Page:The best hundred Irish books.djvu/17

  choose "Keating:" translated by P Mahony; "Wolfe Tone's Memoirs," and "Ferguson's Lays." If I were to recommend three to a young Nation- alist they would be "Walpole's Kingdom of Ireland." "Fawcett's Political Economy," and "Smyth's Lectures on the French Revolution." — Yours truly, 1em

— Philips's Irish Atlas, Joyce's Names of Places, Murray's Handbook, Lewis's Topog. Dic., Census List of Townlands, Hall's Ireland, Thompson's National History, An Irish Flora, O'Reilly's Irish Dictionary, Joyce's Grammar, Lodge's Peerage, Burke's Peerage, List of Irish Landowners, Irish Census, A Biographical Dictionary, Thom's Directory (16). — Croker's Fairy Legends, Joyce's Celtic Romances, Drummond's Minstrelsy (3).

— Brehon Laws, Maine's Institutes, O'Curry's Manuscript Mate- rials, O'Curry's Manners and Customs, Petrie's Round Towers (5).

— Lannigan, O'Hanlon's Saints, Todd's St Patrick (3).

— Froude's England, Har- ris's Ware, Haverty, Keating, M'Gee, O'Donovan's Four Ministers; Richey's Lectures, Sullivan's Story of Ireland, Walpole, Green's History of the English People (10).

, chronologically arranged — Ferguson's Ireland before the Con- quest, Haliday's Scandinavian Dublin, Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, Giraldus Cambrensis (Bohn's Translation), Calendar Irish State Papers, 1171—1610, Gilbert's Papers relating to 1641, Temple's Rebellion, Dr John M'Donnell's Civil War of 1641, Carlyle's Cromwell, Prendergast's Cromwellian Settlement, William Edmundson's Life, Parnell's Penal Laws, Molyneux's Case of Ireland, Swift's Drapier's Letters, Froude's English in Ireland. Lecky's History of Eighteenth Century, Lecky's Leaders of Public Opinion, Young's Tour, Grattan's Memoirs by his Son, Wolfe Tone's Auto- biography, Barrington's Rise and Fall, Madden's United Irishmen, Maxwell's Irish Rebellion, Castlereagh Memoirs, Cornwallis's Correspondence, Swift MacNeill's Irish Parliament, Luby's O'Con- nell, Maguire's Father Mathew, Devon Commis- sion Report, Friends, Relief Report, 1846-1847, O'Rourke's Famine of 1847, Pim's Condition and Prospects, Speeches from the Dock, M'Carthy's History of Our Own Times, Sullivan's New Ireland, Duffy's History of the Young Ireland Movement, T M Healy's Why there is an Irish Land League (37).

— Allingham, D'Arcy Magee, Davis, Duffy's Ballad Poetry, Ferguson's Lays, Mangan, Moore's Melodies, Spirit of the Nation, Sullivan's Penny Readings, Williams' Poetry of Ireland (10).

— Carleton's Tales and Stories, Miss Carey's Castle Daly, Miss Edgeworth's Absentee, Griffin's Invasion, The Collegians, Miss Charlotte G O'Brien's Light and Shade, Mrs Hartley's Flitters and Tatters, Hogan, M P, Miss Ferrard (9).

— Stevenson's Moore's Melodies, Joyce's Ancient Irish Music (2).

— Fawcett's Political Economy, Local Government in Cobden Club Series, Kaye's Free Trade in Land, Smyth's Lectures on the French Revolution (Bohn); Sum- ner's Protectionism — the Ism which teaches that Waste makes Wealth. (5). In all 100. 

SS Michael and John's, March 20.

— I have carefully read your projected series of Irish historical works, and have no hesi- tation in pronouncing it admirable and most judicious.

I regret that some of my own contributions to Irish lore do not figure in the series. "The Kil- kenny Confederation," "Flight of the Earls," &c, &c, have been extolled by the Freeman at tlie time of their publication. — Truly yours,

The Castle, Dublin, March 23.

— I am desired by the Lord Lieute- nant to acknowledge the receipt of your letter forwarding proof of article on "The Best Hun- dred Books," for which his Excellency is very much obliged, and which he will read with great interest. — Yours truly, 1em

Ballaghadereen, 22nd March, 1886.

— I have been from home since Saturday, and quite unable until just now to read your article. I am sorry to say that my know- ledge of books is too scant to justify me in giving an opinion, but I will venture to offer a few suggestions.

1. It strikes me that perhaps you over-estimate Lecky.

2. Dr Todd gets too prominent a place. Car- dinal Moran has done much more, and ought, I think, have a leading place in your list. Dr Todd seeks to make St Patrick a kind of Protestant, and the ancient Church of Ireland independent of the See of Rome. Cardinal Moran and Dr Gargan (Maynooth) confute him.

3. Colgan (Acta, etc) has no place in your article, and his work is the great authority on Irish hagiology. Adamnan is omitted, so is Lynch (Archdeacon of Tuam) and Ware, and O'Fiaherty, and Hardiman, of Galway. Dr Petrie, too, is left out.

4. What about Goldsmith, and Dean Swift ?

5. Rev C P Meehan and the Rev Denis Murphy, S J, are living authors who have done admirable work in the field of Irish history. So has Father (Canon) John O'Hanlon, who is engaged in writ- ing the "Lives of Irish Saints."

6. If you mention English authors, why not give a word to the Bollandist Fathers ("Acta Sanctorum"), who have written so much on Ireland, and Count Montalembert's "Monks of the West," and Abbe (afterwards Bishop) Perraud's book on Ireland ?

7. And lastly, how is it that you have not in- cluded A M Sullivan's golden little book, "The Story of Ireland?"

Were I able to take more time, and defer this to a later post, I might suggest other names. I congratulate you upon the extensive and intimate knowledge of books and general literature so well evidenced in this article of "Historicus." — Be- lieve me, my dear sir, yours very faithfully,