ABHRÁIN GRÁDH; OR, LOVE SONGS OF CONNACHT.
Containing 45 Poems collected from the mouths of Connacht peasantry or from modern manuscripts, now for the first time collected, translated, and published, with metrical and literal versions in English on one side of the page and the Irish text on the other, with Notes, Anecdotes, and much Illustrative matter.
160pp., 8vo. Price 2/6 net. T. Fisher Unwin, Paternoster Buildings, and Gill & Son, Upper O’Connell Street, Dublin.
“In these Connaught Love Songs Dr. Hyde has made, whether in verse or prose, the best transcript of Celtic poetry into English that we have yet had. So much of the magic, so much of the local colour, the native grace, the idiom of the Irish as he has given, one had thought it impossible to give.”—Ernest Rhys, in the Academy, Oct. 13th, 1893.
“We cannot too cordially commend to ethnologists and Gaelic antiquarians these relics of Irish Folk Songs collected with so much industry and devotion by Dr. Hyde.”—The Times, July 20th, 1893.
“The price of this valuable and delightful work is only half-a-crown, and it should be welcomed by several classes of readers. The folk-lorists of course will pounce on it, but folk-lorists are a very small public and despised of men. Still less numerous are students of the Irish language, who here find what they need, the Erse poetry on the left page, the literal translation on the right.... There remains the class of English readers of poetry, and to them the ‘Love Songs of Connacht’ may be warmly recommended.”—From the Daily News leading article, Sept. 1st, 1893.
“No one who has examined Dr. Hyde’s previous work can fail to see that he combines two gifts, the conjunction of which is rarely met with in one man; he adds to the knowledge, the love of accuracy, and the scientific spirit of a modern scholar that sense of the form, and love of the spirit of his material which belongs to the creative far more than to the critical mind. And if such praise seems to any reader excessive, let him examine for himself the ‘Fourth Chapter of the Songs of Connacht.’”—From the Speaker, July 15th, 1893.
“Every page deserves some quotation.... Accompanying the poems is the enchanting commentary of Dr. Hyde; he tells of the old folk from whose lips, of the old manuscripts, from whose pages he took his songs. He is philosophical, historical, scientific, at need.... The reader will reflect that were these poems, or poems a thousand times less good in Greek or Latin, old French, or old German, or songs of Russia or Roumania, many a learned man, many a lover of poetry, would be keen to edit, criticise, proclaim them.”—From the Daily Chronicle, Aug. 21st, 1893.
The Reformer’s
Book=Shelf.
Large crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. each.