Nick Maxwell Samuel Lover had two daughters, both born in Dublin; his first wife, Lucy Berrel, and first-born, Margaret, predeceased him. His second daughter, Frances, spoke several languages and was said to be ‘very musical, a fine pianist and very much her father’s daughter’. Her second husband was a medical doctor and they had a son, Wilhelm … Read more
ALTHOUGH HE NEVER SET FOOT IN IRELAND, HE CONFIDENTLY PROCLAIMED HIS ETHNICITY By Marion R. Casey ‘No, he is not an Irishman. He was born in Ireland; but being born in a stable does not make a man a horse’ —Daniel O’Connell (referring to the duke of Wellington), Mullaghmast, 1843. Long ago O’Connell put his … Read more
Dublin was home to Samuel Lover until 1835, when he moved to London for better commissions for his miniature portraits. In 1846–7 he toured the United States with ‘Irish Evenings’ that featured humorous songs of his own composition set to old Irish melodies. As late as 1916, Lover’s ‘The Low-backed Car’, ‘The Bowld Sojer Boy’, … Read more
Sir,—I was very interested in Damien McLellan’s ‘Reclaiming an Irish “Way of St James”’ (HI 24.3, May/June 2016), and especially in his listing of possible stops on the route that Irish pilgrims might have followed between Dublin and Waterford. In particular, his listing of Ballymore Eustace, Co. Kildare, as one potential stop rang some bells … Read more
BLACK ’47, WHICH COMMENCES SHOOTING SHORTLY, IS NOT THE FIRST FAMINE-THEMED FILM TO BE ENVISAGED By Bryce Evans This year marks the 80th anniversary of the publication of Liam O’Flaherty’s novel Famine, set during Ireland’s Great Hunger (1845–51). O’Flaherty’s literary contemporary Seán O’Faoláin called Famine ‘tremendous’, ‘biblical’, containing ‘a compression of emotion only to be … Read more