Rare history of the 'Town of Belfast' up for sale
A rare book published by the grandson of the News Letter's founder is up for sale this weekend at the longest-running book fair in Ireland.
Historical Collections Relative to the Town of Belfast from the Earliest Period to the Union with Great Britain was published in 1817 by Henry Joy. In 1737 his grandfather Francis Joy began the News Letter, the oldest English-language newspaper in the world still in production.
Henry Joy was also an uncle of Henry Joy McCracken, who was hanged in 1798 for being a leader of the United Irishmen's rebellion of that year.
Belfast man Jim Swindall and his wife Rita, from JIRI Books, are
organisers of the Belfast Book Fair where this historic piece is up for grabs on Saturday.
The event has taken place at the Wellington Park Hotel for the past 25 years.
Jim said he was very pleased to get his hands on a copy of Henry Joy's book in America this year because of its rarity.
"It's an interesting book about Belfast, full of historical stuff about old Belfast," he said.
"Belfast became a big city very rapidly. In the 1600s it was nothing but a village and then it started to grow very quickly. Then the industrial revolution took hold."
Henry Joy, who was also the proprietor of the Cromac Paper Mills, became the sole proprietor of the News Letter in 1789, but sold it to an Edinburgh company in 1795.
He also published Belfast Politics, a notoriously scarce book. He was described by one fellow historian as "the only person he had ever known who was really acquainted with the history of old Belfast".
The book will be among the 25,000 on sale at the fair as it marks its silver jubilee.
Other scarce Belfast interest books to be sold include Benn's History of the Town of Belfast published in 1823, and Young's Historical Notices of Old Belfast and its Vicinity, published in 1896 by Marcus Ward. This is number 54 of 150 large paper copies specially bound in Irish linen.
A signed copy of Millin's Sidelights on Belfast History published in 1932 will also be on sale.
Other books on offer include the first editions of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake by James Joyce, first editions of poems by Seamus Heaney, and facsimile sets of the great medieval books of Kells and Durrow.
Jim and Rita set up their business selling antiquarian books in 1978. Five years later, they staged the inaugural Belfast Book Fair, the first such event in the city.
"That came about because we had been exhibiting at a book fair in Limerick, and a couple of the dealers asked us to do it," Jim said.
"We laughed and said we didn't think they would come. But they said to us 'you organise it and we'll come', and sure enough we held one in the Wellington Park Hotel that October.
"They did come and have been coming ever since. It's the biggest book fair in Ireland and the longest-running one as well."
At least 38 dealers will be exhibiting their wares on Saturday. The fair takes place from 10am - 5pm, with admission 2 and concessions 1.
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Monday 28 May 2012
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