James Duffy


Life
1809-71; b. Monaghan, ed. hedge school; at first a bookseller on Anglesea St., Dublin, he began in business by buying up Protestant bibles given to Catholics, exchanging them in Liverpool for a more serviceable stock; he started his own publishing business about 1830 with Boney’s Oraculum, or Napoleon’s Book of Fate, a work that enjoyed huge sales - surviving in popular memory long enough to serve as the object of a mock-learned allusion in a speech of Capt. Boyle in Juno and the Paycock (1924); Duffy concentrated on the lower end of the market with 2d chapbooks, which were hawked around the country by travelling merchants, and afterwards launched a Sixpenny Popular Library, ‘devotional and national’, catering to the same client-base;
 
he moved to the centre of the Irish nationalist stage with the publication of The Spirit of the Nation [1843], an anthology of verse that had appeared in the journal of that name; Duffy issued various titles by Wiliam Carleton, the Banims, and James Clarence Mangan; survived the virtual collapse of market during the Famine (1845-47) and experienced occasional difficulties after 1848; later he acted as publisher for the somewhat abortive “Library of Ireland” series for Charles Gavan Duffy, essentially a reprint series for the writers of 1848 which ran athwart W. B. Yeats’s more ambitious conception of Irish literary standards; his books were well produced [DIB]; issued Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine; Duffy’s Fireside Magazine; Duffy’s Fireside Magazine (1860-1864); held premisses successively at Angelsea St., Wellington Quay (where he had 120 employees), and Westmoreland St.; the company latterly published plays [DIL]. Duffy Died 4 July; epitaph in Glasnevin by C. P. Meehan. [DIL, b. c.1809] DIB DIH DIL OCIL FDA DIL

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Works
Specimen publications culled from RICORSO files ...
Authors by Century Major Irish Authors

19th c. titles
  • The New Irish Journal of information for the People: forming a national library of useful knowledge connected with the history, antiquities, and scenery of Ireland: with numerous original legends and stories (written expressly for this work) / by Mrs. S.C. Hall, Wm. Carleton, Martin Doyle, George Petrie, &c. &c. Illustrated with engravings by eminent Irish artists. (Dublin: James Duffy 1842), [4], [1] 2-416, [i] ii-iii, [1]pp. [COPAC records - online; connected with Martin Doyle [pseud of William Hickey] - q.v.)
 
  • Charles Gavan Duffy, ed. Speeches of John Philipot Curran (Duffy 1843, new ed. expanded 1845).
  • J. S. Le Fanu, The Cock and Anchor (Dublin: Duffy 1845; London: Downey 1909).
  • [Daniel O’Connell,] O’Connell’s Memoir on Ireland Native and Saxon by Daniel O’Connell MP (Dublin: Duffy 1843), and Do. [2nd edn.] (Dublin: James Duffy, 24 Anglesea St 1844), 347pp.; [Rep. duffy 1860]
  • M. J. Barry, Ireland as She Was, As She Is, and As She Shall Be (Duffy 1845).
  • Thomas D’Arcy McGee, A Gallery of Irish Writers ... of the Seventeenth Century (Duffy 1846).
  • The Historical Works of the Rt. Rev. Nicholas French, Bishop of Ferns, 2 vols. in 1 (Duffy 1846).
  • Daniel O’Connell, Life and Speeches of Dan. O’Connell, ed. John O’Connell (Duffy 1846).
  • [Daniel O’Connell,] The Select Speeches of Daniel O’Connell, MP, ed. John O’Connell, 2 vols. (Duffy 1846).
  • Theobald Tone, The Life and Writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone, 3 vols. [1828] (Dublin: Duffy 1846).
  • Thomas Davis, Letters of A Protestant, on Repeal [in Irish Confederation] (Duffy, 1846; 1847).
  • R. R. Madden, Life and Times of Robert Emmet (Duffy 1847) 343p.
  • Thomas Davis, Literary and Historical Essays [of Thomas Davis], ed. Charles Gavan Duffy (Duffy 1846).
  • The Poems of Thomas Davis, ed. Thomas Wallis (Duffy 1846).
  • The Life of J. P Curran (Duffy 1846).
  • [anon.,] The Fortunes of Col. Turlogh O’Brien (1847; rep. Downey 1895).
  • Speeches of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, with memoir and historical introductions by James Burke, Esq., A.B. [Barrister-at-law] (Dublin: Ja. Duffy 1854), 456pp.
  • Geoffrey Keating, Feasa ar Eirin, trans. Dermot O’Connor [1723, 1809] (Dublin: Duffy 1854).
  • Cardinal [Nicholas Patrick Stephen] Wiseman, The Sermons, Lectures and Sermons delivered during Cardinal Wiseman’s Tour of Ireland in 1858 (Duffy, 1859).
  • William Bernard McCabe, A Christmas Story Book (Duffy 1860).
  • [Thomas O’Neill Russell,] The Struggles of Dick Massey, or the Battles of a Boy, by “Reginald Tierney” [pseud.] (Dublin: Duffy 1860).
  • Martin Haverty, The History of Ireland, Ancient and Modern (Dublin: Duffy [c.1860]), 774pp.
  • Adamnan, Life of St Columba (Dublin: Duffy 1861).
  • D. P. Conyngham, Frank O’Donnell (Dublin: Duffy 1861).
  • William Carleton, Red Count O’Hanlon, the Irish Rapparee [1862] (Dublin: James Duffy 1886).
  • W. J. Fitzpatrick, ed., Life, Times, and Correspondence of JKL [James Warren Doyle, Bishop of Kildare & Leighlin], 2 vols. (Duffy & Sons 1861).
  • R. D. Joyce, Ballads, Romances and Songs (Dublin: Duffy 1861).
  • J. S. Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard (Dublin: Duffy [1863]).
  • Mary Sadleir, Simon Kerrigan, or the Confessions of an Apostate (Dublin: Duffy 1864) [also Boston & Montreal].
  • “Speranza” [Francesca Lady Wilde], Poems (Duffy 1864).
  • J. T. Gilbert, Esq., History of the Viceroys of Ireland, with Notices of the Castle of Dublin and its Chief Occupants in Former Times (Dublin: James Duffy 15 Wellington-Quay 1865) 613pp.
  • Thomas Davis, National and Historical Ballads, Songs and Poems by Thomas Davis (Dublin: James Duffy 1869).
  • James Reynolds, The Adventures of Moses Finegan, an Irish Pervert (Duffy, c.1871).
  • Patrick Francis Moran [Cardinal Archb. of Sydney], ed., Monasticon Hibernicum by Mervyn Archdall [1789], with add. notes by P. F. Moran, 2 vols. (Duffy 1873, 1876).
  • Martin MacDermott, The Spirit of the Nation, or Ballad and Song by the Writers of The Nation. With Original and Ancient Music Arranged for the Voice and Pianoforte. New Edition [New Irish Library] (Dublin: James Duffy & Sons 1898), 368pp.
As undated or anon.

Also [anon.] A Grandfather’s Story Book (Duffy 1852); Edmund Leamy, The Fairy Minstrel of Glenmalure (Duffy, n.d., 448pp) [?48pp.]; Charles Lever, Con O’Kelly [Duffy n.d.; being a reprint from Arthur O’Leary]; Cecilia Mary Caddell, The Miner’s Daughter; Flowers and Fruit [Duffy n.d.]. Note also The Juvenile Library (Duffy n.d.) [ser.]
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20th c. titles (sel.)
  • John Sillard, ed. The Poems of R. D. Williams [1876] (Dublin: Duffy 1901); .
  • Ethna Carbery, The Four Winds, ed. Seumas McManus (Gill, Duffy 1913/1905).
  • Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, In Dark and Evil Days (James Duffy 1916).
  • Arthur Griffith, The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland (Dublin: James Duffy 1904), and Do. [3rd edn.] (Dublin: James Duffy 1918).
  • Victor O’D[onovan] Power, Flurry to the Rescue (Duffy 1918) [one-act play].
  • David P. Moran, The Philosophy of Irish Ireland (Dublin: J Duffy; M. H. Gill, The Leader [1905]).
  • Miss S. M. “Athene” Harris, Grace Woodward (Dublin: Duffy 1900).
  • Arthur Griffin, The Sinn Féin Policy (Dublin: Duffy & Gill 1906).
  • Mathias Bodkin, True Man and Traitor (Duffy 1910).
  • George Sigerson, Songs and Poems intro. by Padraic Colum (Dublin: Duffy 1927) [his other works being publ. by O’Daly, Kegan Paul, and by Unwin].
  • Micheál MacLiammóir, Ill Met by Moonlight (Duffy 1954).
  • Michael J Molloy, The King of Friday’s Men (Duffy 1954).
  • Michael J. Molloy, The Paddy Pedlar (Duffy 1954).
  • F. X. Martin, ed., The Irish Volunteers (Duffy 1963).
  • [...]
  • Brian P Murphy, Patrick Pearse and the Lost Republican Ideal (Dublin: James Duffy 1992), 246pp.
See also listing of well-known authors published by Duffy - as infra.

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Newspapers/Journals, Duffy’s Fireside Magazine; Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine [see comp. edition, infra] - also known as Irish Fireside and Hibernian Magazine, and commonly so-cited in D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland, 1912 et al. bio-bibliographical sources.]

Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine: A Monthly Journal of Literature, Science, and Art, by the most eminent writers, 8 vols. [cumulative biannual] (Dublin: James Duffy 1860-64), [‘including Miss Julia Kavanagh; William Carleton, Esq.; John O’Donovan; [...] Rev. C. P. Meehan; [...] Martin Haverty, Esq.; William F. Wakeman, Esq.; J. D. Mac Carthy, Esq.; John F. O’Donnell, Esq., &c., &c.’ [indexes in each vol.; 4° & 8°].
 
Note: later parts (4-8) issued as [Do.:] A Monthly Journal of Legends, Tales, and stories, Irish Antiquities, Biography, Science, and Art [copy in Manchester & Newcastle ULs; also available on University Microfilms (Ann Arbour, Mich.: [Chicago U.)]

Anthologies, The Songs of Ireland (Duffy 1849); Hercules Ellis, ed., Romances and Ballads of Ireland (Duffy 1850); David Hayes, The Ballads of Ireland, 2 vols. [q.d.].

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The chief literary authors and their works published by Duffy were ..

The Banims: The Boyne Water (Duffy 1865); The Works of the O’Hara Family, with foreword and notes by Michael Banim (Duffy 1865); Banim, The Fetches (Duffy [1825]); Peter of the Castle (Duffy [1826]); The Boyne Water (Duffy [1826] & eds.); The Anglo-Irish of the Nineteenth Century 3 vols., orig. Colburn 1828, rep. as Lord Clangore in 1 vol. of coll. ed. (Duffy 1865); The Conformists (Duffy [1829]); The Denounced, or the Last Baron of Crana (Duffy [1826; err.]); Crohoore of the Billhook (Duffy [1825]); The Croppy (Duffy [1st ed.; 1828]); The Mayor of Windgap (Duffy [1834]); The Croppy; A Tale of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 (Duffy 1865).

William Carleton: Art Maguire; or, The Broken Pledge: A Narrative (Dublin: James Duffy 1845), xi, 252pp.; Parra Sastha; or, The History of Paddy-Go-Easy and His Wife Nancy (Dublin: James Duffy 1845), xvi, 198pp.; Rody the Rover; or, the Ribbonman (Dublin: James Duffy 1845), iv, 260pp., 12º [called 3rd vol. in the series in the Preface, dated 30 Aug. 1845]; Do. [4th Edn.] (Duffy 1845), vii, 244pp.; Tales and Sketches illustrating the Character, Usages, Traditions, Sports and Pastimes of the Irish Peasantry (Dublin: James Duffy 1845), ix, 393pp. [later issued as Tales and Stories of the Irish Peasantry]; Valentine McClutchy, The Irish Agent, or Chronicles of Castle Cumber Property, 3 vols. (Dublin: James Duffy 1845), xii, 300, 318, & 336pp., ill. [plates by Phiz]; The Black Baronet (Dublin: James Duffy 1856) [reiss. of The Baronet’s Daughter]; The Evil Eye, or The Black Spectre (Dublin: James Duffy 1860); The Double Prophecy, or Trials of the Heart (Dublin: James Duffy 1862); Redmond Count O’Hanlon, the Irish Rapparee (Dublin: James Duffy 1862; rep. 1886); The Evil Eye; or, The Black Spectre (Dublin: James Duffy 1860); Redmond O’Hanlon (Dublin: Duffy 1862); Tubber Derg, or, The Red Well: Party Fight and Funeral, Dandy Kehoe’s Christening, and Other Irish Tales (Dublin: James Duffy n.d.), 256pp.; The Poor Scholar, Frank Martin and the Fairies, the Country Dancing Master, and Other Irish Tales (Dublin: James Duffy [1869]), 252pp.

Gerald Griffin: Christian Physiologist and Other Tales (Duffy n.d.), as well as the Life of Gerald Griffin by his Brother (Duffy n.d. [1842]); The Collegians, or The Colleen Bawn (Duffy [1828]; Duffy, new eds. to 1918); Griffin, The Invasion, novel (Duffy [1832]); Collected ed. in 7 vols. published by P. J. Kennedy, New York; 10 Vol. Duffy ed. includes a life by his brother (1842); The Collegians, or The Colleen Bawn (Duffy [1828]; do., Duffy, new eds. to 1918; The Invasion (Duffy [1832]); Tales of the Jury Room [orig. publ. as Talis Qualis (Duffy [1842]); Poetical and Dramatic Works of Gerald Griffin (James Duffy 1867), viii, 393pp., engraved titlepage; Poetical Works (London 1851); Irish Poetic Gems (1887); Poetical Works inc. his play Gissipus, pref. John P. Dalton (J. Duffy 1926), xxiv, viii, 393pp; The Beautiful Queen of Leix, or The Self-Consumed, an Irish Tale (Dublin 1854 [1853]), in Duffy’s Popular Library; Card Drawing, The Half Sir, and Suil Dhuv the Coiner (Dublin 1857); The Christian Physiologist, as The Offering of Friendship or Tales of the Five Senses (Duffy 1854 [1853]); another ed. (Duffy 1860); Collegians, [eds. 1829, 1847] (Dublin 1857); Collegians, intro. Padraic Colum [1918], xxii, 437, also A. P. Graves (1914), in Every Irishman’s Library; Day of Trial, an Irish Tale (Dublin 1854 [1853]), in Duffy’s Popular Library; Holland-Tide, The Aylmers of Bally Aylmer; The Hand and Word; The Barber of Bantry (Dublin 1857); The Kelp Gatherer, an Irish Tale [Duffy’s Popular Library] (Dublin 1854); The Rivals (Dublin 1857); A Study of Psyche (1854), Duffy’ Popular Library; Talis Qualis ... Jury Room (London 1847; Dublin 1857); The Voluptuary Cured, an Irish Tale (Dublin 1854 [1853]), Duffy’s Popular Library; Knight Without Reproach, extract from Talis Qualis [Duffy c.1900], 61pp.; The Young Milesian, The Selfish Crotarie (Dublin 1854 [18753], in Duffy’s Popular Library. Also Poetical Works (Belfast 1851); The Day of Trial (Duffy 187?); The Kelp-gatherer (Duffy [1854]); A Story of Psyche (Duffy 1876).

Charles Kickham: James J. Healy, Life and Times of Charles J. Kickham (Duffy 1915) 146p.; Sally Cavanagh [Duffy [1869]; Knocknagow [3rd edn.] (Duffy 1879), and Do., intro. Robert Lee Wolff [in 1 vol.] (Garland 1979); R. J. Kelly, K.C., CJ Kickham, Patriot and Poet: A Memoir (James Duffy 1914).

Denis Florence McCarthy: ed. Poets and Dramatists (1846) [the first and only volume of Duffy’s orig. “Library of Ireland”]; ed., The Book of Irish Ballads (Duffy 1846); ed., The Poets and Dramatists of Ireland (Duffy 1846); Mysteries of Corpus Christi by Calderon de la Barca (Duffy 1857).

R. R. Madden: The Literary Remains of the United Irishmen, ed. by Father C. P. Meehan (Duffy & Co 1887); United Irishmen, 6 vols. (1842-46; 2nd ed., Series 1-4, 1857-60); also, separately 2nd ed., 1st Series (Duffy, Dublin 1857), 2nd Series (Duffy, Dublin 1858).

James Clarence Mangan: Essays in Prose and Verse, ed. C.P. Meehan (Duffy 1884); Duffy’s Irish Catholic Magazine, fl.1847; The Poets and Poetry of Munster, Irish poets of the last century (Duffy 1901; first ed. John O’Daly, 1851) [Sigerson]; Rutheford Mayne, The Turn of the Road (Maunsel 1907, rep. Duffy 1950); The Geraldines, from ... latin of D. de Rosario O’Daly (Duffy 1847).

Rev. C. P. Meehan: Confedation of Kilkenny ([Duffy] 1860); The Fate and Fortune of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O’Donnel, Earl of Tyrconnel, their Flight from Ireland and Death in Exile (Duffy 1870); The Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries and memoirs of the Irish Hierarchy in the Seventeenth Century (Duffy 1867; another ed. c.1880).

John Mitchel: Life of Hugh O’Neill, Prince of Ulster (Duffy 1846), The Life and Times of Aodh O’Neill, Prince of Ulster, called by the English Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, with some account of his predecessors Con, Shane, and Tirlough (Duffy 1846), 246p.; Mitchel, History of Ireland Since the Treaty of Limerick (Glasgow, London, and Dublin: Duffy 1868 [FDA: 1896]); Life of Mitchel by P. A. Sillard (Duffy 1889).

Thomas MacNevin: ed., The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. Richard Lalor Sheil with memoir (Duffy 1845); McNevin, The History of the Volunteers of 1782 (Duffy 1845; another ed., n.d., c.1882); MacNevin, The Confiscation of Ulster in the Reign of James I commonly called the Ulster Plantation (Duffy 1846).

James Murphy: Hugh Roach, Ribbonman (Duffy [c.1887], 4th ed. 1909); Luke Talbot ([1890), 6th edn. [1919]; The Flight from the Cliffs (Duffy 1911); Lays and Legends (Duffy 1912) [prose and verse]; The Inside Passenger (Duffy 1913).

Richard B. O’Brien: Jack Hazlitt AM [Duffy 1875]; The D’Altons of Crag [Duffy 1882]; Ailey Moore: A Tale of the Times; Showing how Evictions, Murders, and such like Pastimes are Managed and Justice Administered in Ireland (Duffy 1856).

John Francis O’Donnell: ed. Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine (1862); The Emerald Wreath: A Fireside Treasury of Legends, Stories, &c., by “Caviare” [pseud. J. F. O’Donnell], with ills. by the Brothers Dalziel (Dublin: James Duffy 1864); Memoirs of the Irish Franciscans (James Duffy 1871). See also Poems of J. F. O’Donnell (London: Ward & Downey 1891).
—Compiled from RICORSO.

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Criticism
  • in Irish Monthly, 23 (1895), pp.596-601
  • Rev. Matthew Russell [as M.R.], ‘James Duffy the publisher’ [“Contributions to Irish Biography”, No. 29,] in Irish Monthly, Vol. 23 (1895), pp.596-602.
  • Anon., ‘How James Duffy Rose to Fame’, Irish Book Lover 18 (1930), 168-69 [copied from Irish Independent; see extract - as infra].
  • Peadar O’Donnell, ‘Publishing in Ireland’, in The Bell, Vol. 15, No.4 (1948), pp.69-71 [contains answers from certain firms to queries].
  • Irish Ecclesiastical Record, No. 102 (1964), pp.86-100 [article dealing with Duffy’s Irish Catholic Magazine].
  • ‘James Duffy’, in Robert Hogan, Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1979).

See further under Commentary - as infra.

Bibliography
A Catalogue of James Duffy & Co. (Dublin: Duffy 1903) incorps. 1. Standard Catholic publications, Prayer books, &c.; 2. books relating to Ireland; 3. fiction [noticed in Alan Eager].

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Commentary
Anon., ‘How James Duffy Rose to Fame’, Irish Book Lover 18 (1930), 168-69 [copied from Irish independent]: ‘Here all manner of books relating to Ireland were turned out at white heat - classics from the pens of Davis, Mitchel, Mangan, D’Arcy McGee, D.E McCarthy, Gavan Duffy, Carleton, Dalton, Williams, Martin Haverty, the Banims, Gerald Griffin, Father Meehan, and later, the matchless stories of Kickham, and the scholarly hagiological works of Cardinal Moran, Bishop Comerford, Canon O’Hanlon and others.’ (Quoted in Joep Leerssen, Remembrance and Imagination, 1996, p.3 - as infra). See also following summary:


Irish Book Lover [unsigned,] ‘How James Duffy Rose to Fame’, in IBL, Vol. 18 (Nov-Dec 1930) - rep. from Irish Independent [anon.] - summary: his first book Napoleon’s Book of Fate, entitled Boney’s Oraculum, in every corner of Ireland; 40 yrs maintained interest in Irish Catholicity and Irish nationality; ed. hedgeschool, where he was friends with John Donegan, Dublin watchmaker of note, who assisted him to his first publishing business at Anglesea St.; cheap editions of O’Daly’s ‘dream books’, Mangan and Sigerson; contributed for the masses of Catholic and national, devotional, and healthy fireside reading; eds. at 6d, in his Duffy’s Sixpence Library, 1830s; moved to Wellington Quay; Printed for Young Ireland; Gavan Duffy wrote, ‘The volumes projected by the Young Irelanders were nearly all published by James Duffy ... The Spirit of the Nation issued in the first instance from the Nation office, but as demand for them becmae embarrassing I looked for a publisher, and fixed upon James Duffy. This was the beginning of the connection with the Young Ireland Party.’ Employees rose to 120 to whom Duffy gave generous Christmas boxes; portion of his income (like Rockefeller) for charity; his authors included Mitchel, Davis, Mangan, D’Arcy McGee, D. F. McCarthy, Gavan Duffy, Fr. Meehan, and later Kickham, Cardinal [David] Moran, Bishop Comerford, and Canon O’Hanlon. ‘All honoured James Duffy for his manly character, his uprightness and steadfast loyalty to his country and the class from whence he was sprung.’ Glasnevin epitaph by C. P. Meehan asserts he ‘deserved well of religion and country ... devotional publications instructed many into salvation ... historical works he published have exalted the character of his native land and saved its saints and heroes from oblivion.’ (pp.168-69.0

Barbara Hayley, ‘A Reading and Thinking Nation: Periodicals as the Voice of Nineteenth-century Ireland’, in Three Hundred Years of Irish Periodical, ed. Hayley & Enda McKay (Assoc. of Irish Learned Journals: Gigginstown, Mullingar 1987), pp.29-48: ‘The most distinctive voice in periodicals came from one man, James duffy, who can be said to have invented a new kind of cosy family Catholicism. He was a pubilsher of tracts, pamphlets, and schoolbooks, missals and histories of Irelnd, who also published the shilling “Parlour Library of Ireland” and who published his stable of authors in his periodicals. They were all Catholic, Irish and “family” in varying proportions. They span nearly twenty years, from Duffy’s Irish Catholic Magazine, in 1847, Duffy’s Firesie Magazine, and the Catholic Guardian or The Christian Family Library; the Catholic [42] University Gazette; Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine, the Illustrated Dublin Journal and Duffy’s Hibernian Sixpenny Magazine, which ended in 1864. / The first, which set the style, was Duffy’s Irish Catholic Magazine, ornately decorated with bishops’ mitres, full of hymns, psalms and canticles, descriptions of religious sites and “sculptural monuments”, and articles such as, “The use and abuse of church bells”. Its opening article claims it to be a “forerunner of a Catholic literature in Ireland”; unfortunately, when it commissions Catholic literature it concentrates on religious rather than literary excellence, such as the uplifting serial Life and Labours of a Catholic Curate. Duffy’s most “family” publication was the Fireside Magazine, “fourpence monthly, with original narratives, anecdotes and travellers’ tales, for the amusement of the old and the instruction of the young”, with illustrations of happy families at table, fairies, fiddlers and the like. It was jolly, cheerful and confident: “Irish writers show signs of staying at home”, and books published in Dublin sold. The Catholic Guardian was a cheaper periodical, the most aggressivelv religious and most like the old-fashioned penny magazine. On the other hand, the Catholic University Gazette, which was a penny magazine, was much more rigorously intellectual; its director and most distinguished contributor was Cardinal Newman, and his articles for it became The Idea of a University. The Hibernian Magazine had a high literary standard with a predominantly Irish composition, and many romanticised historical pieces, tales of peasant life and serial fiction from Carleton, and poems and essays by Oscar Wilde’s mother “Speranza” and her husband, Sir William Wilde. / Duffy’s Illustrated Dublin Journal was one of the first of a new kind, the quality penny magazine which, thanks to the repeal of paper and stamp duties, predominated in the 1860s. With large striking engravings by artists such as Fitzpatrick or Meason, its main interest is in Irish literary figures; it is entertaining rather than educational, casual and not crammed with facts. With mammoth serials and good short fiction it appealed to all classes. (pp.45-46.)

Joep Leerssen, Remembrance and Imagination: Patterns in the Historical and Literary Representation of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century (Cork UP/Field Day 1996) - cites Duffy as ‘an example [of] the dessemination of national thought, and of an Irish national and historical awareness’. He goes on: "Born in County Cavan or County Monaghan, Duffy began business as a trader in devotional Catholic tracts, and set up a bookshop in Dublin c. 1840. Making use of new typesetting technologies and stereotype print, he specialized in cheap sixpence editions for the lower end of the market. Within a few years, he became the main publisher to the Young Ireland movement, especially after the enormous success of the anthology The spirit of the nation and of ‘The Library of Ireland' series. Duffy’s publishing company survived a financial crisis caused by economic depression of the Famine years, and came to dominate the nationalist and Catholic Dublin book trade in the second half of the century; in the somewhat gushing journalese of a later biographer [quotes Irish Monthly, as supra]. (p.3.)

Leerssen (Remembrance and Imagination, 1996) - cont.: ‘The firm survived Duffy’s death in 1871 and continued publishing well into the present century. Its list consisted of a mix of Catholic-devotional, historio­graphical and novelistic works, as indicated in the names cited above, and confirms the impression that this publisher was a major force in the development and spread of Fenian-style Irish nationalism. The reading public for which Duffy catered would have read Irish-interest texts by these authors regardless of genre difference, and indeed the individual authors in their different works combined literary and historical or discursive prose. To study this reading culture, it is necessary to transcend the compartmentalization of the academic disciplines of literary criticism and historiography. Indeed, as this study hopes to show, some developments in these decades can only be charted properly if they are followed across the divides of neighbouring discursive fields.’ (Leerssen op. cit. ,1996, p.3 [Introduction].)

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References
Bradshaw, Catalogue (1916) Vol. I [known booksellers, publishers and printers], includes James Duffy, Printer and Publisher (1838), and James Duffy and Sons, Publisher (1882), occupy pp.627-631, and begin with item 3765, The Pocket Missal, for the use of the Laity ... Dublin 1838 [which incl. a psalm for the Queen of England]; Andrew Donlevy, Cathecism, 3rd ed., for Royal Coll. of St. Patrick, Maynooth 1848, and works by Cardinal Paul Cullen, Charles William Russell D.D., Keating, trans. Dermod O’Connor [later ed.], 1854; also Martin Haverty, History of Ireland ancient and modern, 1860; Patrick Francis Moran, Memoirs of ... Oliver Plunket, 1861; Eugene O’Curry, Lectures on the MSS Materials &c. [in] 1855 and 1856, 1861; T. Darcy McGee, Gallery of Irish Writers ... 17th century (1863); E[dward] O’Reilly, Dictionary [sic only] 1864; C. P. Meehan [Rev. MRIA], the rise and fall of the Franciscan monasteries, and memoirs of the Irish Hierarchy in the seventeenth c. 1869; Charles G. Duffy, A Bird’s Eye View of Irish History, enl. edn. 1882; C. P. Meehan, The Confederation of Kilkenny, new ed. enl. 1882; Daniel O’Connell, A Memoir on Ireland native and Saxon, 3rd ed. (Dublin: Duffy; London: 1a Paternoster Row [n.a.1885].

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3; d. Dublin 1871. 1175; A Catholic Literature for Ireland, 1292-97 [‘In Ireland, we have been educated for the most part, by the Protestant literature of England - a literature, anti-Catholic, no doubt, but not to be named either for power or malice, in comparison with the modern literature of the Continent. As to the ignorant sneers and violence against Catholicity with which it abounds, it is one of our earliest lessons to learn to steel ourselves against them, so that after a time they cease to wound us. And there is in the body of English literature, if not a religious spirit, yet a full recognition of the truths of revelation; and so far as the influence of Christianity on our social and secular ideas is concerned, there is so much in common betweeen Catholics and Protestants, that the citadel of our faith has not been injured by it. Still it has been mischeivous in more ways than one. The very fact of our being hardened to insults and mockeries against the peculiar doctrines of Catholicity, is itself an evel - so much of religion depends upon awe and reverence for things unseen, that it is no light mischief to be familiarised with contempt for sacred mysteries. We become callous where we should be most sensitive, and swallow as matter of course what should be instinctively revolt us as blasphemy against the Holy of Holies. ... The Protestant tone of our [sic] literature has undoubtedly a tendency, if not to underminde the citadel, yet to shatter some of the outworks of Catholic belief. If it has not had much effect in making Catholics infidels, or Protestants, yet it has in a great measure stripped us of whatever is striking and peculiar in the tone of Catholicity ... contempt for pious traditions ... entrenching themselves within the minimum of Catholic faith &c.’]; BIOG 1300, established himself in Dublin as leading bookseller and publisher, serving the interests (not always compatible) of Young Irelander party and the Catholic middle classes. Published important works of fiction, both originally and in reprint series, by Banim, Carleton, and Gerald Griffin.

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