⸺ GRACE O’MALLEY, Princess and Pirate. Pp. viii. + 338. (Cassell). 6s. 1898.
Purporting to be “Told by Ruari Macdonald, Redshank and Rebel, The same set forth in the Tongue of the English.” Scene: various points on the west coast from Achill to Limerick. To a dual love story—of Grace (= Grania Waile) and Richard Burke, Ruari (the hero) and Eva, Grace’s foster-sister—are added many stirring descriptions of sea-fights and escapes, sieges and hostings. Historical personages, such as Sir Nicholas Malbie, the Earl of Desmond, and Stephen Lynch of Galway, are introduced. The moral tone is entirely good. The point of view is Grace O’Malley’s.
M’ILROY, Archibald. B. Ballyclare, Co. Antrim, 1860. Entered first the banking and then the insurance business. Took part in public life in his native county and in Co. Down. For the last three years of his life, which was ended in the Lusitania disaster, 1915, he lived in Canada.
⸺ THE AULD MEETIN’ HOOSE GREEN. Pp. 260. (Belfast: M’Caw, Stevenson & Orr). 1898.
Stories of the Co. Antrim peasantry. Time: thirty or forty years ago. Imitative of the “Kailyard” school in England. An intimate picture of Ulster Presbyterianism and its ways of thought. Has both humour and pathos. Is offensive to no creed or class. Ulster-Scot dialect true to life. Titles of some of the stories:—“Two Little Green Graves,” “At Jesus’ Feet,” “The Old Precentor Crosses the Bar.”
⸺ WHEN LINT WAS IN THE BELL. (Unwin). 1898.
⸺ BY LONE CRAIG LINNIE BURN. Pp. 153. (Unwin). 1900.
“Two series of local stories of the Scoto-Irish folk of Ulster, the chat of village gossips, character-sketches of doctor, minister, agent, and inn-keeper: quaint blends of Scottish and Irish traits. Most of the tales of idyllic kind.”—(Baker). The reviewer in the Irish Monthly says of the second of the above: “It is a wonderfully realistic picture of various grades of social life in a little country town in the North ... giving amusing glimpses of the working of practical Presbyterian theology in the rustic middle class.... Leaves on the reader a very remarkable impression of truthfulness and reality.” In this second novel there is some humour and a good deal of pathos. The same remarks apply here as to The Auld Meetin’ Hoose Green.
⸺ A BANKER’S LOVE STORY. Pp. 247. (Fisher Unwin). 1901.