There must be many in Ireland who remember the fairs and markets which were held on the streets of towns and villages throughout the land - the steaming animals, the rituals of buying and selling, the colour and the clamour - and also, it should be said, the filth of the streets afterwards. All this changed with the advent of the mart and the dedicated market, usually held indoors. But the old fairs and markets had a long history, most of them dating from medieval times, a few from the dim past such as those at Tailteann and Carman.
This collection of essays, like its predecessor, Irish Townlands (Dublin, 1998) in the "Studies in Local History" series, has as its contributors 10 graduates of the M.A. in Local History programme at Maynooth. They examine the history of the fairs in places as widely separated as Ennis, Cootehill, Cahirmee, Donnybrook, the Dublin Cattle Market and New Ross. There is an account by Paul Connell of the massacre at Castlepollard fair in 1831 and detailed scrutiny of rural shops at Pallas and Dunshaughlin by Miriam Lambe and Jim Gilligan respectively.
The collection is a major contribution on the part played by fairs and markets in the evolution of Irish society; the essays are thoroughly researched and there are numerous illustrations and maps. One of the latter however(on page 146), purports to show Castlepollard but instead shows the location of Cahirmee.
Lewis' Dublin. Compiled by Christopher Ryan. The Collins Press. No price given
When Samuel Lewis produced his two-volume A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland in 1837, Dublin was a compact city of about 204,000 inhabitants and it was encircled by a necklace of small villages in which a further 60,000 people lived - places such as Raheny, Clondalkin, Kilmainham, Milltown, Ranelagh, Sandyford and Williamstown (now Booterstown).
Lewis used "nearly all the most intelligent resident gentlemen in Ireland" as sources of information but also drew heavily on the 1831 Census and other published works. The result was an exhaustive, if occasionally flawed, compendium of detail about the country, its historic sites, its "gentlemen's seats", its churches, hospitals, schools and tithes. Dublin and its villages, naturally, took up a considerable space in the dictionary and the compiler has extracted these sections for the purpose of this book. It is a detailed portrait of Dublin, its parishes and villages, albeit viewed from a certain perspective, 10 years before the Famine.
But it would have been a better book if the compiler, with 24 blank end-pages at his disposal, had included Lewis's preface (in which he described his modus operandi of collecting and collating his data (with the proof-reading aid of his "intelligent gentlemen"), the table at the end of Volume II converting Irish miles and Irish Plantation acres into their English equivalents, and perhaps an index.
Co Louth Archaeological and Historical Journal 1999. Co Louth Archaeological and Historical Society. Members £7; non-members £8.50
This Co Louth society has been producing its journals since 1904, generally maintaining high standards. The volume to hand is No.3 in a series of four parts of Vol.XXIV and, although only now being published, will undoubtedly be welcomed by the members of the society and others interested in Louth's past.
Editor Noel Ross has marshalled a panel of competent contributors who provide a varied collection of well-researched and interesting articles, among which Larry Conlon's 'Holy Wells of County Louth', Eoghan ╙ hAnnrachβin's 'Louth Wild Geese Veterans in the H⌠tel Royal des Invalides' and the Rev David M. Eastwood's 'History of the Eastwood Family in Ireland' are noteworthy. Other contributors include Brendan Hall and Noel Ross himself, and C≤il∅n ╙ Drisce≤il. There are also 10 pages of book reviews.
The Grand Tour of Kerry. Compiled by Penelope Durell and Cornelius Kelly Cailleach Books, £9.99
Last year the same publishers and the same compilers gave us The Grand Tour of Beara, a collection of descriptive accounts of the Beara peninsula dating from 1593 to 1996. Now they have taken in the entire Kingdom and present the brief impressions of 68 visitors to Kerry, ranging from Giraldus Cambrensis c.1186 to Niall Williams and Christine Breen in 1990. In the centuries between, such exotic "tourists" as Sir William Petty, Thomas Moore, Thomas Carlyle, H.V. Morton and Robert Mitchum, as well as many others, left their written perceptions of the area, its rugged beauty and its people.
These are now presented in an attractive volume replete with historical photographs, etchings and portraits. It does not matter if at least 14 of the contributors to The Grand Tour of Beara also appear in this book as their contributions are different in content. But this reviewer will have to suggest that this particular Kerry literary cow must be milked nearly dry at this stage.
Richard Roche is a local historian, author and critic