GROVE WHITE, James. Historical and Topographical Notes, Etc., on Buttevant, Castletownroche, Doneraile, Mallow, and Places in Their Vicinity (Author’s own set)

Four volumes. Cork: Guy, 1905/1925. Modern green cloth, titles in gilt on dark green morocco labels on spines. All edges sprinkled. From the library of Colonel James Grove White with his armorial bookplate to each volume. Some pencil notes possibly in Grove White’s hand and newspaper clippings with relevant historical articles inserted. A very good set of an extremely rare set of books.
JISC with 2 locations only.
A monument of Cork local history, Grove White’s Notes assemble, place by place and family by family, the results of decades of collecting “in the field”: parish histories; pedigrees; accounts of the big houses and castles; antiquities (churches, crosses, ring forts); gravestone inscriptions; and transcriptions from printed and manuscript sources. Arranged alphabetically from Abbeyville to Woodville (near Buttevant), the work treats the principal North Cork centres, Buttevant (de Barry), Castletownroche (Roche), Doneraile (St Leger), Mallow (Jephson), and dozens of surrounding townlands, with innumerable sidelights on landlords, clergy, schools, mills, fairs, and folklore.
Its scholarly value is greatly increased by the author’s full transcriptions of documents from the Four Courts, many of which perished in the 1922 fire, making these volumes a surrogate archive for the district. A unique opportunity to acquire the author’s copy with his bookplates. This work remains indispensable for Cork genealogy and topography, fulfilling Grove White’s modest hope, expressed in his first preface, that the Notes would form “a not unimportant contribution to the past history [and] antiquities of this portion of the County.”
Colonel James Grove White (1852-1938) was a Cork antiquarian, topographer and British Army officer. Born in Melbourne, Victoria, he settled at Kilbyrne, Doneraile, after retiring and immersed himself in documenting North Cork’s places, houses, families and antiquities. His four-volume Historical and Topographical Notes on Buttevant, Castletownroche, Doneraile, Mallow, and Places in Their Vicinity (1905-1925) drew on fieldwork, parish registers, gravestone inscriptions and transcripts of manuscripts, some later lost in the 1922 Four Courts fire, making the set irreplaceable. He served as President of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society from 1917 until his death on 2 November 1938, and was a contributor to its Journal. From 1930 he lived for periods in Cyprus with his second wife, Louie, while maintaining strong links with Cork; the resulting Grove White collection was later donated to the Cyprus Museum. His work remains a cornerstone for genealogists and local historians of County Cork. Originally issued in instalments with the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society.

[Cat 162]