A20–768
“These essays are for the most part revived from the years 1897–1907, representing the views, during the changing moods of the decade, of this capable and cultured Irish essayist, who, it will be remembered, severed his connexion with the Gaelic league when it decided to make the learning of Irish compulsory and who believes that, as Yeats and Synge have shown, it is possible to be completely Irish while using the English language. His subjects are Nineteenth century novels of Irish life; A century of Irish humour (written 1901); Literature among the illiterates, from a volume called ‘To-day and to-morrow in Ireland’ (1902), now out of print (in two parts, The Shanachy, and The life of a song, a traditional song which Mr Gwynn took down from the lips of an Irish peasant); Irish education and Irish character. There are two later essays on Irish gentry (1913), and Yesterday in Ireland (1918).”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
+ Ath p1167 N 7 ’19 140 Booklist 17:84 N ’20 Brooklyn 12:131 My ’20 40w The Times [London] Lit Sup p613 O 30 ’19 170w
GWYNN, STEPHEN LUCIUS. John Redmond’s last years. *$5 (*16s) Longmans
20–5238
“A personal and political study of very great interest, written by one who was a friend of Mr Redmond and had access to his papers for the period beginning with the war. Mr Gwynn makes no attempt to represent Mr Redmond as a hero, but lays emphasis upon the patriotism, modesty, and nobility of purpose of the Irish leader, who died heartbroken because he had not ‘won through.’ ‘His action upon the war was his life’s supreme action; he felt this, and knew that it had failed to achieve its end.’ But, says the author, ‘tangled as are the threads of all this policy, he leaves the task far nearer to accomplishment than he found it; and if in the end freedom and prosperity come to a united Ireland, they will be found to proceed ... from the action which John Redmond took in August, 1914, and upon which his brother ... set the seal of his blood.’”—Ath
“Mr Gwynn displays some of the qualities which a biographer ought to possess. He knew Redmond intimately and admired him greatly, yet he makes no attempts to represent him as unerring in judgment and supreme in every quality of leadership. Yet his book has serious defects from the point of view of both the serious student of Irish affairs and the general reader.”
+ − Am Hist R 26:134 O ’20 520w Ath p1365 D 12 ’19 160w