⸺ A DRAMA IN MUSLIN. Pp. 329. (Vizetelly). 1886.
Period: just before and just after the Phœnix Park murders. Some attention is given to Land League tyranny before, and coercion after. The interest centres in a party of girls educated at a convent school at St. Leonard’s, and their subsequent adventures in Irish society looking for husbands, and all eventually going to the bad, with two exceptions. Of these latter, one is a mad missionary and a Protestant, who becomes a Catholic and a nun, the other is a free-thinker and an authoress, a combination which the Author considers natural. For the Irish peasant the Author has only disgust. The picture of a Mass in an Irish chapel (pp. 70-72) would be offensive and painful to a Catholic. Re-issued as Muslin, 1915.
⸺ THE UNTILLED FIELD. (Unwin). 6s. (Philadelphia: Lippincott). 1.50. [1903]. New ed. (Heinemann). 1914.
A series of unconnected sketches of Irish country life, most of which deal with relations between priests and people—evil effects of religion on the latter, banishing joy, producing superstition, killing art. In some of the stories priests are depicted favourably. In the first the subject of the nude in artist’s models is treated with complete frankness. Another contains warnings against emigration. Some of the sketches are exquisite; most of them, religious bias apart, true to life. Has been transl. into Irish under title An t-Ur Gort by P. O’Sullivan.
⸺ THE LAKE. Pp. 340. (Heinemann). 6s. 1905. (N.Y.: Appleton). 1.50.
“A vague and inchoate novel with some passionate and delightful descriptions of Nature. The theme, very indecisively worked out, is that of a young priest’s rebellion against celibacy, stimulated by the attractions of a girl whom he drove from the parish because she had gone wrong.”—(Baker). Scene: Connaught and Kilronan Abbey. The story seems meant to uphold the purely Hedonistic view of life.
MOORE, Sidney O.
⸺ THE FAMILY OF GLENCARRA: a Tale of the Irish Rebellion. Pp. 154. (Bath). Six illustr. of little value. n.d. (1858).
Ninety-eight (Humbert’s Invasion) seen from the standpoint of the “Irish Society” (a proselytising organisation). The book is intended to set forth “the ignorance and degradation peculiar to the Romish districts of Ireland,” and tells how Aileen who was engaged to one of the rebels (a murderer) is converted, and endeavours to convert others, with varying success. The book is full of calumnies against, and grotesque misrepresentations of, the Catholic Church. It closes with an appeal to the “Daughters of England” for funds for the Irish Society.
MORAN, D. P. Editor since its inception of the Leader (Dublin). A Waterford man.