“An Irish-American love-story with scenes of planters’ life in South Carolina. The Authoress has a keen appreciation of the psychology of the Irish character, and in her portrayal of Dermott MacDermott and Katrine Dulany, she successfully indicates the lights and shades of that puzzling combination of mysticism and practicality.”—(Irish Times).
LANGBRIDGE, Rev. Frederick. Rector of St. John’s, Limerick. Chaplain district asylum. B. Birmingham, 1849. Ed. there, and at Oxford. D.Litt., T.C.D., 1907. Has publ. many volumes of poetry, and some plays.—(Who’s Who).
⸺ MISS HONORIA. Pp. 216. (Warne: Tavistock Library). 1894.
Sub-t.: “A tale of a remote corner of Ireland,” viz., “Carrowkeel,” a seaside village. Miss Honoria, a woman of 32, full of piety and zeal, the prop of the parish, has never known love till she meets Sebert, to whom she becomes engaged, Sebert writes beautiful letters from London. Miss H. goes there to find Sebert making love to her niece “Daisy.” H. stands aside, and S. marries Daisy. They return to Ireland, where S. makes love to a poor girl. She is drowned. H. dies, and S. becomes an East End missionary. There is much sentiment. Some pretty descriptions of scenery, and some good minor characters—“Kevin Kennedy” and “Corney the Post.”
⸺ THE CALLING OF THE WEIR. Pp. 304. (Large print). (Digby, Long). 1902.
A love story of Protestant middle classes. Scene: near the Shannon Weir and Falls of Donass, Co. Limerick. Two girls become engaged to two men rather through force of circumstances than for love. Problem: are the circumstances such as to justify Mary in marrying the man she does not love. In a strange way it comes about that each girl marries the other’s fiancé, and finds happiness. Not without improbabilities, but lively and piquant in style. Irish flavour and humour provided by Mrs. Mack, the housekeeper, and Constable Keogh. By same Author: The Dreams of Dania, Love has no Pity, &c.
⸺ MACK THE MISER. Pp. 125. (Elliott Stock). 1907.
A tale of middle class Protestant life in Limerick, turning on the vindication of the supposed miser’s character by a young girl. The tendency of the book is moral and religious.
LANGBRIDGE, Rosamond. Dau. of preceding. B. Glenalla, Donegal. Brought up and ed. privately in Limerick. Has contributed short stories and articles to the Manchester Guardian and to other periodicals. Her attitude towards Ireland has been expressed in a fine passage worthy to be quoted. “Nationalist by sympathy and inclination, but not by contact or association, and belonging to no particular party or clique she [the Author] believes in Ireland as the Land of Spiritual Happiness; as the Land which has kept itself innocent, religious, and vividly individualistic, in face of the wave of undistinguishable sameness which is engulfing all national idiosyncrasy, and tends towards becoming the Esperanto of the soul. Ireland she believes in as the Child-Soul amongst nations, not to be deceived or bought, but perceiving and desiring with incorruptible ingenuousness those things which alone make individual, as well as national life worth while: Faith and Freedom before Subordination and Sophistication, and the Traffic of the Heart to the Traffic of the Mart.” Their necessary brevity must give to the following notes an impression of want of sympathy. They scarcely do full justice to all the qualities of the books.
⸺ THE FLAME AND FLOOD. Pp. xii. + 339. (Fisher, Unwin; First Novel Library). 1903.