The Patriot Parliament

Of 1689, with its Statutes, Rites, and Proceedings.

By THOMAS DAVIS.

Edited, with an Introduction, by the Hon. Sir
CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY, K.C.M.G.

LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN, Paternoster Square.
DUBLIN: SEALY, BRYERS & WALKER, Middle Abbey Street.
NEW YORK: P. J. KENEDY, Barclay Street.

 

NOTICES OF THE BRITISH PRESS.

From The Daily News.

The remarkable Series of papers on “The Patriot Parliament.”

From The Pall Mall Gazette.

The papers are by far the most valuable of Davis’s contribution to Irish history. Mr Lecky, in his history, has spoken of them with much admiration, and has adopted many of their conclusions. The account of the Jacobite Parliament which is given by Lord Macaulay has long been generally accepted in England, but we believe that any one who will candidly examine the evidence that is collected by Davis will arrive at the conclusion that this account is seriously misleading.

To many, however, the most attractive part of this little volume will be the introduction which is written by Sir Gavan Duffy. It is a brilliant and powerful indictment of the government of Ireland under the Stuarts. It is impossible to mistake the accent of sincerity that runs through his pages, and very few men have written Irish history with such eloquence and force.

From The Westminster Gazette.

We have Mr. Lecky’s testimony that Davis’s account of what he calls the Patriot Parliament is “the best and fullest” he is acquainted with. He has made it clear that Macaulay’s condemnation of the Parliament was over coloured.

From Notes and Queries.

We do not discuss politics, even when upwards of two hundred years intervenes between the then and the now. From the literary point of view, taking into consideration the limitations of a popular book, we have little but praise to give to Davis’s “Patriot Parliament.” He wrote as a partisan; but we detect no perversion of facts. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy’s introduction is remarkably interesting. Some of our readers will like to put this volume on the shelf where they keep their books of historic reference, for in the appendix is a carefully compiled catalogue of the Lords and Commons of the Parliament of 1689.

From The Times.

A reprint of a politico-historical tract by a writer highly commended by Mr. Lecky, with an appreciative biographical introduction from the pen of a well-known authority on Irish history.

From The Globe.

Mr. Lecky once described Davis’s work as “by far the best and fullest account” of the assembly in question, and in reproducing it the Irish Society have earned the thanks of all students of Irish history.

From The Scotsman.

The work is a valuable and instructive account of the work done by “the Popish Parliament of James II.” It is introduced by a paper in which its editor tells all that need be known of Davis, and shows in what respects his account corrects Macaulay. The reissue should be welcome to every one interested in Irish history.

From The Manchester Guardian.

It is a vigorous and readable paper, and it carries weight with it.

From The Newcastle Chronicle.

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy’s introduction extends to nearly one hundred pages, and traces in bold and rapid lines the history of Ireland under the Stuarts. It is written with that ease, lucidity, and decision which marks the style of Davis’s colleague of fifty years ago, who now does this service to the history of his country and to the memory of his friend.

From The Scottish Leader.

It would not have been easy indeed to make a better opening of such a series as this aspires to be. “The Patriotic Parliament” is only a characteristic fragment of the work of one of Ireland’s most notable heroes, and it is also a contribution of real merit to Irish history. A perusal of this little book will fully justify Mr. Lecky’s praise of the skill and industry displayed by Davis, at the same time that it will fill one with a kind of amused admiration of the fervid and somewhat youthful enthusiasm of the “Young Ireland” of 1845.

From The Freeman.

The Irish Parliament of 1690 has been seriously maligned by Macaulay, Froude, Ingram, and others. This is a vindication, and the work of an Irish Protestant. The introduction by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy is very vividly written and gives a view of the colonisation of Ulster of a very serious character. We have not space for the story as given here, but we commend it to our readers who desire to understand the springs of Irish discontent.

From The Baptist.

To impartial students of history Davis’s work will be indispensable.

From The Methodist Times.

This humble-looking little book marks an era. Sir Charles Duffy has prefixed an introduction in which he tells once more the long story of Ireland’s wrongs. The perusal of it makes one feel that England will never lay aside her prejudices and look at Irish questions as she looks at Italian or Russian questions. After Sir C. G. Duffy’s introduction comes Thomas Davis’s modest preface. It fills five pages; it was written just fifty years ago. It is altogether admirable in tone and sentiment.

From The Universe.

We are of opinion that the issue of this new library will tend to place the position of our country more fairly before the public, and will foster a much-wanted knowledge of Ireland, its requirements and its failings, amongst our own people. We bid the patriotic venture most heartily welcome.

As a necessity, this opening book is identified with Thomas Davis—not by any means that it is the best specimen of his thought or writing—as in some sort acting as a hyphen between his era and ours—the era of glorious promise and that of partial fruition. Sir Gavan Duffy—thanks that he still survives—supplies a masterly introduction, which to us is the kernel of the volume.

From The Catholic Times.

Not the least of the many services which Sir Charles Gavan Duffy’s prolific pen has rendered to the country which gave him birth, and which he has long loved and served with patriotic devotion, is the interesting historical introduction he has prefixed to Thomas Davis’s “Patriotic Parliament.” The mind of the statesman, the heart of the patriot, and the hand of the practised politician are strikingly evident on every page of this powerful polemic.

From The Weekly Register.

We are, it may be hoped, at the beginning of a better time. Along with the publications of the Irish Literary Society, which have just begun so well with “The Patriotic Parliament of 1689,” the joint work of Thomas Davis and Gavan Duffy, the twin brethren of modern literature in Ireland, may we see also many a publication by the Irish clergy of such books as the two we have named, and the volumes published some years ago by the present Coadjutor-Bishop for Kildare and Leighlin.

From The Colonies and India.

The book before us is one which no student of Irish history can well be without, for it discloses in what is no doubt the true light the character of the Catholic Parliament of James II.

From The Weekly Despatch.

The volume, a very graphic account of the “Patriot Parliament” of 1689, written by Thomas Davis, the Irish patriot of two generations back, is an interesting and very instructive narrative, correcting the slanders and false statements of Macaulay and other English historians, and showing how just, and even how tolerant of Protestant aliens, Irish Catholics could be in the short time allowed to them, more than a hundred years before Grattan’s Parliament came into existence, for experimenting in Home Rule. But the most readable portion of the volume is the long introduction supplied by the editor, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, who here succinctly reminds us of some of the wrongs inflicted on his fellow-countrymen and fellow-religionists in the old days, and not yet redressed.

From The Weekly Sun.

There ought to be many such books in circulation in England and Ireland, and I hope that this volume will run through many editions. Ignorance has been the bane of the two countries hitherto. Books like “The Irish Parliament under James II.” will go far to cement that feeling of friendship by showing the people of this country how erroneous their preconceived opinions of the character of the Irish people have been.

From The Freeman’s Journal.

Though written fifty years ago, it is as much alive with lessons for the hour as any composition of recent date. The introduction is in itself a most valuable summary of the story of Ireland during the Stuart period. Together with Davis’s work it forms a book of which no student of Irish history or Irish politics can afford to remain in ignorance.

From The Lyceum.

Sir Charles Gavan Duffy in his Introduction gives us a sketch of the times immediately preceding the 1689 Parliament, beginning with the Plantation of Ulster under James I. Step by step he traces the course of events through the dark period of Cromwell’s campaigns, through the reign of Charles II., with his lack of good faith and honour in his dealings with Ireland, down to the time when James, a fugitive from his own country and in peril of his life, landed on the shores of Ireland and summoned a Parliament of his Irish subjects. Davis’s writings on this Parliament and his ample vindication of it from the contumely and abuse so freely bestowed on it, have now, for the first time, been collected together and given to the reading world as a connected whole. It is a book to be closely studied as throwing a bright and instructive light on a dark and much misrepresented portion of Irish history.

From The Dublin Daily Independent.

To Sir Charles Gavan Duffy this work must have been much of a labour of love. Of that company of devoted Irishmen who had gathered together in Dublin nigh fifty years ago—he alone survives with one other, a busy philanthropist in a southern city who has enhanced the beauty of our national ballads and endeared himself to his countrymen thereby. The coming home of Gavan Duffy to renew the work of his early manhood after half a century of exile is an interesting incident. The young fresh revival in Irish literature in its connection with these few fine old men is as the return of the Son of Cool to the few remaining old Fians who kept true to the traditions of their youth in the heart of the wooded hills of Connaught. It is the proof that their fond hopes cannot be for ever unfulfilled. Sharing with Sir Charles Gavan Duffy the kudos of editing the New Library were two men—not unknown to their countrymen. One of them, as An Chraoibhin Aoibhinn, has laboured earnestly and well to resuscitate an interest in the purely Gaelic side of Irish literature—Dr. Douglas Hyde. The other, recognising that Thomas Davis’s influence is of that peculiar kind rather bequeathed than withdrawn, has gone forth zealously to the endeavour of making Thomas Davis understanded of the people, and with confidence to Mr. T. W. Rolleston may be entrusted the gathering up the fragments that remain—that nothing be lost—of those who brought a new soul into Erinn.

From The Dublin Evening Telegraph.

An able work, by Thomas Davis, edited by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, with a magnificent essay on the Stuart and Cromwell period. That we should get such a jewel as this first volume, such a thing of beauty for a shilling, is little short of a marvel.

From The Cork Herald.

It might be said, without exaggeration, that the appearance of this work—the forerunner as it is of a series in which Irish life, Irish genius, and Irish character will be represented—constitutes an event of no ordinary importance in Irish history. It is the outcome of a desire and a want which have been long felt that the Irish people should know accurately and intimately everything connected with the past history of their country, with its literature, its music, its antiquities, and its art. The same idea which is now taking visible shape, presented itself to the minds of the leaders of the Young Ireland movement fifty years ago, when a series of little books was published which have since been the companions, the inspiration, and the delight of two generations of Irishmen at home and abroad. There are few Irishmen who have not at one time or another received a potent intellectual stimulus from the writings of Davis or Duffy, Mitchell or M’Nevin. We do not err, therefore, when we say that great possibilities lie hidden in this new movement.

 

 

 

WORKS by DOUGLAS HYDE, LL.D. (An Chraoibhin Aoibhinn).

“LEABHAR SGEULUIGHEACHTA.”

viii—261 pp., 8vo. Price 5/-. Gill & Son, O’Connell Street, Dublin.

Containing some sixteen Folk Tales, Riddles, Ranns, &c., in Irish, with copious Notes on the Pronunciation, Vocabulary, and Dialect.

“The multitude of characteristic idioms and of those charmingly expressive turns of speech which one meets with daily among the peasantry is so great as to make the work a perfect treasure-house of rich jewels of thought.... Dr. Hyde deserves well, not only of his country, but of all scientific investigators and philologists.”—Freeman’s Journal.

“This is the most noteworthy addition that has been made for nearly a century to modern Gaelic literature.”—Chicago Citizen.

“His collection of Irish Gaelic Folk Stories is the fruit of years of pious work. He has travelled into every corner of Ireland where the old tongue still lingers, gathering from the mouths of the Irish-speaking peasants the olden stories that linger among them.”—Nation.

 

“BESIDE THE FIRE.”

lviii—204 pp., large 8vo. Price 7/6. David Nutt, Strand, London.

Containing Folk Tales and Fairy Stories in Irish and English, collected from the mouths of the peasantry. With Introduction and Notes, and additional Notes by Alfred Nutt.

“Any reader conversant with the subject will at once recognise the fact that this book is distinctly the most valuable contribution that has ever been made to Irish Folk-lore. It would be hardly an exaggeration to say that it is the only work in that particular department that is trustworthy in its details and scientific in its treatment.”—Nature.

“We may say that Dr. Hyde’s is the first [collection of Irish Folk-lore] which has been presented in a form entirely satisfactory to the scientific folk-lorist.... Few men know the living Gaelic tongue so well as Dr. Hyde, and he has made it his object to give these fragments of Gaelic tradition exactly as he gathered them from the lips of the peasantry, and with all the collateral information that the scientific investigator can require. The result is certainly one of the most interesting and entertaining books of Folk-lore that it has ever been our good fortune to come across.”—The Speaker.

“Perhaps the most interesting part of Dr. Hyde’s collection of Irish tales, ‘Beside the Fire,’ is his Introduction.”—Saturday Review.

“We trust that his warning, though late, is not given in vain, and that a whole literature will not be allowed to die or to become a fossil in the studies of the Dryasdusts.”—Daily News leading article.

 

“COIS NA TEINEADH.”

60 pp., large 8vo. Price 1/6. Gill & Son, O’Connell Street, Dublin.

Containing six Folk Stories in Irish, reprinted from the last volume. With Additional Notes, &c.

 

CONTES IRLANDAIS.

Being Extracts from the untranslated portion of the “Leabhar Sgeuluigheachta,” translated into French by M. Georges Dottin, with the original Irish text in Roman letters as arranged by MONSIEUR Dottin on the opposite page.

70pp., 4to. Price 7/6. Gill & Son, O’Connell Street, Dublin.

 

ABHRÁIN GRÁDH; OR, LOVE SONGS OF CONNACHT.

Containing 45 Poems collected from the mouths of Connacht peasantry or from modern manuscripts, now for the first time collected, translated, and published, with metrical and literal versions in English on one side of the page and the Irish text on the other, with Notes, Anecdotes, and much Illustrative matter.

160pp., 8vo. Price 2/6 net. T. Fisher Unwin, Paternoster Buildings, and Gill & Son, Upper O’Connell Street, Dublin.

“In these Connaught Love Songs Dr. Hyde has made, whether in verse or prose, the best transcript of Celtic poetry into English that we have yet had. So much of the magic, so much of the local colour, the native grace, the idiom of the Irish as he has given, one had thought it impossible to give.”—Ernest Rhys, in the Academy, Oct. 13th, 1893.

“We cannot too cordially commend to ethnologists and Gaelic antiquarians these relics of Irish Folk Songs collected with so much industry and devotion by Dr. Hyde.”—The Times, July 20th, 1893.

“The price of this valuable and delightful work is only half-a-crown, and it should be welcomed by several classes of readers. The folk-lorists of course will pounce on it, but folk-lorists are a very small public and despised of men. Still less numerous are students of the Irish language, who here find what they need, the Erse poetry on the left page, the literal translation on the right.... There remains the class of English readers of poetry, and to them the ‘Love Songs of Connacht’ may be warmly recommended.”—From the Daily News leading article, Sept. 1st, 1893.

“No one who has examined Dr. Hyde’s previous work can fail to see that he combines two gifts, the conjunction of which is rarely met with in one man; he adds to the knowledge, the love of accuracy, and the scientific spirit of a modern scholar that sense of the form, and love of the spirit of his material which belongs to the creative far more than to the critical mind. And if such praise seems to any reader excessive, let him examine for himself the ‘Fourth Chapter of the Songs of Connacht.’”—From the Speaker, July 15th, 1893.

“Every page deserves some quotation.... Accompanying the poems is the enchanting commentary of Dr. Hyde; he tells of the old folk from whose lips, of the old manuscripts, from whose pages he took his songs. He is philosophical, historical, scientific, at need.... The reader will reflect that were these poems, or poems a thousand times less good in Greek or Latin, old French, or old German, or songs of Russia or Roumania, many a learned man, many a lover of poetry, would be keen to edit, criticise, proclaim them.”—From the Daily Chronicle, Aug. 21st, 1893.

 

 

 

The Reformer’s
Book=Shelf.

Large crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d. each.

I.

The English Peasant: His Past and Present. By Richard Heath.

II.

The Labour Movement. By L. T. Hobhouse, M.A. Preface by R. B. Haldane, M.P.

III.

Sixty Years of an Agitator’s Life: The Third and Cheaper Edition of Geo. Jacob Holyoake’s Autobiography. 2 vols. With Portrait by Walter Sickert.

IV.

Bamford’s Passages in the Life of a Radical. Edited, and with an Introduction, by Henry Dunckley (“Verax”). 2 vols.

 

 

 

IRISH LITERATURE.

LOVE SONGS OF IRELAND. Collected and Edited by Katharine Tynan. Fcap. 8vo, half bound paper boards, 3s. 6d.

“This is a dainty and pleasing little volume, to be prized by all devotees of the Muse.”—Daily Telegraph.

THE COUNTESS KATHLEEN: A Dramatic Poem. By W. B. Yeats. Uniform with above.

“It is impossible to read these poems without falling under their fascination and taking them home to heart.”—Academy.

IRISH FAIRY TALES. Edited by W. B. Yeats. Illustrated by Jack B. Yeates. (A volume of “The Children’s Library.”) Pinafore cloth binding, floral edges, 2s. 6d.

“An exquisite collection ... with an interesting preface by the author.”—Bookman.

FINN AND HIS COMPANIONS. By Standish O’Grady. Illustrated by J. B. Yeats. Uniform with above.

JOHN SHERMAN, AND DHOYA. By Ganconagh. (Vol. X. of “Pseudonym Library.”) Third edition. Paper, 1s. 6d.; cloth, 2s.

“Clever as ‘John Sherman’ is, cleverness seems almost an odious quality to ascribe to pathos so unassertive, humour so delicate, and observation so penetrative.”—Saturday Review.

THE PARNELL MOVEMENT: Being the History of the Irish Question from the Death of O’Connell to the Suicide of Pigott. By T. P. O’Connor, M.P. Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 2s.

“Able, readable, and full of force, and replete with information, it is, we believe, the best and most comprehensive work on the subject yet published.”—Nonconformist.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY of THEOBALD WOLFE TONE: A Chapter from Irish History, 1790-1798. Edited, with an Introduction, by R. Barry O’Brien, of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law, Author of “Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland,” “Thomas Drummond,” &c. 2 vols., with Photogravure Frontispiece to each. 4 Steel Plates, and a Letter in facsimile. Royal 8vo, cloth, 32s.

“The book, entirely apart from any political question, is delightful reading.”—Daily News.

LIFE OF JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY. Together with his Complete Poems and Speeches. By James Jeffrey Roche. Edited by Mrs. John Boyle O’Reilly. With Introduction by H. E. James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore. Portraits and Illustrations. Royal 8vo, cloth, £1 1s.

DIARY of the PARNELL COMMISSION. By JOHN MACDONALD, M.A. Revised, with Additions, from the Daily News. Large crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.

IRELAND. By the Hon. Emily Lawless, Author of “Hurrish: A Study,” &c. (Vol. X. of “The Story of the Nations.”) Maps and Illustrations. Cloth, 5s.

THE NEED AND USE OF GETTING IRISH LITERATURE INTO THE ENGLISH TONGUE: An Address by the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke at the Inaugural Meeting of the Irish Literary Society in London. Second Edition. Small 4to, paper covers, 1s.

“A charming and suggestive piece of writing.”—Speaker.

 

 

 

THE STORY OF THE NATIONS.

Each Volume is furnished with Maps, Illustrations, and Index.

Large crown 8vo, fancy cloth, gold lettered, price 5s. each.

A List of the Volumes.

Some Press Notices.

“That useful series.”—The Times.

“An admirable series.”—Spectator.

“The series is likely to be found indispensable in every school library.”—Pall Mall Gazette.

Illustrated Catalogue of the Series, post free.

London: T. FISHER UNWIN, Paternoster Square, E.C.