Three threads of romance skilfully intertwined, the chief of which is the love story of an English girl of gentle birth and a splendid young Irish peasant. The scene is an inn in a valley somewhere on the South-west coast. The valley as described bears a strong resemblance to Glengarriff. The story is eminently sane and natural, reading like a record of real events. It is full of human interest, and is written in a style unaffected yet charmingly literary. There are some good portraits—the Protestant Rector, the lovable Father John, Conn Houlahan, the hero, Old Mr. Jardine, the O’Doherty. The description of an Irish Sunday is one of the most beautiful in fiction. The book shows understanding sympathy for Irish characteristics and ideals.
[KNOX, Rev. J. Spencer]; “An Irish Clergyman.”
⸺ PASTORAL ANNALS. Pp. 397. (London: Seeley). [1840]. Second ed., 1841.
Contents:—“The Sick Parish,” “The First Death,” “The Sermon,” “The Warning,” “The Private Still,” “The Pluralist,” “The Inn,” “The School,” “Ribbonism” (a very unfavourable picture of bailiffs, process-servers. Very fair towards Catholics); “The Night,” “The Starving Family,” “The Birth,” “The Soup Shop” (Famine of 1817), “Death by Starvation,” “The Confessional” (a plea for private confession), “Family Worship,” “Tithe Setting,” “Lough Derg” (facetious in tone. Lough D. pilgrimage = “a scene of mockery and dissoluteness”). A series of studies—for the most part careful and sympathetic—of peasant life as seen by a liberal-minded and kindly Protestant Rector. The part of Ireland dealt with would appear to be Donegal.
“LAFFAN, May,” see [HARTLEY].
LALOR, Desmond.
⸺ LOUGHBAR. Pp. 252. (Stockwell). 6s. 1914.
Adventures, not of a very remarkable kind, of a young doctor in the W. of Ireland, locality indefinite. He is presented with a practice, and a furnished house. There is a ghost, but he is not a real one, and rather commonplace. The whole thing is very couleur de rose, everybody being nicely married off, and the descriptions do not give the impression of things seen.
LANE, Elinor Macartney.
⸺ KATRINE. (Harper). 6s. 1909.