This handsome and scholarly book is a catalogue of a selection of pictures of Ireland, all, remarkably, collected over the past 30 years by Desmond Fitzgerald, 29th Knight of Glin, for his famous country seat in west Limerick, where his family have held sway since 1350. It whets the appetite for the next major publication by the Knight (with James Peill), a history of Irish furniture.
Forty years ago, when the Knight first made his scholarly mark as a collaborator with Desmond Guinness and others on the pioneering exhibition ‘Irish Houses and Landscapes’, Ireland was an economic and cultural backwater. Today, as 250,000 people annually up sticks to escape the horrors of London, civilised and prosperous Ireland is of course acclaimed one of the most desirable places on earth.
The Knight has been a considerable force in the renaissance, which accounts for this tribute on behalf of 16 of his peers, the cream of Irish academe.
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