Book notices

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 22, 7 June 1923, Page 21

Book notices

Celtic Ireland, by Eoin AlacNeill; Phases of Irish History, by Eoin Mac Neill; Women of Ninety-Eigh by Airs. Concannon; Daughters of Hanbo, by Airs. Concannon. The Manager of the N.Z. Tablet . Co. has received a stock of the above named books, all dealing with Irish history. With regard to Dr. AlacNeill’s two volumes, we can safely say that no serious student of Irish history can afford to neglect them. The author is the greatest living authority on early Celtic history, and in these two works he has given us the harvest of years of patient research. No writer of Irish history can ignore them in future and they dissipate many old fables which were hitherto handed down to us by author after author as true history. Airs. Concannon’s books are pure gold. She knows her subject and she can write. Apart from the interest of the pages, they are real literary treats in themselves. The Women of Ninety-Eight is a moving and pathetic volume dealing with a sad and glorious chapter in the making of Ireland. Daughters of Hanbo, is a series of beautiful pictures of the womanhood of Ireland, in every period, and of every women of legends, women of the castles,' women of the towns, women of the country, and women of the cloister and the cell. Memories of the Future.: being Alemoirs of the Years 1915-1922. Edited by Ronald Knox (Alethuen, 7/6). - The Memoirs are supposed to be written fifty years hence by Opal, Lady Porstock. Needless to say the author is Ronald Knox, a distinguished Oxford convert now a Catholic- priest. Some years ago he gave us the story of his conversion in a work of great literary merit which he called, A Spiritual Aencid ? Readers of that book will be prepared for brilliant writing and for delicate taste in whatever he gives the public, but we doubt if there be any who will not be pleasantly surprised to find in his new book so much keen satire and good humored laughter. Lady Porstock’s memories of the events and of the modes of the half-century which has yet to run may. be regarded by some as amusing reading, but to us they certainly convey a profound warning. What her faithful pen notes

down from year to year is really to be looked upon as a, record of the harvest for which we are sowing at the present tune. Thus the book becomes a satire and even a protest against the fads of modern educationists, against the irreligious tendencies of the age, and against the decadence evffient ni religion, in art, in letters, in everything that matters. The account of her marriage to an American alleged to be taken from the Daily Mail some twenty years hence « a fair sample of the humor of the story: VNOTFTFr? nS® HITCHES MILLIONAIRE ANOTHER AMERICAN COUSIN GETS, HIS FROM CUPID. ;. + The U.S. citizen is a brainy lad and it isn’t only for t ties he comes over this side; I hardly suppose! Wilse Hark,less anyhow. Lord Porstock, as he is since those birthday honors set things buzzing, knew a good thing when he saw ?••• When he found he hadn't foul hooked an „el (his first impression) he lost no time asking her to nominate the anniversary. So the red carpet rill have GreydanL, 0 h " * her co ™ tr y **t at -...t 1 Lr:i ning book; the Court Jesters of other days, it conW * hc « m ? s of beneath its apparent mirth ’ ’ * 6e P **«» r _____