Contemporary Observations of Ireland from Grattan to Griffith

The series "Ireland Observed" focuses on Irish history in the period between 1782 when Ireland gained legislative independence from Great Britain (with the repeal of the Declaratory Act and the amendment of Poyning's Law), and the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. During this period, Ireland was in a continual state of flux, politically, economically and socially, and while there have been numerous reductionist and popular historical accounts of Ireland and the nature of the Irish people, to get a true understanding of this volatile history it is necessary to read some of the more neglected and inaccessible texts written by contemporaries in the forms of memoirs, travelogues and "objective" histories. This series concentrates primarily on texts as written by British and foreign outsiders who managed to write and provide major insights or snapshots of Ireland under change. Taken together the sets in this series provide a basis for a proper and balanced understanding of a complex country, useful both for an understanding of Ireland and as a way of understanding the nature of history itself.
This first set, "Contemporary Observations of Ireland from Grattan to Griffith", is a selection of texts covering the period from Grattan's Parliament in the 1790s to the end of the 19th century. They are all personal accounts by observers who nonetheless have written interesting socio-economic and historical accounts of the country they saw, without succumbing to the worst aspects of sentimental touristic writing and patronising attitudes then often prevalent. The writers, from the British Isles and the European mainland - including a newspaper editor, professional travel writer, an army officer and a reforming liberal noble - document many of the attempts from outside and inside to resolve the island's dilemmas. These texts are carefully selected for the profound insights they give into the social, political and economic conditions of the developing Ireland. The works, never previously reprinted and many of which are now scarce, are reproduced here in their entirety. In addition there is a reset volume of new translations that make French and Hungarian observations available in English for the first time.