Scene: the O’Sullivan’s country in south-west Cork. Period: 1750-98. The ideas expressed in the Author’s The English in Ireland put into the form of fiction. Thesis: if the English had from the first striven to replace the hopeless Celt by Anglo-Saxon and Protestant colonists she would have avoided her subsequent troubles in Ireland, and all would have been well. The English character (Colonel Goring) is throughout contrasted with the Irish (Morty Sullivan), the whole forming a powerful indictment of Ireland and the Irish as seen by Froude.
FULLER, J. Franklin; “Ignotus.” Born 1835. Is a native of Derryquin, near Sneem, Co. Kerry. In his young days he was a close friend of the priest (Fr. Walsh) who was the original of A. P. Graves’s “Father O’Flynn.” As architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and to the Church Representative Body he has travelled extensively through Ireland and has lived in various parts of it—North, South, East, and West—always on friendly terms with his Catholic neighbours. He resides in Dublin.
⸺ CULMSHIRE FOLK. Pp. 384. (Cassell). [1873]. Third edition, n.d.
The plot is concerned with Sidney Bateman, heir of a family that has come down in the world, his struggles against misfortune, and his eventual attainment of fortune and happiness. But the chief interest is the kindly, thoughtful study of character and motive, of human nature in fact, also in the picture of the ways of the little society (largely clerical, e.g., the egregious Mr. M’Gosh) of Culmshire. Lady Culmshire, woman of the world, but with a warm and true heart within, is the central figure and is a very pleasant, happily drawn portrait. The Irish interest is (1) the excellent description of the homecoming of Sidney Bateman to the ancestral castle of Rathvarney, in the wilds of Kerry, which are well described; (2) the doings of Tim Conroy, a sort of Mickey Free, and the Leveresque stories told of him by Capt. Howley; (3) the portrait of the old P.P. of Rathvarney, Fr. Walsh (the original of Graves’s “Father O’Flynn”).
⸺ JOHN ORLEBAR, CLERK. Pp. 293. (Cassell). [1878]. Second edition, n.d.
The plot of a villainous attorney, Joe Twinch, and his clerk, an absconding Fenian, to cheat the rightful heiress out of the Arderne estates. Dr. Packenham, a personal friend of Orlebar, who had married the heiress, suspects foul play and comes to Kerry, where the first Lady Arderne had for some time resided, to make enquiries. He puts up at Rathvarney (see Culmshire Folk), meets Tim and Fr. Walsh (who helps to unravel the mystery), and sees something of Ireland in the sixties (pp. 240-274). This something, it must be confessed, is chiefly squalor, described, however, in a humorous and not unsympathetic way.
FURLONG, Alice.
⸺ TALES OF FAIRY FOLKS, QUEENS, AND HEROES. Pp. 212. (Browne & Nolan). 2s. Four or five Illustr. by F. Rigney. Pretty cover. 1909.
Stories from ancient Gaelic Literature simply and pleasantly told. Contents:—“Illan Bwee and the Mouse;” “Country under Wave;” “The Step Mother;” “The Fortunes of the Shepherd’s Son;” “The Golden Necklet;” “The Harp of the Dagda Mor;” “The Child that went into the Earth;” and several others.
GALLAHER, Miss Fannie; “Sydney Starr.” Daughter of Frederick Gallaher, one time Ed. of Freeman’s Journal.