“The author’s religion was very rational and wholesome and very advanced in thought for so young a man. Here and there he drops a comment on religion that would be worthy of the profoundest philosopher.”
+ Springf’d Republican p6 Jl 12 ’20 250w
“These letters reveal the zest of life in a man of deep religious experience, especially quick to respond to the challenge of those on whom the burdens of life bore more heavily than on himself.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p706 D 4 ’19 1050w
HANNAY, JAMES OWEN (GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM, pseud.). Irishman looks at his world. *$2 (3½c) Doran 914.15
20–4485
In this volume an Irishman tells us simply and dispassionately what he knows about his country, its politics, its religion, its social and economic structure and at the end disavows any knowledge of a solution of the Irish problem. He seems strongly to suspect that “we Irishmen, all of us, are spending most energy on what matters least, the form of the state; and far too little energy on what matters most, the making of men.” Contents: Irish politics—the old parties; Irish politics—the new parties; The island of saints—Ireland’s religion;—and scholars—Ireland’s culture; Education—primary, intermediate, university; Education—the Gaelic league and the Irish agricultural organisation society; The Irish aristocracy; The farmers; The middle classes—Dublin—Belfast—the country town; Conclusion.
+ Booklist 16:240 Ap ’20
“Mr Birmingham takes apparently a rather Laodicean attitude. He is not aflame with that determined patriotism which burns in the souls of so many other Irish writers of today. He has applied, on the contrary, his own rather detached, yet pleasantly sympathetic spirit, and the wit and knowledge of human nature that have gone to the making of his novels, to a study of his fellow-Irishmen, and with laudable results.”