COULTER, Henry. The West of Ireland: Its Existing Condition, and Prospects.

Dublin: Hodges & Smith, 104 Grafton Street, 1862. First edition. Octavo. pp. xii, 372. Original publisher’s green cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Illustrated with tinted plates. Ex Irish Central Library for Blind Adults, Dublin, with ownership stamps. A very good copy.

A significant contemporary account of the social and economic conditions prevailing in the west of Ireland in the immediate aftermath of the Great Famine. Henry Coulter, Special Correspondent of Saunders’s News-Letter, travelled extensively through the western counties during 1861–62, documenting the realities of rural life, agricultural practices, landlord-tenant relations, emigration, poverty, and efforts at economic recovery. Originally published as a series of newspaper letters, the work provides a valuable eyewitness record of a region still grappling with the profound consequences of famine and depopulation.

Coulter’s observations combine journalistic immediacy with statistical and economic analysis, offering detailed descriptions of local industries, fisheries, transport infrastructure, and land improvement schemes. The illustrated plates enhance the text with views of notable antiquities and landscapes throughout the west. Written at a pivotal moment in nineteenth-century Irish history, the volume captures the transition from famine-era distress towards gradual reconstruction and reform. Today it remains an important primary source for historians of post-Famine Ireland, rural society, and economic development in Connacht and the western seaboard.

An increasingly uncommon first edition of a work of enduring importance for the study of nineteenth-century Ireland.

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