This is the biography of the famous Irish detective and security policeman, John Mallon (1839-1915). He was a farm boy from republican south Armagh who rose to become Ireland's most famous detective and most feared secret policeman, the first Catholic to rise as high as assistant commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. For decades, Inspector Mallon and the detective G men at Dublin Castle hounded the Irish Fenian revolutionaries. Walking daily through the cobbled streets of Dublin - chatting with the gentry or greengrocers, holing up in seedy smoky bars in the Liberties and Temple Bar, or leading his men on night raids - this bear of a man came to know Victorian Dubliners as few others did. Always courteous and never violent in his own methods, his policing philosophy was one of deterrent and intimidation rather than entrapment. Generally contemptuous of his enemy, Mallon maintained an extensive network of poorly paid informers. He is notorious for having said, 'A good deal of that kind of patriotism can be bought for a five pound note in this poor country'. Often described as catlike for his cunning, and backed by only 30 G men, for a generation Inspector Mallon kept a lid on the Irish revolution in Dublin, gaining the respect of moderate nationalists and unionist alike, but also the fear of most republicans. It is not surprising that he was the subject of numerous assassination plots. He is most noted for bringing to the gallows the Invincibles, the members of the 'murder society' who carried out the Phoenix Park assassinations. Lieutenant Spencer, the head of the British government in Ireland, once commented, 'Without Mallon we have no one worth a row of pins'.

Inspector Mallon: Buying Irish Patriotism for a Five-Pound Note

Biographies & Memoirs

McCracken, Donal P.

Historical

Irish Academic Press

<p>He was a farm boy from republican south Armagh who rose to become Ireland's most famous detective and most feared secret policeman, the first catholic to rise as high as assistant commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. For decades Inspector Mallon and the detective G men at Dublin Castle hounded the Irish Fenian revolutionaries. Walking daily through the cobbled streets of Dublin; chatting with the gentry or greengrocers; holing up in seedy smoky bars in the Liberties and Temple Bar; or leading his men on night raids, this bear of a man came to know Victorian Dubliners as few others did. Always courteous and never violent in his own methods, his policing philosophy was one of deterrent and intimidation rather than entrapment. Generally contemptuous of his enemy, Mallon maintained an extensive network of poorly paid informers. He is notorious for having said, 'A good deal of that kind of patriotism can be bought for a five pound note in this poor country'. Often described as catlike for his cunning, and backed by only 30 G men, for a generation Inspector Mallon kept a lid on the Irish revolution in Dublin, gaining the respect of moderate nationalists and unionist alike, but also the fear of most republicans. It is not surprising that he was the subject of numerous assassination plots. He is most noted for bringing to the gallows the Invincibles, the members of the 'murder society' who carried out the Phoenix Park assassinations. Lord Lieutenant Spencer, the head of the British government in Ireland, once commented, 'Without Mallon we have no one worth a row of pins'.</p>

In 1880 the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew described a botanic garden as "a garden in which a vast assemblage of plants from every accessible part of the Earth's surface is systematically cultivated". By then botanic gardens had existed in Europe for over three and a quarter centuries, had established themselves as an acceptable part of the urban environment, and become the recipients of a flood of vegetation from overseas. By the time of Queen Victoria's death in 1901, botanic gardens were an integral part of empire and four of the greatest of them - those at Calcutta, Pamplemousse on Mauritius, Peradeniya on Ceylon and Trinidad - carried the prefix "Royal Botanic Gardens". This book is a thematic history of the imperial network of these gardens which had its informal centre at Kew.

Gardens of Empire: Botanical Institutions of the Victorian British Empire

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Gardening & Landscape Design

Continuum Intl Pub Group

Natal: The garden colony : Victorian Natal and the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Frandsen Publishers

Chartering the dire cultural and environmental impact of poachers and the export of Africa’s incredibly diverse wildlife, this compelling account describes how Zululand’s rich natural heritage was rendered nearly extinct due to generations of greed and abuse. Documenting the steady decline of wild game—from the slaughter of 20,000 elephants so that 1,000 tons of ivory could be shipped from Durban Bay between 1820 and the 1880’s to the indiscriminate global export of rhino and buck horns; hides from lions, leopards, and other wildcats; and live wild animals—this staggering documentation bears witness to the careless depletion of the last surviving great African kingdom. Meticulously researched with emphasis on celebrating the heroic and eventually successful attempts to enforce environmental-protection policies through establishing strictly regulated game reserves, this incredible saga is a resounding affirmation of how commitment to preservation throughout history can end and then repair the damage done by decades of thoughtless desecration.

Saving the Zululand Wilderness: An Early Struggle for Nature Conservation

History

Africa

Jacana Media

<p>There is more to St Helena than an exiled emperor; the tiny island in the middle of the wild South Atlantic Ocean has a rich garden heritage and an extraordinarily diverse flora, both exotic and endemic. This was the consequence of St Helena being the stopover for the vast East India Company fleets from the east on the way to Europe, their cargos carrying, along with spices, plants from China, Malaysia and India. In the age of sail only a small proportion of plants survived lengthy sea voyages, so plants being transported north were rested in gardens on the island before the final leg of their voyage. In this way Jamestown became a storeroom for plants coming in from the east and south Asia, resting in the gardens and then being shipped on to botanic gardens and wealthy collectors, or to be trialled for horticulture or agricultural economic potential. And some of these plants remained, giving the 47 square-mile (122 sq km) island a controversially globally diverse flora today.St Helena became a botanical hub and the East India Company and private plantation houses on the island developed extraordinarily botanically diverse gardens, which were maintained by enslaved labour and Chinese gardeners. This included the now re-established Emperor Napoleon's Garden (it is a curious fact that the most enthusiastic gardener St Helena ever had was the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte!) as well as the governor's country estate garden at Plantation House. Illustrated throughout with stunning drawings, maps, and archival manuscript material, Napoleon's Garden Island looks both to St Helena's future and to its past, taking the reader on a botanical exploration of the island's native and introduced flora, and its place in the botanical world today. The book ultimately appeals for a botanic garden to be re-established but to showcase the island's endemic plants.</p>

Napoleon’s Garden Island: Lost and Old Gardens of St Helena, South Atlantic Ocean

World

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

This is the story of 500 Irish-American men and Irish men who fought the British in the Anglo-Boer war.

Macbride's Brigade: Irish Commandos in the Anglo-Boer War

Europe

Four Courts Pr Ltd

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Books by McCracken, Donal P.