To the land of the free from this island of slaves
Subtitle: Henry Stratford Persse's letters from Galway to America, 1821-1832
By: edited by James L. Pethica and James C. Roy.
Contributors: Pethica, James.; Roy, James Charles, 1945-
Series: Irish narratives
Publisher: Cork University Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Cork, Ireland
Language: eng
Number of pages: 190
Subjects: Persse, Henry Stratford, d. 1833 -- Correspondence.; Customs administration -- Ireland -- Officials and employees -- Correspondence.; Galway (Ireland) -- Social life and customs.; Ireland -- Social life and customs -- 19th century.; New York (N.Y.) -- Emigration and immigration.
Other titles: Henry Stratford Persse's letters from Galway to America
Description: "The letters of Henry Stratford Persse, whose great-niece Augusta was to achieve literary celebrity as Lady Gregory of Coole Park, provide a striking account of Galway life, Irish misgovernment and American democracy by a lively and unconventional observer. Persse was a customs official and distiller in the town of Galway, with three sons who had emigrated to Boston and thence to New York in 1821. In a series of letters to his 'darling boys', Persse expressed his prescient distrust of the potato as a staple food, abhorrence of the sectarianism of many fellow-Protestants, dissatisfaction with economic exploitation in Ireland under the Union and admiration for liberty as practised in America. The editors skilfully reconstruct Persse's milieu in Galway, and also the dynamic development of New York and the Erie Canal in the era of Governor DeWitt Clinton, with whom Persse corresponded."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-183) and index.