LART, Charles E. The Pedigrees and Papers of James Terry, Athlone Herald at the Court of James II in France (1690-1725). Together with other Pedigrees, and Naturalisations from the Mss. d’Hozier and other Sources in France.

Exeter: William Pollard, 1938. pp. xxx, 223. Title printed in red and black. Modern brown buckram with original backstrip laid on. Ex lib. with stamps. A fine copy. Rare.

After the Treaty of Limerick in 1690, the remnants of King James’ army in Ireland went over to France. It is estimated that somewhere in the region of nineteen thousand left in the ‘Flight of the Wild Geese’. Penal laws and oppressive religious and commercial restrictions drove out all who could get away to France, where they enlisted in the service of their adopted country. James Terry a native of Limerick, commenced his career in the army as a second-lieutenant in Captain Henry Fleming’s Company of Grenadiers in the Earl of Antrim’s Regiment of Foot. He was appointed Athlone Herald in 1690, although he had no apparent qualifications for this office. He did however possess heraldic records, among them the famous Book of Lecan, which according to the Marquis Mac Swiney of Mashanaglas was abstracted from the library of Trinity College, Dublin. Terry bought it from Sir John Fitzgerald in France for 199 pistoles (£100).

The pedigrees included in this volume are: D’Arcy, Cusack, Higgins, Keating, O’Keefe, Lynch, MacCartan, MacDonald, MacNamara, Maguire, Magenis, Middleton, Oglethorpe, O’Mahony, Porter, Power, Ryan, Sandilands, Williamson. Genealogical text in French with copious and numerous notes in English.

[L2 4C]