Middle class Catholic society in Waterford, pictured, without satire, in its exterior aspects by one quite familiar with them. The heroine is an impulsive, self-willed girl in revolt against conventionality. With her Stephen Carey, a middle-aged man, conventionally married, falls in love and is loved in return. The theme on the whole is treated with restraint, yet there are passionate scenes. The complication is ended by the intervention of a priest, whose character is very sympathetically drawn. The end of all is the suicide of the girl.
THYNNE, Robert.
⸺ RAVENSDALE. Three Vols. (Tinsley). 1873.
An attempt to represent the men and motives of the Emmet insurrection. Point of view Unionist. Free from caricature, vulgarity, patois, and conventional local colour. Scene at first in England, but mainly Dublin and Co. Wicklow. Deals with fortunes of a family named Featherstone—loyalists, with one exception, Leslie, who is a friend of Emmet. Michael Dwyer, Emmet, Lord Kilwarden, &c., figure in the tale. Love, hatred, murder, incidents of 1803, Emmet’s trial, escape of Leslie and his ultimate restoration keep up the interest to the end, when the real murderer confesses.
⸺ TOM DELANY. Three Vols. (Tinsley). [1873]. 1876.
Begins with sale, in Encumbered Estates Court, of Mrs. Delany’s property in the West. The family then emigrate to Melbourne, where the rest of the story takes place. Most of the characters, however, are Irish, from Sergeant Doolan to Mr. Brabazon. There are various love-affairs, ending some brightly, others sadly; and there are pictures of life in the gold-diggings. Eventually the estate is restored, and the family comes back to Ireland.
⸺ STORY OF A CAMPAIGN ESTATE. Pp. 429. (Long). 6s. Several editions. 1899.
A tale of the Land League and the Plan of Campaign, written from the landlord’s point of view. The estate is placed near the Curragh of Kildare. The chief characters are nearly all drawn from the Protestant middle and upper classes. There is also a fanatical Land League priest, and a peacemaking one, of whom a favourable portrait is drawn. “More cruel,” says the hero, “more selfish, more destructive than our fathers’ loins is the little finger of this unwritten law of the land—this juggernaut before which the people bow, and are crushed.” The question is ably argued out in many places in the book. The Author seems to identify the Land League with the worst secret societies, such as the Invincibles. The tone is not violent; there is no caricaturing, and no brogue.
⸺ IRISH HOLIDAYS. Pp. 317. (Long). 6s. 1898, 1906, &c.