This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1950.

Between 1827 and 1835, Humphrey O'Sullivan kept a diary of his life in Co Kilkenny. He was a hedge-school master like his father, but went on to become a prosperous businessman and philanthropist. No aspect of life escaped his attention, from the poverty and degradation of the peasantry to the flora and fauna of the region.

McManus (Education, Trinity College Dublin) examines the informal and often illegal schools where poor Irish, mostly rural, learned to read and were introduced to tenets of Irish nationalism. She also critically appraises a selection of the chapbooks--Burton books before 1824--used in them, including the criminal biographies, the works of entertainment, and the perennially popular chivalric romance The Seven Champions of Christendom. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR