TO mark the issue of their 50th catalogue, De Burca Rare Books of Blackrock, Co Dublin, has produced a special edition featuring more than 200 items relating to Ireland between the 15th and the 17th centuries. Given the country's turbulent history throughout this period, it is surprising many of these documents have survived.
Among the most interesting is a letter dated July 1565 which is signed by Queen Elizabeth I and addressed to Sir Nicholas Arnold, the Justice of Ireland. The queen requests that Arnold assists and shows favour to Owen O'Sullivan Bere, who had just been knighted. By supporting the crown, he managed to hold onto his lands in Cork when these were disputed by Donal O'Sullivan, son of his deceased brother.
By the time of Sir Owen's death in 1594, he had fallen out of favour with the English government, while Donal O'Sullivan Bere claimed to be an upholder of English "civility". A few years later, when the Spaniards landed at Kinsale, Donal changed sides and the sons of Sir Owen were reinstated by the English forces before their descendants lost everything in the great rebellion of 1641.
The queen's letter, which was written early in her reign (she succeeded to the throne seven years previously) is priced at £16,750.
One of the Elizabethan age's most romantic figures, Sir Philip Sidney, features in another of the catalogue's entries, the first Irish publication of his pastoral romance Arcadia (£1,450). This was issued in Dublin in 1621, during the reign of the queen's successor, James I, but Sir Philip had been in Ireland the previous century when his father, Sir Henry Sidney, had acted as Lord Deputy. In 1609, Sir Philip's secretary, Sir William Temple, was appointed Provost of Trinity College, Dublin and it is no doubt because of his presence that an Irish printing of Arcadia was undertaken; according to De Burca's, this is the earliest surviving work of English literature to be published in Ireland. The Boyles are another family with strong Irish associations who are represented in the catalogue; Robert and Roger were two of the innumerable offspring of Richard Boyle, who, having come to this country in 1588 as an adventurer, eventually became the "Great" Earl of Cork, with ownership of enormous territories in Munster.
A founder of the Royal Society, Robert Boyle was one of the greatest scientists of the 17th century - his favourite subject was chemistry - and an ardent advocate of the Protestant faith. The various published treatises offered for sale by De Burca's reflect the author's scientific interests. His older brother, Roger, who was eventually to be created Earl of Orrery, enjoyed a complicated career in the English army, which saw him at different times supporting Cromwell and the crown. He was also a writer and De Burca's is offering for sale a 1677 Treatise of the Art of War (£2,500), a 1669 volume containing two of his plays (£500) and a 1676 work of fiction called Parthenissa (£1,250), believed to be the first romance written by an Irish author and owing a debt to French writers from earlier in the century, such as Madeleine de Scudery.
For further information or a copy of this catalogue, contact De Burca Rare Books, tel. 01-2882159.
Also recently issued are two other catalogues of books of Irish interest. Dublin's Winding Stair Bookshop's catalogue has close to 800 entries, which run from a signed copy of Seamus Heaney's Door into the Dark (£15) to Lennox Robinson's 1942 autobiography (also £15). For further information, tel. 018733292. P. & B. Rowan of Belfast has also produced a catalogue of books and periodicals of Irish interest (tel. 080-1232-666448). Here, the 700-plus entries include Gerard Boate's 1652 Ireland's Natural History (sterling £2,000), a three-volume edition from circa 1860 of Halls's Ireland: its Scenery, Character, etc (£650) and a two-volume 1783 first edition of William Crawford's A History of Ireland from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (£350).
