of the First Edition, and for over-payments of subscriptions, made
unasked, and with the most considerate kindness, when they found the
heavy cost of the First Edition was likely to prove a loss to the
convent, in consequence of expenses which could scarcely be foreseen in
the increased size of the work, and the high class of engravings used,
which demanded an immense outlay in their production. The subscribers to
the Second Edition are indebted to not a few of the subscribers to the
First, many of them priests with limited incomes, for the generosity
which has enabled them to obtain this new issue on such favourable
terms. It is with feelings of no ordinary pleasure that I add also the
names of the Superioresses of nearly all the convents of the order of
Our Lady of Mercy and of the order of the Presentation, to the list of
our benefactors. With the exception of, perhaps, two or three convents
of each order, they have been unanimous in their generous efforts to
assist the circulation of the Irish History, and of all our
publications; and this kindness has been felt by us all the more deeply,
because from our own poverty, and the poverty of the district in which
we live, we have been unable to make them any return, or to assist them
even by the sale of tickets for their bazaars. Such disinterested
charity is, indeed, rare; and the efforts made by these religious--the
true centres of civilization in Ireland--to promote the education and to
improve the moral and intellectual tone of the lower and middle classes,
are beyond all praise, combined, as these efforts are, with
never-ceasing labour for the spiritual and temporal good of the poor in
their respective districts. Nor should I omit a word for the friends
across the wide Atlantic, to whom the very name of Ireland is so
precious, and to whom Irish history is so dear. The Most Rev. Dr.
Purcell, Archbishop of Cincinnati, has pronounced the work to be the
only Irish history worthy of the name. John Mitchel has proclaimed, in
the _Irish Citizen_, that a woman has accomplished what men have failed