Book Description

"This book is intended as an aid to Irish historians on the use of traveller's accounts as source-material. It consists of a discursive introduction, annotations of over 200 accounts from the years 1635-1948, a select bibliography and indexes of travellers and places. The annotations consist of the usual bibliographical details, identification of the traveller, the purpose and period of his or her travel, the exact itinerary followed, his or her mode of transport, the traveller's observations, and persons encountered. Whereas those who have published on Irish travel writing in recent years have generally seen it as another literary genre suitable for development of concepts of literary scholarship (image, identity, influences, etc.). C. J. Woods sees travel narratives as an important primary source of information - on transport, landscape, the economy, society, religion etc. This guide is invaluable to Irish local historians as a means of identifying those accounts that refer to the dark places in which they are interested." --Book Jacket.