Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This is the third of what now looks to be a once-per-decade revision of a useful reference tool. The first edition appeared in 1978, 100 years after Alfred Webb's A Compendium of Irish Biography (1878) and 50 years after John S. Crone's A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography (1928). Meant to follow in their illustrious footsteps, this book‘which contains nearly 1700 biographies, with 150 photographs‘includes no living figures. "Irishness" is loosely defined as "being involved in the Irish situation," as wittily noted by Conor Cruise O'Brien in the preface. Although the first two editions did not include photographs, and Boylan has been scrupulous about adding outstanding Irish figures who have died since the last edition, libraries already owning one of the first two probably don't need this third edition. Most of the entries will also be in other, broader biographical tools, and patrons might prefer a text that includes famous living Irish. A good first purchase for general collections or for those that must be up-to-date.‘Shelley Cox, Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

The product of a quarter century's meticulous research, the third edition of Boylan's dictionary (CH, Jun'79; 2nd ed., 1988), a work without peer, contains almost 1,700 profiles (400 are new) of distinguished Irish men and women who died between 400 BCE and December 1997. Boylan carefully defines "Irish" and the criteria for inclusion, but he admits that his selections were inevitably personal and subjective. Although he does not give sources for each entry, Boylan provides a "select bibliography" (omitting Alumni Dublinenses, 1924, 2nd ed., 1935; Dictionary of Canadian Biography, CH, Jun'66, Jan'70, Feb'73, May'75, Jun'77, Sep'80; and other notable titles) and reproduces some 80 portraits. In the absence of an index, the numerous cross-references help link related subjects. Boylan observes that "time deals harshly with many reputations." For more obscure figures, one should consult Alfred J. Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography (1878; repr. 1970); John S. Crone's Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography (1928); Modern Irish Lives: Dictionary of 20th-Century Irish Biography, ed. by Louis McRedmond (CH, May'97); or Kit and Cyril O Ceirin's Women of Ireland: A Biographic Dictionary (1996). Essential for all Irish collections, academic and public. J. D. Blackwell Brandeis University