ISBN: 978-82-90601-09-1
20.8 x  13.8 cm.     80 pp.     1995

This is a book about Healing. Not ‘Faith Healing’, as Matthew refuses to call it that. As he writes, ‘The idea that healing only works if you believe in it is simply not true! Healing can work on a sceptical person yet sometimes fail to help a believer. Healing also works in test-tubes in laboratories, as well as on animals and brain-damaged children. It cannot be said that these results are brought about by psychological factors, faith or placebo. There is no faith required.’

Contents: Introduction – Healing in the Laboratory – The Healing Experience – Healing Ourselves.

We distribute this book in Britain for Eikstein Publishers, of Øyslebø, Norway.

ISBN: 978-0-86140-266-3
21.6 x 13.8 cm.   xii, 296 pp. + 16pp. with 33 illus. 

Founded in 1907, the history of the Club reflects the creative life of the city and nation, with a membership of many of the leading literary and artistic figures of the last eighty years. Patricia Boylan chronicles the ups and downs it suffered, how it was affected by historical events, and describes the often colourful lives of its more famous members.

Contents: Genesis – The People and the Place – Celebrated Names – Limited Company – An Auspicious Year – Minute by Minute – A Shameful Year: 1913 – Sad Goodbyes – The Club in Wartime: 1914-1915 – Rebellions: 1916 – The Real Irish? 1916-1918 – Business as Usual: 1919-1920 – A Neutral Zone: 1921-1922 – Carrying On: 1923-1924 – Coming and Going: 1925-1929 – Betty Bolts – A Cold Eye: 1933-1939 – The End of an Era – Changing Times – Doldrums – The Latest Chapter

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ISBN: 978-1-873821-07-7
18.5 x 23.5 cm,  120 pp.        94 b&w photographs    

A record, in image and word, of a coastal community's social and economic life, its traditions and the changes it has experienced since the late 19th century. The volume includes photographs taken between the 1890s and the 1960s which offer glimpses into an era when Kinvara was a busy port and market town, yet working and living at a slower pace – that of horse carts, sailing boats and manual labour. The explanatory captions which accompany the photographs contain details on folklore, traditions and local history. Quotes and anecdotes capture the wit and humour of the Kinvara people. The book's introduction places the town's development in a wider historical context.

'This book is first rate and recommended to all, even those who have never heard of Kinvara. A unique selection of historical photographs and a splendid compilation of locally sourced information. The photographs, spanning the period 1880 to 1960, reflect the lives of Kinvara's people before huge social and economic changes produced different moulds, imported patterns, new shadows for the same substance. This is a moving book.'  Connacht Tribune

This book is full of information covered by the Kinvara Guide & Map.  To go directly for information on the Kinvara Map Click Here

ISBN: 978-0-86140-279-3
21.6 x 13.8 cm.

Kahlil Gibran of Lebanon is a guide for all those interested in the life and work of Kahlil Gibran who want further information, be they general readers or scholars.

It explains the fascinating world of the author of The Prophet which is one of the most celebrated works of the twentieth century. Modelled on Gibran’s own writings, simple and concise in presentation, the first half of this work is devoted to significant events in Gibran’s life. It provides the reader with the necessary back ground to his writing and painting, with particular reference to the individuals and and works that have been major influences. These are further explored in the second half, which is a critical study of Gibran’s work and contribution to the literature of the world.

Suheil died in September 2015. Obituaries can be found at http://ysnews.com/news/2015/09/suheil-badi-bushrui and at http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/obituaries/bs-md-ob-suheil-bushrui-20150927-story.html, https://arabhyphen.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/suheil-badi-bushrui-passes-away-1929-2015/  and elsewhere.

CONTENTS
Introduction
PART 1, HIS LIFE:  Family background and early years - Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell - Early career in Boston, Paris and New York - Maturity - Last years.

PART 2, HIS WORK: Early Arabic writings - Influences and parallels in the mature works - Mature works up to The Prophet - The Prophet ­- Last works.
Notes.
Bibliography

ISBN: 978-0-86140-319-6

23.4 x 15.5 cm.    189 pp. incl. over 100 illus.

This book contains Revd Geoffrey Edmonds’ work, last published by this company in 1968, and Dr Audrey Baker’s hitherto unpublished history of Bulstrode, past home of Judge Jeffreys, the Dukes of Portland and then the Dukes of Somerset.

While Chalfont St Peter dates back to before the Norman Conquest, and Bulstrode to the time of the Knights Templar, the parish of Gerrards Cross is a newly formed entity, being carved out of five neighbouring parishes, and greatly expanded following the 1906 opening of the London to High Wycombe Great Western & Great Central Joint Railway line which passed through the village.

Through their separate histories both Dr Baker and the Revd Edmonds chart the history of the locality through the centuries, showing how it has evolved from Anglo-Saxon and medieval times, through the Reformation, the Cromwellian period and Restoration, the Hanoverian and Victorian eras to the 20^th century, and how the great families who came to live here gained or lost power, rose, fell or moved on, as well as the creation of Gerrards Cross over the past century.

In addition to the hundred or so illustrations within the book (including a number showing the construction of the railway through Gerrards Cross), the cover reproduces a watercolour of Chalfont Park by J.M.W.Turner, that was unknown until 2002.

The index features every person, place and house mentioned by the authors so residents can see what parts of the book relate to their home or the part of the villages in which they live

The Revd Geoffrey Edmonds (1902-75) was born in Rochester, Kent. He obtained an MA degree at Pembroke College, Cambridge, before studying Divinity at Mansfield College, Oxford. He was Congregational Minister at Oxted, Surrey, and in 1950 moved to Gerrards Cross, where he was Minister until his retirement in 1972, and where he continued to live until his death. Apart from being a keen chess player, and a keen historian, he was very interested in the activities of the village, being a Trustee of the Gerrards Cross Memorial Centre, a Governor of the local school and a Rotarian.

After reading Modern History at St Hilda’s College, Oxford, Audrey Baker studied History of Art at the Courtauld Institute and received her doctorate from the University of London. She specialised in medieval art, and published a number of long and detailed articles in major periodicals such Archaeologia, and the Archaeological Journal. She sometimes collaborated with Dr E. Clive Rouse. In the last years of her life she concentrated on local history and published various articles in The Records of Buckinghamshire, the journal of the Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society. Dr Baker and the Revd Geoffrey Edmonds were co-founders of the Chalfont St Peter and Gerrards Cross Local History Society.

20.6 x 22.1 cm      335 pp.  80 colour and 220 b/w illus.    1994
ISBN: 978-1-873821-03-9

'The Book of Aran is a handsomely produced and generously illustrated update on Aran as seen by the multi-faceted eye of scholarship." Irish Times

'The Book of Aran has managed to convey some of the magic, isolation and cultural richness that island communities often have.' Irish Press

'The book is beautifully produced and the text achieves that happy state of being scholarly while eminently readable. The selection of pictures is superb. At the very least, the book is a minor publishing triumph.  Don't even contemplate going to Aran without it." Evening Press

Over the centuries many people have felt the attraction of the landscape of the Aran Islands, with its impressive monuments that go back thousands of years, its distinctive culture that offers glimpses of a rich and distinctive pattern of life and a people whose island isolation forged a sense of independence and endurance. The Book of Aran is the first publication to deal with all the many different aspects of the three islands of Inis Mór, Inis Meáin and Inis Oírr, including the natural environment, archaeology and history and the cultural heritage of the islands. It is aimed at the general reader who wants to gain a deeper understanding of one of the most intriguing landscapes in Europe.

Contributors: John Feehan, Cilian Roden, Michael O'Connell, Gordon D'Arcy, J.W. O'Connell, John Waddell, Paul Walsh, John de Courcy Ireland, Anne O'Dowd, Dara Ó Conoala, Pádraigín Clancy, Lelia Doolan, James Duran, Anne Korff, Joe McMahon, Patrick F. Sheeran and Pádraig Standún.

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Illustrated by Joyce Dennys.
With a prefatory note by Maurice Collis

ISBN: 978-0-86140-010-2
19.0 x 13.5 cm.   128 pp.  1978 (reduced facsimile of first 1970 hardcover edition)

Lady Gregory was the cornerstone of the Irish Literary Revival in the first quarter of the century. At Coole Park in Co. Galway she was host to many literary figures and painters of the time: W. B. Yeats of course, J. M. Synge, Bernard Shaw, Douglas Hyde, A. E. (George W. Russell), Sean O'Casey, John Masefield, George Moore, and among the painters, J. B. Yeats the elder, Jack B. Yeats and Augustus John.

As well as spending a large part of her time as hostess of Coole, being a prolific author and playwright, a Director of the Abbey Theatre, the chief campaigner for the return of the Lane Pictures to Dublin, and an excellent landlord, she is remembered as a great personality.

This book is written by one of her grandchildren, Anne, who, with her brother and sister, was born and brought up at Coole, and in it she gives a new dimension to what we know of Lady Gregory and her guests.

As Maurice Collis writes in his Prefatory Note, ‘The narrative is Anne Gregory's recollection of what living at Coole with her grandmother was like. Her account is very cleverly constructed. The stature of Lady Gregory is subtly increased. She was a wonderful woman and a wonderful grandmother.’

'One of the most delightful books I have ever read ... a truly lovable book.' Gabriel Fallon in The Evening Press

'A charming book and Joyce Dennys's pictures are a delight.’ The Spectator

‘a MUST for children of ALL ages.' Sunday Independent

‘The book shows us the great through a child's eyes, skilfully, wittily, and sometimes surprisingly.' British Book News

General Editors of the Coole Edition: T.R.Henn CBE and Colin Smythe

Edited and with a Foreword by Daniel J. Murphy

ISBN: 978-0-900675-91-1

21.4. x 13.8 cm.   .  frontis, t.e.g.

Lennox Robinson's selection from Lady Gregory's Journals was first published in 1946 as the culmination of many years' nego­tiations between the Trustees of Lady Gregory's Estate and her London publishers, Putnam & Co., but it was only a fraction of the material that Lady Gregory had expected would be published when she sent the typescripts over to London in 1931.

Since the publication of that small selection (which appeared in the U.S.A. in 1947), no one saw the complete typescripts until they were purchased as part of the Lady Gregory archives by the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library in 1964. After being cata­logued, they were made available to scholars. Now at last, Daniel Murphy's edition is available in two volumes, the first containing Books 1 to 29 and the second Books 30 to 44.

The Journals contain fascinating accounts of Lady Gregory's efforts to get back the Lane Pictures for Ireland, the Troubles, her activities at the Abbey Theatre, her life at Coole and her determination to keep it for her grandson Richard, as well as recording her friendship with W. B. Yeats, one of the most important and influential in English literature: thus the Journals are important for social and political as well as for artistic reasons, and are a prime source for all students of the literature and history of Ireland. They also provide a remarkable insight into the life and work of a woman whom Bernard Shaw called 'one of the most remarkable theatrical talents of our time' and 'the greatest living Irishwoman'.

General Editors of the Coole Edition: T.R.Henn CBE and Colin Smythe

Edited by Daniel J. Murphy, with an Afterword by Colin Smythe

ISBN: 978-0-900675-92-8

21.4 x 13.8 cm.      frontis.   t.e.g.

Lennox Robinson's selection from Lady Gregory's Journals was pub­lished in 1946. It only contained a small fraction of the total material that she typed out (editing as she did so) from her manuscript diaries. In 1964 the bulk of Lady Gregory's archives were bought by the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library, and the typescripts of her diaries, which formed part of the archive, were prepared for publica­tion by the present editor, Daniel Murphy. The first volume of this edition, containing Books 1 to 29, was published in 1978. This second volume, contain­ing Books 30 to 44, not only completes the typed version of her diaries (which ended in November 1930), but also adds the unedited text of the manuscript diary she kept from then until a fortnight before her death.

It describes her continuing efforts to get the Lane Pictures returned to Ireland, the passing of Coole into the hands of the Irish Forestry Depart­ment, Abbey Theatre problems, the row over Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars and the break with him over its refusal of The Silver Tassie, Denis Johnston's connection with the Abbey as producer and playwright (with illu­minating insights into the Abbey's refusal of The Old Lady Says 'No!’), and other controversial matters.

Plagued by rheumatism and twice operated on for cancer, Lady Greg­ory was nevertheless determined not to give in to old age, and she relates the daily battle with her infirmities with objectivity.

Thus, with W. B. Yeats's account of her last hours, ‘The Death of Lady Gregory’, published here for the first time, the reader is given a far more complete picture of the last years of Lady Gregory's life than has hitherto been available.

Appended to this is an Afterword by Colin Smythe which describes the problems relating to the publication of the Journals and Autobiography following Lady Gregory’s death.

General Editors of the Coole Edition: T. R. Henn CBE and Colin Smythe

With a Foreword by T. R. Henn

ISBN: 978-0-900675-35-5

Studies and Translations from the Irish, including nine plays by Douglas Hyde

22.7 x 13.8 cm.  286 pp.    illus.  1974   Volume 11 of the Coole Edition of Lady Gregory's works

In Poets and Dreamers Lady Gregory has gathered together a number of essays and translations she had made from the Irish of Douglas Hyde, An Craoibhin Aoibhinn, ‘the Sweet Little Branch’, who was founder and President of the Gaelic League at the time and later to be the first President of the Republic of Ireland.

Lady Gregory has also written about other poets in this volume, notably Raftery, who was the model for Yeats’s Red Hanrahan, and also writes about West Irish ballads, and those by Jacobite and Boer and that beautiful poem by the expatriate Shemus Cartan, ‘A Sorrowful Lament for Ireland’.

Her other essays are covered by the Dreamers part of the title, ‘Mountain Theology’, ‘Herb Healing’ and ‘Workhouse Dreams’ among them. This edition contains a further five plays by Hyde, translated by Lady Gregory, three of which have not hitherto been published.

The Ap­pendices contain a number of early versions of poems and articles and includes ‘Dreams that have no moral’ by W. B. Yeats. This has been added from his Celtic Twilight (1902) as an Appendix in order to give an example as to how Lady Gregory worked together with him in providing him with material for his volumes. Lady Gregory refers to the story in ‘Workhouse Dreams’.

The Editors have also added a quant­ity of her revisions and an essay, ‘Cures by Charms’, which first appeared in the Westminster Budget with two of the other essays in this volume, but which was not included in the first edition.

21.6 x 13.8 cm.      xii, 315 pp.  + 16 pp. with 19 illus.  1994   Ulster Editions & Monographs series (ISSN 0954-3392) volume 5

Strangers to that Land, subtitled ‘British Perceptions of Ireland from the Reformation to the Famine’, is a critical anthology of English, Scottish and Welsh colonists’ and travellers’ accounts of Ireland and the Irish from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

It consists exclusively of eyewitness descriptions of Ireland given by writers using the English language who had never been to Ireland before and were seeing the country for the first time. Each extract, where necessary, is set in context and briefly explained. The result is a vivid, continuous record of Ireland as defined and judged by the British over a period of four centuries.

In their general introduction the editors discuss the significance of these changing historical perceptions, as well as the impact upon them of literary conventions which played a part in shaping the emerging texts. It is argued that the relationship between Ireland and England within a British context constitutes a unique case study in the procedures of racial stereotyping and colonial representation, the exploration of cultural conflict and the aesthetics of travel writing.

There are twenty-one contemporary illustrations  in this, the fifth volume in the Ulster Editions and Monographs series.

Andrew Hadfield is lecturer in Medieval and Renaissance Literature at the University of Wales, and John McVeagh is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Ulster at Coleraine.

24.5 x 17.5 cm.    32 pp.   with 16 illus.   Third edition, with extra illus.  1995
(First published by Dolmen Press in 1965, 2nd edition 1977)

In 1917 the Norman Tower at Ballylee in the West of Ireland was adopted by W.B. Yeats as his home. But the tower was much more than his residence. It became his monument and symbol. Here he conceived and wrote some of his greatest poetry, and in his inscription to commemorate its restoration he pre­dicted the ruinous state into which the building lapsed after his death. The restoration of the Tower in the 1960s was inspired mainly by the enthusiasm of the Kiltartan Society and Mary Hanley. Liam Miller edited and extended Mrs Hanley’s text to set Yeats’s occupancy in a historical context. The illustrations include plans of the Tower, a map of the locality, photographs taken in the years when Yeats lived there, and some sketches by Lady Gregory.

The front cover illustration is of T. Sturge Moore’s design for the front cover and jacket of the first edition of The Tower (1928) as it appeared when blocked on the book.

ISBN: 978-0-85105-372-1

21.6 x 13.8 cm   368 pp.  1984    Volume 5 of  The Modern Irish Drama, a documentary history

The Art of the Amateur, the fifth volume in the documentary history, The Modern Irish Drama, describes and documents the Irish theatre from 1916-1920, some of the most turbulent years of the emerging nation. Against the background of the Easter Rising in Dublin and its violent aftermath, and of the Great War in Europe, the authors chart how the Irish theatre coped with, mirrored, and curiously, often ignored the trauma of the times.

As the authors of The Art of the Amateur note, the theatre, especially the theatre as entertainment, flourishes in times of public horror. With the deaths of Pearse, MacDonagh, MacSwiney and Sean Connolly, the Abbey player, there was more than enough horror. If few masterpieces immediately emerged, the stage in the period covered in this volume, both public and private, was being set for the emergence of the plays of Sean O’Casey and Denis Johnston.

The Modern Irish Drama, of which The Art of the Amateur is the fifth volume, is a documentary history with transcriptions of contemporary reviews and full cast lists. As The Irish Press commented, ‘Professor Hogan and his distinguished collaborators . . . have produced a rich, fascinating and, to the drama-junkie, indispensable book on a generally neglected period of Irish theatrical history.’

21.6 x 13.8 cm.   xii, 260 pp.  1997   Irish Literary Studies series (ISSN 0140-895X) volume 50

In 1829 Mrs S.C.Hall, an Irishwoman living in England, published a book of sketches set mainly in her native Wexford. Sketches of Irish Life and Character was an immediate success both with literary critics and the general public. A second series of Sketches appeared in 1831 and established Mrs Hall's reputation in  England as an interpreter of Irish character. Her later works on Ireland – Lights and Shadows of Irish Life (1838), Stories of the Irish Peasantry (1840) and The Whiteboy (1845) – reinforced this view, and were very popular with her English and Scottish readers. She collaborated with her husband, the journalist Samuel Carter Hall, in the writing of a three-volume guide to Ireland, Halls' Ireland, its Scenery, Character, etc. (1841-43), and this too was accepted as an informed description of Irish life and character.

In fact, Mrs Hall wrote as an observer imbued with colonial attitudes who believed in the superiority of everything English. Out of a genuine love for Ireland, however, she wished to make the country better known and understood in England, and she hoped through her writings to cure the Irish people of their faults. What makes her work interesting is the fact that it displays a tolerance and a lack of bigotry that was unusual for its time, and that she is openly critical (especially in her novel The Whiteboy) of government mismanagement and misrule.

CONTENTS

1. Ireland – 'The Great Mart of Fiction'; 2. Mrs Hall – Marriage and Markets; 3. Teaching – The Taste of the Times; 4. Sketches of Irish Life – The Voice of the Colonist; 5. Lights and Shadows – a melancholy book; 6. Stories of the Irish Peasantry – Correcting the 'evil habits of poor Pat'; 7. Halls' Ireland – 'Guidance for those who design to visit Ireland; 8. The Whiteboy –' 'A truly national novel'; 9. Three novelists with a common cause; 10. Assessments – then and now; Index.

Maureen Keane was educated at Dominican College, Eccles Street, Dublin, and University College, Dublin. After graduating with an M.A. she worked for a time as a teacher and then took up a career in journalism, first as a freelance and then as an editor. Returning to academic life, she received her Ph.D. from Maynooth College for a study of didacticism in the works of William Carleton, Mrs S.C.Hall and Charles Lever. This is her first book.

22.8 x 15.0 cm.

Bernard Shaw, who made his international reputation as a playwright in London, and Augusta Gregory, founder-director of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, are generally considered as belonging to different theatrical traditions. But in 1909, when the Abbey produced The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet, which had been banned in England, there began a close involvement of Shaw with Irish theatre and a warm personal friendship with Lady Gregory.

The complete surviving correspondence between the two, published for the first time, reveals their developing relationship: the battle with Dublin Castle over Blanco, Shaw’s support for Lady Gregory in the rows over Synge’s Playboy in America; the controversy with military authorities over O’Flaherty V.C., written for the Abbey in 1915; the lively exchange of views on Ireland, politics, the Hugh Lane pictures, the schooling of the Gregory grand­children; which ended only with Lady Gregory’s death in 1932.

Drawing upon letters to and from other corre­spondents, diaries and engagement books, private memoranda, newspaper reports, and press releases, the editors have enlarged the correspondence into a comprehensive record of Shaw’s important and previously unrecognised contribution to the Irish theatre. Shaw and Lady Gregory’s crisp, witty and informal letters, in the context of their joint commitment to the Abbey, make the book rewarding reading for all those with an interest in the theatre.

21.6 x 13.8 cm.        xx,  257 pp.  index      1990

Born in Melbourne, Australia, in October 1884, W.J.Turner left his home city in March 1907, determined to create a career for himself as a writer in London. By 1946, when he died, he had contributed to the literary and musical life of England in ways that establish him as a unique and fascinating figure. A man of independent mind and provocative originality, he was perhaps the most outspoken critic of his time and, in Arnold Bennett's judgement, the only one of his generation whom it was a `pleasure to read for the sake of reading', as well as being a poet whose `majestic song' left Yeats, in his own words, `lost in admiration and astonishment'.

Wayne McKenna's work provides an overview of Turner's life and work, discussing his plays, novels, short stories, poetry drama criticism and literary editing, and well as commenting on the more important literary friend ships in his life, such as those with Yeats, Siegfried Sassoon, and Lady Ottoline Morrell.

64pp. 25.0 x 22.0 cm illus. in colour and monochrome

This book tells the fascinating history of the plans to build an innovative theatre in Samuel Beckett’s name in Oxford, the site by St Peter’s College, the designs and the problems. It is a narrative which takes in artists such as Francis Bacon and Henry Moore, famed architects Norman Foster and Richard Buckminster Fuller, politicians and royalty including Edward Heath, Richard Kennedy and Prince Charles, as well as a range of playwrights, composers, actors and directors (including Benjamin Britten, Richard Burton, Peter Hall, John Osborne, Harold Pinter, John Piper, Kathleen Raine, Sir Herbert Read, to name a few).

Beckett’s influence upon British theatre and culture is often dispersed, refracted. A Dream and its Legacies reveals a number of surprising, interwoven histories, and shows how such histories also have the power to inform, even drastically change, how we read certain of Beckett’s texts. The book includes a collection of previously unpublished letters by Samuel Beckett.

Contents
Introduction
Stage 1: The Matthews Building
Stage 2: The Nuclear Submarine
Sans/Lessness
Breath
Warner's Drama
What do a Henry Moore Sculpture Garden, Lawrence of Arabia's School and a Car-Park all have in Common?
Epilogue: The Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award and Other Repercussions
Appendix: Beckett-Warner Correspondence
Notes

19.0 x 13.0 cm.    viii, 151 pp.  [1983]     1990

W.B.Yeats (1865-1939) published his first volume of poetry in 1889. Deeply influenced by Spiritualism and Celtic mythology, he was a crucial figure in the Irish cultural revival of the 1890s. Under the influence of Maud Gonne he became involved in nationalist politics, but the Philistinism of the emerging Ireland repelled him, and he gradually drew back from public affairs. He had been a co-founder, with J.M.Synge and Lady Gregory, of the Abbey Theatre in 1904, and remained a director until the end of his life. His increasingly sceptical and pessimistic views on Ireland were temporarily reversed by the 1916 Rising. Out of the confusion and tensions of the following decade his greatest poetry developed: almost uniquely among major poets, his outstanding work was written in the second half of his life. In 1917 he had married George Hyde-Lees; they had two children. He died in the South of France, and in 1948 his body was brought back to Ireland and re-interred in Drumcliffe Churchyard, Co.Sligo.

This is a revised and enlarged edition of the work first published in 1983. On its first appearance it received exceptional reviews:

'Perceptive, honest and stimulating, subtly educating the uninformed reader in the best ways to approach a study of Yeats's verse, plays and letters.'
Richard Allen Cave in British Book News

'A remarkable achievement. He has succeeded in presenting a rational, sensitive account of the life of Ireland's most famous poet....Well worth reading by the scholar and the general reader.'
Ireland of the Welcomes

'A tour de force. Lucid and incisive, it gives us a convincing picture of Yeats's life in all its complexities, and it does so with insight and sympathy.'
A. Norman Jeffares in The Yorkshire Post

`A remarkable synthesis of a huge topic, written with enthusiasm and flair and ending with a splendid essay on the poet's "close companions", his great capacity for friendship and for converting the experience into poetry.'
Thomas Kilroy in The Irish Times

Edited and Introduced by Peter Bander van Duren

A historical walk with the Prefect of the Pontifical Household through the treasures of papal heraldry
ISBN: 978-0-905715-25-4

24.8 x 18.8 cm.      285 pp.   + nearly 400 b/w illus. with the text and 24 pp. with 54 colour illus.
Captions to all illustrations are in English, Italian and German

In the late 1960s Cardinal Martin conceived the idea of having an authoritative heraldic guide for the Vatican where hundreds of coats of arms date back to Pope Eugene IV (1431-1447) the earliest armorial bearings of popes who resided in the Vatican. When Pope Paul VI had consecrated him Bishop of Neapolis in Palaestina during the papal visit to the Holy Land in 1964 and appointed him the first Prefect of the Pontifical Court, Monsignor Martin spent his free time writing profusely illustrated articles for the Holy See's Sunday newspaper L'Osservatore della Domenica on heraldry in the Vatican.

At that time he already had lived in the Vatican for over thirty years. When Pope John Paul II ascended the See of St. Peter in 1978 and, like his immediate predecessor, John Paul I, appointed him Prefect of the Papal Household and the Pontifical Court, Monsignor Martin had himself become a unique figure in the history of heraldry. He was the first Prelate of the Roman Church who was able to impale his personal coat of arms with that of the three Popes under whom he had served as Prefect of the Pontifical Court.

When Mons. Martin approached me in 1983 about the possibility of producing a book on heraldry in the Vatican, he had lived over fifty years in the Vatican. His knowledge about the Vatican and the people who had lived there was phenomenal. After the book had been published, several prominent members of the Roman Curia suggested that the book's title was in many respects a misnomer. All the Popes and other famous residents of the Apostolic Palace were profusely represented with their armorial bearings, but Monsignor Martin, who personally had served six Popes, added countless anecdotes and curiosities about people and places inside the Vatican. The book reminds one of the succinct and sometimes hilarious accounts in Aubrey's Brief Lives. For example, he recalls his first years in the Vatican when he worked in the Papal Secretariat of State of Pope Pius XI, under whom the present Vatican City State came into existence. Pope Pius XI checked the signatures of all the members in his Secretariat, and anybody whose signature he considered illegible was dismissed from service in the Secretariat of State.

The idiosyncrasies of many popes and cardinals resident in the Vatican during the last 550 years were often expressed in heraldic ornaments, on ceilings, walls and fountains. Bernini placed statues of 140 Popes, Cardinals and Bishops who had lived in the Vatican on his colonnades of St. Peter's Square. Monsignor Martin knew who everyone was, their life stories and why Bernini had chosen them to be immortalised.

We worked on his book for four years. I have never ceased to be amazed by Cardinal Martin's phenomenal memory. As Prefect of the Pontifical Household, he was always at the Pope's side. Sometimes I was privileged to be present when he introduced visitors to the Pope; he had this charming way of briefing the Holy Father not only on who the person was, but always with personal information about the visitor. Everybody was astonished at the ease with which the Pope walked among the many visitors and seemed to know everybody personally. Few realised that the Pope's Prefect was that walking encyclopedia on which not only the Pope but countless Cardinals and members of the Curia could rely to provide accurate and detailed information. As far as the Vatican Palaces were concerned, he knew of rooms and entire suites nobody but he had entered since the days of Pope Pius IX (1846-1878). He found heraldic curiosities nobody had seen for hundreds of years. Cardinal Martin, more than any prelate who had lived in the Vatican has enriched the wealth of human knowledge of heraldry in the Vatican.

Without fear of contradiction I can say that Cardinal Jacques Martin was one of the most loved men in the Vatican, and the warmth of his love and care for others permeated the Apostolic palace for many decades. Cardinal Martin's love and devotion to the successors of St. Peter was unparalleled. His sense of humour was infectious, and he could speak about the follies of some illustrious residents over the last 550 years without malice. Coats of Arms came to life and spoke to those who were fortunate to be guided by him.

HERALDRY IN THE VATICAN is in a manner of speaking a legacy Cardinal Martin left behind when he died in 1992. It is far more than a guide to the hundreds of heraldic emblems in the Vatican or a history of their bearers. It brings alive 500 years of one of the most fascinating places on earth. The author himself had become part of the rich tapestry of the Vatican.

This is not just a book for any serious scholar of heraldry or Vatican history; it is an indispensable companion for anybody fortunate enough to visit Rome and the Vatican, and it will compensate those who cannot do so.

Peter Bander van Duren

In his lecture given at the Princess Grace Irish Library, Monaco, in September 1985, Professor Glanville Price surveys relations between Ireland and the other Celtic nations from prehistoric times to the late twentieth century. The lecture is supplemented by an up-to-date bibliography of some 500 items compiled by Morfydd E.Owen that will serve as an introduction to the study of such fields as the archaeology, history and art of the ancient Celts and the history, languages, literature and folklore of the modern Celtic nations (Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall and Brittany).