PLUNKET, William Conyngham, Lord. Speeches at the Bar and in the Senate, by the Right Honourable Wm. Conyngham, Lord Plunket, Lord High Chancellor of Ireland. Edited, with a Memoir and Historical Notices, by John Cashel Hoey.

Dublin: James Duffy, 7 Wellington Quay, 1859. Thick crown octavo. pp. xxivi, 25-456. Splendid full crimson morocco, covers framed with broad gilt floral borders; upper and lower boards stamped with the armorial crest of Carlow College, depicting the oak tree and quartered shield (keys, book, globe), motto “Rescissa Vegetior Assurgit.” Spine divided into six panels with gilt floral tooling, lettered direct. Gilt turn-ins, comb-marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. A handsome Irish presentation binding of the period. A very attractive copy.
First substantial collected edition of Lord Plunket’s orations, edited by John Cashel Hoey (of The Nation), with an introductory memoir and historical notes. Plunket, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, was one of the great Irish advocates of his age, noted for his oratory on Catholic Emancipation and the Union. His speeches were collected and edited by John Cashel Hoey (1828-1892), journalist, historian, and later secretary of the Queen’s University in Ireland. The Dublin publisher, James Duffy, was the leading Catholic publisher of the mid-century, whose editions often found their way into institutional and presentation bindings of this calibre.
Contents: Forensic and parliamentary speeches from the 1790s through the Union and after, including the celebrated prosecution of Robert Emmet (1803); major interventions on Catholic Emancipation and Irish constitutional questions; and selected bar pleas, each placed by Hoey within its political and legal context.
Provenance: Carlow College prize binding. A fine Irish binding on Hoey’s important collected edition.

[L3 7A]