Book Launch: IRISH JESUIT ANNUAL LETTERS 1604-74 edited by Vera Moynes
Location: No. 45 Merrion Square Dublin 2
Date: 5.30 pm Friday 13 September 2019
Annual Letters were the means by which Jesuits across the globe stayed in contact with Rome and with each other. Twenty-five of the Annual Letters from Ireland survive for the seventeenth century. They are all published here for the first time along with translations from Latin and Portuguese into English. Not only do they give insight into this dynamic and influential mission, they also provide unique information on the social, political, cultural, religious, sexual and linguistic realities of the time.
This edition is based on manuscripts held in the Irish Jesuit Archives and in the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus. On average there were twenty Jesuits on the Irish mission who ran houses in towns and cities across the island as well as embarking on frequent preaching expeditions. Despite their small numbers these were confident and detailed observers of conditions in Ireland during one of its most violent and turbulent centuries. Here are first-hand accounts of plague in Clonmel, famine in Connacht, massacre in Drogheda, exorcisms and miracles across the whole island.
The book will be launched by Simon Ditchfield, Professor of Early Modern History, University of York.
ISBN 978-1-906865-57-3
xxviii + 1013 pp (in 2 volumes), €80
SPECIAL LAUNCH PRICE €70