Friday, April 24, 2009

Killoran and Coolaney Secondhand

I recently mentioned my first history book Killoran and Coolaney, A Local History. I started to research this as a project in St Patrick's Training College, Drumcondra in 1966-68 and sporadically continued over the years. I decided to complete it in the early eighties and published it myself in 1985. I forget how many copies I got printed, around a thousand I think. I reviewed it myself for the Sligo Champion and other local newspapers in the west and got a mention in the Irish Independent and in the emigrant paper The Irish Post. The book sold well and was out of print within a year or two.

It's a reasonably good book but rather than reprinting it needs updating and rewriting. Many more resources have become available since it was compiled and it need to be brought up to date. I ended it at the end of the civil war in 1923.

As a result of meeting some survivors while working on the book I went on to research and publish a book on the war of independence in Sligo. A book on the civil war in Sligo followed which became a doctorate in Trinity.

The Coolaney book rarely comes up in secondhand bookshops and I am often been asked for copies. I made a pdf of the whole book and it's available for free download on the internet here.

Checking on abeooks.com website recently I found two copies of Killoran and Coolaney for sale, one for 161 dollars and one for 181 dollars. The difference seems to be because one has biro mark on the inside cover. I was shocked to see how expensive they were and checked that my children had the copies I gave them. I wonder how much a signed copy would fetch?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow - imagine that much! That's no bad thing at all. So, sounds like you're going to expland the original project?

Michael Farry said...

No don't think so. Too much research needed. Young energetic person needed. I'll stick to poetry for the moment.