William Carleton: 1794-1869

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Works
See separate file [infra].

Bibliographical details
Three Hundred Years of Irish Periodicals, ed. Barbara Hayley & Enda McKay [Association of Irish Learned Journals] (Mullingar: Lilliput Press 1987), 146pp. Contents: Barbara Traxler Brown, ‘Three centuries of journals in Ireland’; Hayley, ‘A reading and thinking nation’; Jean Archer, ‘Science loners’; Caoilfhíonn Nic Pháidín, ‘Na hIris i Gaeilge’; David Dickson, ‘Historical journals in Ireland’; McKay, ‘A century of Irish trade journals, 1860-1960’; Peter Denman, ‘Ireland's little magazines’

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Conference news
Melissa Fegan [University of Chester], paper on ‘The Irish Prophecy Man: Folklore and Famine in the Novels of William Carleton’, a paper delivered at a conference on “Ireland in the Nineteenth-century English and Irish novel” held in the Dipartimento di Letterature Comparate, Università Roma Tre and at the Pontificio Università Irlandese, Roma, (12-13 March). The conference was organised by John McCourt of URT [Univ. di Roma - email].

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Commentary
See separate file [infra].

Quotations
See separate file [infra].

References

Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington 1904), gives an extract from “Shane Fadh’s Wedding”, et al., with much biographical information.

Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction [Pt. I] (Dublin: Maunsel 1919) lists -

Father Butler and Lough Derg [sic] Pilgrim, Sketches of Irish Manners (Curry 1829), 302pp [anonymous (recte, pseud. ‘W[ilton]’); virulently anti-Catholic, the latter, for Catholics, blasphemous]. The Poor Scholar, and Other Tales (Dublin: Duffy [1830]), 252pp.; [“Poor Scholar” and eight other stories]. Tales of Ireland [1834], later edn., ill. Brooke [contains ‘Death of a Devotee”, “The Priest’s Funeral”, “Lachlin Murray and the Blessed Candle”, “Neal Malone”, “The Illicit Distiller”; “The Brothers”, “The Dream of a Broken Heart”; Brown singles out the last as pure and noble and calls the rest feeble]. Fardorougha the Miser ([1839] London: Downey; NY: Haverty [n.d.]), 280pp, with a preface by the author and another by D. J. O’Donoghue [chars., Una O’Brien, heroine; Honor O’Donovan; and the original of the miser’s wife modelled on Carleton’s mother]. The Fawn of Springvale, or Jane Sinclair, [with] The Clarionet, and Other Tales, 2 vols. (1841) [includes “Lha Dhu”, and “The Dead Boxer”]; Do., rep. as Jane Sinclair (1849, incl. “The Dark Day”, which is “Lha Dhu” [middle-class life with eulogistic portrait of dissenting minister John Sinclair, Calvinistic and truly charitable]; “Clarionet” and “The Dead Boxer”, printed with “Barney Branagan” (1850). [Parra Sastha, or] Paddy go Easy and His Wife Nancy (Dublin: Duffy [1845]) [prototype of Adventures of Mick M’Quaid, acc. Brown]. Valentine M’Clutchy; or, The Chronicles of Castlecumber [sic] Property (Dublin: Duffy 1845, and edns.), trans. as Chroniques de Chateau Cumber, in L’Univers, 1845; Do., rep. edn., as Valentine McClutchy, The Irish Agent (NY: Garland, 1979), xii, 468pp. Rody the Rover (Dublin: Duffy 1845) [origin of Ribbonism, the hero and emissary, self-interested rascals, govt. spy denounced]. Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1851) [besides stories in Irish Penny Journal, incl. ‘Fate of Frank McKenna”, “A Legend of Knockmany”; “Talbot and Gaynor, the Irish Pipers”, “Moll Roe’s Marriage”, “The Three Wishes”, “Condy Cullen; or, The Irish Rake”, “A Record of the Heart”, “Stories of Second Sight”, “Buckram Back”; favourably reviewed by Davis in The Nation]. Denis O’Shaughnessy Going to Maynooth (1845), Routledge ed. ill. W. H. Brooke, 200pp. [n.d., in Whelan Cat. 32] [‘There is no people bound up so strongly in each other by the ties of domestic life as the Irish”, Carleton]. Art Maguire [1845], also Sadlier edn., 252pp. [ded. Fr Mathew, and irreproachable from Catholic viewpoint]. The Black Prophet [1847], ed. & intro. by D. J. O’Donoghue, ill. by J. B. Yeats (Laurence & Bullen 1899). The Emigrants of Ahadarra [1847] (London: Routledge; NY: Sadleir ed [n.d.]) [exquisite port. of peasant girl; O’Finigan’s half-tipsy eloquence; kindly spirit]. The Tithe-Proctor (Belfast Simm & M’Intyre 1849) [real-event murder of Bolands, written in mood of savage resentment against countrymen, acc. O’Donoghue, a ‘gross accumulation of melodramatic horrors’]. Jane Sinclair [as in Works - as infra]. Tales and Sketches of Irish Life and Character (Dublin 1845), ill., plates by Phiz [orig. ed.]. Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1851) - see Amusing Irish Tales [... &c.] [orig. edn. 1851]; Do. [4th edn.] (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co.; Glasgow: Thomas D. Morison [n.d. 1889-90], 256pp. - details in Works - as infra]. The Squanders of Castle Squander, 2 vols. (1852), 326, 311pp. [acc. O’Donoghue, “the latter part [is] acrid political argument’]. Red Hall; or, The Baronet’s Daughter, 3 vols. (London 1852), reissued as The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles of Ballytrain (Dublin: Duffy 1856], 476pp. [upper-class society tragedy; the scene with a peasant leaving dead family in his famine hut regarded by Barnett Smith in XIXth Century as Carleton’s most dramatic scene]. Alley Sheridan; or, The Runaway Marriage, and Other Stories (Dublin 1857), rep. from National Magazine, 1830. The Evil Eye; or, The Black Spectre [rep. edn.] (Dublin: Duffy 1860), ill. Edmund Fitzpatrick, ARHA [‘perilously near ridiculous in style and plot”, acc. O’Donoghue], trans. L’Oeil Mauvais ou Le Spectre Noir (Paris 1865). Redmond O’Hanlon (Dublin: Duffy 1862), 199pp. [Rapparee; from national viewpoint not inspiring]; The Double Prophecy, or Trials of the Heart, 2 vols. (Dublin 1862), rep. from Irish American (NY), and Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine [incl. scene of seduction]. The Silver Acre and Other Tales (Ward, Lock & Co. 1862), contains 3 stories - “The Silver Acre” [John Hogan, clever, goes to drink in Dublin, returns to fiancée Ellen Connor who is dying, reforms]; “The Fair of Emyvale”, “Master and Scholar’]. The Fair of Emyvale - Master and Scholar (London 1870). Amusing Irish Tales [4th edn.] (2 series in one, 1st ser. 1889, 2nd ser. 1890) [‘not to be confused with Traits’ - Brown], of which Ser. 1 contains “Buckram Back, the Country Dancing Master”; “Mary Murray, the Irish Match-maker”; “Bob Pentland, the Irish Smuggler”; “Tom Gressley, the Irish Sennachie”; “Barney M’Haigney, the Irish Prophecy Man”, and ten others (?in part or whole a rep. of Tales and Stories, 1851, itself a rep. of Tales and Sketches). The Red-Haired Man’s Wife (Dublin: Sealy, Bryers 1889) [exploits of Leeam [sic] O’Connor, lady-killer; other chars., Hugh O’Donnell, Fenian; Fr Moran, Rev. Brayley, bosom friends; part MS destroyed by fire, missing portions supplied by MacDermott, and published Carlow Coll. Magazine, 1870, acc. O’Donoghue, Life, ii, p.321]. Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, many eds. - e.g., (London: Routledge), 1 vol., [another edn.] (NY, Dutton; London: Ward, Lock & Co.), 2 vols., demy 8o; ill. Harvey, Gilbert, “Phiz”, Franklin, MacManus, etc. 424, 432pp.; best edition [acc. Brown], 4 vols. (Dent 1896, taken from 1830-33 edn.), incl. the original autograph introduction with a biographical and critical preface by O’Donoghue, rep. Phiz orig. ills.; contents, “Ned M’Keon”; “Three Tasks”; “Shan Fadh’s Wedding”; “Larry M’Farland’s Wake”; “The Station”; “An essay on Irish Swearing”; “The Battle of the Factions”, “The Midnight Mass”; “the party fight and Funeral”, “The Hedge School”; “The Lough Derg Pilgrim”; “The Donagh; or, The Horse Stealers”, “Phil Purcel, the Pig Driver”; “The Leanhan Shee’ [sic], “The Geography of an Irish Oath”; “The Poor Scholar”; “Wildgoose Lodge”; “Tubber Derg”; “Denis O’Shaughnessy Going to Maynooth”; “Phelim’s Courtship”; and “Neil Malone” [21 titles]. Later editions incl. Stories from Carleton, [ed. and] intro. W. B. Yeats (Walter Scott [1889]), xvii, 302pp. [contains ‘the Poor Scholar”, “Tubber Derg”, “Wildgoose Lodge”, “Shane [sic] Fadh’s Wedding”; “The Hedge School”; Also, Carleton’s Stories of Irish Life, intro. Darrell Figgis [Every Irishman’s Library] (Talbot 1918). A work called Anne Cosgrave; or, The Chronicles of Silver Burn, on the topic of Northern religious revivals, and about which remarks by Carleton and O’Donoghue are quoted, is ‘not yet published’. Note: ODNB entry is by Barnett Smith.

Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. II, lists Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1st ser. 1830; 2nd ser. 1833; complete edn. in 2 vols.; 1843-44), in which ‘The Lough Derg Pilgrim’; ‘Going to Maynooth’ and ‘The Poor Scholar’ [both novella-length] ‘The Three Tasks’; ‘The Lianhan Shee’; ‘Shane Fadh’s Wedding’; ‘Larry McFarland’s Wake’; ‘Phil Purcel the Pig-Driver’; ‘The Wildgoose Lodge’ [first person narr.], et. al.; ded. [Lord] John Russell, editor of Moore’s Memoirs, Journals and Correspondence (1853-56); The Black Prophet, A Tale of Irish Famine (1847), first published serially in the Dublin University Magazine from May to December, 1846; Tales and Sketches Illustrating the Character, Usages, Traditions, Sports and Pastimes of the Irish Peasantry (1845), a collection of twenty one short prose pieces by William Carleton, including the characters Buckram Back, ‘the Country Dancing Master’, Mary Murray, ‘the Irish Match-Maker’, Tom Gressley, ‘the Irish Sennachie’, and Barney M’Haigney, ‘the Irish Prophecy Man’; all appeared in the Irish Penny Journal, 1840-41; dedicated to Charles Gavan Duffy, editor of The Nation. Three novels written in 1845 for the ‘Parlour Library of Ireland’ series published by James Duffy, and promoted by The Nation, Art Maguire; or, The Broken Pledge (1845), temperance novel [formerly in a shorter version as ‘The Broken Oath’ in Christian Examiner, 1828]; Rody the Rover (1845); Parra Sastha; or, The History of Paddy Go-Easy and His Wife Nancy (1845) [viz, Nancy M’Bride] for James Duffy, publ., to replace Davis’s projected life of Tone.

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day Company 1991), Vol. 1, makes reference to James Duffy in his capacity as Carleton’s publisher at pp.682, 1175, and 1300.

See also ‘Mr Lever’s “Irish” Novels’, printed in FDA1, pp.1255-65, and therein ascribed to Charles Gavan Duffy, is called a ‘scurrilous attack’ on Lever but ascribed to Carleton in Malcolm Brown, Politics of Irish Literature, 1972, with the added note that Lever apparently took the criticism to heart and resigned from the Dublin University Magazine to write a peace offering in the form of an agrarian novel, Saint Patrick’s Eve. [See Brown, op. cit., p.65 & ftn.]

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day Company 1991), Vol. 2, selects The Black Prophet [124-29]; Wildgoose Lodge [873-83]; remarks incl. Douglas Hyde: ‘Carleton’s stories bear witness to the prevalence of the Irish language and traditions in Ulster when he began to write’, from The Necessity of De-Anglicising Ireland ...&c (1892), 531; comparing the attack on Knockloftie House in W. H. Maxwell’s Hector O’Halloran with ‘Wildgoose Lodge’ as variants on an Irish gothic theme [W. J. McCormack, ed.] 835; ‘Confessions of a Reformed Ribbonman’ [1830] alias ‘Wildgoose Lodge’ [1833], discussed under the heading, ‘Fact and Fiction’ [ibid., and with ftn ref. to Barbara Hayley, Carleton’s Traits &c, 1983, pp.124-36 for discussion of same], 837-40 [See further Note, infra]; listed as Anglo-Irish novelist by Thomas MacDonagh (1916), 990; Frederick Ryan cites Carleton among others to argue that the language that they found ‘good enough ... to sing their love of Ireland in, and preach to Ireland in’ is good enough for us (Dana, 1904), 999; Daniel Corkery, the work of Somerville and Ross lives mostly be English suffrage; while Carleton’s work - written quite obviously under Ascendancy influence - lives by Irish suffrage (1931), 1010; located in tradition of regionalist fiction [Augustine Martin, ed.], 1021; peasant fiction, violence and melodrama [ibid.], 1022. FDA3 selects Autobiography [391-99]. See further under W. J. McCormack, in Commentary, infra. See Also FDA2, Biog. & Criticism [see Life, supra]. Note also FDA2, ftn., 839 [WJ McCormack, ed.], citing three articles in the Journal of the Co. Louth Archael. and Hist. Soc. that sifts material relating to the impact of the attack on Wildgoose Lodge (29 Oct. 1816), viz., T. F. G. Paterson, ‘The Burning of Wildgoose Lodge’, JCLAHS, 12, 2 (1950), pp.159-80; Daniel J. Casey, ‘Carleton in Louth’, in Ibid., 17 2 (1970), pp.97-106; Casey, ‘Wildgoose Lodge, The Evidence and the Lore’, in Ibid., 18, 2 (1974), pp.140-64.

John Sutherland, ed., Oxford Companion to Victorian Fiction, lists Fardarougha (1839), serialised irregularly in DUM, Feb. 1837-Feb. 1838. ‘Quantity of fiction inferior in lit. quality to Lover and Lever ... but cater[ing] less obviously for the mainland English public.’ None of his novels are treated separately in Sutherland.

Frank Ormsby, ed., Northern Windows: An Anthology of Ulster Autobiography (Belfast: Blackstaff Press 1987), includes extract from Autobiography (here pp.1-12).

Kevin Rockett, et al., eds., Cinema & Ireland (1988) lists Willy Reilly and his Colleen Bawn (Film Co. of Ireland; dir. John MacDonagh, 1920), 23-9 [based on Carleton novel, Willy Reilly and his Dear Coleen 1855; surprising it got made in view of tension surrounding land cases in Dáil Éireann; Film Co. of Ireland swansong], 30 [suppression of most awkward features of Irish reality in], 38 [ignoring awkward features of Irish history], 43 [Frances MacNamara née Alexander and her partner Brian Magowan, playing].

See also details of the 1920 production at TCD Irish Film website online. - viz., silent, b&2, 90 mins.; dir. MacDonagh; script by Dr. D. A. Moriarty from Carleton’s novel [orth. Colleen] of 1855; cast: Brian Magowan (Willy Reilly), Frances Alexander (Helen Folliard/The Colleen Bawn), Richard Sheridan (Tom the Fool), Seamus MacBlante (Sir Robert Whitecraft), Dermot O’Dowd (Squire Folliard), Barrett McDonnell (the Red Rapparee). Mainly filmed at St. Enda’s Rathfarnham, and in the Pine Forest.

Synopsis: In the mid-1740s in rural Ireland, Squire Folliard is held up by Red Rapparee and his gang. Willy Reilly, a Catholic gentleman, comes on the scene and rescues the squire. A grateful squire brings Willy to his home where he meets and falls in love with the squire’s daughter, Helen, the Colleen Bawn. Red Rapparee tries to kidnap Helen, but he is thwarted again by Willy. The squire opposes the liaison between Helen and Willy because of their differing religions, and seeks to encourage Helen to marry the bigoted, anti-Catholic Sir Robert Whitecraft. Whitecraft intensifies his vendetta against Catholics by burning down his rival’s home. Willy had already placed the property in the care of a friendly Protestant clergyman Reverend Brown, and after the burning of Willy’s home, Brown and another sympathetic Protestant Mr Hastings complain about Whitecraft’s activities to the Lord Lieutenant. He orders that Whitecraft and Red Rapparee be arrested. Meanwhile, Willy and Helen decide to elope, but they are intercepted before they can leave the district. In court, Whitecraft and Red Rapparee are sentenced to death, while Willy, who has been charged with abducting Helen and of stealing her jewels, is sentenced to seven years’ exile on the abduction charge. Thinking that Willy has been sentenced to death, a depressed Helen slides into a melancholic state which is only relieved when Willy returns to Ireland from exile. By then, the squire has accepted Willy as his future son-in-law, and the film ends showing the couple with a baby in the company of the squire. [see at at TCD Irish Film website - online.]

Anthony Slide, Cinema in Ireland (1988), p. 14. The plot concerns the love of a Catholic gentleman for a Protestant heiress. Promotional material at the time of the release comments, ‘The reciprocal acts of goodwill by both Catholics and Protestants throughout the play beautifully illustrates the moral of national brotherhood, and demonstrates the truth, so often forgotten, that may worship their different God at different altars while serving their common country side by side.’ (Quoted from John McDonaghs’ [sic] reminiscences, printed in Cinema Ireland 1895-1976, Dublin Arts Festival 1976, p.11.)

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Library catalogues
British Library (Cat. 1956) lists 72 Carleton titles including contemporary and posthumous reprints and The Poor Scholar, a study by Benedict Kiely.

University of Ulster Library (Morris Collection) holds The Life of William Carleton being his autobiography and letters, and an account of his life and writings, 2. vols. (Downey & Co. 1896), [ed. and intro.] by D. J. O’Donoghue; Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1893); The Tithe Proctor (1849); Valentine M’Clutchy (1847). Also, Belfast Central Public Library holds 30 titles.

University of Ulster (Central Library) holds edns., Traits and Stories (2 vols. 1830; and 3 vols. 1833); Traits and Stories [... &c.] by William Carleton, new ed. with intro. explanatory notes and numerous ills. in wood and steel [Harvey, Phiz, etc.], 2 vols. (NY: Wilson and Hawkins 1862), 427pp. [ends with ‘Phil Purcel’], 430pp. [ends with ‘Neal Malone’], reprinted from another ed., Traits and Stories, 11th complete edn., London: William Tegg 1843), [ill. by Phiz, Harvey, etc.], port. engrav. signed C. Grey Jan. 29 1843/William Teggs [printed]’, 2 vols. 427pp, 430pp.; note also Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (London: William Tegg 1869), Vol. 1, cited in Margaret O’Brien, ‘William Carleton, the Lough Derg Exile’, in Hyland and Sammells, eds., Irish Writing (1991); Traits and Stories &c. [facs. rep.] (NY: Garland 1979).

Herbert Bell (Private Library) holds Traits and Stories, 2 vols. (Dublin: O’Curry MDCLXLIII/1843); signed by author, ‘21 Aug. 1844’ and ded. to Mary Duffy[?] held in private library of Herbert Bell, Esq., Belfast. SEE A. P. Graves, who writes that Tennyson corrected his Hiberno-English from Carleton.

Cathach Books 1996-97 lists D. J. O’Donoghue, ed., Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, 4 vols. (London: Dent 1896); Stories of the Irish Peasantry (Dublin 1845), 393pp.; Art Maguire; or, The Broken Pledge: A narrative (Dublin: Duffy n.d.), 254pp.; Tubber Derg, or, The Red Well: Party Fight and funeral, Dandy Kehoe’s Christening, and Other Irish Tales (Dublin: Duffy n.d.), 256pp. [Cathach 1996-97]. Also [QRY], T. S. F. Battersby, Carleton on Parliamentary Elections in Ireland ... [&c.] (Dublin: Hodges, Figgis 1892), 419pp.

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Notes
Traits and Stories: Editions of Carleton’s Traits and Stories [ ... &c.] are treated as follows in Barbara Hayley’s Foreword to the 1990 Reprint: ‘These [the orig. series of 1830] were followed in 1832 by an equally acclaimed Second Series, and after several reprints and new edns., both series were put together in 1842 for the extravagant and elegant New Edition of which this is a facs. reproduction.’ (Barbara Hayley, Foreword, to Traits and Stories, 1990 Edn., p.11).

Fardorougha the Miser, or The Convicts of Lisnamona (1839), Connor O’Donovan, son of the eponymous character, is deeply in love with Una O’Brien, provoking the jealousy of Bartle Flanagan, a Ribbonman who implicates Connor in an agrarian crime resulting in his transportation to a penal colony to the distress of his parents. (See Answers.com [online; accessed 19.11.2009.)

Valentine M’Clutchy, the Irish Agent; or, The Chronicles of Castle Cumber (1845): a melodramatic account of M’Clutchy, the dishonest agent of an absentee landlord whose son Phil wants to marry Mary M’Loughlin contrary to her wishes, resulting in a campaign of persecution against her family abetted by Solomon M’Slime, the corrupt attorney who abets M’Clutchy. The novel ends with the assassination of the eponymous villain. (See Answers.com [online; accessed 19.11.2009.)

The Black Prophet: A Tale of Irish Famine (1847): The Dalton family of small farmers is suspected of a murder actually committed by Donnel Dhu, the “prophecy man“ of the title, and the shadow of suspicion which hangs over the Daltons. The novel searingly depicts the effect of starvation and disease, based on Carleton’s memories of the famine of 1817, while Donnel Dhu is modelled on the a type of vagrant in pre-Famine Ireland who took their lore from Pastorini. The work was first published serially in the Dublin University Magazine. (See Answers.com [online; accessed 19.11.2009.)

Ulster-Scot?: Carleton wrote that he ‘studiously avoided that intolerable Scoto-Hibernic jargon which pierces the ear so unmercifully’ (q. source).

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The Emigrants of Ahadarra: A Tale of Irish Life (1848): Bryan M’Mahon loves Kathleen Cavanagh but is rejected by her on suspicion of apostasy - a suspicion nurtured by the profligate Hycy Burke who wants her for himself. Hycy’s deceit is revealed to the returning absentee landlord and he is sent abroad in place of the M’Mahons who had seemed more likely to take ship as emigrants from Ireland. (See Answers.com [online; accessed 19.11.2009).

Willy Reilly (1855): note that there is an antecedent chapbook title, The Bonny Irish Boy: Willy Reilly, and The Faithful Irish Hero (Belfast: printed in the year 1813), 8p. [12/16cm.], poetry [copy held in British Library.]

Willy Reilly (1862) - Carleton’s play at the Pavilion Th., [Whitechapel, London]: see mixed playbill for the new historical Irish drama, Willy Reilly and his own dear coleen bawn, by Mr. J. F. O’Neill [var. cooleen]; and, the new historical drama, Whitefriars, or, Claude Duval, the dashing highwayman [by W. Thompson Townsend]. Pavilion Th. proprietor, Mr. John Douglass; Manager, Mr. John Campbell; cast includes Mr. J. F. O’Neill, Mrs. J. F. O’Neill, Mr. C. J. Bird, Mr. W. H. Collings; performed Saturday 5, and Monday 7 July 1862, every evening during the week. Playbill incls. notice of benefit performance for J. F. O’Neill. and a performance of the play Lost & Found. Note that the Pavilion was destroyed by fire in 1856, rebuilt by Temple G. Tenney to the designs of the architect G. H. Simmonds and was known to be capable of holding 3,500 people in 1865. It was destroyed by airraids during the Blitz in 1940. The playbill is held in the Victoria and Albert Libraries; see also the Pavilion Theatre website, and the East London Theatre Archive [online]. (See also Clare Library notice on Ellen Hanley - The Colleen Bawn, attached.]

Traits & Tales: In his Autobiography Carleton describes an account he gave of a townland dancing school in the Irish Penny Journal, subsequently published in a ‘volume of my short sketches called Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry - not Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, which is a different work altogether - in fact, my greatest.’ (1996 Edn., p.107.)

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“Wildgoose Lodge”: After the execution of Paddy Devann by hanging, the perpetrator of the horror of Wildgoose Lodge, his mother remembers him as ‘my poor martyr’, while the peasantry recall him as ‘Poor Paddy!’; Carleton comments in a footnote, ‘This is a gloomy fact that speaks volumes.’ (Traits, Vol. 2 p.326). The Wildgoose murders are the subject of extensive commentary in Field Day Anthology, Vol. 2 [as supra]. See also Terence Dooley, The Murders at Wildgoose Lodge (Dublin: Four Courts Press 2007).

“Wildgoose Lodge” concerns events of 29-30 Oct. 1816; Edward Lynch, a prosperous Catholic farmer, whose son-in-law Thomas Rooney had prosecuted three people for an earlier raid on the house, resulting in their execution; those active in the second raid numbered as many as 100; events at Wildgoose Lodge were used an an excuse to stamp out the “Louth conspiracy”; 23 people were convicted and hanged for the events of that night; the guilt of Paddy Devan is not beyond question; Irish Secretary Robert Peel was involved in the prosecutions. (Dee J. Ardle McArdle, review of Terence Dooley, The Murders at Wildgoose Lodge, in Books Ireland, Feb. 2008, pp.18-19.)

Lady Morgan: In her Wild Irish Girl: A National Tale (1806), Sydney Owenson [later Lady Morgan] writes at some length of the poor scholar in Ireland, a topic later developed by Carleton in his own largely-autobiographical stories, and notably that “The Poor Scholar” (Traits and Stories, 1833, Vol. 1, pp.[57]–298; rep. in later collections as The Poor Scholar ... &c., &c.). Owenson writes on the subject: ‘[...] With a leathern satchel on his back, containing his portable library, he sometimes travels not only through his own province, but frequently over the greater part of the kingdom.No door is shut against the poor scholar, who, it is supposed, at a future day may be invested with the apostolic key of Heaven. The priest or schoolmaster of every parish through which he passes, receives him for a few days into his bare-footed seminary, and teaches him bad Latin and worse English; while the most opulent of his school-fellows eagerly seize on the young peripatetic philosopher, and provides him with maintenance and lodging; and if he is a boy of talent or humour (a gift always prized by the naturally laughter-loving Milesians), they will struggle for the pleasure of his society. [...; &c.; for full text, see RICORSO Library, “Irish Classics”, The Wild Irish Girl, Letter XV, attached.)

Seamus Heaney: Carleton is the chief revenant in Seamus Heaney’s poem Station Island (1984): ‘O holy Jesus, does nothing change? ... hard-mouthed Ribbonmen and ‘Orange bigots / made me into the old fork-tongued turncoat’.

William Trevor A Writer’s Ireland: Landscape of Literature (Viking 1984), quotes from “Wildgoose Lodge”: ‘the scene of hellish murder ... lies at Wildgoose Lodge in the Co. of Louth, four miles from Carrickmacross and nine from Dundalk. The name ... was Lynch.’ (Trevor, op. cit. p.92).

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Cleric life: Carleton wrote a memorandum of 1826 to Sir Robert Peel arguing strongly against Catholic Emancipation. Details of the “Peel Memorandum” are given in Wolff, William Carleton: Irish Peasant Novelist (NY: Garland 1980) pp.19-22, which also deals with the refusal of Bishop Murphy to support Carleton for entry to Maynooth because of his antagonistic relationship with Fr. Keenan to under whom Carleton was to study. Keenan was suspended by the bishop; but Carleton makes no mention of the matter of his lacking diocesan support in his Autobiography. (Cited in Peter Barr, UCC MA op. cit., supra].

Carleton Summer School: The William Carleton Summer School held annually in Clogher Valley, Co. Tyrone, was inaugurated 11-14 Aug. 1992 in conjunction with a Community Festival on 8-15th Aug.

Kith & Kin: A son, William, emigrated to Australia, while his son J. R. Carleton wrote a letter to D. J. O’Donoghue in (12 Oct. 1895) with an account of his father, then living and spoken of as ‘the well known Australian poet’, living at 34 York St, Melbourne. J. R. Carleton was a tradesman whose elaborately-designed stationery offering painting, paperhanging, house decorating, &c. from an address at 139 Toorak Road, South Yarra, with a private address at 77 Osborne St, South Yarra. (Information supplied on Bradford Diaspora E-list by correspondent Eileen O’Sullivan, Dir., Irish Educational Association, Gainesville, FL USA 32653; eolas1@juno.com.)

Note: In Poets of Ireland: A Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary of Irish Writers of English Verse (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co. 1912), O’Donoghue also cites a William Carleton, dramatist in America who claimed to be a nephew, b. Dublin 1827; committed suicide.

Portrait (1): There is an oil portrait of Carleton, seated by John Slattery (fl.1846-58), said by his widow to be ‘a most truthful one’, and held in the National Gallery of Ireland [incl. in Ulster Museum Exhib., 1965]

Portrait (2): A pen drawing of Carleton along with Robt. James and William Hamilton Maxwell, made by Charles Gray, was presented to the National Gallery of Ireland by W. G. Strickland (see W. B. Yeats, A Centenary Exhibition, Nat. Gallery of Ireland 1965).

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