Foot-Loose in the British Isles, by Harry A. Franck - The Irish chapters.

The following scans are from a book called ‘Foot-Loose in the British Isles’ by a traveler called Harry A. Franck. First published in 1932, it shows Ireland at a time when the two new states were still finding their identity, while also dealing with the financial consequences of the great depression.  In his career, he travelled to a good proportion of the world’s continents.  His exploits are well worth reading, even though they display many of the more repressive attitudes prevalent at the time (as you will see on the first page of these scans).  Get past this, and you will find an intelligently written, entertaining snapshot of our little island, in a time now long gone.  Many of his books are available free on Project Guttenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/ ).  Look up Harry’s entry on Wikipedia; he led an interesting life.

I will post these scans by chapter over the next few weeks as I get time to process them.  Since I will use Harry’s chapter names, this should also make it easier to find the chapters that are relevant to your own favourite areas.  This is just an introduction, so you will only see the book’s cover here.  I have only scanned the part of the book dealing with Ireland, the first chapter of which will post immediately after this introduction.  I make no claim to own this material, but post it here only out of interest.  It is an old book, and long out of print.  Given some of the attitudes expressed in it (He reports things as he finds them, so these are not necessarily Harry’s personal attitudes), I doubt that it will ever be reprinted.


The Irish chapters cover 83 pages excluding photos, and are as follows:
XXII  Across to Ireland
XXIII  Through Killarney to Limerick
XXIV  Tipperary and the Curragh
XXV  Baile Atha Cliath
XXVI  Still Prowling Around Dublin
XXVII  Back to the West Coast
XXVIII  Let's Go fishing
XXIX  And Now To Ulster
XXX  Belfast And Home Again