F. Elrington Ball

Life
1863-1928 [Francis Elrington Ball]; b. Portmarnock, Co. Dublin, son of Lord Chancellor of Ireland; unsuccessful Unionist candidate for S. Dublin, 1890; turned to writing; A History of the County of Dublin, 4 vols. (1902-1920); The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift DD (1910-14), being the first annotated edn; The Judges of Ireland 1221-1921 (1926), recording many matters destroyed in the Civil War; Swift’s Verse: An Essay (1929); considered the greatest contemporary authority on Swift and awarded DDLit., TCD. ODNB DIB

[ top ]

Works

  • The Parish of Taney (1895); ed., The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, 6 vols. (London 1910-14) [with a Life].
  • A History of the County Dublin: The People, Parishes, and Antiquities from the Earliest Times to the Close of the Eighteenth Century, 5 vols. (Dublin: Alex Thom 1902-20) [Pt. 3, 1905; Pt. 5: ‘Howth and its Owners’, 1917], and Do . [facs. rep.] (Dublin: Gill 1979).
  • The Vicinity of the International Exhibition, Dublin: an Historical Sketch of the Pembroke Township (Dublin: Alex Thom 1907), 50pp.
  • The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921, 2 vols. (London: John Murray 1926), [1], xxii, 365 (2), iv, 408pp. [frontis. to each], and Do . [2 vol, boxed] (Dublin: Four Courts [1994]).
  • ‘Some Notes on the Households of the Dukes of Ormond’ (Proc. RIA 1928). Swift’s Verse; an Essay (1929).
Digital edition
  • Ball’s History of the County of Dublin, 6 vols. [1902-20] (Dublin: Eneclann 2008) - available at publisher’;s email - epubs@eneclann.ie.

[ top ]

Criticism
See Irish Book Lover, Vols.1, 3, 4, 6.

[ top ]

Quotations
The Judges of Ireland 1221-1921 , 2 vols. (London: John Murray 1926) - Author's preface: ‘As the son of one who reached the highest office in the law in Ireland, I was known from my earliest years to members of the Irish judicial bench, and in connection with politics I was brought into close relation with many members of both branches of the legal profession in Ireland.’

[ top ]

References
Belfast Public Library holds copies of A History of the County of Dublin, 4 vols. (1902); Howth and its Owners (1917); Judges of Ireland 1221-1921, 2 vols (1926); The Parish of Taney (1895).

Univ. of Ulster (Morris Collection) holds copies of A History of the County of Dublin, the People, Parishes, And Antiquities From the Earliest Times to the Close of the Eighteenth Century, Pt. 3 (1905); Howth and its Owners, Being the Fifth Part of a History of Dublin and an Extra Vol. of the Royal Soc. of Antiquaries of Ireland (1917).

[ top ]