[GETTY, Edmund].
⸺ THE LAST KING OF ULSTER. Three Vols. (London: Madden). 1841.
Ostensibly a tale, in reality a kind of historical miscellany of Elizabethan times, containing memoirs, anecdotes, family history, &c., of the O’Neills, O’Donnells, and other Irish chiefs. The Author was one of the best of our Northern antiquaries.
GIBBON, Charles.
⸺ IN CUPID’S WARS. Three Vols. (F. V. White). 1884.
The scene is laid in Kilkenny in 1798 or thereabouts, but both the topographical and historical settings are of the vaguest—there is very little local colour, and practically no depiction of historical events, though there is much about rebellion and secret societies. The story is thoroughly melodramatic: it has no serious purpose, but the tone is wholesome. The characters of the story are all represented as Catholics. This Author wrote upwards of thirty other novels.
[GIBSON, Rev. Charles Bernard]. (1808-1885). Was chaplain at Spike Island, and sometime minister of the Independent congregation at Mallow, Co. Cork, but afterwards joined the Church of England. He was made M.R.I.A. in 1854. He wrote a History of Cork City and County (1861), and five or six other works, including Historical Portraits of Irish Chieftains and Anglo-Norman Knights, 1871.
⸺ THE LAST EARL OF DESMOND. Two Vols. (Hodges & Smith). 1854.
Extensive pref., introd. (summarising history of Earls of Desmond), and notes. Scene: Mallow, various parts of Munster, and the Tower of London. All the great personages of the time, English and Irish, figure in the story, but several fictitious characters are introduced, and many fictitious episodes are throughout the story mingled with the facts of history. The main plot turns on the Sugán Earl’s love for, and marriage with, Ellen Spenser (an imaginary daughter of the poet). The bias is strongly anti-Catholic. Fr. Archer, S.J., is the villain of the piece, stopping at no crime to gain his ends. It is also, though not to the same extent, anti-Irish. He relies for his facts entirely on Pacata Hibernia (point of view wholly English). The Irish chiefs are made to speak in vulgar modern-Irish dialect (“iligant,” “crattur,” “yr sowls to blazes,” &c., &c.). The humour is distinctly vulgar, as in the case of the Author’s other novel. Raleigh is one of the personages.