The Revival of Irish Literature / Addresses by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, K.C.M.G, Dr. George Sigerson, and Dr. Douglas Hyde

by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy; Douglas Hyde; George Sigerson

From The Freeman’s Journal.

Though written fifty years ago, it is as much alive with lessons for the hour as any composition of recent date. The introduction is in itself a most valuable summary of the story of Ireland during the Stuart period. Together with Davis’s work it forms a book of which no student of Irish history or Irish politics can afford to remain in ignorance.

From The Lyceum.

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy in his Introduction gives us a sketch of the times immediately preceding the 1689 Parliament, beginning with the Plantation of Ulster under James I. Step by step he traces the course of events through the dark period of Cromwell’s campaigns, through the reign of Charles II., with his lack of good faith and honour in his dealings with Ireland, down to the time when James, a fugitive from his own country and in peril of his life, landed on the shores of Ireland and summoned a Parliament of his Irish subjects. Davis’s writings on this Parliament and his ample vindication of it from the contumely and abuse so freely bestowed on it, have now, for the first time, been collected together and given to the reading world as a connected whole. It is a book to be closely studied as throwing a bright and instructive light on a dark and much misrepresented portion of Irish history.

From The Dublin Daily Independent.

To Sir Charles Gavan Duffy this work must have been much of a labour of love. Of that company of devoted Irishmen who had gathered together in Dublin nigh fifty years ago—he alone survives with one other, a busy philanthropist in a southern city who has enhanced the beauty of our national ballads and endeared himself to his countrymen thereby. The coming home of Gavan Duffy to renew the work of his early manhood after half a century of exile is an interesting incident. The young fresh revival in Irish literature in its connection with these few fine old men is as the return of the Son of Cool to the few remaining old Fians who kept true to the traditions of their youth in the heart of the wooded hills of Connaught. It is the proof that their fond hopes cannot be for ever unfulfilled. Sharing with Sir Charles Gavan Duffy the kudos of editing the New Library were two men—not unknown to their countrymen. One of them, as An Chraoibhin Aoibhinn, has laboured earnestly and well to resuscitate an interest in the purely Gaelic side of Irish literature—Dr. Douglas Hyde. The other, recognising that Thomas Davis’s influence is of that peculiar kind rather bequeathed than withdrawn, has gone forth zealously to the endeavour of making Thomas Davis understanded of the people, and with confidence to Mr. T. W. Rolleston may be entrusted the gathering up the fragments that remain—that nothing be lost—of those who brought a new soul into Erinn.

From The Dublin Evening Telegraph.

An able work, by Thomas Davis, edited by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, with a magnificent essay on the Stuart and Cromwell period. That we should get such a jewel as this first volume, such a thing of beauty for a shilling, is little short of a marvel.

From The Cork Herald.

It might be said, without exaggeration, that the appearance of this work—the forerunner as it is of a series in which Irish life, Irish genius, and Irish character will be represented—constitutes an event of no ordinary importance in Irish history. It is the outcome of a desire and a want which have been long felt that the Irish people should know accurately and intimately everything connected with the past history of their country, with its literature, its music, its antiquities, and its art. The same idea which is now taking visible shape, presented itself to the minds of the leaders of the Young Ireland movement fifty years ago, when a series of little books was published which have since been the companions, the inspiration, and the delight of two generations of Irishmen at home and abroad. There are few Irishmen who have not at one time or another received a potent intellectual stimulus from the writings of Davis or Duffy, Mitchell or M’Nevin. We do not err, therefore, when we say that great possibilities lie hidden in this new movement.