From An Illustrated History of Ireland by Margaret Anne Cusack
« start... Chapter IV. ...continued
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The earliest references to Ireland by foreign writers are, as might be expected, of a contradictory character. Plutarch affirms that Calypso was "an island five days' sail to the west of Britain," which, at least, indicates his knowledge of the existence of Erinn. Orpheus is the first writer who definitely names Ireland. In the imaginary route which he prescribes for Jason and the Argonauts, he names Ireland (Iernis), and describes its woody surface and its misty atmosphere. All authorities are agreed that this poem [7] was written five hundred years before Christ; and all doubt as to whether Iernis meant the present island of Ireland must he removed, at least to an unprejudiced inquirer, by a careful examination of the route which is described, and the position of the island in that route.
The early history of a country which has been so long and so cruelly oppressed, both civilly and morally, has naturally fallen into disrepute. We do not like to display the qualifications of one whom we have deeply injured. It is, at least, less disgraceful to have forbidden a literature to a people who had none, than to have banned and barred the use of a most ancient language,—to have destroyed the annals of a most ancient people. In self-defence, the conqueror who knows not how to triumph nobly will triumph basely, and the victims may, in time, almost forget what it has been the policy of centuries to conceal from them. But ours is, in many respects, an age of historical justice, and truth will triumph in the end. It is no longer necessary to England's present greatness to deny the facts of history; and it is one of its most patent facts that Albion was unknown, or, at least, that her existence was unrecorded, at a time when Ireland is mentioned with respect as the Sacred Isle, and the Ogygia [8] of the Greeks.
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[7] Poem.—There has been question of the author, but none as to the authenticity and the probable date of compilation.
[8] Ogygia.—Camden writes thus: "Nor can any one conceive why they should call it Ogygia, unless, perhaps, from its antiquity; for the Greeks called nothing Ogygia unless what was extremely ancient."
Truelove's Journal: A Bookshop Novella
From a sad, comfortless childhood Giles Truelove developed into a reclusive and uncommunicative man whose sole passion was books. For so long they were the only meaning to his existence. But when fate eventually intervened to have the outside world intrude upon his life, he began to discover emotions that he never knew he had.
A story for the genuine booklover, penned by an Irish bookseller under the pseudonym of Ralph St. John Featherstonehaugh.
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Annals of the Famine in Ireland
Annals of the Famine in Ireland, by Asenath Nicholson, still has the power to shock and sadden even though the events described are ever-receding further into the past. When you read, for example, of the poor widowed mother who was caught trying to salvage a few potatoes from her landlord's field, and what the magistrate discovered in the pot in her cabin, you cannot help but be appalled and distressed.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger
This book, the prequel to Annals of the Famine in Ireland cannot be recommended highly enough to those interested in Irish social history. The author, Mrs Asenath Nicholson, travelled from her native America to assess the condition of the poor in Ireland during the mid 1840s. Refusing the luxury of hotels and first class travel, she stayed at a variety of lodging-houses, and even in the crude cabins of the very poorest. Not to be missed!
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Henry Ford Jones' book, first published in 1915 by Princeton University, is a classic in its field. It covers the history of the Scotch-Irish from the first settlement in Ulster to the American Revolutionary period and the foundation of the country.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
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