REALITIES OF IRISH LIFE

London, England: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1868. Hardcover. Very Good. J. Townsend Trench. Octavo, 8.5 in. x 5.6 in.,, pp. xiv, 407. Illustrated with drawings in black and white, and one color plate, by the author's son, J. Townsend Trench. Color fold-out map of Ireland. Green half calf with gilt rule over marbled boards. Gilt title, and five raised bands to spine. Publisher's gilt top-edge. Light rubbing to extremities. Corners peeping. Marbled endpapers. Light foxing to frontispiece and fold-out map. Light age-toning to pages. Unmarked interior. Spine and hinges tight. The author, on the title page, is introduced as the "Land Agent in Ireland to Marquis of Lansdowne, Marquis of Bath, and Lord Digby."

W. Steuart Trench was born in November 1808, near Ballybrittas, Co Laois (then Queen's County), the youngest son of Thomas Trench, Church of Ireland Dean of Kildare, and Mary Weldon, whose father Robert was a landowner and MP for Athy. After attending the Royal School, Armagh, he went to Trinity College Dublin, which he left without taking a degree. He then studied agriculture and land management and worked as an assistant land agent. He married Elizabeth Sealy Townsend in 1832; they had two sons and a daughter.

Appointed agent of the Shirley estate in Co Monaghan in 1841, he resigned in 1845 because "the owner refused to implement reforms intended to create a more humane environment and efficient administration", according to Gerard Lyne, who wrote the entry on Trench in the Dictionary of Irish Biography. In 1850, he became agent of the Lansdowne estate in Co Kerry; the following year he added the agency of the Bath estate in Co Monaghan, and in 1857 was also appointed to the Digby estate in Co Offaly (then King's County). He retained these appointments for the rest of his life.

During the later stages of the Great Famine, he began a scheme of assisted emigration, where tenants in arrears had their debts written off and were given their fares out of Ireland. He shipped some 4,500 people from Kerry to America. He claimed they were well provided for, but in fact many were sent off starving and in rags. However, "despite wild claims by his critics concerning mortality among the emigrants, most survived and many found better lives in America," according to Gerard Lyne. (from The Irish Times)

In 1868 he published his memoirs, Realities of Irish life, graphically illustrated by his son, Townsend. The work displays considerable literary ability. As historical record, however, it is self-regarding, vainglorious, and unreliable. It achieved, nonetheless, a spectacular success, running to five editions in a year, and won extravagant praise from Henry Reeve in the Edinburgh Review. (from Dictionary of Irish Biography).