Author: Richard Davis and Marianne Davis
Brand: Cork University Press
Edition: REPRINT
Number Of Pages: 94
Release Date: 01-01-1998
Details: Product Description William Smith O'Brien was an improbable revolutionary, ill at ease as a leader of the 1848 rising at Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary, and then as a convict languishing in Van Diemen's Land until 1854. His aristocratic background and demeanor, his late conversion to Repeal in 1843, and his refusal to engage in active politics during his final years in Ireland, have made him a perplexing figure for biographers as well as his contemporaries. His politics also perplexed and outraged his father's family, the O'Brien's of Dromoland in Co. Clare. Even so, as his extensive family correspondence reveals, O'Brien was never abandoned by the majority of his kinsfolk. The previously unpublished letters exchanged amongst the O'Brien family between 1819 and 1864 reveal an unexpectedly warm, if sententious personality, striving to preserve his family status and affections amidst controversy and disgrace. The publication of these letters is a fitting memorial to one of Ireland's most elusive rebels. From the Author draws attention to the following review: ‘The story of another revolutionary, William Smith O’Brien, and that of two generations of his family, is glimpsed in forty letters selected from the O’Brien family papers, spanning the period 1819 to 1864. Editors Richard and Marianne Davis present an excellent introduction to the correspondence, focusing on O’Brien’s personality as much as on the events that shaped him as a political activist.... Readers will be interested in the letter writers’ observations on education, Irish distress and O’Brien’s efforts to assist the poor, and the family’s concern about maintaining their property. The pain of separation from one another figures prominently in many letters, especially when O’Brien was serving in Parliament, and later, after his trial in 1848 for high treason, when he was serving time in VanDiemen’s Land and, finally when the family was living in exile on the continent. O’Brien’s mother, Charlotte, comes through most clearly as the most interesting family member, writing powerfully and invoking Christian precepts in an unsuccessful attempt to deflect her son’s drift toward radical politics.’ Lawrence W. McBride, Irish Literary Supplement: A Review of Irish Books, Vol. 18, No. 2, Fall 1999, p. 28. About the Author Richard Davis formerly Professor of History at the University of Tasmania, has published widely on 1848 and other Irish topics.
EAN: 9781859181812
Languages: English
Binding: Paperback
Item Condition: New