The scandalous story of the Rev Samuel Cotton, founder of Caragh Orphanage in Co Kildare in 1866, and an enthusiastic advocate of fundamental Protestantism, is recounted in The Reverend Psychopath: Suffer Little Children (€17) by Andrew Rynne and Veronica Judge. Dressed in rags and kept in filthy conditions, the children were subjected to unspeakable cruelties. In 1883 four starving, malnourished and barefoot children ran away but were returned by police to the orphanage. They were constrained by “logging”, through which a chain was padlocked to their ankle with a heavy log attached.
Complaints were made to the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and Cotton was charged with aggravated assault, causing gross cruelty to children. But his defence contended that the children’s behaviour was so bad that it justified their punishment. The case became a cause celebre with extensive press coverage in Ireland and Britain. Cotton appeared at Carlow Assizes before transfer to Belfast Assizes in 1892 charged with wilful neglect of children, some of whom had lost toes through frostbite. The liberal unionist, Edward Carson, defended him in a 90-minute speech, a seminal moment in his legal career.
Cotton was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment, fined £400, and transferred to Mountjoy Prison. On his release he returned to running the orphanage, reoffended, and was imprisoned for 12 months in Kilkenny. After his second release from prison he was stripped of office. In the opinion of the authors, “Cotton was wallowing in his own infamy and milked it for all it was worth.” No matter how often he was shamed, fined or punished, it appeared to make no difference to his behaviour. A cartoon in the Evening Telegraph depicted Cotton with a caption stating: “He did not cotton on”, and as the authors point out, while some may have regarded this as lacking humour, it certainly was astute.
Another court case from the Victorian era which dominated newspaper headlines came to be regarded as Ireland’s most sensational and bitter divorce saga. Terror, Tears and Tragedy: The Mount Cashells and the Notorious Divorce Case of 1876 (€14.99), by Noel Howard, recounts details of the hearing at Dublin Matrimonial Court involving two Cork families of aristocratic standing. Captain Richard Spread Morgan sought a divorce on the grounds of adultery and cruelty from his wife, Catherine Louisa Moore, Lady Mount Cashell.
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The hearing was so salacious that fathers and husbands were advised to keep the graphic newspaper reports of the intimate and personal details of the trial hidden from women in rural areas. Lady Louisa’s legal team described the captain, who had served time in prison for assault, as “a ruffian”. Morgan accused her of abusing him and of having affairs. Although Lady Louisa won her action, her success was bittersweet. The Cashell family was plagued by mounting debts and in the 1890s lost their estates and their imposing Moore Park home in Kilworth.
The famed Metal Man navigation beacon, a free-standing cast iron statute of a Royal Navy petty officer at Rosses Point in Sligo, captured the collective imagination of the Yeats family. It dominates Jack B Yeats’s painting Memory Harbour, and its presence spoke powerfully to the family in art and literature. Under the Metal Man: Sligo in Yeats (Lilliput Press, €9.95), by Joseph M Hassett, brings together images of books and visual art reflecting Sligo’s presence in the work of the Yeats family.
The town and surrounding area were of huge importance to them. Jack Yeats wrote, “Every painting which I have made has somewhere in it a thought of Sligo”. His sister, Susan Mary, known as Lily, put Jack’s drawing of the Metal Man on her bookplate. Many of the book’s images are of first editions donated to the Yeats Society Sligo. The rare Cuala Press books, created by William Butler’s sister Elizabeth, represent what Henry James called the “visitable past”. Poetry, and places such as Innisfree, Dooney, Lissadell, Ben Bulben and Drumcliffe are all linked to Sligo.
One of the key sites for James Joyce was the Martello tower in Sandycove, Co Dublin, where he spent six nights in 1904, and which features in the opening scenes of Ulysses. Modelled in 1804 on a tower at Cape Mortella, Corsica, the building was turned into a museum in 1962. It closed in 2012 but reopened with the help of volunteers and the establishment of the Friends of Joyce Tower. Tales from the Tower (Martello, €15.95) is a personal history of the building by its two leading curators, Vivien Igoe and Robert Nicholson, edited by Breandán Ó Broin.
Filled with anecdotes and insights from across the decades, the book shines a light on the financial struggles and successes of maintaining an operating museum as a coastal building that is constantly under pressure from the elements. Atmospheric archive photographs convey the history linked to it and feature a range of illustrious names such as Salman Rushdie, Ben Okri, Sylvia Beach, Milo O’Shea, and Brian O’Nolan (Myles na gCopaleen), as well as members of the Joyce family.
Big Dream, Little Boat: A Kayaker’s Journey Around Ireland (The Liffey Press, €24.95), by Kevin O’Sullivan, recounts the remarkable story of O’Sullivan’s circumnavigation of the coastline. A retired Aer Lingus captain, the author exchanged the seat of an aircraft for a tight space in his kayak called Murchú – Murphy in Irish, which was his wife’s surname.
His trip was spread over a three-year summer period, in mostly three- and four-day chunks, and he relishes the challenges that faced him. Not the least of his worries was chronic seasickness, which became his bête noire. Other obstacles which he confronted included “clapotis”, a nautical term for the confused state of the sea when different wave patterns collide. Like the swells of the water, his spirits rise and fall, and he suffers low morale, uneasiness and loneliness. As he passes through the Old Head of Kinsale, he finds himself outside his comfort zone, but skilfully negotiates a way through what he calls “solo potholing by kayak”.
