Irish Orators and Oratory. Introduction by Professor T.M. Kettle. With Portrait Illustrations. Dublin: Talbot, [1930]. Pp xxii, 444, uncut. Frontispiece plate. Green cloth boards, in the very scarce publisher’s dust jacket printed in green within a Celtic border. Scattered foxing to contents pages, ownership name to endpaper, but overall a fresh copy.

Featuring the speeches of twenty-three of some of the most significant names in Irish history, including Henry Grattan, Robert Emmet, Daniel O’Connell, Theobald Wolfe Tone, Charles Stewart Parnell and John E. Redmond etc.

For Kettle, “Passion, structure and beauty” are the three things that make a speech great.