Sights and Scenes in our Fatherland. By Thomas Lacy, Waterford. London: Simpkin, 1863. First Edition. Pp, (8), 720. Engraved frontispiece with a profusion of text vignettes. Thick 8vo, original cloth, rebacked retaining original spine, gilt vignette to upper cover, repair to margin of page 353-354, otherwise a very good copy.

Thomas Lacy of Wexford, sometimes styled ‘the dacent Lacy’ was the author of two books England and Ireland: Home Sketches on Both Sides of the Channel (1852), and Sights and Scenes in Our Fatherland (1863). In the 1840s Lacy was employed as assistant to the solicitor responsible for negotiating rights of way for the extension of the railway from Dublin to Wexford. The railway afforded him the opportunity to tour extensively in Leinster and Munster. In his accounts he ‘always looked upon the sunny side of the picture’ and avoids scenes of poverty and deprivation. His second book is a useful record of different tours he undertook in Ireland between 1853-61.

Lacy’s accounts are remarkable for the detail in which residences, public buildings and the interiors of churches are described. He came to Clare on at least two occasions. His first visit followed the extension of the railway line to Ennis in 1859. Taking the mail car from Ennis he toured Ennistymon and the north Clare area. On his second visit in 1860 he recorded in considerable detail the coastline from Kilkee to Loophead. His detailed description of Ennis cathedral is of particular value as it is the only record we now possess of the interior decoration of the church before the initiation of the extensive changes carried out over the last century and a half. In later life Lacy was employed as borough treasurer of Wexford town.