[Rarebooks] FS: 5 Rare Books about Ireland

[Clare Murphy]

1.  ANON. (CARLETON, WILLIAM).  TRAITS AND STORIES OF THE IRISH 
PEASANTRY. Dublin., 1830. Illustrated by etchings by W. H. Brooke. 
First edition. 2 volumes. Contemporary full polished calf with raised 
bands, leather labels and gilt decorations in the spine compartments. 
12mo. [275, 304 pgs] Fine. Carleton's father was a poor Irish tenant 
farmer. After gaining some useful education from his hedge 
schoolmasters, he and his parents and 13 siblings were evicted. 
Carleton took to the road and some wild living. <p>On his way from 
Ulster to Dublin, he picked up many stories from other peasants which 
were first published in the Christian Examiner, a brutally 
anti-Catholic rag. Carleton, by this time, had married a Protestant 
girl and became a Protestant himself. However , he was not really a 
bigot but  a practical man who wrote for whomever would pay him."One 
immense value in his work is that he gives the normally inarticulate 
peasant's viewpoint, wishing Godspeed to the idealists and damnation 
to the foreigner while concentrating on getting in the hay." Brady 
and Cleeve. Irish Writers. pg. 18. Very scarce.   $1200.00
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2.  BARTLETT, W[ILLIAM]. H[ENRY].  SCENERY AND ANTIQUITIES OF 
IRELAND, THE. London: Virtue, (1841). Illustrated by map and 121 
engravings by Bartlett. First edition. 3/4 dark green crushed morocco 
over marbled paper-covered boards with raised bands and gilt rules, 
all edges marbled. Near fine. Twentieth century binding. 2 " diameter 
damp stain to top of 2 pages (frontis and title). Another smaller 
damp stain to one margin. Extra clean and almost totally free of 
foxing. 2 volumes bound together. Two engraved title pages. A 
gorgeous copy of this scarce book.    $1250.00
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3.  O'REILLY, EDWARD (CA, 1770-1829).  IRISH ENGLISH DICTIONARY, AN. 
Dublin: A O'Neil, 1821. Second edition. Full polished calf with coat 
of arms of Maynooth College in gilt on both boards. Elaborate gilt 
border on both boards. Marbled end papers and edges. Raised bands 
with gilt designs in compartments. 4to. [Lexicon & [10], 28, [4] pgs] 
Title continues; containing upwards of twenty thousand words that 
never appeared in any former Irish lexicon: with copious quotations 
from the most esteemed ancient and modern writers, to elucidate the 
meaning of obscure words, and numerous comparisons of the Irish 
words, with those of similar orthography, sense, or sound, in the 
Welch and English... To which is annexed a compendious Irish grammar.

Wear to extremities, both boards detached but present. Old small 
library bookplate; no other library marks. Contents amazingly clean 
and free of foxing.Born at Cavan; came to Dublin ca.1790 [var. 1791 
DIH]; learned Irish; asst. secretary to the Iberno-Celtic Society; 
wrote prize essays on Brehon laws (1823), and the authenticity of 
Macpherson's Ossian (1828-30); worked in TCD and other Dublin 
libraries preparing Irish manuscript catalogues, with others; used 
material collected by William Haliday to compile Sanas 
Gaoidhilge/Sags-bhearla: An Irish-English Dictionary (1817), 
supplement by John O'Donovan, prefixed by concise grammar; A 
Chronicle Account of Nearly 400 Irish Writers (1820), financed by the 
Iberno-Celtic Society and commonly known as O'Reilly's Dictionary of 
Irish Writers; edited An Biobla Naomta for the Hibernian Bible 
Society (1830); wrote on Brehon law and the Ossianic poetry of 
Macpherson; employed in Ordnance Survey of Ireland [at the time of 
his death] and hence became the first toponymic field-worker of the 
Commission, dying within six months, to be succeeded by John 
O'Donovan. DNB RAF DIB DIH.  $925.00
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4.  (STAFFORD, SIR THOMAS).  PACATA HIBERNIA, IRELAND APPEASED AND 
REDUCED. London: Robert Milbourne , 1633. Illustrated by 17 folding 
plates and maps, but, but alas not including the famous and rare map 
of Munster (Mounster) by Speed; 2 ports . First edition. Original 
full leather, expertly rebacked. All original end papers. All edges 
marbled. Raised bands with leather title label, gilt. Gilt rules to 
boards. Some roughening to leather on boards. Old damp-stain, 
affecting top portion of most pages. This is sometimes very light and 
sometimes darker. Folio. [391 pgs] Very good. Has the armorial 
bookplate of Marquis William Kerr I of Lothian and another label with 
the shelf placement in his castle "The Newbattle Abbey".

Full title: Pacata Hibernia. Ireland appeased and reduced. Or, an 
historie of the late vvarres of Ireland, especially within the 
province of Mounster, vnder the government of Sir George Carew, 
Knight, then Lord President of that province, and afterwards Lord 
Carevv of Clopton, and Earle of Totnes, &c. VVherein the siedge of 
Kinsale, the defeat of the Earle of Tyrone, and his armie; the 
expulsion and sending home of Don Iuan de Aguila, the Spanish 
generall, with his forces; and many other remarkeable passages of 
that time are related. Illustrated with seventeene severall mappes, 
for the better understanding of the storie.

Stafford was probably the natural son of Sir George Carew (1555-1629 
) under whom he served as a captain in Munster during the campaign 
against Hugh O'Neill; Carew (c. 1629) bequeathed him a vast 
collection of MSS relating to Ireland, thirty nine vols. of which are 
in Lambeth Library, and four vols. of which are in the Bodleian. 
Stafford alleges that the original of Pacata was written by Carew 
'out of his retiyred Modestie' but the consensus is that the book was 
composed by him, drawing on Carew's papers; Stafford was knighted by 
Chichester 1611.The author of the entry on Stafford considers that he 
may have been an Anglo-Irishman since 'it is as an Irishman not an 
Englishman that he speaks'.  DNB OCIL.  $3500.00
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5.  THACKERAY.  IRISH SKETCH BOOK. London., 1843. First edition. 2 
volumes. Original green embossed cloth housed in custom-made tri-fold 
pull-cases within a half morocco slipcase with gilt lettering, raised 
bands and gilt rules. Near fine. The half-title pages, which are 
often absent in this title are here present. The binding has been 
professionally and almost invisibly reinforced at outer hinges. 
Residue to pastedowns where bookplates have been removed. Contents 
clean and tight, nearly free of foxing. Scarce in this lovely 
condition. VAN DUZER 96.   $950.00
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Clare Murphy
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