“It is evidently the result of a wonderful amount of labour in delving among official and legal records, and the student of Irish affairs will find that the author has collected a mass of matter not to be found elsewhere except at the cost of much trouble.”—Nottingham Guardian.
“Learned and comprehensive as it is, the book is most interesting throughout.”—Belfast News-Letter.
“The book is a monument of the sort of painstaking industry that most orators shirk in favour of easier-won bravura effects. ‘Stolen Waters’ is less a fiery philippic than a sober historico-legal study of a phase of Irish history, a solid piece of research work of which we have had all too little in this country. Mr. Healy is a formidable tracker, combining the pertinacity of the Red Indian with the ingenuity of Sherlock Holmes.... Even the layman must realise the patient and laborious scholarship that has gone to the making of this book, and cannot fail to be impressed by his power of marshalling great unwieldy masses of facts and the subtlety and dexterity of his analysis.... It abounds in strange contrasts and dramatic surprises, unravels a tangled tale of corruption and chicanery that might have inspired a score of novels of intrigue, and links up in a startling fashion the events of three hundred years ago with the happenings of the day before yesterday.”—Northern Whig.
“The compiling of Mr. Healy’s book was about as hard and as distasteful work as any historian could undertake. He had to delve into records and wade through State papers practically untouched since the day they were written. And when the facts were revealed he had to piece them together the way one would reconstruct a jig-saw puzzle. All this infinite toil and trouble has been faced.... Mr. Healy’s book, with its wealth of historical lore and its fascinating if grim tale of the way the Plantation of Ulster was carried.”—Ulster Guardian (Belfast).
“Mr. Healy’s remarkable book.”—Irish Independent.
“One of the most valuable practical contributions ever made to the as-yet-unwritten history of Ireland.... He has done more than any man since Lecky to furnish the Irish Gibbon of the future with new light on the most obscure problems of the Ulster Plantation.... As a mere collection of quotations he would have produced a book of enthralling interest. The connecting narrative in which he strings them together is worthy of Mr. Healy’s clear-cut, caustic, and vigorous English at its best. Indeed, his style seems to have caught a new charm of Old Testament austerity. The book will be a Memoire pour Servir of the highest service to the students of Irish history.”—Cork Free Press.
“Mr. Healy has taken much trouble in using the original documents.... A great wealth of evidence, giving careful reference.”—Church of Ireland Gazette.
“Full digestion of its contents leads one to the conclusion that, if not a novel, it is at least a good deal more interesting than many such pieces of literature.... The erudite and witty pages of Mr. Healy.... The many sidelights thrown on history by the painstaking researches of the author.”—Journal of the Ivernian Society.
“The story Mr. Healy’s valuable work tells, and tells well.... No one who peruses the work—no matter what judgment he may form upon the argument it contains—will be likely to lay it down without an expression of admiration for the almost marvellous ability and industry which have been devoted to its production.... The preparation of the volume must have involved an enormous amount of labour and research. In France it would be crowned by the Academy.”—The Irish Catholic.
“Mr. Healy’s most interesting book.... Contains on every page the evidence of unending pains and research, is full of sidelights upon Irish history.... The erudite, yet fascinating, pages of Mr. Healy.”—Catholic Book Notes.