JOYCE, P.W., LL.D.; SULLIVAN, A.M.; NUNAN, P.D. Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland.

Part I; Coats of Arms of Leading Irish Families by P. Murphy. With four hundred & eighty coloured plates of eleven hundred Irish families. Part II; A Comprehensive Delineation of the thirty-two counties, with a beautifully coloured map of each, arranged alphabetically, showing over 11,000 cities, towns, villages and places of interest. Part III; The Story of Ireland. By A.M. Sullivan. Being a complete and authentic history of Ireland from the earliest ages to 1867. Embellished with portraits of the leading statesmen, orators, poets & martyrs of the Emerald Isle. New York: Murphy & McCarthy, 1902. Thick quarto, with errata slip. pp. [18], 40 (Heraldic coloured plates), 342, x, 294. Original publisher’s dark green cloth, gilt vignette of Erin with harp and round tower on upper cover, title in gilt on spine. With a coloured frontispiece, numerous tinted and full-page illustrations of Irish scenery, historic places, antiquities and public buildings, together with 32 finely hand-coloured county maps. Includes also 40 page section Coats of Arms of the Leading Irish Families, with richly coloured heraldic plates. A very good copy. Spine expertly rebacked. Light wear to extremities. A good copy.
First published in 1900, the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland was issued for the Irish-American market by the New York publishers Murphy & McCarthy, appealing to the large diaspora community eager to preserve a sense of national history and identity. It is divided into two great sections: Part I, largely the work of the renowned antiquarian and educationalist P.W. Joyce, provides a county-by-county geographical and topographical survey of Ireland, each county accompanied by a handsome coloured map detailing towns, villages, rivers and baronies. Part II, compiled from the narrative of the journalist and politician A.M. Sullivan and continued by P.D. Nunan, delivers a sweeping history of Ireland “from the earliest ages” through the major political, military and religious upheavals: the Battle of Clontarf, the Anglo-Norman invasion, the Williamite wars, the Penal Laws, the Volunteers, the United Irishmen, Catholic Emancipation, O’Connell, the Young Irelanders, the Fenian movement and the Land League.
The volume is further embellished with portraits of Irish patriots, poets and statesmen, and, in a conscious act of cultural preservation, includes a heraldic section illustrating the coats of arms of leading Irish families, intended to reinforce a sense of continuity and ancestral pride amongst Irish emigrants. Its attractive chromolithographed plates, patriotic iconography, and sweeping scope make it one of the most visually striking and ambitious popular Irish histories of its era.

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