The Curate of Kilcloon (1912) - cont.: ‘Ireland is pre-eminently the country of religious vocations [...] within the wide domain of the Church’s territory there is no more fruitful recruiting ground for the arm of the King of Kings than ‘our own old Catholic land.’ [...] the Irish have been ever a religiousn-minded, supernatural people, the prevailing trend of whose thoughts is to ‘seek the things that are above.’ [199] Irish peasant’s trusting, child-like faith in the goodness of Providence [198] pure spring of Irish faith [199] [Cont.]

The Curate of Kilcloon (1912) - cont.: I shall touch but lightly on the seven hundred years’ war against English rule as a source of national pride. [200] For 350 years before the so-called Reformation the Irish were fighting for their country against the English invaders; for 300 years after it they had to fight for their faith [202] But if our forefathers were doomed to failure in their efforts to regain their national independence, they were singularily favoured by Providence in their fight for their religion, a fight against desperate odds.’ [203; see longer extracts in RICORSO Library, “Sundry Literary Texts”, via index, or direct].

‘Priests and People in Ireland’ (The Catholic Book Bulletin, 1, Feb. 1911): ‘Even those who have honestly attempted to expound this tempting feature [the bond between priests and people] of Irish life have not unfrequently failed utterly through being alien to the peasantry in creed, nationality or social station. Indeed, its true inwardness and sacredness can only be known by a sort of esoteric knowledge, from which the non-Catholic writer is hopelessly shut out and which the Catholic litérateur who is ignorant of country life in Ireland can scarcely appreciate. Hence the need of an authorised and sympathetic interpreter of the tenderest and most fascinating aspect of the inner or parochial life of Catholic Ireland, a terra incognita to very, very many.’ (p.62; quoted in James H. Murphy, ‘Guinan and Sheehan: “False Standard of Modern Progress“’, in Catholic Fiction and Social Reality in Ireland, 1873-1922, Conn: Greenwood Press 1997, pp.116-26; p.116.)

The Will and the Way (Gill 1915): ‘The union of priests and people in Ireland is a marriage made in heaven.’ (p.30).

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References
Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers [rev. 1 vol. edn.] (Dublin: Lilliput Press 1985), gives bio-details: b. c.1879, d. unknown [but see supra, IF2]; Liverpool priest and PP in Co. Longford; Scenes and Sketches ... (1904); The Soggarth Aroon (1907) [sic. err.], pop. novel about priest; The Island Parish (1908); The Curate of Kilcloon (1913), &c.

Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances and Folklore [Pt. I] (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), remarks: ‘his themes are the life of the poor in Irish Midlands, and the life of priests, for both of which he has unbounded admiration’; concedes that he is possibly ‘wanting in artistic restraint ... free rein to emotion ... atoned by obvious sincerity’; describes scenes of grinding landlordism; further: Soggarth Aroon shows how the peasants’ faith makes their lives supernaturally beautiful; Moores of Glynn, fortunes of a mother and her four children against background of landlordism [1907 sic]; The Island Pariah, peasants’ quiet happiness in grinding poverty through eyes of ideal young priest of Ballyvora, pictures not plot (1908); Donal Kenny, family autobiog. of mother’s death and father’s drinking, love and happy ending (NY 1910).

Desmond Clarke, Ireland in Fiction: A Guide to Irish Novels, Tales, Romances and Folklore [Pt. 2] (Cork: Royal Carbery 1985), adds two novels, both enthusiastically nationalist and Gaelic, Annamore, or The Tenant at Will (London: Burnes Oates & Washbourne 1924), 323pp., et in 1870s; also The Patriots (NY: Benziger 1928), 332pp. [strongly against ‘Irregular’ campaign to destroy the Treaty, 1922-23, with lurid account of Black and Tans].

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