Irish Minstrelsy or Bardic Remains of Ireland. With English Poetical Translations. Introduction by Maire Mhac an tSaoi. Two volumes.  Shannon: I.U.P., 1971. Pages, 376, 435. A fine bright set in buckram boards & lightly worn dust jackets.

Facsimile copy of  first edition published in 1831.

James Hardiman (1782-1855), was born in Westport, Co. Mayo. His Irish Minstrelsy, or Bardic Remains of Ireland is an anthology of Irish poetry from all periods, the contents ranging from relics attributed to mythological figures such as Tórna Éigeas to the contemporary Gaelic poet Antoine Raiftearaí, whom he knew. The object of the work was to attest the antiquity of Irish poetry and to show that it possessed a dignity equal to the classical literatures of Greece and Rome.

In Irish Minstrelsy, Hardiman enlisted a team of assistants including Thomas Furlong, John D’Alton, Edward Lawson, Henry Grattan Curran, and William Hamilton Drummond to render his prose translations in verse.