O’BYRNE, Cathal. As I Roved Out. A Book of The North. Being a Series of Historical Sketches of Ulster and Old Belfast.

Belfast: 1946. Octavo. First edition. pp. 450. Red cloth, title in black on spine. Red faded cloth. A very good copy in repaired pictorial dust jacket.
O’Byrne’s much-loved compendium of historical sketches, portraits and topographical notes on Ulster with a special eye for old Belfast. Drawn from his long-running Irish News pieces, it ranges from streets and trades to radical figures and folklore, written in a singer-storyteller’s lively, affectionate style. A cornerstone source for local historians; this copy is very good in a repaired pictorial dust jacket.
Cathal O’Byrne (1876-1957) was a Belfast-based singer, poet, folklorist and columnist, active in the Gaelic League and Ulster Theatre. A popular performer and storyteller, he wrote for the Irish News, later collecting his Belfast and Ulster pieces As I Roved Out (1946), and published travel, fiction and devotional works. He spent time in the USA (1921), raising substantial relief funds for victims of the Belfast violence through the White Cross, and remained a prominent cultural voice in the North until his death.

[L3 8C]