Patrick O'Sullivan, His Irish Diaspora Studies Book Collection

These notes were prepared for a presentation to Irish Diaspora Studies colleagues. They seem worth sharing here....


Patrick O'Sullivan, His Irish Diaspora Studies Book Collection

Let me share a problem with you...

(And see Note 1, below)

The problem... This is the best time ever, in the history of the world, to fill gaps in my Irish Diaspora Studies book collection. Important books are turning up in online sales for tiny sums.

(See Note 2, below)

Why is that a problem?

Let us explore the background...



Part A: 3 examples

I start with 3 examples, 3 books taken down from the shelves near my left arm...

1.

My copy of Denis Johnston, Brazen Horn, is the signed copy that the author gave to his Cambridge college, Christ's College, Cambridge.

Johnston, D. (1976) The Brazen Horn: A Non-book for Those Who, in Revolt Today, Could be in Command Tomorrow. Dolmen Press (Dolmen editions).

This copy is not only signed and dedicated to the College by the author - it has pencilled emendations throughout in the author's handwriting.

Reading the book - it is very much of its time and the author's last years. It was important enough to him to make him produce this limited edition. If any scholar wants to make a study of this book, and the author's mind, they will need this copy of this book. (see Note 3, below).

The library of Christ's College, Cambridge, discarded this book - I bought it up from a Cambridge book dealer.

Denis Johnston is of interest to Diaspora Studies because he faced the all the difficulties of a mid twentieth century Ireland writer - beginning with the Old Lady saying No, then negotiating World War II, and working for the BBC. I am still quietly adding to my Denis Johnston collection...

2.

My copy of Johnston, British Emigration Policy, was discarded by De Montfort University - it cost me £7.50.

Johnston, H. J. M. (1972) British Emigration Policy 1815-1830: ‘Shovelling Out Paupers’. Clarendon Press.

This is an important book - the foundation text for study of Robert Wilmot Horton, and the small beginnings of British government assisted emigration schemes. That sudden turn when population growth became not a national asset but a national problem. As always - we feel - London's experiments begin in Ireland. In this instance - without bothering to tell the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Wellesley - in Mallow and Fermoy. The part of North Cork that I come from.

And Hugh Johnston's book put that phrase, ‘Shovelling Out Paupers’, into the historiographic record. (see Note 4, below)

3.

My copy of Hasia R. Diner, Hungering for America - a welcome addition to my Hasia Diner collection - was, again, bought for a few pounds, which included postage from the USA.

Diner, H. R. (2003). Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish foodways in the age of migration. Harvard University Press.

This copy was discarded by Longwood Public Library, Middle Island, NY.

When I saw the place name 'Middle Island' - stamped on the book - I imagined a string of islands, at least three islands. That must be a pretty place... But no... It is the Middle of Long Island, the geographic centre of Long Island. We must admire the excellent work of the Longwood Public Library, in suporting the young people of Middle Island. It is maybe a measure of something that a 2003 Diaspora Studies book is discarded by an American local public library in 2011.

Hungering for America is a lovely book, exploring food ways to reveal the negotiation of identities - the Italians using America's plenty to creat a generic Italian cuisine, the Irish focus on the absence of hunger, East Europen Jews negotiating religious law and ritual...


Part B.

So, three books pulled down from the shelves... I could go on, hauling books down for you to see...

And we can see patterns. Yes, there are some obscure books that only people like me are aware of.

But - look - important books discarded by libraries, different kinds of libraries, serving different communities... But cumulatively many thousands of small decisions entirely reshaping the reading and research landscapes. It always seems to be a decision shaped by shelf space, by real estate. Or, in educational settings, a decision shaped by the needs of the present cohort of students. And can we quarrel with that?

Your friendly local book dealer will tell you that 'book collectors' do not want ex library books. But you and I are not 'book collectors' - we are book users. As I have said elsewhere, books are extension ladders for thought... Our thought climbs into books and into libraries...

These books come to us with library marks and clutter - and we can live with that, for we need the text. Indeed, the library marks are part of the history of the text, and part of the history of our research area.

Elsewhere in my working life I have advised on the creation of focussed digital libraries. Thus all the key nineteenth century books by and about (for example) the Brontës are available freely online somewhere, and can be brought together into one collection. All the nineteenth century books that shaped the discourse on the Irish Famine are available.

But... There are difficulties there... It is not enough for our great libraries to encourage the digitisation of the books of the past - if the digitised books then become a new commercial product, hidden behind passwords and paywalls.

Through my three examples, above, we are maybe exploring those decades when books are too young to be freely digitised, are still in copyright - and too old to be 'born digital'.

We are exploring the vagaries of the twentieth century book publication industries, the Irish book industry, the academic book industry, the Irish academic book industry...

An obvious example here.. Peter Gray's 1999 Famine, Land and Politics - one of the most important Irish history books ever... I will say that again... one of the most important Irish history books ever... ...vitally important to cracking open the study of the Irish Famine... ...has almost vanished. The odd copy is very expensive.

Gray, P. (1999) Famine, Land and Politics: British Government and Irish Society, 1843-50. Irish Academic Press.

I have a copy, of course. It cost me far more than I was happy to pay.

These books become visible for sale through good, well managed, software systems. The perfect product. Remember that Amazon launched as an online bookseller - in July 1995, selling from Jeff Bezos's garage. There is the usual danger that computers will do what they always seem to do when left to their own devices - explore the extremes, chase higher prices. Increasingly the books are sold online by - perhaps - charities and other - sometimes not for profit - organisations.

Academic books of that period... the print run will have been - what? - maybe 500 or 1000?

The next stop, after the charity web site, is landfill.

These are, therefore, often quite rare books. I do feel that every copy is precious. Several times I have been tempted to buy a second copy of a book, just to save it from destruction.

The rationale is sometimes given, that - yes - these books may have disappeared from our local college library, or our local public library... But copies are still safely stored in our large copyright libraries, in the Legal Deposit Libraries in the UK and Ireland. My academic life would give me access to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the British Library, London. The circumstances in which I might visit some of the most expensive cities in the world to read a book are difficult to imagine. Certainly difficult to finance.

When I can buy a copy of that book and have it delivered to my home, for bus fare money...

Here and now... If a book costs a few pounds, my pension and other earnings can cope - but some books are quite beyond me.

I am becoming a sort of informal lending library up here in Yorkshire, when people find out I have a needed book. And soon I will make part of my bibliographic database visible, so that we can have a better picture of the thousands of books shelved around me.

My Irish Diaspora Studies Book Collection has collected around me over many decades. It is, maybe, an accumalation rather than a collection. Some books on the shelves are markers, signposts pointing to my even more massive collection of digitised books, thousands of books stored, as pdf or epub, in my computers. Thus, a not particularly good book about the Vatican will point me towards the need to firm up our understanding of that part of Irish history.

Parts of my collection are very focussed indeed. Specific projects within Irish Diaspora Studies have created a need and a resource. Often - as I have indicated - the physical book, the book printed on paper, is the only one that fulfills the need, that completes the thought.


Part C: A fourth example

A little while ago I was writing up my notes for a presentation on Edward Said and Ireland. My starting point was our shared need to understand Jonathan Swift. I needed a copy of Joseph Lennon, Irish Orientalism. I have a - not very good - pdf of the book, found somewhere and stored. I saw a copy of the book for sale...

Lennon, J. (2008). Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History. Syracuse University Press.

..and picked up a nice crisp hardback for £5.23, plus postage £2.74, total £7.97.

The interesting detail is that this copy was discarded by London Metropolitan University.


Patrick O'Sullivan
Visiting Professor of Irish Diaspora Studies, London Metropolitan University

April 2026


Note 1:
A long time ago, when I worked in a large organisation in London, Senior Management had a habit of coming down from the Top Floor to sit in my office and say, 'Let me share a problem with you...'

Which I thought was funny then, and still think is funny now...

Note 2:
This might be true of any area of academic or research interest - Irish Diaspora Studies is the area I know well. But in another part of my working life - lyric writing - I have just bought, for a tiny sum, a perfect copy of Winifred Maynard...

Maynard, W. (1986). Elizabethan Lyric Poetry and Its Music. Clarendon Press.

Note 3:
The entry on Denis Johnston in the DIB is by Patrick Maume - who gives a brief, assured, starting point for a reading of Brazen Horn.

https://www.dib.ie/biography/johnston-william-denis-a4313

See also...
Autobiography, Epistemology and the Irish Tradition: The Example of Denis Johnston
By Shirley Neuman, in
Dodd, P. (2005). Modern Selves: Essays on Modern British and American Autobiography. Taylor & Francis.

Note 4:
‘Shovelling Out Paupers’ and the historiographic record...
See for example, Peter Gray...

Gray, P. (1999). “Shovelling out your paupers”: The British State and Irish Famine Migration 1846-50. Patterns of Prejudice, 33(4), 47–65.