in the tale. Written with strong Catholic bias, but among the chief characters are a Protestant minister and his wife, who are represented as estimable in every way. Style lively, and at times humorous. Dialogue good and natural. The Author is a great admirer of William Smith O’Brien. She has also publ. Grace Morton; or, The Inheritance. A Catholic Tale.

MEANY, Stephen Joseph. B. nr. Ennis, Co. Clare, 1825. A noted journalist, first in his native Clare, then in Dublin. In 1848 he was imprisoned for some months. Then he went to Liverpool, where he founded the first English Catholic paper outside London—The Lancashire Free Press. Went to U.S.A., 1860. Returned to England, and was arrested on a charge of Fenianism, 1867, and sentenced to 15 years. D. N.Y., 1888. His “Life” has been written by John Augustus O’Shea.

⸺ THE TERRY ALT: a Tale of 1831. Three Vols. 1841.

The “Terry Alts” was a name adopted by the secret agrarian agitators in Munster, previously known as “Whiteboys.” Not in British Museum Library.

[MEIKLE, James.]

⸺ KILLINCHY; or, The Days of Livingston. Pp. 156. 12mo. (Belfast: McComb). 1839.

Description of Presbyterian life in Ulster immediately after the Scottish Plantation, with biographical details concerning Rev. John Livingston, a Scot from Kilsyth, who was minister of Killinchy, Co. Down, from 1630-5. Story element slight. The Author was a schoolmaster in the district.

MELVILLE, Theodore.

⸺ THE IRISH CHIEFTAIN AND HIS FAMILY. Four Vols. Pp. 910. (London: Lane, Newman). 1809.

The chieftain is The O’Donoghue of Killarney, dispossessed for loyalty to the Stuarts. His family, that of Lord Roskerrin, a Williamite, rewarded with an estate, and an exiled Venetian are the dramatis personæ. Scene: chiefly Killarney. Period, only vaguely indicated, 18th century. Conrad O’D. the hero, falls in love with the daughter of the hated Lord R. There are kidnappings and highly sensational adventures of all kinds, told in a romantic manner, among others how Conrad helps to reinstate the exiled Venetian grandee. Author’s sympathies thoroughly on the Irish side, but does not seem unfair to the English. He wrote also The White Knight, The Benevolent Monk, &c. Good descriptions of Killarney.

MEREDITH, George. B. Portsmouth, 1828. He had, as he used to boast, both Welsh (from his father) and Irish blood (from his mother) in his veins. Ed. chiefly in Germany. The writer of his life in the Encyclopedia Brittanica says of him, “In Meredith went the writer who had raised the creative art of the novel, as a vehicle of character and constructive philosophy, to its highest point.... The estimate of his genius formed by “an honourable minority,” who would place him in the highest rank of all, by Shakespeare, has yet to be confirmed by the wider suffrage of posterity.” He died in 1909.

⸺ CELT AND SAXON. Pp. 300. (Constable). 6s. 1910.

Left unfinished, like Dickens’s Edwin Drood. The plot has hardly begun to work out. The chief interest lies in the purpose which was—the author tells us—to contrast English, as typified in John Bull, to the description of whose characteristics a whole chapter is devoted, with Celtic character and ideals. This purpose is manifest throughout the book. There is a set of Irish and a set of English characters, and within these two sets are types differing widely from one another. One of the most pronounced types of Irishman is married to a lady of peculiarly English characteristics, and the resulting ménage affords the author scope for much dry humour. A romantic episode is just beginning to develop. The highly-wrought Meredithian style is as distinctive as in his former books, and there are stray glimpses of the Meredithian philosophy.

“MERRY, Andrew”; Mrs. Mildred H. G. Darby, née Gordon-Dill. B. 1869, in Sussex, d. of a North of Irelander, a cousin of Sir Samuel Dill, and of an English mother. Ed. at home. Married in 1889 J. C. Darby, Esq., D.L. Her writings are noted for their impartial standpoint as regards Irish questions, and for their virile style. Never in the criticisms of her literary work has it been suggested that the pen-name hid a woman.

⸺ THE GREEN COUNTRY. Pp. viii. + 378. (Grant, Richards). 1902.

Little studies, humorous or pathetic, of the Irish people of to-day. Both the landlord class and the peasantry, Catholics as well as Protestants, figure in the tale. The Author makes (c.f. Pref.) her characters responsible for the views they express. She applies herself with insight and sympathy and without bias to a careful presentation of various aspects of the national character, its shadows no less than its lights. But there is no preaching. The story entitled “The love of God or Men” is full of true religious feeling.

⸺ PADDY RISKY; or, Irish Realities of To-day. Pp. 367. (Grant, Richards). 1903.

Seven stories dealing with aspects of Irish life from the landlord and Unionist point of view, yet tone not anti-Irish, nor unjust to any class. The spirit is that of Davis’ “Celt and Saxon,” quoted at outset:—

One story shows the hardship of compulsory sale of grass lands. Another deals (delicately) with seduction in peasant life. Most of the characters in the stories are peasants of the Midlands. Charming descriptions of Irish scenery.

⸺ THE HUNGER: Being Realities of the Famine Years in Ireland, 1845-1848. Pp. 436. (Melrose). 6s. 1910.

This is, in the form of fiction, a narrative of happenings in one district, with a plot and personal drama and talk proper to the novel, and all of these show the gifts of a practised and able novelist; but “every incident,” the writer assures us, “is fact, not fiction.” His matter is mainly derived from oral statements, helped and verified from books, records, and trustworthy private sources; and in an introduction Mr. Merry deals with the causes and characteristics of the famine, the horrors of which were such that even many of the incidents here selected had to be modified in their details to become publishable.—(Times Lit. Suppl.).

MEYER, Kuno. B. Hamburg, 1858. Ed. Hamburg and Leipzig. Lecturer in Teutonic Languages at Univ. Coll., Liverpool, 1884; Professor, 1895. Founded the Zeitschrift fur Celtische Philologie, 1895, and, along with Whitley Stokes, the Archiv. fur Celtische Lexicographie, 1898; founded the School of Irish Learning in Dublin, 1903; Prof. of Celtic in Univ. of Berlin since 1911. Has publ. a long series of most valuable works on Celtic-Irish subjects.

⸺ THE VISION OF MACCONGLINNE: a Twelfth Century Irish Wonder-Tale. (Nutt). 7s. 6d. net. 1892.

“Transl. by K. Meyer, literary introd. by W. Woolner. A primitive tale combining two elements—satire of the Abbot and Monks of Cork, and the vision of the Lake of Milk, which reveals to the gleeman MacConglinne how King Cathal may be delivered from the demon of gluttony that has been the bane of his land. Full of extravagance and comic fancy.”—(Baker, 2).

⸺ THE VOYAGE OF BRAN, SON OF FERBAL, TO THE LAND OF THE LIVING. An old Irish saga, now first edited, with translation. Notes and Glossary by Kuno Meyer. With an Essay upon the Irish Vision of the Happy Otherworld, and the Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth by Alfred Nutt. [Grimm Library, Vols. 4 and 6].

Vol. I. “The Happy Otherworld.” Pp. xviii. + 331. 1895.

Vol. II. “The Celtic Doctrine of Rebirth.” Pp. xii. + 352. 1897. (Nutt). 10s. 6d. each.

⸺ LIADAIN AND CUIRITHIR. (Nutt). 1s. 6d. 1902.

An Irish love-story of the ninth century, partly in prose, partly in verse. Old Irish text and English translation. Introduction by Editor. Interesting chiefly to the student of Old Irish and the folk-lorist.

MILLIGAN, Alice and W. H.

⸺ SONS OF THE SEA KINGS. Pp. 404. (Gill). 6s. Ten illustr. by J. Carey. 1914.

Based on the Scandinavian sagas—the Burnt Njal, Snorri Sturleson’s Saga of Olaf, Tryggvesons, the Heimskringla, &c. Iceland is the centre of these sagas, but Ireland looms in the background, for the hero, Kiartain, comes of famous Irish-Danish stock. The Authors have vividly realised and vividly pictured these far times (end of 10th century). The tone and “atmosphere” of the sagas has been preserved with great fidelity, and the tale, told in language of much dignity and beauty, is of high dramatic force and interest. Miss Milligan is well known as poetess, journalist, and lecturer on Irish subjects. Resides in Bangor, Co. Down.

[MILLINGEN, John Gideon]. B. Westminster, 1782. Son of a Dutch merchant. Served as Surgeon in Peninsular War under Wellington, 1809-1814. Wrote many plays, a history of duelling, and other works. D. 1862. (Boase).

⸺ ADVENTURES OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN. Three Vols. (Colburn & Bentley). 1830.

A very unpleasant book. Only the opening and closing scenes are in Ireland (neighbourhood of Bantry Bay, Skibbereen, and Tralee), the interval being filled by adventures in Portugal (where the Inquisition is held up to obloquy), and in Paris (where Freemasonry is praised and convents vilified). These adventures are, for the most part, more or less scandalous “love” affairs. At the outset there is a good deal about Irish disaffection and lawlessness. The Author seizes every occasion to drag in the confessional, the Pope, &c., and to inveigh against them.

MONTGOMERY, J. W.

⸺ MERVYN GRAY; or, Life in the R.I.C. (Edinburgh: Cameron & Ferguson). 1s. c. 1875.

The Author was a native of Virginia, Co. Cavan. He was a zealous antiquary, and wrote on antiquarian subjects. Published, besides the above, two volumes of verse and one of prose sketches. D. Bangor, Co. Down, 1911.

MOORE, F. Frankfort. B. in Limerick, 1855, but brought up and ed. in Belfast. Began to write at 16. For sixteen years worked on staff of Belfast News-Letter. See his Journalist’s Note Book, 1894. All this time he was turning out at least one book a year. In 1893 he scored a great success with his I Forbid the Banns. Since then his output has been very large. He resides at Lewes.

⸺ THE JESSAMY BRIDE. (Hutchinson). 6s. (N.Y.: Fenno). 50c. 1897.

The story of the last years and death of Goldsmith, told with all the Author’s well-known verve. Full of dialogue, witty and lively, yet not merely flashy, in which Johnson, Burke, Garrick, and other wits and worthies of the day take part. The central theme is Goldsmith’s attachment to the beautiful Mary Horneck, called the Jessamy Bride. There is much true pathos in the story, and not a word that could offend susceptibilities.

⸺ CASTLE OMERAGH. (Constable). 2s. 6d. (N.Y.: Appleton). 1.50. 1903.

Scene: the West of Ireland (Co. Clare) during Cromwell’s invasion. The central figures are the Fawcetts, a Protestant planter family, whose sympathies have become Irish. The eldest son is an officer in the army of O’Neill. The second, the hero, is literary and unwarlike, and inclined to Quakerism. A Jesuit friend of the family figures prominently in the story, and is presented in a very favourable light. The Drogheda massacre and Cromwell’s repulse at Clonmel are included.

⸺ THE ORIGINAL WOMAN. Pp. 343. (Hutchinson). 1904.

Thesis: whatever culture may have done for the modern woman, she reverts to the instincts of the original woman in the crisis of a life-decision. Scene: first, country house in Galway. The heroine is a typical modern girl of the best kind. The hero, who is also the villain, is a singularly attractive personality, the complicated workings of whose mind the Author delights to analyse. Later the scene changes to Martinique. Here an element of the supernatural and uncanny enters the story. The style is witty, the character-drawing very clever.

⸺ CAPTAIN LATYMER. (Cassell). 6s. Also 6d. ed. 1908.

A sequel to Castle Omeragh. The eldest Fawcett is condemned by Cromwell to the West Indies, but escapes along with the daughter of Hugh O’Neill, nephew of Owen Roe. There are exciting adventures. The book, as does Castle Omeragh, gives a faithful picture of the times.

⸺ THE ULSTERMAN: a Story of To-day. Pp. 323. (Hutchinson). 6s. 1914.

A very candid, plainspoken, and judicious picture of life in North-East Ulster. Pictures what the Times Lit. Suppl. calls “the unsympathetic materialism, the drab ugliness of a life which finds its chief recreation in religious strife, and much of its consolation in strong drink.” But dwells upon the sterling good qualities that go to counterbalance these others. Opens in a mid-Antrim town on the eve of “the 12th.” Story of a bigoted Ulster mill-owner whose sons eventually marry into Catholic families of a lower class. Not political.

⸺ THE LADY OF THE REEF. Pp. 348. (Hutchinson). 6s. 1915.

A young English artist in Paris suddenly inherits a property in North Co. Down, and arrives to find himself in a puzzling environment. Cleverly sketched characters are introduced—MacGowan, the pushful attorney, the excellent parson Gilliland, and the dipsomaniac captain. Then there is a wreck, a rescue, and enter the “Lady of the Reef.” The sequel tells whether she accepts the artist or not.—(I.B.L. and T. Lit. Suppl.).

MOORE, George. A distinguished poet, novelist, dramatist, and art critic. Was born in Ireland, 1857, of a Catholic family of Co. Mayo, many of whose members were distinguished nationalists. He has produced some twenty books. Much of Mr. Moore’s education has been acquired in France, with the result that, as Dr. William Barry says, “he is excessively, provokingly un-English.” At the same time he has little but scorn for things Irish. He has, as he tells us in Confessions of a Young Man, abandoned the Catholic Church. He may be said to be at war with all prevailing types of religion and current codes of morality. His books bear abundant evidence of the fact. Many of them treat of most unsavoury topics, and that with naturalistic freedom and absence of reserve. They were consequently excluded from lending libraries such as Mudie’s and Smith’s. Many critics rank Mr. Moore very high as a psychologist and as a critic. An interesting article on him will be found in G. K. Chesterton’s Heretics. His non-Irish stories include Evelyn Innes, Sister Theresa, Esther Waters, A Mummer’s Wife, Celibates, Vain Fortune, A Mere Accident, &c. Within the last two or three years he has published at intervals three vols. of reminiscences entitled Ave, Salve, Vale, in which no privacies are respected and which in other respects resemble his novels.

⸺ A DRAMA IN MUSLIN. Pp. 329. (Vizetelly). 1886.

Period: just before and just after the Phœnix Park murders. Some attention is given to Land League tyranny before, and coercion after. The interest centres in a party of girls educated at a convent school at St. Leonard’s, and their subsequent adventures in Irish society looking for husbands, and all eventually going to the bad, with two exceptions. Of these latter, one is a mad missionary and a Protestant, who becomes a Catholic and a nun, the other is a free-thinker and an authoress, a combination which the Author considers natural. For the Irish peasant the Author has only disgust. The picture of a Mass in an Irish chapel (pp. 70-72) would be offensive and painful to a Catholic. Re-issued as Muslin, 1915.

⸺ THE UNTILLED FIELD. (Unwin). 6s. (Philadelphia: Lippincott). 1.50. [1903]. New ed. (Heinemann). 1914.

A series of unconnected sketches of Irish country life, most of which deal with relations between priests and people—evil effects of religion on the latter, banishing joy, producing superstition, killing art. In some of the stories priests are depicted favourably. In the first the subject of the nude in artist’s models is treated with complete frankness. Another contains warnings against emigration. Some of the sketches are exquisite; most of them, religious bias apart, true to life. Has been transl. into Irish under title An t-Ur Gort by P. O’Sullivan.

⸺ THE LAKE. Pp. 340. (Heinemann). 6s. 1905. (N.Y.: Appleton). 1.50.

“A vague and inchoate novel with some passionate and delightful descriptions of Nature. The theme, very indecisively worked out, is that of a young priest’s rebellion against celibacy, stimulated by the attractions of a girl whom he drove from the parish because she had gone wrong.”—(Baker). Scene: Connaught and Kilronan Abbey. The story seems meant to uphold the purely Hedonistic view of life.

MOORE, Sidney O.

⸺ THE FAMILY OF GLENCARRA: a Tale of the Irish Rebellion. Pp. 154. (Bath). Six illustr. of little value. n.d. (1858).

Ninety-eight (Humbert’s Invasion) seen from the standpoint of the “Irish Society” (a proselytising organisation). The book is intended to set forth “the ignorance and degradation peculiar to the Romish districts of Ireland,” and tells how Aileen who was engaged to one of the rebels (a murderer) is converted, and endeavours to convert others, with varying success. The book is full of calumnies against, and grotesque misrepresentations of, the Catholic Church. It closes with an appeal to the “Daughters of England” for funds for the Irish Society.

MORAN, D. P. Editor since its inception of the Leader (Dublin). A Waterford man.

⸺ TOM O’KELLY. Pp. 232. (Duffy). 3s. 6d. 1905.

An ugly picture of lower middle class life in a small Irish provincial town. It depicts the vulgarity and shoneenism of this class, its drunkenness, its efforts to imitate the well-to-do Protestant better classes, &c., &c. Unsparing ridicule is showered upon Nationalist politics and politicians. The unpleasantness of the picture is somewhat relieved by the doings of Tom O’Kelly and the juvenile Ballytowners. Very slight plot.

MORAN, J. J.

⸺ THE DUNFERRY RISIN’. (Digby, Long). 1894.

A study of the Fenian movement. The Evening Sun of London devoted a two-column review to the book, written by an old participator in the Fenian movement (we understand that the writer was the late J. F. X. O’Brien, M.P.), in which the story was described as one of the most vivid pictures of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and their movement that had yet been written.

⸺ IRISH STEW. (Digby, Long). 1895.

A collection of humorous stories. “Jack Arnold’s Tour,” the longest story, may be taken as typical. It relates the comical adventures of an English visitor at Bundoran. The stories are remarkable for their spirited and racy dialogue.

⸺ STORIES OF THE IRISH REBELLION. (Aberdeen: Moran). 1s. 6d.

Short stories, noteworthy for vividness and dramatic power (for example, the story of Leonie Guiscard and Teeling). Humour and pathos alternate. Neither is overdone.—(Publ.).

⸺ TWO LITTLE GIRLS IN GREEN. (Aberdeen: Moran). 6s. 1898.

Land League story—extreme popular point of view; gives vivid idea of feelings of people during hottest years of the agitation. Introduces amiable Englishman who sees justice done for his tenants. Clear and pleasant style.—(Irish Monthly).

⸺ IRISH DROLLERIES. (Drane). 3s. 6d. 1909.

Ten comic stories such as “Pat Mulligan’s Love-making,” a bashful young man “proposing” by proxy; “Miss Mullan’s Mistake,” story of an elderly spinster who answers a matrimonial advertisement with amusing results. Others are: “Torsney’s Ghost,” “O’Hagan’s Golden Weddin’,” “Tim Mannion the Hero,” “The Wake at Mrs. Doyle’s,” and so on.—(Press Notice). “Mr. Moran has done much good work as a publisher of Irish books in Aberdeen. In his humorous sketches of Irish life he has ever striven to eschew the ‘Stage-Irishman’ type of vulgar comicality. He writes much for various papers. Besides the books noted here, he has published A Deformed Idol, &c.”

MORGAN, Lady. She was the daughter of a poor Dublin actor, named Owenson, and was born in 1777. Her self-reliance, gaiety, and accomplishments won her a prominent place in the literary and social life of Dublin. She married Sir T. C. Morgan, physician to the Lord Lieutenant. She protests energetically in her books against the religious and political grievances of Ireland. “Her books are a sign of the growth of a broader spirit of Irish nationality and reflect the growing interest in Irish history and antiquities.”—(Krans). She is said to have published more than seventy volumes. Her satires of the higher social life of Dublin are spirited and readable even to-day, but their tone is often sharp and bad-tempered. She caught well the outward drolleries of the lower classes: postillions, innkeepers, Dublin porters, &c.; but she seldom looks beneath the surface. It has been well said that her novels are “thoroughly Irish in matter, in character, in their dry humour, and cutting sarcasm; no less than in their vehemence and impetuosity of feeling.” Twenty-two of her works are mentioned by Allibone. She died in 1859.

⸺ ST. CLAIR; or, the Heiress of Desmond. [1803]. 1807, 1812.

“St. Clair, in sentiment and situation a weak imitation of Werter, introduces an Irish antiquary, who discourses upon local legends and traditions, ancient Irish MSS., and Celtic history, poetry, and music.”—(Krans). Aims at upsetting the notion of the possibility of platonic love between the sexes without any approach to real attachment. Into the description of places and scenes the Authoress worked much of her Connaught experience.

⸺ ST. CLAIR EN OLIVIA ... MET PLATEN. Dutch trans. by F. van Teutem. (Amsterdam). 1816.

⸺ THE WILD IRISH GIRL. [1806]. (N.Y.: Haverty). 1.50. (Routledge). n.d. 6d.

A love story of almost gushing sentiment. The scene is the barony of Tirerragh, in Sligo (where the book was actually written). Here the “Prince” of Inismore, though fallen on evil days, still keeps up all the old customs of the chieftains, his ancestors. He wears the old dress, uses the old salutations, has his harper and his shanachie, &c. His daughter, Glorvina, is the almost ethereal heroine. The personages of the book frequently converse about ancient Irish history, legend, music, ornaments, weapons, and costumes. There is much acute political discussion and argument in the book. It is fervently on the side of Irish nationality. “Father John” is a fine character modelled on the then Dean of Sligo. It contains many other portraits drawn from real life. Its success at the time was enormous. In two years it passed through seven editions.—(Fitzpatrick, Krans, &c.).

⸺ O’DONNEL. Pp. 288. (Downey). 2s. 6d. [1814]. 1895.

The central figure of this tale is a scion of the O’Donnells of Tyrconnell, proud, courteous, travelled, who has fought in the armies of Austria and of France, and finally that of England. He is a type of the old Catholic nobility, and his story is made to illustrate the working of the Penal laws. Nearly all the personages of the story are people of fashion, mostly titled. There is much elaborate character-study, and not a little social satire. The native Irish of the lower orders appear in the person of M’Rory alone, a humorous faithful old retainer, whose conversation is full of bulls. Lady Singleton, the meddling, showy, flippantly talkative woman of fashion, and Mr. Dexter, the obsequious, a West Briton of those days, are well drawn. The main purpose of the book, says the Author, was to exhibit Catholic disabilities. There are interesting descriptions of scenery along the Antrim coast and in Donegal. As fiction it is slow reading, yet Sir Walter Scott speaks highly of it.

⸺ FLORENCE MACARTHY. (N.Y.: Sadlier). 1.50. 1816.

Combines, as so many of Lady Morgan’s books do, political satire with a romantic love tale. A kidnapped heir asserts his claim to a peerage and estates and unwittingly woos the romantic Florence, to whom he had been betrothed in his youth. Mr. Fitzpatrick calls the book “an exceedingly interesting and erudite novel,” and tells us how, before attempting it, she had “saturated her memory with a large amount of reading which bore upon the subject of it.” The character of Counsellor Con Crawley constitutes a bitter attack on Lady Morgan’s unscrupulous enemy, John Wilson Croker. The half-mad schoolmaster, Terence Oge O’Leary, is a curious type.

⸺ THE O’BRIENS AND O’FLAHERTYS. Three eds. in one year. [1827]. (N.Y.: Haverty).

May be said to have for its object Catholic Emancipation, yet the author was no admirer of O’Connell, and in this book keen strokes of satire are aimed at the Jesuits, and even at the Pope. Mr. Fitzpatrick says that “though professedly a fiction it is really a work of some historical importance, and may be safely consulted in many of the details by statistic or historic writers.” He tells us also that it “contains a few coarse expressions; and, in common with its predecessors, exhibits a somewhat inconsistent love for republicanism and aristocracy.” The novel is the story of a young patriot who, expelled from Trinity College along with Robert Emmet and others, becomes a volunteer and a United Irishman, and is admitted to the councils of Tone, Napper Tandy, Rowan, and the rest. After ’98 (which is not described in detail) he goes to France, where he rises to be a General, and marries the heroine. The book depicts with vividness and fidelity the manners of the time (hence the occasional coarseness). There are lively descriptions of Castle society in the days of the Duke of Rutland. Lord Walter Fitzgerald was the original of “Lord Walter Fitzwalter.”

⸺ LES O’BRIEN ET LES O’FLAHERTY OU L’IRLANDE EN 1793 is the title of a French translation of the preceding by J. Cohen. Three Vols. (Paris: C. Gosselin). 1828.

⸺ DRAMATIC SCENES FROM REAL LIFE. Two Vols. (Saunder’s & Otley). [1833].

Contains a piece entitled “Mount Sackville.” “It possesses a great deal of her peculiar power, has much truth, and much good feeling, alloyed with some angry prejudice. There are some scenes inimitable for their racy humour, and the characters of Gallagher, the orange-agent, his ally the housekeeper, and Father Phil, are worthy the hand that sketched M’Rory and the Crawley family.... The Whiteboy scenes, though forcibly drawn, are perhaps too melodramatic. Shows much bitterness against the Repealers.”—(Dubl. Rev.).

MORIARTY, Denis Ignatius. Ed. by.

⸺ THE WIFE HUNTER AND FLORA DOUGLAS. Three Vols.[9] (Bentley). 1838.

Prefatory notice signed by “John O’Brien Grant,” of Kilnaflesk, the teller of the story. K. is “situated in a remote corner of the kingdom,” near Bandon (vol. II., p. 186); it is an old rambling family mansion, dating from 1713. We are introduced to a set of hard-drinking, Orange squireens. The hero, refused by his nurse’s daughter Mary, has a “go” at a rich heiress, merely to better himself. He also, in company with Morrough O’Driscoll, a “restless, blustering, dexterous, successful, ambitious, amusing and farcical genius,” throws himself into politics. Then there are a number of burlesque electioneering scenes. Duly elected, the hero goes to Dublin, meets Charlemont, &c., in high society. Hero marries Mary after all; then, on her death, rescues an heiress and marries her.... A third matrimonial venture is unsuccessful. There is no seriousness in the book.

MORRIS, E. O’Connor.

⸺ KILLEEN: a Study of Girlhood. Pp. 348. (Elliot Stock). 1895.

Scene: “Killeen Castle,” Queen’s County. The plot turns on misunderstandings that keep lovers apart. The characters are of the Anglo-Irish and English upper classes. The book is religious and moral in tone, the standpoint Protestant. Peasant character sympathetically treated.

⸺ CLARE NUGENT. Pp. 324. (Digby, Long). 1902.

A rather sentimental tale of an Irish girl who goes to work in England, in order to retrieve the fallen fortunes of the family. This a particularly successful marriage enables her to do, and all ends most ideally. An ordinary plot, somewhat long drawn out. One or two charming descriptions of Irish scenery.

⸺ FINOLA. Pp. 304. (Digby, Long). 6s. 1910.

Scene: chiefly Dublin at the present day. Murrough O’Brien is to get a great inheritance on condition of marrying Finola de Burgh. He gives his consent. Then he is ordered off to S. Africa. On his return he falls in love with a certain Kathleen Burke, and is resolved to lose his inheritance for her sake. The situation has been planned by the romantic Lady Mary Eustace. Her plans nearly turn out in an unforeseen way. The interest then settles on the identity of Kathleen Burke. Several of the characters are well sketched. Notably, Eleanor Butler, a sharp and amusing spinster.

MORRIS, W. O’Connor. B. 1824 at Kilkenny. Son of B. Morris, Rector of Rincurran, near Kinsale. Ed. in England. Became a County Court Judge. He devoted himself largely to politics; was a Liberal Unionist, strongly opposed to Home Rule, and especially to the land agitation. Was himself a good landlord, and an estimable man. D. 1904. See his reminiscences, Memories and Thoughts of a Life.

⸺ MEMOIRS OF GERALD O’CONNOR. Pp. 311. (Digby, Long). 1903.

Reminiscences (told in the first person) of one Gerald O’Connor, an ancestor of the Author. “Compiled partly from old documents and papers in my possession, partly from reminiscences handed down from father to son during five generations, and partly from my own researches.”—(Pref.). But the Author has freely filled in gaps in the authentic records and supplied colouring, though there is practically no dialogue. O’Connor served in the Williamite Wars, 1689-91, emigrated to France with Sarsfield, and joined the staff of Marshal Villars. Was in all the great battles of the War of the Spanish Succession. The Author describes effects on Ireland of conquest and confiscation from point of view of O’Connor, but admits in Preface that he himself looks at modern Ireland from the landlord’s standpoint.

MULHOLLAND, Clara. Is a sister of Lady Gilbert. Was born in Belfast, but left it at an early age, and was educated at convents in England and Belgium. The style of her stories is simple and bright, their tone thoroughly wholesome. Even when there is nothing directly about religion, they breathe an atmosphere of Catholicism. All of them can safely and with profit be given to the young. Many of them are specially meant for young readers. Some of her non-Irish stories are The Miser of Kingscourt, A Striking Contrast.

⸺ PERCY’S REVENGE. (Gill). 1887.

Irish and Catholic.

⸺ LITTLE MERRY FACE AND HIS CROWN OF CONTENT. (Burns & Oates). 1889.

Stories for children. Irish and Catholic.

⸺ LITTLE SNOWDROP AND OTHER STORIES. Pp. 192. (Washbourne). 2s. 6d. Illustr. 1889.

The scene of the principal story, a great favourite with children, is laid in Killiney, near Dublin. It tells of a child kidnapped by gypsies.

⸺ THE LITTLE BOGTROTTERS. Pp. 188. (Belfast: Ward; Baltimore, U.S.A.: John Murphy). Illustr. n.d.

The child heroine actually loves her prospective step-mother, and is delighted at the approaching marriage. During the honeymoon Elise visits her cousins the Sullivans in Ireland—a pleasant houseful of harum-scarum boys and girls, with whom Elsie has many adventures. “Father John” is a fine type of Irish priest.

⸺ DIMPLING’S SUCCESS. Pp. 150. (N.Y.: Benziger). n.d.

Reminds one of Little Lord Fauntleroy, but Dimpling O’Connor not only wins her stern old grandfather’s heart, but wins him to the Catholic Church. There are plenty of adventures and a good deal of piety, not of the goody-goody description.

⸺ KATHLEEN MAVOURNEEN. Pp. 143. (Baltimore: Murphy). 1890.

A cruel Donegal landlord fearing that his son is becoming attached to Kathleen Burke, daughter of a poor tenant of one of his farms, evicts Mrs. Burke. This blow kills her. Kathleen goes as a governess to London, and there the lovers meet again. But the hero has seen the error of his father’s ways, and goes into Parliament. In the end he and his father too become Catholics, and all ends well. For young people.

⸺ LINDA’S MISFORTUNES, AND LITTLE BRIAN’S TRIP TO DUBLIN. (Gill). (N.Y.: Benziger). 0.70 net. [c. 1892]. Still in print.

Two stories, the first and longer not being concerned with Ireland. The second is a delightful little children’s story.

⸺ IN A ROUNDABOUT WAY. Pp. 224. (Washbourne). 2s. 6d. 1908.

Main theme: a plot to defraud an orphan girl of inherited property, which in a strange manner fails, and all is well again. Scene: first, London, then Donegal, of the scenery of which the Author gives vivid descriptions. The life of the peasants and their relations with their priests are depicted with sympathy and feeling.

⸺ TERENCE O’NEILL’S HEIRESS. Pp. 358. (Browne & Nolan). 3s. 6d. Illustr. by C. A. Mills. (N.Y.: Benziger). 1.35. 1909.

A pleasant story of a young girl left an unprovided orphan, who is cared for by generous relatives, whom in their hour of need she strives to repay. Suspected of a theft, she is vindicated only after much sorrow and heart-burning. The heroine is a noble and beautiful character. Refined and sensitive, loving music and art, she is obliged to take service as a governess in an English family. There she meets the great trial of her life, but also the final crown of her happiness.

⸺ SWEET DOREEN. (Washbourne). 3s. 6d. 1915.

Poverty and misery in Ballygorst have reached a climax. At the suggestion of the Agent, Father Ryan goes to Dublin to get the Landlord to do something. The latter is respectful, but will do nothing. Just as Father Ryan is going the Landlord’s daughter and her American friend Laura come in. They will go to Ballygorst, and Papa is persuaded to be of the party. The story tells how they came, met “Sweet Doreen” and her brothers and sister, and met with many adventures, pleasant and unpleasant, in the effort to do good.

MULHOLLAND, Rosa; Lady Gilbert. Born in Belfast, about 1855. She spent some years in a remote mountainous part of the West of Ireland. Of the rest of her life most has been passed in Ireland, where she still lives. In her early literary life she received much help and encouragement from Dickens, who highly valued her work. She has written much poetry of high literary quality and “marked by a thought and diction peculiar to herself.”—(Irish Lit.). Her novels are intensely Catholic, though without anti-Protestant feeling, and intensely national. But their most striking quality is a literary style of singular purity and grace, and a quiet beauty very different from the flash and rattle of much recent writing. She has publ. several vols. of verse. Among her non-Irish novels may be mentioned The Late Miss Hollingford, The Squire’s Granddaughter, The Haunted Organist. Lady Gilbert has also written many children’s stories full of originality and playful fancy.

⸺ DUNMARA. By “Ruth Murray.” Three Vols. (Smith, Elder). 1864.

Wrecked on the coast Ellen, of mysterious antecedents, is taken into the family of Mr. Aungier, or Dunmara Castle, in the West. Strange household—the half-witted Miss Rowena, the dark, vindictive Miss Elswitha, with unpleasant family history in the background. A will is discovered making Ellen heiress of Dunmara, but revealing to her that she is the daughter of a man formerly slain by Mr. Aungier, who had asked her in marriage. This long keeps the two apart, but they are married in the end. Little Irish colour. Written in somewhat strained style and at times over-emotional.

⸺ HESTER’S HISTORY. Pp. 237. (Chapman & Hall). 1869.

Pastoral life in the Glens of Antrim at the time of the Union, the main theme being a love story. Humour and tragedy alternate. Incidents of the rebellion of ’98, including an attack on a castle in the Glens by the English soldiery. Some historical characters are introduced. During part of the action the scene shifts to London. The story was written at the request of Charles Dickens, and he thought highly of it.

⸺ ELDERGOWAN; and Other Tales (three). (Marcus Ward). Illustr. 1874.

“Eldergowan” is a very careful and clever study of a girl’s varying moods. “It is an excellent example of artistic work and perfect in its way.” “Mrs. Archie” is a comedy in which the chief actors are the antiquated family of the MacArthurs, dwelling in the glens of Antrim. The third story, “Little Peg O’Shaughnessy” is written in a lively style, with plenty of interest of a healthy “real” kind.—(I.M.).

⸺ THE WILD BIRDS OF KILLEEVY. Pp. 311. (Burns & Oates). (N.Y.: Benziger). 1.10. [1883].

An exquisite little tale, not of the realistic sort, but sweet and ideal. Kevin and Fanchea are little peasant playmates together in Killeevy. Kevin is dull at his books, but full of the love of nature. Fanchea is a fairy with a bird-like voice. One day she is stolen by gipsies, then by strange fortune gets into the upper stratum of society. Kevin goes out into the world to look for her. He gets education and becomes a poet. After long years they meet again and all is well. Killeevy is an Irish-speaking district where the people treasure religiously their Irish MSS. Here and there there are pen-pictures of much beauty. It is not of course a mere children’s book. It has been well said of the book: “It is our own world after all, seen through the crystal of pure language, artistic sense, and joyous perception of natural beauty.”

⸺ THE WALKING TREES; and Other Tales. Pp. 256. (Gill). 1885.

Contains “The Girl from under the Lake,” an Irish fairy tale, occupying about one-third of the book. It is charmingly told.

⸺ MARCELLA GRACE: an Irish Novel. (Kegan, Paul). 6s. 1886.

A story with an elaborate plot, full of dramatic incident. Incidentally the evils of landlordism and Fenianism are dwelt upon, the former in the picture drawn of the hovels, the starved land, and the meek misery of the people—and here the author is at her best. The minor characters are clearly and sympathetically drawn, evidently from life. There is much sadness and even tragedy in the story. The Phœnix Park Murders are touched upon.

⸺ A FAIR EMIGRANT. Pp. 370. (Kegan, Paul). 2s., &c. [1889]. New ed., 1896, &c.

Period: about the ’seventies. Scene: at first in America (farming life), then in Ireland, north coast of Antrim. A love story. The heroine, one of those whom all must love, is an only daughter, whose mission in life is to clear her dead father’s reputation. Full of romantic incident. There is a picture of the landlord class of the time, and there are many good things about the vexed economic and social questions of the day. The book has the Author’s usual grace of diction, sincerity of thought, and fine descriptions of scenery. It was very highly praised in Irish, English, and Scotch literary journals.

⸺ NANNO. Pp. 287. (Grant Richards). 3s. 6d. 1899.

A rural love-story. Scene: Dublin and Youghal and Ardmore. The heroine is a girl born in the workhouse, who is saved from its dangerous and degrading atmosphere, and raised, by true affection and by living among good country people, to high moral feeling and purpose and to the heights of self-sacrifice. The most realistic and the strongest of Lady Gilbert’s works. Esteemed by the literary critics and by herself to be the best of her novels. It is based on facts, and it occasioned the reform of certain abuses in workhouses.

⸺ ONORA. Pp. 354. (Grant Richards). 1900.

A story of country life in Waterford in the days of the Land League. Eviction scenes. Life in Land League huts on the Ponsonby Estate. Has a strong emotional interest, with much study of the family affections and of the interplay of character. Many touches of humour. Highly praised in English literary reviews. Incidentally there are glimpses of Mount Melleray and of the scenery on the Blackwater. The sterling goodness of obscure people is rendered with womanly sympathy. Interwoven with the main story is that of Norah’s little lame poet brother Deelan, a pathetic episode. Also folk-tales and ballads.

⸺ TERRY. Pp. 112. (Blackie). Thirteen good illustr. by E. A. Cabitt. 1902.

Scene: West of Ireland. A story for children, about a girl and boy of an adventurous turn, relating their doings while living with their grandmother and their nurse, their parents being away in Africa.

⸺ THE TRAGEDY OF CHRIS: The Story of a Dublin Flower-Girl. (Sands). [1903]. Second ed., 2s. 6d. 1914.

Sheelia, the little workhouse girl, is boarded out with Mary Ellen Brady, and lives a happy life with her in her cottage in the fold of the hills. But Mary Ellen dies, and Sheelia, to escape dependence on the worthless cousins of her dead “Mammy,” runs away to Dublin. Here she is friendless and penniless till she becomes a flower-girl under the tutorship of Chris. Tragedy comes when Chris disappears (she had been decoyed away to London and made a “white slave”), and Sheelia makes it her life work to find her again. She does so, but in the saddest circumstances. The pitiful story is told with perfect delicacy. Scene: Dublin, various other parts of Ireland, and London.

⸺ THE STORY OF ELLEN. Pp. 434. (Burns & Oates). 5s. 1907.

This is a reprint of an earlier story entitled Dunmara (Smith, Elder), q.v.

⸺ OUR SISTER MAISIE. Pp. 383. (Blackie). 6s. Illustr. by G. Demain Hammond, R.I. 1907.

Maisie, aged eighteen, comes from Rome to take charge of a whole family of step-brothers and sisters. She owns an island off the West coast. The family goes there. The children, after many vicissitudes, turn out clever, develope special aptitudes, and put these to use in helping the poor islanders in various ways. There is a pretty love-story towards the close.

⸺ COUSIN SARA. Pp. 399. (Blackie). 6s. Eight fine illustr. by Frances Ewan. 1908.

An ideal love-story woven into a strong plot. There is tragedy and humour with touches of heroism. High ideals are set forth. The scene varies between the North of Ireland, Italy, and London. The central idea of the story is this: Sara’s father, a retired soldier, has a talent for the invention of machinery. One of his inventions is stolen, and then patented by one whom he had trusted. Then Sara shows her true worth.

⸺ A GIRL’S IDEAL. Pp. 399. (Blackie). Bound in solid gift-book style; cover attractive though not in perfect taste; many illustr. 1908.

Tells how an Irish-American girl comes to Ireland to spend a huge fortune to the greatest advantage of her country. There is also a love interest. Incidentally there is a description of the Dublin Horse Show; a number of folklore tales are told by Duncie, and there are good descriptions of Connaught scenery. The book is rather crowded with somewhat characterless personages, and there are improbabilities not a few.

⸺ THE GIRLS OF BANSHEE CASTLE. Pp. 384. (Blackie). 3s. 6d. Illustr. by John Bacon. n.d.

Three girls, brought up in poverty by a governess in London, migrate to Galway to occupy the castle, pending the discovery of the missing heir. The latter turns up, but is not what he was thought to be, and there are complications. The girls hear a great deal of folk-lore and legend from the servants and from the peasantry.

⸺ CYNTHIA’S BONNET SHOP. (Blackie). 5s. Eight illustr. by G. Demain Hammond, R.I.

“Cynthia, daughter of an impoverished Connaught family, wants to support a delicate mother. She and her star-struck sister go to London, where Cynthia opens a bonnet shop. How they find new interests in life is told with mingled humour and pathos.”—(Publ.).

⸺ GIANNETTA: A Girl’s Story of Herself. (Blackie). 3s. Six full-page illustr. by Lockhart Bogle.

“The story of a changeling who is suddenly transferred to the position of a rich English heiress. She develops into a good and accomplished woman, and has gained too much love and devotion to be a sufferer by the surrender of her estates.”—(Publ.).

⸺ THE RETURN OF MARY O’MURROUGH. Pp. 282. (Sands). 2s. (N.Y.: Benziger). 0.75. [1908]. Cheap ed., 1915.

Illustrated by twelve exceptionally good photos of Irish scenery and types. Scene: near Killarney. The girl comes back from the States to find her lover in jail, into which he had been thrown owing to the perjury and treachery of some of the police. We shall not reveal the sequel. The story is told with a simplicity and restraint which render the pathos all the more telling. It is faithful to reality, deeply Catholic, and wholly on the side of the peasantry, of whose situation under iniquitous laws a picture is drawn which can only be described as exasperating.

⸺ THE WICKED WOODS. Pp. 373. (Burns & Oates). New ed. 1909.

The hero is a scion of a family in which a curse, uttered against one of its founders by poor peasants whom he had dispossessed, had worked ruin for many generations. He is wholly unlike his ancestors, yet he, too, in a strange and tragic manner, falls under the influence of the curse—for a time. The story tells how he escapes from the terrible trial. Incidentally the best qualities of the peasantry are beautifully shown forth, especially the charity of the poor to one another.

⸺ THE O’SHAUGHNESSY GIRLS. Pp. 383. (Blackie). 6s. Eight pleasant half-tone ill. by G. Demain Hammond. (N.Y.: Benziger). 1.50. 1910.

Scene: partly in London, partly by the Blackwater, in Munster, where live Lady Sibyl O’Shaughnessy and her two unmarried daughters. Of these latter, Lavender lives at home, takes an interest in things Gaelic, and has fireside ceilidhes. The other, Bell, runs away and goes on the stage. The search for Bell and the discovery of the identity of a mysterious boy on the O’S. farm constitute the main incidents of a delightful story. There is a love interest. The moral of the whole (not too obtrusive) is “Do the work that’s nearest, though it’s dull at times.”

⸺ FATHER TIM. Pp. 314 (large print). (Sands). 2s. 6d. net. One coloured illustr. (Benziger). 0.90. 1910. Still in print.

Father T. is a zealous curate, first in a Dublin mountain parish, afterwards in a parish among the Dublin slums. The interest centres in his influence and work among upper and lower classes alike. The story tells, too, of the varying fortunes of other people that come into his life. Harrowing pictures are drawn of the Dublin slums. Written with the Author’s habitual literary charm. The plot is slight, but the incidents follow one another rapidly and the interest does not flag.

⸺ FAIR NOREEN: the Story of a Girl of Character. (Blackie). 6s. Illustr. by G. Demain Hammond. (N.Y.: Benziger). 1.50. 1911.

⸺ TWIN SISTERS: An Irish Tale. Pp. 392. (Blackie). 6s. 1912.

⸺ NORAH OF WATERFORD. Pp. 251. (Sands). 3s. 6d. 1915.

A republication of Onora.

MURPHY, Con. T.

⸺ THE MILLER OF GLANMIRE: an Irish Story. Pp. 227. (Chicago: Baker). Illustr. 1895.

MURPHY, James. B. Glynn, Co. Carlow, 1839. Ed. locally. He entered the teaching profession, and was for some years Principal of the Public Schools at Bray, Co. Wicklow, being appointed in 1860. He was successively Town Clerk of Bray and Prof. of Mathematics in Cath. Univ. and in Blackrock Coll. He resides in Kingstown. He has written more than twenty-five novels, eleven of which have been published. Others he hopes to publish in the near future.

⸺ THE HAUNTED CHURCH. (Lond.: Spencer Blackett). 4 eds.

The story of a treasure buried by buccaneers in an old graveyard near Dublin, telling how the chief characters of the tale, after many exciting adventures in Peru at the time of the revolution there, eventually find the treasure and also the heir to the earldom of Glenholme.

⸺ THE SHAN VAN VOCHT: a Tale of ’98. Pp. 347. (Gill). 2s. 6d. n.d. [1883]. Several since.

A melodramatic story, full of hairbreadth escapes, related with a good deal of dash, and at times of power. Tells of Tone’s negotiations in Paris leading to the various attempted French invasions of Ireland, with a detailed and vivid account of that in which Admiral Bompart was defeated in Lough Swilly and Tone himself captured, also details of the latter’s trial and execution.

⸺ THE FORGE OF CLOHOGUE. Pp. 332. (Sealy, Bryers, and Gill). [1885]. 5th ed., 1912.

The story opens on Christmas Eve, 1797, and ends with the battle of Ross, including very stirring descriptions of the battle there and at Oulart. As is usual with this Author, the plot is somewhat loose, there are improbabilities, and the love interest is of a stereotyped kind; yet the reader is carried along by the quick succession of exciting incident. Of course the standpoint is national. A good idea is given of the state of the country at the time.

⸺ THE HOUSE IN THE RATH. Pp. 291. (Sealy, Bryers). 2s. [1886]. Fifth ed., 1909.

Has the usual qualities of this Author’s stories: plenty of exciting and dramatic incident, and stirring descriptions—among the latter the battle of Camperdown. Deals with Wolfe Tone’s efforts to obtain aid from France for the United Irishmen and with the plans of the latter at home. Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Oliver Bond appear. There are pictures, too, of the atrocities of the yeomanry. Interwoven with these events there is a romance of private life centering in the cleverly drawn characters of Teague, the Fiddler, and Kate Hatchman. As usual, the Author makes much use of “the long arm of coincidence.”

⸺ CONVICT No. 25; or, The Clearances of Westmeath. Pp. 324. (Duffy). 3s. 6d. [1886]. Fifth ed., 1913.

Depicts landlordism in its worst days and at its worst—about forty or fifty years ago. A complicated and somewhat melodramatic plot in which probability is a good deal strained. A slight love story runs through the book.

⸺ THE FORTUNES OF MAURICE O’DONNELL. 1887, and two others since.

⸺ HUGH ROACH, THE RIBBONMAN. (Duffy). 1s. [c. 1887]. Fourth ed., 1909.

One of the most popular of the author’s stories. The leading incidents are founded on occurrences of the time. Full of thrilling and dramatic situations and historical pictures.—(Freeman).

⸺ LUKE TALBOT. Pp. 278. (Sealy, Bryers). 1s. 1890. Sixth ed. in preparation.

A sensational story, filled, without any interval of dullness, with exciting adventures—sea battles, wrecks, hairbreadth escapes, fighting under Wellington in Spain, &c., &c. The main theme is a murder committed by a wicked land agent in Ireland—Malcolm M’Nab—and of which Luke is suspected on strong circumstantial evidence. All through the book, until just the end, M’Nab is on top, but right finally triumphs. There is no attempt at character drawing and very little probability.

⸺ THE FLIGHT FROM THE CLIFFS. Pp. 266. (Duffy). 1911.

Author’s avowed intention—to present Irish and Catholic view of the Confederation War. With the political and military events of the time in mingled the romance of Walter Butler (the hero), who is on the Confederate side, and the daughter of Inchiquin. Owen Roe and Father Luke Wadding are prominent in the tale. Careful description of Benburb. Scene laid in many parts of Ireland (Dublin, Wicklow, Cork, Donegal, &c.), and in Spain and Rome. Full of exciting adventures, battles, sieges, &c. Illustr. very numerous. They are crude, but serve to enliven the narrative.

⸺ LAYS AND LEGENDS OF IRELAND. (Duffy). 1912.

Twelve in prose and five in verse. Includes two of Author’s best short stories—“Maureen’s Sorrow” and “At Noon by the Ravine,” as well as several of his best known ballads.

⸺ THE INSIDE PASSENGER. (Duffy). 1913.

The mail coach from Limerick is overtaken by a snow-storm near the old castle of Bullock, near Dalkey, and held up by a snowdrift. Passengers have to get out and shelter in the castle. To while away the time they tell stories each more weird and wonderful than the preceding, and all referring indirectly to the Inside Passenger. Towards morning the I. P., the coachman, and the six brass-bound boxes are found to have disappeared. The story tells what befell on the head of this and how the mystery was finally solved.

MURPHY, Nicholas P. D. 1914. Ed. Clongowes Wood College. Was a member of the English Bar.

⸺ A CORNER IN BALLYBEG. Pp. 256. (Long). 6s. 1902.

A collection of short, humorous sketches of life in a midland village in Ireland at the present day. The dialect is well done. The book is not written in a spirit of caricature.

MURRAY, John Fisher. B. Belfast, 1811. Ed. there and T.C.D. Wrote much for Irish and English periodicals, including the Nation and the United Irishman. D. Dublin, 1865.

⸺ THE VICEROY. Three Vols. (Lond.). 1841.

Deals with Dublin official life, satirizing it unmercifully. First appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine. The Author was born in Belfast in 1811; died 1865. Wrote for the Nation, the United Irishman (1848), the Dublin University Magazine, &c. Graduated M.A. in T.C.D., 1832.

NAUGHTON, William.

⸺ THE PRIEST’S BOY: a Story of Irish Rural Life. (Dublin: Hunter). 1s. 1914.

NEVILLE, Elizabeth O’Reilly.

⸺ FATHER TOM OF CONNEMARA. (N.Y.: Rand, McNally Co.). $1.50. Illustr. [1902]. 1903.

Rural life in W. of Ireland.

NEVILLE, Ralph.

⸺ LLOYD PENNANT: a Tale of the West. Two Vols. (Chapman & Hall). 1864.

First ran as a serial in “Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine,” 1863. Well-written and exciting melodrama, with a good plot, but very quiet and plain in style. The hero, who bears an assumed name, and is really heir of an old Anglo-Irish family, joins the British navy. He is unjustly accused of disloyalty and intimacy with Lord Edward Fitzgerald. But all ends well, including his love affair with Kate Blake, daughter of a family that plays a principal part in the story. The Humbert invasion is touched upon, especially the Castlebar “Races.” There is a good deal about the ways of gombeen men and middlemen in the West. Sympathies national. Wrote also The Squire’s Heir, 1881.

NEWCOMEN, George.

⸺ A LEFT-HANDED SWORDSMAN: a Romance of the Eighteenth Century. Pp. 239. (Smithers). 6s. 1900.

The life and doings of Cicely Grattan and of her adopted son Victor La Roche, a noble and generous youth, brave and skilled in sword-play—examples respectively of womanly virtue and manly character. The interest centres chiefly in Cicely’s wrecked love affairs and in Victor’s successful ones. Abundance of incident sustains the interest throughout, and the book gives a fairly good picture of society in the Dublin of the day, with not a little reference to its loose morals.

NEWTON, W. Douglas.

⸺ THE NORTH AFIRE. Pp. 204. (Methuen). 2s. 1914.

Sub-t.: “A non-political story of Ulster’s war.” By a Catholic Conservative.

NOBLE, Mrs. Nicholas; [Madge Irwin].

⸺ DRUIDEAN THE MYSTIC, and Other Irish Stories. Pp. 93. Sq. 12mo. (Dundalk: W. Tempest). 1s. 6d. 1913.

Three little stories, only the last of which has a definite plot, and a poem. They deal with peasant life. They are told in a dialect which is not very sure of itself nor very true to reality. The nine little illustrations by J. E. Corr and the excellent printing and general get-up make the book very dainty.

NOBLE, E.

⸺ AN IRISH DECADE. Pp. 110. (Digby, Long). n.d. (1891).

Three stories:—1. “The O’Donol (sic) Rent,” 1879-80; 2. “Rosie,” 1885; 3. “By Kerry Moonlight,” 1889. 1. How a thriftless young farmer went in for anti-rent agitation and brought ruin on himself and his young wife. 2. Story of a resisted eviction ending in tragedy. 3. The “moonlighter” phase of the land war. All three stories are written to show the wickedness and the uncalled for nature of the land agitation. They are nicely written and constitute a clever piece of special pleading. In 2, the priest is represented as “heartily sympathetic with the Cause but utterly unsympathetic with gratuitous demonstrations of mass violence.”

O’BRIEN, Charlotte Grace. B. 1845. A dau. of William Smith O’Brien, the Young Ireland leader who in 1848 was condemned to death for high treason, a sentence afterwards commuted to transportation. Lived nearly all her life in Co. Limerick. Worked strenuously on behalf of Irish emigrants. Took active part in Nationalist politics and in the Gaelic League. Became a Catholic towards the end of her life. D. 1905. See Charlotte Grace O’Brien, Selections from her Writings and Correspondence, with a memoir by Stephen Gwynn [her nephew]. (Maunsel). 1909.

⸺ DOMINICK’S TRIALS: an Irish Story. Pp. 120. (Gall & Inglis). n.d. (1870).

A little tract in story form, telling how Dominick was converted by his Bible, lost his job as farmer’s scarecrow, converts his sister Judy, and is sent with her to a Protestant orphanage in England, after which “they never lost an opportunity of turning any poor benighted Roman Catholic to the light of God’s truth.”

⸺ LIGHT AND SHADE. Two Vols. Pp. 287, 256. (Kegan, Paul). 1878.

A tale of the Fenian rising by the daughter of William Smith O’Brien. A double love story runs through the book. The descriptions of the scenery of the Shannon and neighbouring districts are derived from livelong observations. Tone pure and healthy, dialect perfect. Of this story Stephen Gwynn says: “Violent, even melodramatic, in incident, it lacks the power of characterisation, but it has many passages of beauty.... She worked largely upon material gathered from the lips of men who had been actors in the Fenian rising.”

O’BRIEN, Dillon. B. 1817, at Kilmore, Co. Roscommon. Ed. at St. Stanislaus Coll., Tullabeg. Went to U.S.A. and settled in St. Paul, Minn. Wrote a good deal of verse and several novels of Irish-American life. D. 1882. His serial Dead Broke, in the Irish Monthly of 1882, is a good example of his pleasant, gay manner of telling a story.

⸺ THE DALYS OF DALYSTOWN. (U.S.A., St. Paul). 1866.

⸺ FRANK BLAKE. (U.S.A., St. Paul). 1876.

O’BRIEN, FitzJames.

⸺ THE POEMS AND STORIES OF FITZJAMES O’BRIEN. Pp. lxii. + 485. (Boston: Osgood). 1881.

Coll. and ed., with sketch of Author, by W. Winter. FitzJames O’Brien was one of the most distinguished of Irish-American writers. B. Limerick, 1838. Ed. T.C.D. D. 1862. He is a master of the weird and eerie, after the manner of Lefanu (q.v.) and Poe. His prose works are little if at all concerned with Ireland.

⸺ THE DIAMOND LENS, and Other Stories. (Lond.). 1887.

Sketch of Author prefixed. Contains no Irish stories.

O’BRIEN, Hon. Georgina. Eldest dau. of the late Lord O’Brien of Kilfenora, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.

⸺ THE HEART OF THE PEASANT, and Other Stories. Pp. 277. (Sisley). 6s. 1908.

Twelve stories of various types. Some have a slight meaning behind the mere tale. Four or five do not concern Ireland, and several others do not touch peasant life. The tone is on the whole sympathetic towards the external aspects of Catholicism. The stories do not deal in politics or in problems. They are chiefly little aspects of life and feeling. The last and longest is a very modern story of the love affair of Rev. Mark Dibbs and a certain Lady Glynn.

⸺ A TWENTIETH CENTURY HERO. Pp. 308. (Maunsel). 6s. 1913.

The scene and most of the characters of this story are English. Some Irish interest, however, is afforded by Mr. and Mrs. Flanagan, the latter bright, thrifty, busy; the former of the happy-go-lucky type, content to let his wife do the bread-winning.

O’BRIEN, Morrough.

⸺ THE LEAGUE OF THE RING and TORN APART. (Ireland’s Own Library). 6d. n.d. (1914).

Exciting stories of mysteries unravelled by the great Irish detective, Dermod O’Donovan. Villainy is defeated and couples are happily married. Quite healthy in tone, but very sensational. The scene is Belfast and neighbourhood.

O’BRIEN, Mgr. Richard Baptist; “Father Baptist.” B. at Carrick-on-Suir, 1809. D. 1885. A distinguished priest, who was Dean of Limerick. Was well-known in religious and philanthropic works. He wrote poems for the Nation under the pen-name of “Baptist.”

⸺ AILEY MOORE. Pp. 311. (Duffy). 3s. 6d. [1856]. Fifth ed. n.d. (N.Y.: Benziger). 0.60.

Period: the years before and after ’48. Plot pleasant, but main interest abundance of side incidents, character studies and details of Irish life, introduced chiefly to picture the evils of misgovernment prevailing at the time. The style is agreeable, though there are rather lengthy moralizings. It was advertised by Dolman as “showing how Eviction, Murder, and such like pastimes are managed and Justice administered in Ireland.”

⸺ JACK HAZLITT, A.M. Pp. 380. (Duffy). Third ed. n.d. Still in print. (N.Y.: Benziger). 0.60. [1875].

The Preface tells us that Jack Hazlitt, whose fortunes are followed in this book, was a real person known to the Author, and that many of the adventures recorded are true. Scene: first, banks of Shannon (King’s County or Westmeath), then America. Story of sensational kind, but with many moral lessons, often verging on homilies, directed chiefly against free-thought and undenominational education.

⸺ THE D’ALTONS OF CRAG. Pp. 283. (Duffy). 2s. 1882. (N.Y.: Benziger). 0.60. [1882].

A tale laid in a time of helplessness and hopelessness, in which the Author gives “many illustrations of the beautiful and devoted love that has ever bound together the people and the priests of Ireland.”—(Pref.). The Author tells us that every one of the main incidents is based on fact, and that many of the characters are portraits of real persons. The story is told with great vigour, and is full of diversified incident of no humdrum or commonplace character.—(Irish Monthly).

O’BRIEN, William. B. Mallow, Co. Cork, 1852. Ed. Cloyne diocesan seminary and Queen’s Coll., Cork. Early engaged in journalism. He long edited United Ireland, to which he contributed much prose and verse. He is one of the best known and most remarkable of modern Irish politicians. He has been prosecuted nine times for political offences, and spent more than two years in prison, where When We Were Boys was written. Has been Member of Parliament, except for short intervals, since 1883.

⸺ WHEN WE WERE BOYS. Pp. 550. (Longmans). 6s. 1890. Frequently republished.

One of the most remarkable of Irish novels. A tale of Ireland in Fenian times. Scene: Glengarriff, Co. Cork. A very brilliant book, sparkling with epigram and metaphor. Full of criticism, argument, thought and dream about Ireland. The story itself is strong in romantic and human interest. The characterization is full of life and reality, yet many of the characters are types. In the course of the tale many aspects of Irish life, among all classes, pass in review. There are many touches of satire. Over all the characters and scenes the author’s exuberant imagination has cast a glare as of the footlights, making them stand out in vivid colours and clear outlines. Yet there is little or no distortion or misrepresentation. The Author’s sympathies are strongly nationalist and Catholic, yet national failings are not blinked, and some of the portraits of priests are distinctly satirical. The central interest, perhaps, is the romantic excitement, enthusiasm, and exaltation of an impending rising.

⸺ A QUEEN OF MEN. Pp. 321. (Unwin). [1898]. Third ed., 1899. There is a cheap ed. in paper covers.

Scene: Galway City, Clare Island, and the opposite coast, just before the great War of the Earls. A very highly-coloured romance, full of flashy and dramatic sensation, told with an exuberance of language that sometimes exceeds, but at times is very effective. Some of the descriptive pieces are quite above the common and attain remarkable vividness. The book was written in the midst of the scenes described. An effective device to secure colour is the frequent interjection of Gaelic phrases phonetically spelt. The heroine of the tale is the famous Gránia Ni Mháille, who appears not only as dauntless sea-queen of the O’Malleys, but above all in her womanly character. Fitzwilliam, Bingham, and Perrott also appear, the last as a hero. Though many of the incidents are quite fictitious and few happened exactly as narrated, yet some of those which might seem most incredible to anyone unacquainted with the State Papers could be paralleled by real happenings. Some of the incidents narrated are: the Composition of Connaught, the disgrace of Perrott, the wrecking of the Armada on the Connaught coast, Gránia’s visit to Elizabeth. With Gránia’s love story is entwined another, that of Cahal O’Malley and Nuala O’Donnell.

O’BRIEN, Mrs. W. Wife of preceding; née Sophie, dau. of Herman Raffalovich, of Paris. She is a convert to Catholicism, and a thoroughly naturalised Irishwoman for many years past. She has written also a book of reminiscences, Under Croagh Patrick. I have also seen mentioned as by her a book entitled Amidst Mayo Bogs.

⸺ ROSETTE: a Tale of Dublin and Paris. Pp. 266. (Burns & Oates). 1907.

Diary of Rosette, only child of a Parisian bourgeois family. Deals chiefly with the life of this family in Paris, and afterwards in Dublin. There is no sensationalism. Rosette’s religious development is thoughtfully worked out, and there is good character-drawing (e.g., Rosette’s artistically inclined mother and the old servant, Mélanie). The point of view is, of course, distinctly feminine. The style is pretty and graceful.

O’BYRNE, Dermot.

⸺ CHILDREN OF THE HILLS. Pp. 148. (Maunsel). 2s. 6d. n.d. [1913].

Seven stories reprinted from The Irish Review and Orpheus (an art periodical). They belong to the literary movement associated with the Abbey Theatre. They have the weird imaginativeness and the flavour of the occult and uncanny of Yeats’s prose stories, together with the vivid word-painting of “Fiona McLeod.” The Author delights in the portrayal of primitive and savage passions on the one hand, and on the other in the suggestion of the wild landscapes, rock-strewn and mist-shrouded, of Western Donegal (e.g., Glencolumbcille, in “Ancient Dominions”). These stories of pure fancy are strangely interwoven with settings of extreme realism—drunken tinkers, peasants, &c. Only here and there have we remarks like the following (p. 123):—“But those who are intimate with the soul of the Gaelic peasant know that the God of the Christian is only one amongst a Pantheon of hidden dominations lovely and terrible, though the priest at the altar may thunder anathemas from a fettered intelligence,” &c. The reviewer in the Times Lit. Suppl. pointed out the real defect of these stories—they are wanting in heart.

O’BYRNE, D.

⸺ THE SISTERS AND GREEN MAGIC. Pp. 76. (Daniel). 2s. 6d. net. 1912.

O’BYRNE, M. L.

⸺ THE PALE AND THE SEPTS. Two Vols. (Gill). [1876].

The design is to illustrate, in all its cruelty, treachery, greed, and unscrupulousness, the steady advance of the English settlement. Yet by no means all the English are painted as villains. We are shown the forces of government at work at home in the Castle. Careful portraits of Archbishop Loftus and the old Earl of Kildare. Descriptions of battle of Glenmalure, Hungerford’s massacre at Baltinglass, the capture and recapture of Glenchree, &c., &c. Fine description of scenery, e.g., Gougane Barra. The religious persecutions are vividly portrayed. Highly praised by the Athenæum. The original sub-title was “Or, The Baron of Belgard and the Chiefs of Glenmalure. A Romance of the 16th Century, by Emelobie de Celtis.”

⸺ LEIXLIP CASTLE. Pp. 649. (Gill). [1883]. Others since.

Period: years 1690 sqq. Deals with battle of Boyne, flight of James II., sieges of Limerick and Athlone, the battle of Aughrim—all fully and vividly described. Standpoint: strongly national and Catholic. Gives pleasant insight into the private lives of some Catholic families at the time and their difficulties with Protestant neighbours. Narrative somewhat tedious and slow-moving.

⸺ ILL-WON PEERAGES; or, An Unhallowed Union. Pp. 716. (Gill). 1884.

At the outset of this book we are introduced in a series of pictures to the homes of representative people of various parties, and long, imaginary political conversations between the prominent men of the time are given. Then there is a full account of the rebellion from the battle of Kilcullen to Vinegar Hill. Practically every noteworthy personage of the time is described in private and in public life. The romantic interest is entirely subservient to the historical, yet there is plenty of adventure. The bias is ultra-nationalist. The style, and especially the descriptions, were highly praised by a reviewer in the Tablet.

⸺ ART MACMURROUGH O’KAVANAGH. Pp. 706. (Gill). [1885].

A full account of the life and exploits of Art MacMurrough, with many adventures of fictitious characters, and much description of the manners and life of the times within and without the Pale. In the conversations the Author attempts to reproduce the spoken English of the time, with a lamentable result. They are full of yclept, eftsoons, by my halidom, marry, &c., &c., so as to be unintelligible at times. The speech of the Irish characters is nearly as full of Gaelic expressions. “Many of the events narrated in this story are supplied from tradition,” says the Author. But she has been at much pains to utilize undoubtedly authentic sources. The style, on the whole, is pleasant.

⸺ THE COURT OF RATH CROGHAN. Pp. 465. (Gill). 2s. 6d. 1887.

The story of the Norman Invasion of Ireland, together with the series of events that led to it, and the consequences that followed, the central idea being that it was the treachery and disunion of her own princes that wrought the ruin of Ireland. All the chief men connected with the events narrated play prominent parts in the story. St. Laurence O’Toole is finely drawn. The last Ard Righ, Roderick, is shown weak and unfit to rule in perilous times. Strongbow is a leading character; his death is vividly described. Art MacMurrough is, of course, the villain. The style is somewhat highflown and often loaded with antiquated phrases and latinized expressions. Yet the story, apart from its historical value, which is considerable, has a strong interest of its own.

⸺ LORD ROCHE’S DAUGHTERS OF FERMOY. Pp. 344. (Sealy, Bryers). (N.Y.: Pratt). 1.50. 1892.

In the course of this romance the whole history of the Wars of the Confederation of Kilkenny and of the Cromwellian Invasion is related. The story is described by the Author as “a very encyclopædia of tragedies.” The Author is strongly on the side of Owen Roe O’Neill as against the Confederate Catholics of the Pale, and, of course, the Puritans. A fine series of adventures and of historical pictures, but spoiled by frequent lapses from literary good taste.

O’BYRNE, W. Lorcan. B. in Dublin, 1845. Son of Christopher O’Byrne, of Ballinacor, Co. Wicklow. Delighted from earliest youth in Irish lore of all kinds. Held a position in the Education Office during the greater part of his life. D. 1913. His books, though popular in style, were the result of much patient research.

⸺ A LAND OF HEROES. Pp. 224. (Blackie). 2s. 6d. Well illustr. by J. H. Bacon. (N.Y.: Scribners). 1.25. 1899.

“Intended to reach the level of children.” Very interesting Introduction. The book is a series of Irish hero tales from various cycles, including the best-known (Sons of Tuirean, Lir, Usnach, &c.), and the Romance of the early kings very much as in Miss Hull’s Pagan Ireland. The book contains a larger number of tales than any other except the most expensive. The bare story is told without any attempt to work up the materials into poetic or dramatic form.

⸺ KINGS AND VIKINGS. Pp. 240. (Blackie). 2s. 6d. Six illustr. by Paul Hardy. n.d. (1900). (N.Y.: Scribners). 1.25.

Drawn from published translations of Gaelic MSS., e.g., Standish H. O’Grady’s Silva Gadelica; Dr. Todd’s edition of the Wars of the Gael and Gall; Dr. O’Donovan’s Battle of Magh Rath, &c. Contents: stories of early Christian times, chiefly from the lives of St. Patrick, St. Brigid, St. Columbkille, and St. Brendan; the trial of the Bards; the battles of Dunbolg, Moira, &c.; stories of the Danish invasions and in particular of Brian Borumha. Full of good information, but not strong in narrative interest.

⸺ CHILDREN OF KINGS. Pp. 240. (Blackie). 2s. 6d. Illustr. by Paul Hardy. 1904.

“The aim of this book is to present tales from Three Cycles of Romance, viz., the Cuchulain, the Ossianic, and the Arthurian, interwoven after the manner of a Celtic design” (Introduction). The chief characters of the three cycles appear in various stories (there are thirty-one in all). A truly wonderful knowledge of the period embraced by these tales is displayed in the book, but the glamour of romance and the magic of words are wanting.

⸺ THE KNIGHT OF THE CAVE; or, The Quest of the Pallium. Pp. 248. (Blackie). 2s. 6d. Six illustr. by Paul Hardy. 1906.

A thin thread of narrative connecting much interesting and valuable information about historical events and about the life of the people at the period. The hero passes from England, then laid waste by the wars of Stephen’s reign, to Ireland, where we are shown in great detail the civil and ecclesiastical life of the day. Thence he accompanies St. Malachi to Clairvaux on a visit to St. Bernard. Then he visits Italy—Tivoli, Horace’s Sabine Farm, and Rome, whose antiquities are described at length. Finally, he returns to Ireland, whose state is again dwelt upon. The narrative is relieved by exciting adventures and by stories told incidentally. The Author’s erudition is extensive and accurate. The title refers to St. Patrick’s Purgatory, Lough Derg.

⸺ THE FALCON KING. Pp. 240. (Blackie). 2s. 6d. Six illustr. by Paul Hardy. Picture Cover. 1907.

“A series of historical episodes (beginning in Wales, 1146), vignettes of contemporary life, and stories from Celtic and Icelandic sagas and Norman French chansons de geste, illustrating events, manners, and religion.... Shows Henry II. and his barons engaged in the conquest of Ireland, and gives a good account of Dermot MacMurrough, and also of life in Dublin.”—(Baker, 2).

[O’CONNELL, Mrs. K. E.], of Leenane, Co. Galway; “Aroon.”

⸺ NOREEN DHAS. Pp. 62. (Sealy, Bryers). 1s. 1902.

A pretty love-story of Connemara (the Killaries). The Author is for the language movement, and strongly opposed to the bargain marriages of the West.

⸺ WHITE HEATHER. Pp. 62. (Sealy, Bryers). 1s. 1903.

Three tales of Connemara. The first is a graceful little fairy story, the third a story of faithful love.

O’CONNOR, Barry.

⸺ TURF-FIRE STORIES, and Fairy Tales of Ireland. Pp. 405. (N.Y.: Kenedy). 0.63. Illustr. with woodcuts. 1890.

“The greater number of the following sketches are original; the others have been transcribed, and in most cases materially altered, from the musty pages of some ‘Quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore.’” (Pref.) Most of the stories are comic. The persons and incidents are mostly drawn from peasant life. Most of them are capitally told. A few are somewhat journalistic and hurriedly written. There is no caricaturing nor “Stage Irishism.” Some are legends of places, others typical fairy or folk tales. There are a large number of woodcuts, which, however, have no connection with the letter-press.

[O’CONNOR, Joseph K.]; “Heblon.”

⸺ STUDIES IN BLUE. (Sealy, Bryers). 2s. Illustr. by C. A. Mills. n.d. (c. 1903).

Sketches, true to life, and cleverly told, of the most disreputable side of Dublin slum-life, as seen, chiefly, in the Police Courts. Amusing, but at times verging on vulgarity.

O’DONNELL, Lucy.

⸺ ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL. Pp. 86. (Dublin: Curry). 1855.

The fortunes of the house of Desmond in the 16th century, and chiefly those of Lord James Fitzgerald (son of the great Earl) who became a Protestant, and was therefore rejected by his people and retired to England. The story opens with a Protestant service in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1581. It contains interesting allusions to Glendalough, Dublin, and Adare. Author’s viewpoint Protestant.

O’DONOGHUE, ⸺.

⸺ THE PRINCE OF KILLARNEY. (London).

O’DONOVAN, Gerald.

⸺ FATHER RALPH. Pp. 494. (Macmillan). 6s. Six impressions within a few months. 1914.

An anti-clerical and modernist novel by an Author with inside knowledge of the Catholic Church in Ireland. It is the story of a young priest from his birth until we take leave of him (défroqué) on board a ship leaving Ireland. In the course of the narrative there is presented a general view of Irish life as seen from the standpoint of such writers as M. J. F. M’Carthy, W. P. O’Ryan, and “Pat,” but clerical life is depicted with far more minute knowledge than by any of these. Sensational features such as the amours of priests, nuns, &c., are avoided, though much innuendo is indulged in. All the estimable characters in the book are represented as either Modernists, or else voteens and people who avoid thinking on serious problems. The Bishop, Father Molloy, and Ralph’s mother, as depicted by the Author, are revolting in the extreme. Except in rare instances all the outward details of Irish life are true to reality, but seen with jaundiced eyes. It may fairly be said that there is scarcely a page of this book that does not appeal in one form or another to non-Catholic prejudice.

⸺ WAITING. Pp. 387. (Macmillan). 6s. 1914.

Maurice Blake is a young National Schoolmaster, an ideal teacher, an enthusiast for Irish Ireland and for industrial revival. He falls foul of Father Mahon, the P.P., who is made as odious as possible. Maurice cannot get a dispensation to marry Alice Barton, a Protestant, and is compelled to marry her in a registry office. Maurice is selected as candidate by his constituency but, through the agency of Fr. Mahon, is set aside in favour of a worthless drunkard, and a mission is preached by “Seraphists.” Ch. XXIII., describing this mission, is most offensive and vulgar. Minor characters are Driscoll, the former Master; Breslin, editor and free-thinker; Fr. Malone, a lovable character; Dr. Hannigan with his “diffident, humble manner covering the pride of Lucifer”; Fr. Cafferley, fond of tea parties in publicans’ back parlours, &c. The Church Times says of the book, “It is much more angry and malevolent than its predecessor,” and the Times Lit. Suppl., in an article obviously written by a non-Catholic, “It is a bitter and, if true, a deadly attack on the priesthood, and an almost rancorous indictment of the practice and influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland.”

O’DONOVAN, Michael.

⸺ MR. MULDOON. Pp. 328. (Greening). 6s.

Scene: Dublin and suburbs. A book for an idle hour, recounting the whimsical adventures of the hero and his experiments with professions of all kinds. Humour broad, but not vulgar.

O’DONOVAN ROSSA, see ROSSA.

O’FLANAGAN, James Roderick, B.L., M.R.I.A.

⸺ BRYAN O’REGAN. 1866.

The Author was b. at Fermoy in 1814, and wrote some important works on Irish biography and topography, such as The Blackwater in Munster; The History of Dundalk (with John Dalton); Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland; The Munster Circuit; The Irish Bar. Founded the Fermoy Journal, and published his autobiography, An Octogenarian Literary Life, Cork, 1896.

⸺ CAPTAIN O’SHAUGHNESSY’S SPORTING CAREER. Two Vols. 1872.

⸺ GENTLE BLOOD.

A novel founded on the remarkable Yelverton Marriage Case at Killowen, Co. Down, mentioned in the Author’s Autobiography.

[O’FLANAGAN, T.]; “Samoth.”

⸺ NED M’COOL AND HIS FOSTER BROTHER. Pp. 281. (Derry: printed at Offices of Derry Journal). 1871.

Sub-t., “An Irish tale founded on facts.” The Author was a native of Castlefin, Co. Donegal. He wrote also Strabane and Lifford, The Consequences of a Refusal, &c.

OGLE, Thomas Acres.

⸺ THE IRISH MILITIA OFFICER. Pp. 314. 12mo. (Dublin: no name of publ.). 1873.

“The tale embraces the services of the old Wexford Regiment from 1810 to its disbandment in 1816, and is a true picture of the rollicking and free life of that half-disciplined soldiery.” (Pref.). Full of stories, good, bad, and indifferent, told with considerable spirit. One chapter goes back to ’98, and gives some interesting personal reminiscences. There are a good many love affairs. The Author is a firm loyalist, and something of an Orangeman, but displays little bias. The scene is laid in various parts of Ireland.

O’GRADY, Standish. B. 1846, at Castletown Berehaven, on Bantry Bay, Co. Cork, of which his father was rector. Ed. at home and in Tipperary, and at T.C.D. Was called to the Bar, but his main occupations have been literary. Besides the works here mentioned he has written much on literary, political, and economic subjects, and is one of the most distinguished of living Irish writers.

⸺ HISTORY OF IRELAND. The Heroic Period.[10] Two Vols. Pp. xxii. + 267 + 348. (Sampson, Low). 1878.

Described by the Author (Pref.) as “the reduction to its artistic elements of the whole of that heroic history taken together, viewing it always in the light shed by modern archæologians, frequently using the actual language of the bards, and as much as possible their style and general character of expression.”... “Through the loose chaotic mass ... I have endeavoured to trace the mental and physical personality of the heroes and heroines, and to discover the true order of events.” The chapter headings read like those of a novel—“Only a Name,” “Perfidy,” “In Vain,” “Swift Succour.” Vol. I. deals with the Fianna, Cuchulain, the Cattle-raid of Cuailgne. Vol. II. is entirely taken up (all but the first 88 pp.) with the Cuchulain cycle. The above work is carefully to be distinguished from the Author’s History of Ireland, Critical and Philosophical. Vol. I. (all publ.) pp. 468 (Sampson, Low), 1881. In the Pref. to this latter he says, “The books already published by me on this subject are portions of a work in which I propose to tell the History of Ireland through the medium of tales, epic or romantic.”

⸺ RED HUGH’S CAPTIVITY. 1889.

An early ed. of The Flight of the Eagle, q.v.

⸺ FINN AND HIS COMPANIONS. Pp. 182. Size, 4 × 6½. (Unwin, Children’s Library). Illustr. by J. B. Yeats. 1892.

Delightful tales of the heroic age of the Fianna told in poetic but very simple language. Will appeal not to children only but to all. Part IV., “The Coming of Finn,” is particularly fine. “Most of these tales are, I think, quite new.”—(Preface).

⸺ THE BOG OF STARS. Pp. 179. (Fisher Unwin, New Irish Library). 2s. 1893.

Stories and pictures, nine in number, of Ireland in the days of Elizabeth “not so much founded on fact as in fact true.”—(Pref.). (1) How a drummer-boy saved Clan Ranal from destruction by the Deputy; (2) A sketch of Philip O’Sullivan, historian, soldier, and poet; (3) The destruction of the O’Falveys by Mac an Earla of the Clan M’Carthy; (4) The vengeance of the O’Hagans on Phelim O’Neill; (5) A sketch of Sir Richard Bingham, the infamous but mighty Captain of Connaught; (6) How the English surprised by treachery Rory Og O’More and his people; (7) The story of Brian of the Ramparts O’Rourke; (8) Don Juan del Aquila, the heroic defender of Kinsale; (9) Detailed and vivid description of the battle of the Curlew Mountains from the Irish point of view. These have all the great qualities of the Flight of the Eagle, and indicate the same views of history—the selfishness and frequent savagery of some of the Irish chieftains, their hatred of one another, their constant readiness to submit to the Queen’s grace when it suited—all this is brought out. Yet the Author is on the side of Ireland: he dwells on what is heroic in our history, he paints the Elizabethan deputies and their subordinates in dark colours.

⸺ COMING OF CUCHULAINN. Pp. 160. (Methuen). Six good illustrations by D. Murray Smith. 1894.

The story of the hero’s boyhood told in epic language, full of antique colour and simile, and rising at times to wild grandeur. The great shadows of ancient De Danaan gods are never far from the mortal heroes who figure in the saga.

⸺ THE GATES OF THE NORTH. New ed. Pp. 151. (Sealy, Bryers). 3s. 6d. 1908.

A sequel to the preceding, telling the heroic tale of how Cuchulainn held the fords of Ulster alone against the hosts of Maeve. It is even fuller than is the first book of the myth and lore of the primitive Gael. There is a very interesting introduction by the Author.

⸺ LOST ON DHU CORRIG. Pp. 284. (Cassell). Nine good illustr. 1894.

Strange adventures among the caves and cliffs of the west coast, with a touch of the uncanny, and some interesting and curious things about seals.

⸺ THE CHAIN OF GOLD. Pp. 304. (Fisher Unwin). Sixteen good illustr. Nice cover. 1895.

A story of adventure on the wild west coast of Ireland. Curious and original plot, with an element of the supernatural.

⸺ ULRICK THE READY. New ed. (Sealy, Bryers). 3s. 6d. [1896]. 1908.

Period: last years of Elizabeth’s reign. Scene: the country of O’Sullivan Beare, the south-west corner of Cork. Weaves the battle of Kinsale and the siege of Dunboy into the story of the young O’Sullivan, Ulrick. Full of vividly presented details of the public and private life of the time, and of novel and suggestive presentments of its political and social ideals. These it brings home to the reader as no history could do. Yet the story is not neglected. Standpoint: impartial, on the whole.

⸺ IN THE WAKE OF KING JAMES. Pp. 242. (Dent). 4s. 6d. 1896.

A wild and nightmare-like tale. Scene: a lonely castle on the west coast inhabited by a gang of Jacobite desperadoes. Contains no historical incidents.

⸺ FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE. Pp. 298. (Sealy, Bryers). 3s. 6d. [Lawrence & Bullen, 1897]. New ed., 1908. (N.Y.: Benziger). 1.10.

The historical episode of the kidnapping of Hugh Roe O’Donnell and his escape from Dublin Castle evoked in a narrative of extraordinary dramatic power and vividness. The Author has breathed a spirit into the dry bones of innumerable contemporary documents and State Papers, so that the men of Elizabethan Ireland seem to live and move before us. The effect is greatly strengthened by the vigour and rush of the style, which reminds one of that of Carlyle in his French Revolution. The Author has peculiar and decided views about Elizabethan Irish politics. “The authorities for the story,” he tells us in his Preface, “are the Annals of the Four Masters, the Historia Hiberniæ of Don Philip O’Sullivan Beare, O’Clery’s Life of Hugh Roe, and the Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, from 1587 forward.”

O’GRADY, Standish Hayes. B. 1832, Co. Limerick. Was a fluent Irish speaker, and his knowledge of the language and of Irish traditions was, according to those who knew him, unrivalled. Evidence of this will be found in his Catalogue of the Irish MSS. in the British Museum, never finished, but, as far as it goes, a mine of Gaelic lore. Was one of the founders of the Ossianic Society. D. 16th October, 1915.

⸺ SILVA GADELICA. Two Vols. Demy 8vo. (Williams & Norgate). 1892.

Vol. I., pp. 416, contains Irish text (Roman letters); Vol. II., pp. xxxii. + 604, contains Preface, Translation, and Notes. Thirty-one tales and other pieces, all taken from ancient MSS., such as the Book of Leinster, the Leabhar Breac, &c. Fifteen are from MSS. in the British Museum. Out of the thirty-one, only six or seven had been published before. Ranged under four heads—(I.) Hagiology, or Stories of early Irish saints; (II.) Legend, historical or romantic; (III.) Ossianic lore; (IV.) Fiction, some of which is humorous. The Irish text is presented in a difficult and archaic dialect, much as if, says a critic, Robinson Crusoe and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle were to be printed in the dialect of Chaucer. The Author in his Preface discusses and describes his sources most minutely. Forty years of study intervened between the Author’s previous publication, Diarmaid and Grainne, for the Ossianic Society (1853), and this. The English of his translation, though sometimes affected, is vigorous, rich, varied, often picturesque and on the whole thoroughly worthy of the subject. Twenty-eight pages of notes and corrections. Indexes: A, of personal and tribal names; B, of place-names.

O’HANLON, Canon John; “Lageniensis.” B. Stradbally, 1821. From 1842-1857 he was in U.S.A., where he was ordained. He published eighteen important works dealing with Irish history, archæology, and especially hagiography, his great Lives of the Irish Saints, nine vols. of which appeared, being a lasting monument to his research. He died in 1905.

⸺ IRISH FOLK-LORE: Traditions and Superstitions of the Country: with Humorous Tales. (Cameron & Ferguson). Pp. viii. + 312. 2s. 1870.

A miscellany containing folk-lore proper, studies in popular superstition viewed as remnants of paganism, historical episodes, tales, &c., gathered from ancient MSS., with a great store of antiquarian and historical information about all periods of our annals and very many parts of Ireland. Much of all this is drawn from rare and not easily accessible sources. Contains chapters on Druidism, Legendary Voyages, Dungal the Recluse. A type of the humorous stories is the capital “Mr. Patrick O’Byrne in the Devil’s Glen.” The book is intended for the general public rather than for folklorists. It is pleasant and chatty in style. The source of the stories is not, as a rule, indicated by the Author.

⸺ THE BURIED LADY: a Legend of Kilronan. (Dublin). 1877.

⸺ IRISH LOCAL LEGENDS. Pp. 133. (Duffy). 1s. First publ. 1896; still in print.

A collection of thirty stories picked up by the Author during holidays in various parts of Ireland, and “received, mostly, from accidental and familiar intercourse with the peasantry.”—(Pref.). The place with which the legend is connected is indicated in each case. The legends are of a very miscellaneous nature, local incidents, fairy stories, ghost stories, old hero stories, &c. A considerable number of counties are represented by one or more stories.

O h-ANNRACHAIN, Michea. B. New Ross, Co. Wexford. Ed. Christian Bros.’ Schools and Collegiate Academy, Carlow. Has written a good deal for the press. Is an ardent worker in the Language Movement.

⸺ A SWORDSMAN OF THE BRIGADE. Pp. 231. (Sands). 3s. 6d. 1914.

A fine stirring adventure story of the doings of one of the “Wild Geese” in Sheldon’s division of the Irish Brigade in the service of France. Scene: Flanders, Bavaria, Italy, and Dublin. c. 1703. Told in a breezy way and thoroughly Irish in spirit.

O’HARE, Hardress.

⸺ CONQUERED AT LAST: from Records of Dhu Hall and its Inmates. A Novel. Three Vols. 1874.

O’HIGGINS, Brian; “Brian na Banban.” B. Kilskyre (Cill Scire), Co. Meath, 1882; ed. there. Came to Dublin about twelve years ago and threw himself into the work of the Gaelic League, for which he became a travelling teacher (múinteoir taistil) in Cavan and Meath. Has publ. two books in Irish. Has for years past been a frequent contributor to the Catholic and Irish press at home and in America and Australia. His songs are popular at Irish-Ireland concerts all over the country.

⸺ BY A HEARTH IN EIRINN. (Gill), 1s. 1908.

The gay and humorous side of the language movement seen from a League point of view—the Seonín, the Feis, the Gaelic Christmas hearth. One sketch gives a glimpse of the early years of John Boyle O’Reilly.

⸺ GLIMPSES OF GLEN-NA-MONA. Pp. 115. (Duffy). 6d. Paper. 1908.

Sketches of peasant life in a remote glen (place not indicated). Almost wholly taken up with the sadness and the miseries of emigration. Simple, pathetic, and religious.

⸺ FUN O’ THE FORGE. (Dublin: Whelan). 1915.

A collection of humorous stories.

O’Kane, Rev. W. M. B. 1872, at Millisle, Co. Down. Son of Capt. Francis O’Kane, of Weymouth and Millisle. Ed. Royal Academical Institution, Belfast, and at Queen’s Coll., Belfast; B.A. and LL.B., R.U.I. Was Curate in Banbridge and Belfast and is at Present Incumbent of Ashbourne, Derbyshire. Author of The King’s Luck and Guppy Guyson.

⸺ WITH POISON AND SWORD. Pp. 402. (Mills & Boon). 6s. 1910.

Love story and adventures in 1561 or thereabouts of Cormac O’Hagan, follower and friend of Shane O’Neill, his escape from the Tower, his rescue of Marjorie Drayton, his share in the battle of Armagh where Shane defeats the Deputy, his going with Shane to visit Elizabeth, and many sensational adventures in consequence. He finally gives up Ireland altogether, settles in England, and he and his descendants ever after are good Englishmen. One of the chief characters is the ever resourceful Dickie Toogood.

O’KEARNEY, Nicholas. Trans.

⸺ THE STORY OF CONN-EDA; or, The Golden Apples of Loch Erne, from the Irish. Pp. 17. (London: J. R. Smith). 1855.

Reprinted from the Proceedings of the “Cambrian Archæological Association.”

O’KEEFFE, Christopher M.

⸺ THE KNIGHTS OF THE PALE. Pp. viii. + 263. (Glasgow: Cameron & Ferguson). 1857 and 1870.

Sub-title, “Ireland 400 Years Ago.” First appeared in The Celt. The Author was sentenced about 1866 to penal servitude for Fenianism, was released about 1877, went to U.S.A., and died in Brooklyn about 1889. Wrote also a Life of O’Connell in two vols. “The object of the story is to give the impression which a prolonged study of Irish antiquities has produced on the Author’s mind.”—(Pref.). Interspersed with the narrative are several pieces of verse, some original, some translated by the Author from the Gaelic. The period is the middle of the 15th century.

O’KELLY, Seumas.

⸺ BY THE STREAM OF KILMEEN. (Sealy, Bryers). 6d. Paper. c. 1910.

Ten short sketches of the little tragedies and comedies of the lives of the humbler classes. They are simple, true, and sincere. The scene is Clare or Galway.

O’KENNEDY, Father Richard. P.P. of Fedamore, Co. Limerick.

⸺ COTTAGE LIFE IN IRELAND.

“Father O’Kennedy was born in 1850, was educated in Limerick and in Maynooth. Has been for a long time contributor to various Irish and American magazines, notably the Irish Monthly. He knows his people intimately, and knows how to interest us in the simple pains and pleasures of the poor.... His style is charming. He has an eye for the simplicities of life.”—(Irish Lit.). His stories and sketches are known and appreciated in the U.S. even more than at home in Ireland.