Sgéalta Thomáis Uí Chathasaigh: Mayo Stories Told By Thomas Casey. Hull Memorial Volume

Cur síos

Douglas Hyde (foilsithe den chéad uair / first published 1939)

xxiv + 388 pp. ISBN 1 870 16636 1

The title page of this remarkable volume bears two much honoured names within the annals of the Society, the first of which, Eleanor Hull, commemorates the Society’s first Hon. Secretary, who served in that position from 1897 until her death in 1935. The second is that of the editor, Douglas Hyde, who held the office of President of the Society, then purely honorary, from 1898 to his death in 1953. However, the title page records his much more elevated title of (first) President of Ireland, an office to which he had been elected in 1938, while this Memorial Volume was going through the press. His choice of Mayo stories was not welcomed universally, with one critic unfairly describing it as trash. While a similar Memorial Volume was planned for P. S. Dinneen, this was to be the only one published by the Society.