Irish Research: A Guide to Collections in North America, Ireland, and Great Britain

(Hardback)

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Description

This volume fills a conspicuous gap in the literature by providing the first resource guide devoted solely to Irish research collections located on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Organized geographically, the book covers the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Ireland and provides comprehensive information about significant Irish collections in such areas as literature, history, current events, biography, Celtic studies, and the arts. Fully indexed and cross referenced, the guide will enable researchers to discover what is available and where it is located, systematically plan itineraries for visiting collections, and better determine duplication among collections.

Reviews

If you find yourself stuck at a boring conference with a few days to kill, you'll want to have Dee Gee Lester's book with you. Her volume has been in progress for over half a decade. Few of us in Irish Studies have not gotten form letters from her, asking for information about private and public collections in our area, a request that in most has evoked a ho-hum attitude. But through perseverence and doggedness. Lester stuck to her vision and the result is a magnificent volume of valuable information. Lester's book provides details about collections of Irish material in achieves and libraries. Most of the entries are well annotated and every page yields a line or two that will raise an eyebrow or arouse curiosity. For instance, just in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin are, inter alia, diaries of three brothers during their voyage from New York to Clare in 1849; three boxes of Joseph P. McDonnell papers from the period 1847-1906; three boxes of Henry Higgins (honest!) letters between his mother and father in Northern Ireland in the early 1900s. Looking for a project There are hundreds of leads in this book, notations to follow up on, avenues to explore. There are more gems. University of California harbors 1000 volumes from the library of the Maria Edgeworth family in their Research Library and 4500 items relating to Oscar Wilde, plus this: W.B. Yeats and Irish Theatre Movement (1899-1951) Collection: about 560 titles and 20 ms. At Pennsylvania State University are the Eva Gore Booth papers. At Washington and Jefferson College is the Molly Maguire Collection. So if you're near a library with time to kill, pull out Lester's book and pass the hours browsing through some fascinating, relatively unexplored material. It's a most valuable book to possess. * ILS *

Author Bio

DEEGEE LESTER is co-author of Immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland (Greenwood Press, 1986).