Life
1865-1953 [vars. R. Lloyd Praeger; R. L. Praeger; fam. ‘Robin’];
b. Holywood, Co. Down; son of Willem Praeger, a Dutch linen-merchant from
Hague, and Marie Patterson, dg. of the naturalist Robert Lloyd (1836-1906);
influenced by his mother’s family, he participated in natural history
explorations around Holywood with his brothers; a sis., Sophia Rosamn,
became an artist and children’s writer; visited Cumbria at 14; ed.
RBAI and QUB, where he joined the Belfast Naturalists’ Club; gave
geographical paper, 1886; civil engineer with Belfast City Water Commission,
engaged on harbour and supply works, 1886-92, including the and the construction
of Victoria Dock which furnished the most complete sections of the local
estuarine clay series; listed 186 species of molluscs, foraminifera, and
other remains, with drawings, 1887; went on to list 291 marine shells,
1889; applied unsuccessfully for post of Zoological asst. at National
Botanical Gardens; MRIA, 1891; accepted post at National Library (Dublin),
1893; mbr. RIA, 1894 [but see supra]; issued Irish Topographical Botany
(1901); m. Hedwig, 1902; appt. librarian of RIA, 1903; co-fnd. and
ed. Irish Naturalist; NLI 1893-1920; conducted first Clare Island
survey, 1911-15; Chief Librarian of National Library, Dublin, 1920-1923,
availing of the terms of the Treaty, retiring on full pension and thereafter
interesting himself in the RIA; set out for Canary Islands to study Sempervivum
genus; twice president Dublin Field Club; Gold Medal of Royal Horticultural
Society of Ireland 1940; Pres. 1949-50; Associate Member of Linnean Society;
fnd.-mb. Geographical Soc. of Ireland, first pres. 1937; sec. and president
of Royal Zoological Soc; RIA President, 1931-34; fndr. and first president
of An Taisce, 1948; hon. life member Botanical Soc. of the British Isles,
1951; investigated passages graves at Carrowkeel, Co. Sligo, with R. A.
S. MacAlisair; two major suveys on Sedum and Sempervivum published by
Royal Horticultural Society; his works incl. Topographical Botany (1901);
Tourist’s Flora of the West of Ireland (1909); The Botanist
in Ireland (1934) A Populous Solitude (1941); The Way I
Went (1947); Some Irish Naturalists (1949); The Natural
History of Ireland (1950); also travelled in the Balkans; increasingly
deaf in later years; long resided with his wife at Zion Road, Rathgar
(Dublin), where they kept a remarkable garden with some 2000 species;
moved to flat on Fitzwilliam Sq., 1920; moved to the home of his sister,
Sophia Rosamund, at Craigavad, Co. Down, on death of his wife, 1952; d.
5 May; bur. Dean’s Grange, with his wife; described partitioned Six
Counties as ‘a mutilated area’; there is a 1931 portrait in
oil by Sarah Harrison in the Ulster Museum. DIB DIW DIH DUB OCIL.
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Works
The Way that I Went [1st edn.] (Dublin: Hodges Figgis; London: Methuen
1947), 417pp.; Samuel Alexander Stewart, FBSE, and Thomas Hughes Corry,
MA, FLS, Flora of North-East Ireland [2nd edn.], ed. by Praeger
and W. R. Megaw, including Flowering Plants, Vascular Cyptogram, and
Charophytes by Robert Lloyd Praeger, DSc., and Mosses and Liverworts
by William Rutledge Megaw, BA (Belfast: Quota Press 1938), lix+472pp.
hb.
The Way that I Went: An Irishman in Ireland [1st edn.] (Dublin: Hodges Figgis; London: Methuen 1947), 417pp.; further edns. incl. Do. facs. rep. [reduced] (Dublin: (Dublin: Allen Figgis [riverrun] 1969); Michael Viney, intro., Do. (London: Collins; Dufour Edns. 1998), 432pp.; intro. Michael Viney (Cork: Collins Press 2001).
The Way that I Went: An Irishman in Ireland, (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co./London: Methuen 1947), 416pp. [epigraph from Shelley; map.]. CONTENTS: I IRELAND [1]: Introductory: Position; Surface; Climate; Rivers; Woods. Autobiographical:; The Field Clubs; Queen’s College; Irish Topographical Botany; Amenities of Field Botany. Things endemic in Ireland; Gold Lunulae; Round Towers; Noddies and Jingles; Outside Cars and Bianconis; the Orange Drum. II. DONEGAL [23] Ancient Crumplings; Resistant Quartzite. Inishowen; Wealth of Early Christian Remains; The Grianan of Aileach; The Picture Rock. "Inis". Mulroy Bay; Sheep Haven; Errigal and Muckish; Horn Head; Tory; A Night at Sea; Arranmore. "Sport". Portnoo; The Nameless Doon; Slieve League; Glencolumkille; Killybegs to Rockall; Rockall again. Donegal town; The Annals of the Four Mastas; Lough Eask; Croaghgorm. Lough Derg; St. Patrick’s Purgatory; Bundoran; The Erne gorge. H. C. Hart III. THE VOLCANIC NORTH [62]: Eruptions of Eocene times and their results. "Ireland"and "Eire". Londonderry; The Gold Ornaments Trial; Benevenagh and Magilligan; The Sperrins. The old Chalk Land; Early days at Castlerock ; Portrush; The Great Neptunist-Vulcanist Controversy. The Antrim Coast; Raised Beaches and Neolithic Man; Rathlin; the Eruption of Knocklayd. Belfast; John Templeton; William Thompson; S. A. Stewart. Lough Neagh. IV. MID-ULSTE [I07]: Tyrone; Knockmany. Fermanagh; River Erne; Upper Lough Erne; Enniskillen; Lower Lough Erne; White Island; Poulaphuca and the Shean area. Lough Melvin. The Marble Arch Caves. V. THE S1LUIAN REGION (DOWN, ARMAGH, LOUTH, MONAGHAN, CAVAN) [118]: The Silurian wedge. The Down Dialect. Bangor Monastery and the Antiphonary. Scrabo; Nendrum; Sir Hans Sloane; Birds of Strangford. St. Patrick’s Country; Downpatrick; Ardglass; Dundrum. The Mourne Mountains. Louth; CarEngford. The Black Pig’s Dyke. Armagh; Emania. Monaghan. Cavan; The Shannon Pot. VI. THE LIMESTONE PLATEAU (LEITRIM AND SLIGO) [142]: Slieveanieran; Mining in Ireland. Boyle and Lough Key. Carrowkeel; Bronze Age Cairns. Keshcorran and its Bear Dens. The Ox Mountains; Collooney Pass; Knocknarea; Carrowmore; Sligo; Lough Gill; Ben Bulben Plateau; Land-slips and Alpine Plants. Inishmurray. VII. CONNEMARA AND THE HILLS OF MAYO [157] That final "o". Curraghs. The Basking Shark. Beans from the West Indies. Armada Wrecks; Captain Cuellar’s Adventures; Don Marcos de Aramburu’s Escape. Hy Brasil. St. Patrick and the Fweecawn. Connemara; Roundstone. The Secrets of the Bogs. Dog’s Bay; Its Foraminifera and Kitchen-middens. Rare Plants. Clifden and its "Coral"Strands. Hydrilla. The Twelve Bens. Connemara Marble. Killary Fiord; Mweelrea. Croaghpatrick. Banishing the Reptiles; What about the Frog?; Irish Pests. Clare Island; Inishturk; Inishbofin; Achill past and present. Sailing and Swimming. Ducks and Goats. Erris; The Golden Eagle; Ravens; Peregrine Falcons; Choughs; The Red-necked Phalarope. Erris; Nephinbeg; Loughs Comn, Carra, Mask, Corrib VIII. THE LAND OF NAKED LIMESTONE (CLARE, EAST GALWAY, EAST MAYO) [223]. Cong; The Monasteries of Ross and Clare; Galway; Tuam; Knockma; Galway. The Aran Islands; Dun Ængus. The Turlough Region; Flora of the Turloughs. Burren; Problem of the Burren Flora. The Clare Coast. The Shannon Estuary; Scattery Island. IX. IN THE CENTRAL PLAIN (NORTH TIPPERARY, LEIX, OFFALY, WESTMEATH, LONGFORD, ROSCOMMON) [244]: History of the Bogs. The Killaloe Rune. The Puzzle of the Shannon Valley. Lough Derg; Iniscaltra; Slieve Bloom; Clonmacnois ; The Clonfinlough Stone. Westmeath Lakes; The Hill of Usnagh ; Puzzling Monuments; Crannogs. Lough Ree. Clonfert. Athlone. X. THE REGION OF THE PALE (DUBLLN, KILDARE, MEATH) [261]: Dublin:; Name; A City of Duplications; The Wagtail Roost; City Ferns; The North Bull; Shells upon the Moumtain-tops; Maxwell Close; Glacial Geology; Ballybetagh and the "Irish Elk". Howth. Lambay and the Barings. Nathaniel Colgan. The History of the Shamrock. Caleb Threlkeld and his Synopsis Stirpium. Kildare; Killeen Cormac; Ogham Inscriptions. The Boyne; New Grange ; Tara. XI. THE WICKLOW HIGHLANDS [299]: Geological History; Slate and Granite; Dry Gaps and Glacial Lakes ; Wicklow Gold; Ireland’s Mineral Wealth. Gold Ornaments; Recent Finds. The Flora. Glendalough. Mountams and Lakes. R. M. Barrington. XII. THE SOUTH-EAST (WEXFORD, KILKENNY, CARLOW, SOUTH, TIPPERARY, WATERFORD) [312]: The River System and its History. Kiltorcan and its Ancient Plants. Wexford; the dialect of Forth; Lonely Shores; The Saltees; Birds by the Million. Early Rising; A Canary Island Sunrise. R. J. Ussher. Waterford. The Barrow. Kilkenny; The Cave of Dunmore. Jerpoint Abbey; Cashel; Holycross. The Comeraghs; The Galtees; Knockmealdown. Mitchelstown Cave; Bone Caves. The Waterford Coast; The Great Auk. Luminous Owls. XIII. FROM CORK TO LIMERICK [356]: Incoming of the Kerry Flora. The Lee; Gouganebarra, Lough Allua, The Gearagh. Cork and its River-valleys. The Cork Coast. Deep-sea Dredging; W. S. Green; Life in the Sea. The Blackwater. Rook versus Starling. Lough Gur. Adare. Limerick. The Shannon Estuary; Askeaton. XIV. THE KERRY HIGHLANDS (KERRY AND WEST CORK) [373] The Armorican Folding and its Results. Climate; 141 Inches of Rain! West Cork; Lough Ine and its Deep-sea Fauna. Glengarriff ; Kenmare. The Flora of the South-west; Giant Butterwort. "Beautifying the Country-side ". The Carrabuncle. Kerry in Spring. Killarney; pros and cons; The Lakes; The Reeks. Staigue Fort. North Kerry; Bog-flows; Tralee; The Dingle Penmsula; Brandon; The Prehistoric City of Dunmore; The Blaskets; The Skelligs. EXPLANATORY NOTE ON GEOLOGICAL TERMS. Index. Preface cites at head James Thomson’s verses, "… Thank God for Life!" [v]. TEXT: ‘If we imagine Ireland as it was until some couple of thousand years ago, before drainage and peat-cutting had affected the surface, we get a striking picture. The central part in particular was little more than an archipelago—ridges and knolls of firm ground set in a sea of shallow lakes, deep swamps, and wide peat-bogs. Traffic within this region must have been much constricted, and no doubt the frequent coincidence of esker-ridges with present-day roads gives a hint of past conditions.’ (p.5); ‘[Within the] period of deposition of our peat-bogs drier spells permitted of the growth over immefise areas of the Scotch Fir, and that the slightly warmer climate that prevailed during-Neolithic times allowed such forests to spread even to the exposed islands of the west coast. By the way, Caleb Threlkeld in his Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum, 1727 (see p. 269) puts forward a theory of the presence of these now buried pine-forests which has at least the charm of novelty: "But whether the Firr-wood taken out of Mosses or Bogges, which being split into small Sticks do burn like a Torch, or Link, be of this Tree [Scotch Fir] or the Abies mas in Irish Crann Giumnais, planted by the Danes and after their expulsion cut down, and left to be burryed in the Earth by the Natives to extinguish the Badges of their Servitude, is not to be determined by me".’ (p.6); ‘[counts the Ulster Drum as being] among others things, an emblem of an ineradicable characteristic of Irish people - that of looking backward rather than forward. We can never let the dead past bury its dead. Fin M’Coul and Brian Boru are still with us; and I should not blame the friendly Saxon who carries away with him the impression that Catholic emancipation happened yesterday, that the Battle of the Boyne was fought last Thursday week, and that Cromwell trampled and slaughtered in Ireland towards the latter end of the preceeding month.’ (p.22.)
A Populous Solitude (Dublin: Hodges & Figgis 1941), 272pp., 9 ills; [epigram from Childe Harold, ‘populous solitude of bees and birds and variformed many-coloured things’]; Chapt. 5, ‘Dr. Boate and Dr. Barton’, pp.112-38; refers to Boate’s comments on petrifying properties of waters of Lough Neagh, elaborated in Dr. Barton’s lecture of 1751; also cites Walter Harris’s trans. Of Roderick O’Flaherty’s Ogygia making reference to same; includes a notice of William Hamilton of ‘palaeosophy’ fame, pp.133-38.
R. Lloyd Praeger, Irish Landscape: Cnéithe na hEireann Chomhar Cultúra Éireann [Cultural Relations Comm] (Dublin: Colm Ó Lochlainn/Three Candles Press 1953), 42pp. [cover design Patrick Scott]; another edn. (Cork: Mercier 1961; rep. 1972), 41pp. [25p.].
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Criticism
Sally Montgomery, Robert Lloyd Praeger 1865-1953 [Primary Science,
Irish scientists and inventors] (Belfast: Blackstaff Press) 1995), 24pp.
Seán Lysaght, Robert Lloyd Praeger and the Culture of Science in Ireland, 1865-1953: The Life of a Naturalist (Dublin: Four Courts Press 1998) 256pp. [var. 1999, 204pp.].
Michael D. Guiry, ‘No Stone Unturned: Robert Lloyd Praeger and the Major Surveys’, in John Wilson Foster and Helena C. G. Chesney, ed., Nature in Ireland: A Scientific and Cultural History (Dublin: Lilliput 1997), pp.299-307.
Seamus Heaney, ‘the Sense of Place’, in Preoccupations (London:
Faber & Faber 1980), pp.144-45.
G. V. Whelan, reviewing Collins rep. of The Way that I Went (1998), in Books Ireland, Nov. 1998, p.302.
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Notes
Hyland Cat. 224 (Dec. 1996) lists John O’Mahony, The Sunny Side of
Ireland (rev. 2nd ed. 1902), with Praeger’s chapter on Natural History,
maps, ills. [Hyland 214]; Official Guide to Co. Down and the Mourne Mountains
(1st end. 1898), xv+232+(24)pp., maps and ills.; Do., rev. edn. 1900 [Hyland
219, Oct. 1995]. Tourist’s Flora of the West of Ireland (1909), 5
folding maps, 27 photos; 17 text ills.
Emerald Isle Books Cat. 95 lists Praeger with G A. J. Cole, Handbook to the City of Dublin and the surrounding District (Dublin UP 1908), 441pp., maps, ill.
Belfast Central Public Library holds Beyond Soundings (1930); The Botanist in Ireland (1934); Irish Landscape (1953); Marine Shells of the N. of Ireland (1889); Natural History of Ireland ... (1950); Official Guide to Co. Down and the Mourne Mts. (1900, 1924); Old Fashioned Verses and Sketches (1947); A Populous Solitude (1941); ... Investigation of Gravel Beds ... (1890); Some Irish Naturalists (Dubdalk 1949); A Tourist’s Flora of the West of Ireland (1909); The Way that I Went (1947); Weeds, Simple Lessons for Children (1913). University of Ulster Library (Morris Collection) holds Official Guide to Co. Down and the Mourne Mts (1898).
For more on William Emlius Praeger, see under William Patterson. SEE also Irish Book Lover, Vol. 6.
Took fond accounts of Irish landscape, flora and fauna into the realm of literary merit [see short note in Supplement to The Bell, Sept. 1993, John Metcalf, ‘North Down’s Literary Associations’]. See also reviews of his books in Irish Booklover.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)