Happy Island. Child Poems. Dublin: Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh, 1916. First Edition. Pp 24, unopened. Publisher’s quarter linen paper boards. Title lettered in black to upper cover. Light dust soiling to covers, contents in fine bright condition.

Inscribed by the publisher in Irish to Mrs Pearse (mother of Patrick H. Pearse): “To Mrs Pearse, Le Grá Ó Maire & Gipsy Nic Shiubhlaigh, Nollaig 1919.”

A founder actress of the Abbey Theatre and its first leading lady, Maire Nic Shiubhlaigh spent Easter 1916 in Jacob’s Biscuit Factory with Tom MacDonagh.

Pacifist poet, James Crawford Neil (1887-1916) was an attendant at the National Library of Ireland and an innocent casualty of the 1916 Rising. His fiancée was an actress named Patricia ‘Gypsy’ Walker, a sister of Máire Ní Shiubhlaigh. On the evening of Tuesday 25 April, 1916, while crossing the city in the midst of Easter Rising, Crawford Neil was shot and fatally wounded, dying in Jervis Street Hospital on 10th May. A promising poet, this book was his first & only published work, edited & with a preface by F.R. Higgins, it was published by Máire Nic Shiubhlaigh in Dublin in July 1916.

A fitting memorial to the poet & lovely association copy being personally inscribed by the publisher, on behalf of herself & her sister, to the mother of the commander-in-chief of the Rebel forces.