Ireland’s finest photographer in the 20th century, Fr Frank Browne repeatedly visited County Wicklow across almost half a century. Over that time, he had the opportunity to capture images of this part of the country as it underwent change and yet, somehow, retained its essential character. The earliest photograph, for example, is of the Dargle Valley, a spot that looks much the same today as it did when Fr Browne first went there in 1910. Other pictures show landmark beauty spots such as the Powerscourt Waterfall and the Sugarloaf Mountain, as well as the rugged landscape of the Sally Gap. The monastic remains of Glendalough are exquisitely caught, along with the still waters of Lough Tay. But while his eye was able to spot the timeless beauty of this rural idyll, Fr Browne also noted the modern and innovative, capturing key moments in the development of a newly independent Ireland, such as the construction of the Poulaphouca Reservoir in the late 1930s and workers in the newly opened Solus Teoranta Lightbulb Factory in Bray. Cars are few, but bicycles plentiful in his photographs. The advent of modern technology contrasts with traditional pastimes: a horse fair in Blessington, sheep dipping on a farm, a thatcher repairing the roof of an old cottage. He shows bustling preparations for the International Eucharistic Congress of June 1932, along with commercial activity in towns such as Arklow and Wicklow. New schools are shown being built in the first, older pursuits like fishing continue in the second. And Fr Browne’s ability to gain access everywhere means he was able to photograph many of Wicklow’s most famous historic houses, like Powerscourt before its interiors were tragically destroyed by fire, and Shelton Abbey which he visited just a year before the building and its contents were sold. The book is divided into five/six sections, each offering readers the chance to follow in Fr Browne’s footsteps and explore a different part of the county.

County Wicklow, with its golden beaches, wooded valleys, majestic mountains, and stunning lakes, rivers, and waterfalls, is truly an area of great natural beauty, and its vibrant history is uniquely captured in this collection of archive images. Derek Stanley explores the development of the towns and villages across the county, showing how they have changed and grown over the years, recalling old shops and streets, schools and institutions, industries and agriculture, and a lost way of life.

This carefully crafted ebook: "ULYSSES (Modern Classics Series)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Ulysses is a modernist novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It is considered to be one of the most important works of modernist literature, and has been called "a demonstration and summation of the entire movement". Ulysses chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer's epic poem Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between its characters and events and those of the poem (the correspondence of Leopold Bloom to Odysseus, Molly Bloom to Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus to Telemachus). Joyce divided Ulysses into 18 chapters or "episodes". At first glance much of the book may appear unstructured and chaotic; Joyce once said that he had "put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant", which would earn the novel "immortality". James Joyce (1882-1941) was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses, the short-story collection Dubliners, and the novels A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Finnegans Wake.

Go on a journey with Robert O’Byrne as he brings fascinating Irish ruins to life. Fantastical, often whimsical, and frequently quirky, these atmospheric ruins are beautifully photographed and paired with fascinating text by Robert O’Byrne. Born out of Robert’s hugely popular blog, The Irish Aesthete, there are Medieval castles, Georgian mansions, Victorian lodges, and a myriad of other buildings, many never previously published. Robert focuses on a mixture of exteriors and interiors in varying stages of decay, on architectural details, and entire scenarios. Accompanying texts tell of the Regency siblings who squandered their entire fortune on gambling and carousing, of an Anglo-Norman heiress who pitched her husband out the window on their wedding night, and of the landlord who liked to walk around naked and whose wife made him carry a cowbell to warn housemaids of his approach. Arranged by the country’s four provinces, the diverse ruins featured offer a unique insight into Ireland and an exploration of her many styles of historic architecture.

As a passenger on the first two legs of Titanic's ill fated voyage, Father Francis Browne SJ's photographs are an immensely important record. As well as taking a unique set of photos, Father Browne also assembled an incredibly valuable album of Titanic material such as an original deck plan, menus, letters to him from fellow passengers, contemporary newspaper cuttings and other documents, many of which are reproduced here. Thanks to the gift of a ticket from his uncle, a young Jesuit named Francis Browne travelled on the Titanic during her maiden voyage from Southampton, to Cherbourg to Cork. Invited to remain with the ship as it crossed the Atlantic, Fr Browne was saved from possible disaster by a telegram from his Jesuit superior ordering him to "get off that ship". When the unthinkable happened and the Titanic sank, Fr Browne's photographs appeared on the front pages of newspapers all around the world. For many years the photographs of Fr Browne were forgotten until 1985 when Fr Eddie O'Donnell happened across an old tin trunk in the Jesuit archives and re-discovered 42,000 photographs, including the Titanic collection.

Dubliners is a collection of picturesque short stories that paint a portrait of life in middle-class Dublin in the early 20th century. Joyce, a Dublin native, was careful to use actual locations and settings in the city, as well as language and slang in use at the time, to make the stories directly relatable to those who lived there. The collection had a rocky publication history, with the stories being initially rejected over eighteen times before being provisionally accepted by a publisher—then later rejected again, multiple times. It took Joyce nine years to finally see his stories in print, but not before seeing a printer burn all but one copy of the proofs. Today Dubliners survives as a rich example of not just literary excellence, but of what everyday life was like for average Dubliners in their day. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.