The current number of the Friends of the Library of Trinity College contains matter that is of interest to all who have seen or who hope to see the Book of Kells. Mr R. O. Dougan, who has recently been appointed deputy librarian, gives an account of the methods used by the English experts who have recently rebound the book in four parts. The decision to break so famous a book into four separate parts, corresponding with the four Gospels, was undoubtedly drastic, and has come as a shock to many lovers of ancient manuscripts. But Mr Dougan explains here at length the reasons which have compelled the College authorities to take this step; and his account of the methods used by Mr Roger Powell in the process of restoration and rebinding is impressive as a witness to the care which has been taken to safeguard this national treasure for future generations. Tourists who visit the library will perhaps be disappointed : for the old custom of constantly exhibiting some of the finer pages will be discontinued. Each page of each volume will now be exhibited in turn, and the great illuminated pages will be less frequently exposed to the tourist's gaze. On the other hand, this means that no more than a fourth part of the book will be in the exhibition case at any one time; and serious students will always have an opportunity of examining all four parts at their leisure.

In several respects the great famine revolutionized Irish overseas emigration. Numbers rose abruptly from an annual average of some 50,000 in the early ’forties to more than 100,000 in 1846, more than 200,000 in 1847 and an aggregate of well over one and a quarter millions in the six succeeding seasons. A relatively small, steady and considered emigration was replaced, especially during 1846-9, by a headlong outrush, sometimes more a hasty, even hysterical flight of economic refugees than a population movement as ordinarily understood. Unprecedented disasters overtook these emigrations, as epidemics swept over a passenger trade still painfully adjusting its shipping and standards to the new phenomenon and the growing predominance of Liverpool as the point of embarkation.

Although the liberal government returned in 1868 took serious steps to reconcile dissatisfied Irish opinion by disestablishing the Irish church, passing a land act, and introducing an Irish university bill, Ireland, at the beginning of 1874; was far from being contented. The land act had made it more difficult and expensive to evict a tenant, and recognised the principle of compensation for improvements, but was considered by the tenant righters as only an instalment of their claims for ‘ fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale ‘ By disestablishing the Protestant episcopalian church, Gladstone pleased the Catholic clergy and those Catholics who considered the existence of the established church a galling insult, but it antagonized a good portion of Protestant opinion. The Catholic bishops were dissatisfied with the university bill and severely criticised its provisions; this influenced the majority of the Irish liberal M.P.s, who voted against the second reading. These votes helped to defeat the bill, a defeat that heralded the downfall of the liberal government.