HYDE, Douglas. Beside the Fire. With a new introduction by Liam Mac Mathúna.

Dublin: De Búrca, 2023. New edition. Octavo. pp. xix, lvii, 203, [1]. Green buckram, titled in gilt. ‘An Chraoibhín Aoibin’ and ‘Douglas Hyde’ in gilt on upper and lower cover. Red and gold endbands. A fine new edition with scholarly introduction.

“Be they Seamus Hart, the game-keeper, who accompanied him as a young boy when he went fowling with his own gun at the age of fourteen, or the wizened old woman shaking with asthmatic laughter as she sang a love-song for him, Dr Douglas Hyde established an extraordinary rapport with the Irish-speaking country people of the west towards the end of the nineteenth century. Celebrated works such as Beside the Fire (1890) and Love Songs of Connacht (1893) show how Hyde's empathy with the people who shared their songs and lore with him enabled him to do justice to the humanity which pervaded their culture and traditions, immeasurably enhancing his own scholarship in the process, and inspiring later collectors who also possessed this sensibility ... ”. Introduction by Liam Mac Mathúna.