LATIMER, Joseph. R.I.C. The “Harp and Crown”. Verses and Poems.

Belfast: News-Letter, 1896. pp. xvi, 195, x, (appendix), 5 (adverts). Green cloth boards, crown surmounted by a harp and title in gilt on upper cover. Some wear to extremities, otherwise a good copy. Exceedingly rare. No copy located on COPAC.
“These verses are the waifs and strays of countless day dreams, and of the reveries of a policeman, while on many a patrol and beat, or whilst engaged on the oft times monotonous and lonely occupation of barrack guard. They have appeared from time to time in the “Weekly Irish Times,” the editor of which has done so much to encourage the votaries of the muse. They have also appeared in “The Shamrock,” “The Western Review,” and “Sligo Monthly ;” and they have been read and admired beneath the Southern Cross, and “deep in Canadian woods,” as letters in the writer’s possession, from Irish men and women, can testify. Irishmen have been ever devoted to music and poesy, and they could not well be otherwise, seeing that Ireland is the only country in the world having for its national emblem, a musical instrument, the Harp.” - Joe Latimer, Ballybay, Monaghan, 1896.

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