Much was done for Irish periodical literature by the firm of James Duffy. Duffy’s Irish Catholic Magazine, 1847 sq., contains much interesting Irish matter, but little fiction except a serial, “King Simnel and the Palesmen,” which, however, seems to have been dropped after the thirteenth chapter. Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine appeared in the early sixties. It had many of Carleton’s stories[18] and several serials, such as “Raymond de Burgh, or the Fortune of a Stepson, A Romance of the Exodus,” and “Winifred’s Fortune,” a story of Dublin in the days of Queen Anne.
Other ventures of Duffy’s were The Illustrated Dublin Journal (1862) and Duffy’s Fireside Magazine.
In the fifties came a periodical whose title seems a faint premonition of the Irish revival—The Celt, 1857 sq. It had a curious series of articles on Ireland’s temptations, failings, and vices. There were sketches of the South of Ireland by Aymer Clington, and C. M. O’Keeffe’s “Knights of the Pale” ran in it as a serial.
The sixties were, as we have seen, catered for by some of Duffy’s ventures. In the middle of the seventies appeared The Illustrated Monitor, afterwards The Monitor, published by Dollard, a Catholic magazine which ran for about eight volumes. Vol. I. contains two serials, “The Moores of Moore’s Court,” by D. F. Hannigan, and “High Treason,” which is not of Irish interest. Other serials that ran in subsequent volumes were “Julia Marron, a tale of Irish peasant life,” by “Celt,” and “The False Witness; or, the martyr of Armagh,” by A. M. S.
In 1877 The Dublin University Magazine reached its 89th volume and became The University Magazine, losing thereby its distinctively Irish character. In the forty odd years of its existence this magazine collected a great body of first-rate Irish literature.
Then there was Young Ireland, The Irish Fireside, and The Lamp (especially during the editorship of John F. O’Donnell). In these and others such some of the best of our Irish writers began their literary careers.
As we near our own times the number of periodicals of all kinds that have appeared and disappeared—most of them after a very brief career—becomes bewildering. But the fact that they have run their course within our own memory makes detailed reference to them the less necessary. It is not many years since The Irish Packet closed its career, an excellent little popular periodical that was edited by Judge Bodkin. The Irish Literary movement produced several periodicals, for the most part perhaps somewhat exotic—Dana, Samhain, Beltaine, &c., &c. Their latest successor, and to our way of thinking much the best of them—The Irish Review—is only just deceased. The Gaelic movement, too, has produced its periodicals, but naturally most, if not all, of the fiction they contain is in the national language. The two best of these, The Gaelic Journal and Gadelica, have most unhappily come to an end, the former after quite a considerable career, the latter after a short one.
I have said nothing of the provincial press, though there were excellent literary periodicals in Cork and Belfast,[19] nor of the weekly editions of the ordinary daily papers, which sometimes contain fiction of very good quality.
It would be impossible to give here even a bird’s-eye view of the fiction of the Irish-American press. I may, however, mention a very fine review, the Gael, of New York, which reached its twenty-third and last volume in 1904. It has contributions from all our leading present day Irish writers.
[17] In the compilation of this short survey I am indebted for useful notes to Dr. J. S. Crone.