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Life
1797-?1860 [P. F. Barron]; ed. and prop. Ancient Ireland: A Weekly Magazine (1835), the first Irish-language periodical since Bolg an tSolair, and designed to be strictly non-political; also compiled An Irish Primer, Nos.1-3 (1836). RAF OCIL
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Works
Ancient Ireland: A Weekly Magazine, Vol.1 No.1, Jan. 1835-
to Vol.1, No.5 (May 1835), by Philip F. Barron of the County of Waterford, Snr. 176pp [includes articles on ‘Ancient Monarchy of Ireland’, ‘Ancient Literature in Ireland’, ‘Topography and Geography
of Ireland’, ‘Cultivation of the Irish Language’, ‘The Inhabitants of Ireland before the Milesians’, ‘Tracing the Progenitors of the Milesian Colony’, ‘the Book of Leacan’, ‘&c.]. Also, An Irish Primer (1836), Nos.1-3.
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Joep Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fíor Ghael (Amsterdam: Rodopi 1986), p.437 [see extract]; Leerssen, Remembrance and Imagination [...] in Nineteenth Century Ireland (Cork UP 1996)
For further on Barron and Ancient Ireland, Leerssen refers the reader to Desmond Ryan, The Sword of Light: From the Four Masters to Douglas Hyde, 1938-1938, London: Barker, 1938[recte 1939], pp.11-52. (Idem.)
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Commentary
Joep Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fíor Ghael (Amsterdam: Rodopi 1986), remarks that Ancient Ireland ran for five monthly issues, ‘to revive the study of the Irish language, and to institute a vigorous inquiry into the Antient History of Ireland." (No.1, p.2).
Further: Leerssen quotes the Prospectus of Ancient Ireland: ‘[It is] necessary to state, for the information of all, that this Magazine is to be solely and altogether a literary publication. Politics and Polemics are totally excluded from its pages’ (copy held in NLI) - and remarks: ‘At the same time, the issue quotes with approval a communication from an anonymous corresponded who had ‘thrown away the English language with contempt, and taken to our own language again.’ (op.. cit., 1986, p.437.)
Joep Leerssen, Remembrance and Imagination: Patterns in the Historical and Literary Representations of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century. Cork UP/Field Day 1996) - makes reference to Barron’s Ancient Ireland which ‘resolved from the outset that it “should be totally unconnected with Politics”.’ (op. cit. 1996, p.158). Further adds in a footnote; ‘the cover of the fourth issue (April 1834), reiterates this: ‘Politics and Polemics are to be totally excluded from the pages of this magazine it is to be purely historical and literary”’ (Leerssen, ibid., p.273, n4.) - and refers the reader to Desmond Ryan, The Sword of Light [...] (1938), pp.11-52 for more on Barron and Ancient Ireland (idem).
Further: Leerssen cites a correspondent in Ancient Ireland (Jan. 1835) who is quoted as stating ‘I have for the last two years, thrown away the English language with contempt, and taken to our own language again.’ (p.4; Leerssen, op. cit., 1996, p.281, n83.)
Further: Leerseen quotes a notice in the Freeman's Journal in 1835, reprinted in on cover page of Ancient Ireland, 2 (10 Jan. 1835): "This appears to us a very proper time for the revival of Irish literature. Now that the golden age of English literature seems passing away, disfigurd and corrupted as it daily is becoming, by French tinsel and technicalityes, let us hope tha the time ins not remote when writing to a literary friend, we will be enabled to say, as Horace said to his patron, “Docte utriusque linguae / Learned in both languages”. Thereby meaning the English and the Irish tongue.’ (Leerssen, op. cit., 1996, p.194.)
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References
National Library of Ireland holds copies of Ancient Ireland: A Weekly Magazine (1835).
British Library holds copies of An Irish Primer (1836), Nos.1-3, 16o & 8o.
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