Penny Readings For The Irish People Conducted By The Editors Of The Nation

The impact of the Irish famine of 1845-1852 was unparalleled in both political and psychological terms. The effects of famine-related mortality and emigration were devastating, in the field of literature no less than in other areas. In this incisive new study, Melissa Fegan explores the famine's legacy to literature, tracing it in the work of contemporary writers and their successors, down to 1919. Dr Fegan examines both fiction and non-fiction, including journalism, travel-narratives and the Irish novels of Anthony Trollope. She argues that an examination of famine literature that simply categorizes it as 'minor' or views it only as a silence or an absence misses the very real contribution that it makes to our understanding of the period. This is an important contribution to the study of Irish history and literature, sharply illuminating contemporary Irish mentalities.

A farmer’s daughter, a convent girl, a lover of the Irish countryside, a poet, novelist and short story writer, a journalist, a friend of the English during war and peace, a fighter for justice, a Catholic, but able to see and decry the interference of religion in politics: this is in part Katharine Tynan Hinkson (1859–1931), usually known as Katharine Tynan, who lived in Ireland and England, and wrote through the turbulent times of Irish politics, suffrage, the Great War, and civil war in Ireland. Her background was rural Ireland, her father being a prosperous land-owning farmer. Educated locally and at a convent, she left aged fourteen and spent much time reading and enjoying the countryside, which became a foundation for her poetry and storytelling. She was aware of the politics of Ireland through her politically active father, and she joined the short-lived Ladies’ Land League in 1881 and was a fervent admirer of Charles Stewart Parnell. Her first major literary friendship was with her mentor, the Jesuit Father Matthew Russell, editor of the Irish Monthly, who published much of her work. He introduced Katharine to the Catholic literary couple Wilfrid and Alice Meynell in London in 1884, a visit which formed a deep love and admiration for Alice. The Meynells published much of her poetry in the Weekly Register and Merry England. Katharine made many visits to England and settled in England in 1893 after her marriage to Harry Hinkson, making it her home until returning to Ireland in 1912. After the Great War, she moved between England and Ireland, finally settling in London where she died. Katharine’s life spanned Anglo-Irish politics, the suffrage movement, the Easter Rising of 1916, the Great War (her two sons served in the British Army) and its aftermath. Her letters cover these events and the friendships and correspondence with many literary persons, including George William Russell (A.E.), G. K. Chesterton, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Clement King Shorter, the writer Frank James Mathew and the novelist May Sinclair. An early friend of W. B. Yeats, she was seen as part of the Irish literary revival, although in a minor role. Throughout her life she suffered from very poor eyesight. She published five autobiographies, which, together with the letters, provide us with valuable insight into her life and times.

The Guide to Irish Fiction has led to the identification of hundreds of unknown or forgotten Irish authors and their works, and provides thousands of summaries of novels and anthologies. Carefully documented, the book presents details of the publication of Irish fiction in Ireland, England, North America, Australia, as well as several other European countries. Written for literary scholars and students and for anyone interested in Ireland and its literature, this book also constitutes and essential tool for historians, librarians, collectors of Irish books, and antiquarian booksellers.

Boyce examines the relationship between ideas and political and social reality. A new final chapter considers the development of nationalism in both parts of Ireland, and places the phenomenon of nationalism in a contemporary and European setting.