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Life
fl.1804; Ulster writer, and holder of LLB.; author of A Description of The Condition And Manners as well as of The Moral and Political Character, Education [... &c.] of the Peasantry of Ireland, such as they were between the Years 1780 & 1790 (1804); also poss., writings on conveyancing; not to be confused with the publisher-editor of songs and ballad collections (c.1850).
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Works
A Description of the Condition and Manners as well as of the Moral and Political Character, Education of the Peasantry of Ireland, such as they were between the years 1780 & 1790, when Ireland was Supposed to have arrived at Its Highest Degree of Prosperity and Happiness (London: printed for the author by C. Barber 1804), 43 pp.
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Quotations
[Readers of such chapbook novels as The Adventures of Captain Phreny [viz., Freney] and Redmond O’Hanlon have thereby been] ‘familiarised to offences of the most violent and atrocious nature; and were taught to look upon robbers, incendaries, murderers, and violators of women, as objects of admiration. The transition from theory to practice was but short – And crimes proceeded more frequently from an inherent depravity in the perpetrators, than from that desire of gain which constitute their origin in other countries.’ (A Description of the Condition And Manners ... of the Peasantry of Ireland [... &c.] (London: C. Barber 1804), pp.40-41; cited in Rolf Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loebber, ‘Fiction Available To And Written For Cottages And Their Children’, Bernadette Cunningham and Máire Kennedy, eds., The Experience of Reading: Irish Historical Perspectives (Dublin: Rare Books Group 1999), p.128.
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