From A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837
Pearls have been found in the bed of the Bann river. Fossil remains of moose deer have been found at different places; and various kinds of trees are frequently discovered imbedded in the bogs. This county is remarkable as being the first place in Ireland in which frogs were seen: they appeared first near Moira, in a western and inland district, but the cause or manner of their introduction is wholly unknown. The Cornish chough and the king-fisher have been occasionally met with near Killough; the bittern is sometimes seen in the marshes on the sea-coast; the ousel and the eagle have been observed in the mountains of Mourne; and the cross-bill at Waringstown. Barnacles and widgeons frequent Strangford lough and Carrickfergus bay in immense numbers during winter; but they are extremely wary. A marten, as tall as a fox, but much longer, was killed several years since at Moira, and its skin preserved as a curiosity. Horse-racing is a favourite amusement with all classes, and is here sanctioned by royal authority; James II. having granted a patent of incorporation to a society to be called the Royal Horsebreeders of the county of Down, which is still kept up by the resident gentry, and has produced a beneficial effect in improving the breed of race-horses. Downshire gives the title of Marquess to the family of Hill, the descendants of one of the military adventurers who came to Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth.
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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.
FREE download 23rd - 27th May
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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