CULLEN, Rev. Bro. ‘98 in Wicklow 1798.

Luke, O.D.C. The Story as Written by Rev. Bro. Luke Cullen, O.D.C. (1793-1859). Edited by Rev. Myles V. Ronan, C.C., M.R.I.A., F.R. Hist.S. Wexford: The People Newspapers, 1938. Octavo. pp. 92. Printed green wrappers, price “6d.” on upper cover; printer’s monogram on lower. A near fine crisp copy.
First appearance in print of Luke Cullen’s celebrated Wicklow narrative of the 1798 rising. Cullen (1793-1859) entered the Third Order of Discalced Carmelites at their monastery, Mount St Joseph, at Clondalkin, Co. Dublin in 1838. These were unordained ‘religious brothers’ who, from their formation in Dublin (1807), followed a semi-monastic mode of life. From the 1810s, he set about recording the memories of veterans, eyewitnesses, and relatives of participants in the insurgency in Wicklow and adjoining counties. His notebooks, remarkable for their detail, local colour and named informants, were never published in his lifetime; manuscripts survive and provided later historians with an indispensable primary source on Joseph Holt, Michael Dwyer and the mountain war that followed the summer campaign of 1798.
This 1938 pamphlet, edited by the ecclesiastical historian Rev. Myles V. Ronan, brings a carefully arranged portion of Cullen’s papers to press, with a short editorial notes. It was issued by the Wexford People amid renewed commemoration of the Rising and long pre-dates the expanded book edition, Insurgent Wicklow, 1798 (Dublin, 1948; later reprints).

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