"University College Dublin Press has now published over thirty 'Classics of Irish History'. These contemporary accounts by well known personalities of historical events and attitudes have an immediacy that conventional histories do not have. Introductions by modern historians provide additional historical background and, with hindsight, objectivity." Books Ireland Nov 2007 "admirably edited and introduced ... by Carla King and ... Read moreW J Mc Cormack." Verbal Magazine Issue 12 March 2008 "Scholars of nineteenth-century Irish and Irish-American politics should reacquaint themselves with these classics, part of a long running and immensely useful series from University College Dublin Press." Irish Literary Supplement Fall 2008 'reissued with illuminating new introductions as a part of the Classics of Irish History series published by UCD Press, one of the most admirable - endeavours in recent Irish publishing history. More than this, these texts were also all political interventions. John Devoy's compelling account of the machinations at Boulogne and elsewhere was also a response to a death - Davitt's passing allowing him to set the record straight on the political subtleties of the 'new departures' of the late 1870s - Devoy's [text] existed in counterpoint to prevailing assumptions, [the author] determined to problematise what their fellow countrymen thought they knew of Ireland's past. Devoy contested the widely-held view that Davitt was a Fenian who had come to his senses, his life a moral tale proving that 'constitutional agitation is more efficacious in obtaining reformsA" and redress of grievancesA" in Ireland than physical force.' Devoy suggested that to use his 'career as an agitator - as an argument against Fenianism' was to fundamentally misunderstand Davitt's politics. Instead, Devoy pictured Davitt as a separatist who sought to establish a modus operandi that would avoid the pitfalls of underground conspiracy and the moral bankruptcy of Isaac Butt's loosely-defined federalism and preserve the integrity of Fenianism's revolutionary republicanism. Devoy also desired to refute the notion that his own meetings with Parnell were between 'a cautious and taciturn Constitutionalist' and a 'loquacious Fenian', insisting that they met as equals fully cognisant of the subtleties of their respective political agendas.' Irish Literary Supplement Fall 2010 Show Less