In Boston, Thomas Mooney Self-Publishes 1,700 page History of Ireland

Frontispiece

Thomas Mooney of Dublin, a writer, lecturer, historian self-published a 1,7000 page book, A History of Ireland From its first Settlement to the Present Time. The sweeping study included chapters on Literature, Music, Architecture and Natural Resources, 200 biographical sketches of famous men, and 88 Irish melodies that included both musical notations and lyrics.

The book was self-published in Boston in 1845 in two volumes, and was available for purchase from Patrick Donoghue, publisher of The Boston Pilot and in similar outlets in Providence, New York, Troy, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC. and Savannah.

Mooney had come to Boston in 1841 and was a welcomed speaker at the Boston Repeal Association and other local organizations. "The cause of Repeal is the cause of truth and justice in Ireland," he said on his lecture tour.

The Boston Post wrote that he “appeared to striking advantage in the repeal uniform, with home-manufactured frieze coat, with drab collar.”

Title Page

“The idea of presenting history in the form of popular lectures, interspersed with Music and Poetry, and specimens of Art and Antiquities, and Biographical Episodes is new and surprising, and could scarcely have been ventured on in any History but that of Ireland,” wrote the Pilot. “When future historians shall have taken up his idea, and imitate his style, his country will remember that he was the first to change historical narrative from a tedious compilation of royal biographies and state papers and give to the records of the dead that variety and charm which belong to the society of the living.”

A popular feature of the massive tome was Mooney's lecture on The Music of Ireland, which included a the section entitled, 150 Irish Melodies (Poetry and Music Combined).

“These melodies are arranged for the piano-forte, violin, flute or clarionet, and presented as specimens of our ancient and modern composition, embracing every measure, whether of love, sorrow, joy, merriment, war or patriotism, well calculated to sooth the heart in exile, or to animate it in bondage,” the author wrote. Among the composers and lyricists included are blind harpist Turlough Carolan, Thomas Moore, Samuel Lover, Lady Morgan, Michael Kelly, and several lyrics to ancient melodies written by Moody himself.

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