The Macdermots of Ballycloran

by Anthony Trollope, Algar Labouchere Thorold

When Trollope landed in Dublin in 1841, in order to become clerk to a postal surveyor, few, if any, would have detected in him the successful novelist. Yet it was in Ireland, and while occupying that seemingly most unliterary position, that he wrote his first novel, The Macdermots of Ballycloran.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Victorian, British Literature, Historical Fiction, Literature, 19th Century

636 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1847

About the author

Anthony Trollope became one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of Trollope's best-loved works, known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire; he also wrote penetrating novels on political, social, and gender issues and conflicts of his day.

Trollope has always been a popular novelist. Noted fans have included Sir Alec Guinness (who never travelled without a Trollope novel), former British Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Sir John Major, economist John Kenneth Galbraith, American novelists Sue Grafton and Dominick Dunne and soap opera writer Harding Lemay. Trollope's literary reputation dipped somewhat during the last years of his life, but he regained the esteem of critics by the mid-twentieth century.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_...

Reviews

[Katie Lumsden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just fantastic.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not the edition of The Macdermots of Ballycloran that I read. Unfortunately, books published by the Folio Society rarely appear in Goodreads' databases, so I usually pick the edition whose number of pages is the closest (the Folio edition has 448 pages as opposed to Penguin's 384).

The main reason I bring up this issue is that it very much matters which edition of this book you read. Folio Society published the original 1847 edition, which has 36 chapters. In 1860, the novel was reissued, with two of the best chapters of the book being purged, probably by the publisher; also, various other changes were made, none of them seemingly with the approval or supervision of the author.

It's a pity, because Trollope's first novel was surprisingly good. Much of it is written in a thick Irish dialect, which becomes more readable the farther one gets into the story.

Imagine to yourself a kind of Brothers Karamazov in which you have a demented head of the family (Larry), a throughly stupid and imprudent daughter (Feemy), and a hardworking son (Thady), who winds up murdering an official because he mistakenly thought he was raping her. It is a had story, but one told with a great deal of heart. The local parish priest, Father John McGrath, is one of the most sympathetic characters in all of Trollope's extensive (47 novels!) work.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was Trollope's debut. It didn't sell well and I wasn't expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised. Trollope's prose and general writing style was immediately recognizable. It appears he knew how to go about it from the first. The two biggest differences from his later novels are that he has only one plot line rather than the several I have come to expect, and that this of his Irish novels, mostly involves those of the poorer classes rather than those more middle class people that are his usual fare.

He took time to mention the educational opportunities of his characters in this, and I could easily picture this problem:

His other expensive taste was that of books; he could not resist the temptation to buy books, books of every sort, from voluminous editions of St. Chrysostom to Nicholas Nicklebys and Charles O’Malleys; and consequently he had a great many. But alas! he had no book-shelves, not one; some few volumes, those of every day use, were piled on the top of one another in his little sitting-room; the others were closely packed in great boxes in different parts of the cottage—his bed-room, his little offertory, his parlour, and many in a little drawing-room, as he called it, but in which was neither chair nor table, nor ever appeared the sign of fire! No wonder the poor man complained the damp got to his books.

Trollope personalizes this at the beginning by stating that he visited the area on his post office business and ventured out for a walk after supper where he chanced upon the abandoned house and property of Ballycloran. He then proceeds to tell his story that begins about ten years earlier. Thus, we know his novel hasn't a happy ending. Trollope has a sense of humor, but with his sad tale, it was difficult for him to display it. There were very few sentences where I was allowed a small upturn to my lips. We must now request our reader to accompany us to the little town of Mohill; not that there is anything attractive in the place to repay him for the trouble of going there.

I said I was pleasantly surprised. However, I must say that if I had started with this, I might not be so enthusiastic about reading all 47 of his novels. I'd really like to give this 4 stars, but I'm afraid it only comes very close to crossing that line.

[Laurel Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first of forty-seven novels by Anthony Trollope. I would say he got off to a pretty good start, and I laud him for not giving up when the public proclaimed it a failure. It's an Irish novel, which was not popular at the time in England, and it is a sad tale with only a few bright lights, the brightest of which is Father John, the priest of the village church.

[Elizabeth]

Holy smokes! I did not expect Trollope's first published novel to be more like a Hardy novel. It was an effort to keep reading this for the first third of the novel, but slowly the characters and their struggles and the stakes of the plot began to take shape for me. There is a key turning point about half way through that brings several characters into conflict and the results are tragic. Just like when I read Hardy, my heart was aching for the characters who suffer the most.

There are three particular characters that stand out to me, and I'd call each of them five-star characters, though one of them has a smaller (but crucial) role to play. I won't mention names for two of them, but I will talk about Father John. Trollope spent all his early career in the post office in Ireland, so naturally this first novel is set in Ireland and it does seem to have an authentic flavor of what the Ireland of the small county towns would have been like from Trollope's Anglo-Protestant point-of-view. There are many divides present: rich/poor, gentry/peasant, law/law-less, Protestant/Catholic, etc. Father John is a Catholic priest who is the closest friend of the family to the Macdermots of the title. His sacrificial ministry to the Macdermots and others in his parish is inspiring, and he is the character who moved me most throughout the story. I love that Trollope, even this early in his career, was able to portray Catholic characters and Irish characters with such depth and sympathy. There are some particularly moving scenes with Father John and one of my other favorite characters towards the end that brought tears to my eyes.

There are also plenty of characters to dislike in this novel, including the daughter of Ballycloran, Feemy Macdermot. Though I have pity for her and her Tess-like story (and her lack of kindly parents/guardians), I think Trollope may have failed here to make her sufficiently well rounded and likable. Must all main characters be likable? I'm not sure, but I wanted to like Feemy so much more than I did. Perhaps part of the problem is that I find a plot where a girl falls for a handsome rake and then cannot get over him almost intolerable. This pops up a LOT in Victorian novels and in novels in general. It's not my fave. Somehow, I completely missed any earlier reference to Feemy's pregnancy, and I was actually quite surprised by it. I'm not sure if it was obvious and I really did miss it or if Trollope really didn't establish this fact until it comes up when Thady is in prison. This makes Captain Ussher even more vile of a character and gives must more reason for Feemy's continued attachment to him. (Though I still really dislike Feemy!)

I would probably recommend this novel more to readers who are committed Trollopians or committed Victorianists. It is a moving novel and worth a read, but Trollope wrote so many novels, that I would direct people to some of his other novels first before reading this. As a Trollope completist, I am very glad to have read this and hope to discuss it with the Trollope Society in the future!

I want to say a special thank you to my friend Darryl whose copy of this novel had an introduction, map, and extra chapters that my copy was completely missing. The 1860 re-print of the original 1847 novel omitted three chapters (grrr!). Darryl scanned them for me, and boy!! they add a LOT to the book. Thank you Darryl!

[Penny -Thecatladybooknook · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 rounded to 4 which is a bit generous but it deserves more than a 3. Trollope devotees will want to read this, but if you don't love Trollope already, I wouldn't start here.

For a first novel, this was great!!! I read just the beginning of my friend, Elizabeth's, review and I agree with her that the first third of the novel was hard for me to push through until I got to know the characters better and what the issues were for the family.

We have Larry, the father/owner, of Ballycloran, who is slowly falling into (they didn't call it this) dementia or alzheimer's; Thady who takes care of the land and estate for Larry; and Feemy the sister who is in love with the Revenuer who is trying to catch all of the tenants on Ballycloran and surrounding area making illegal alcohol.

The tenants of Ballycloran have a hard time making their rent. Larry can't pay the interest on his loan so the property is threatened to foreclosed on by a evil rat of a lawyer, Keegan. Thady falls into a group of men who want the Revenuer, Capt. Ussher, and Keegan, dead. Capt Ussher keeps stringing Feemy along making promises while local gossip is that she is his mistress so her reputation is on the line. Then there is Father John. He grew on me. I loved him and how he cared so much for his parishioners. Father John tries to help The McDermotts through all of their individual trials. I kept rooting for Feemy and Thady to make the right decisions, and to see where their relationship went.

Despite a rocky start to my reading, I would definitely re-read this again, even though it won't be one of my favorites from Trollope. You can see from the start that he's got the writing chops.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Trollope's novels, but I didn't expect his first novel to be this good. The Irishness is not just a matter of exotic stage setting or condescending comedy, as happens so often in English novels about Ireland. Trollope clearly observed Irish culture and landscape and ways of living closely; he has an eye for foibles while maintaining the compassion for people caught in personal and economic traps that characterises his mature fiction. His characters are trapped in their broadly human and specifically Irish circumstances, and Trollope is very good at creating our understanding of the complexity and extensiveness of their entrapment and their struggle against their limitations. He even manages to give his characters a distinctly Irish voice without descending into caricature or unreadability. There are some set-pieces, especially comic set-pieces, that I think drag out too long (like the horse race scene, but then I find horses of far, far less interest than Trollope does), but Robert Tracy makes a good case in the introduction to the Oxford World's Classics edition for their value: "The English novel assumes the possibility of social coherence, maintained by the mediating role of the middle class. It appeals continually to social coherence as a goal, even when depicting injustice or agitation. Its form reflects this coherence, with characters and situations subordinated to and integrated into the total work. The Irish novel, depicting a divided society, rarely achieves such formal coherence. It tends to be episodic, a series of encounters or activities not wholly integrated into a plot.... In this, as in its insights, The Macdermotts is an Irish novel.... In these episodes, Trollope virtually abandons the forward progress of his story to present comic scenes allegedly typical of Irish life. They are rich in comic observation, but irrelevant to his plot. But it is precisely in these episodes that Trollope is able to suggest the vitality of Irish life, and to reinforce the sense that Ireland is two countries, not one" (xxv). I like this structural reading of these scenes very much, even as I admit that I found them at times excessive. Probably the biggest difference between this and Trollope's more mature fiction is its tendency to melodrama, something highly characteristic of much Victorian fiction but not usually so prominent in Trollope.

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well. I suppose an author's gotta start somewhere, and Trollope could only have gone upward from this pit of horror and despair. The only reason this gets two stars instead of one is that here is the first Trollope clergyman I truly admire. Father John took his pastoral calling seriously and made every effort to shepherd his flock (excepting, of course, the whole papist thing 😉).

The usual mix of tolerable to terrible LibriVox readers, most of whom should not have attempted an Irish accent, and nearly none of whom knows that gaol is just British spelling of jail and is pronounced exactly the same.

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this story in a collection of Trollope's works. I have been wanting to read a story by him & decided on his first (1847) which is / was not very popular or well received but I agree with Trollope's comments on this, he did "not know that I ever made one so good." Never having read him before, I cannot say this is not his usual story but a pure melancholy story of an Irish family in dire straits but with genteel ancestry. Thady's brotherly love for his sister Feemy but lack of return from his family was something very sad for this poor young man. His desires to do what is right but also his self pride which made things difficult for him. Having Irish ancestry, this story was especially interesting to me. There are some dialect passages that were a little tough but not too hard to decipher. My edition had no typos & a table of contexts. Loved this story & it will not be easily forgotten. The character Father John was closet to a saint.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

First sentence: In the autumn, 184 — , business took me into the West of Ireland, and, amongst other places, to the quiet little village of Drumsna, which is in the province of Connaught, County Leitrim, about 72 miles w.n.w. of Dublin, on the mail-coach road to Sligo.

Premise/plot: A traveler (presumably the author/narrator) stumbles across an abandoned estate in Ireland named Ballycloran. He learns from residents of the tragic tale of the Macdermot family. From chapter two through the end, the book focuses exclusively on this sad tale. What you should know: The novel is set in Ireland in the 1830s and chronicles the downfall of an impoverished family. The main characters are Thady Macdermot, and his priest, Father John. This one is NOT a mystery but does feature a murder trial.

My thoughts: The Macdermots of Ballycloran was Trollope's very first novel. In many ways it's darker and bleaker than the Trollope's I've read before. First, the framework of the story lets readers know from the start that things do not go well for the family...at all. Second, the very nature of the story involves a murder. The 'victim' is Captain Myles Ussher. He has been hanging around Feemy Macdermot. And the talk of the surrounding communities is that he has no intention at all of marrying her, or doing right by her. Thady, at first, appears to be too little concerned about his sister's reputation, and, then too much concerned as the case may be.

On the night of the crime, Feemy and Myles have planned to run away together. Not to elope. He's been transferred and she wants to go along with him--can't bear to be separated from him--so even though there's no ring (as you might say) she's willing to live in sin with him...in hopes that one day in the future...there will be a marriage. The brother catches them in the act of running away. Actually, his sister is paralyzed into inaction when she sees him. Thady just sees Myles carrying--or dragging--his sister along. He assumes: Ussher's stealing her away, she's not screaming in protest--he later realizes--but if she was going willingly why wasn't she walking on her own two legs?! He doesn't think or reason. He jumps into action--with a stick in his hand. Two blows later, his sister's lover is dead. WHAT DID HE DO?!?!

He sees no point in denying it. He confesses his crime: to his sister, to his father, to his servant, Pat Brady. He and Pat deliver the body to the police themselves. He does later flee the vicinity trying to decide if he should flee Ireland or remain and face the court. But ultimately he decides to stay and face the consequences--come what may--of his actions. His closest friend and ally is Father John. Father John believes that it was not murder. That he was acting in defense of his sister, that the crime was not premeditated, that the crime is justifiable. Regrettable perhaps, but ultimately justifiable. But what will the jury say?

Two-thirds of the novel focuses on this crime and subsequent trial. There is nothing about the book that is witty or cozy or feel-good. It's a dark look at human nature. Thady's father has absolutely lost what little remains of his mind. His sister, Feemy, is distraught with grief and burdened with secrets that others would guess easily--given enough months. The only steady character is Father John. He, by far, is my favorite.

The novel reminds me--if memory serves--of Thomas Hardy. Actions have consequences, and human nature being what it is dooms us to unhappy ends...most of the time.

The first sentence is truly terrible in terms of hooking readers. The first sentence of the second chapter is much better! "McC — — ‘s story runs thus. About sixty years ago, a something Macdermot, true Milesian, pious Catholic, and descendant of king somebody, died somewhere, having managed to keep a comfortable little portion of his ancestors’ royalties to console him for the loss of their sceptre."

Feemy is a character much addicted to novels--to romances. And she sees Myles Ussher to be a hero from one of her novels. "This, then, was Feemy’s lover, and she certainly did love him dearly; he had all the chief ornaments of her novel heroes — he was handsome, he carried arms, was a man of danger, and talked of deeds of courage; he wore a uniform; he rode more gracefully, talked more fluently, and seemed a more mighty personage, than any other one whom Feemy usually met. Besides, he gloried in the title of Captain, and would not that be sufficient to engage the heart of any girl in Feemy’s position? let alone any Irish girl, to whom the ornaments of arms are always dear."

One of my favorite new words--that I discovered thanks to Trollope--is stirabout. It's a porridge made by stirring oatmeal in boiling water or milk. "The father finished his stirabout, and turned round to the blazing turf, to find consolation there."

The text does feature dialect. Not all the time. But most of the dialogue, I would guess. “And what wor the gentlemen saying about Feemy, Pat?” “Oh, yer honor, how could I know what gentlemin is saying over their punch, together? only they do be sayin’ in Ballinamore, that the Captain doesn’t spake that dacently of Miss Feemy, as if they wor to be man and wife: sorrow blister his tongue the day he’d say a bad word of her!” “Faith he’d better take care of himself, if it’s my sister he’s playing his game with; he’ll find out, though there aint much to be got worth having at Ballycloran now, as long as there’s a Macdermot in it, he may still get the traitment a blackguard desarves, if he plays his tricks with Feemy!”

Favorite quotes:

A girl should never obey her lover till she is married to him; she may comply with his wishes, but she should not allow herself to be told with authority that this or that should be her line of conduct.

Poverty, to be picturesque, should be rural. Suburban misery is as hideous as it is pitiable.

“Nonsense, man; — how can you say you are not going to lie, when you know you’ve a lie in your mouth at the moment.”

The brave soldier goes to meet Death, and meets him without a shudder when he comes. The suffering woman patiently awaits him on her bed of sickness, and conscious of her malady dies slowly without a struggle. A not uncommon fortitude enables men and women to leave their mortal coil, and take the dread leap in the dark with apparent readiness and ease. But to wait in full health and strength for the arrival of the fixed hour of certain death — to feel the moments sink from under you which are fast bringing you to the executioner’s hand; — to know that in twelve — ten — eight — six hours by the clock, which hurries through the rapid minutes, you are to become — not by God’s accomplished visitation — not in any gallant struggle of your own — but through the stern will of certain powerful men — a hideous, foul, and dislocated corse; — to know that at one certain ordained moment you are to be made extinct — to be violently put an end to; — to be fully aware that this is your fixed fate, and that though strong as a lion, you must at that moment die like a dog; — to await the doom without fear — without feeling the blood grow cold round the heart, — without a quickened pulse and shaking muscles, exceeds the bounds of mortal courage, and requires either the ignorant unimaginative indifference of a brute, or the superhuman endurance of an enthusiastic martyr.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, it got better at the midpoint, which I should know to expect from Trollope by now, and I was pretty invested by the end. Will post a more complete review on the blog.

**

Goodreads says I started this book on February 9 but it seems like I have been reading it since approximately 2017. I can't read the complete works of Trollope if I don't read this book, a truth that is causing me to question my commitment to reading the complete works of Trollope.

I suppose it makes sense that the pacing would be iffy in a first novel, but I am finding it so slow. And I am weary of the anti-Irish sentiment that pervades the book. Initially it was a little shocking, but now it's just old.

My Kindle tells me I have 3.5 hours left in the book. Alas.

[Emma Glaisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Trollope's first novel was much better than I'd been led to expect. His voice is instantly recognisable, and his interests - legal matters, horse-flesh - are already evident. The diversions, while not adding much to the plot, were fascinating standalone pieces.
Feemy is hard to forgive, but what teaching did the poor girl have to manage her life better? Thady is good but hopeless. Father John is an inspirational character, so well portrayed.
The capturing of the different strata of Irish society is well done, with Trollope's signature refusal to portray anyone as all good or all bad.

[Barry Cunningham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in The Complete Works of Anthony Trollope by Delphi Classics.

[Douglas Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have The Complete Works of Anthony Trollope on my kindle and decided to give him a try. Decided to read his first novel, The Macdermots of Ballycloran.

I do not regret this decision. It was an excellent novel! The plot was realistic and good and the characters were real people! Even though this is very much a first novel with first novel flaws (the novel is a little too long) I did love it and I WILL be reading more of his work.

Actually I feel he writes better than Dickens, but that is me.

[Jim Linsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting Trollope. It would have improved my enjoyment of the book if I had known what I only pieced together after the fact that Feemy is pregnant by Ussher from the outset. Most editions of the book have been abridged, in addition to which the clues to intimate relationships which Victorian authors adopted are hard for modern readers to pick up on. Trollope was interested in sex, it's a recurrent theme in his novels, and it's one which often requires rereading or outside reading to appreciate.

As usual, there's a debate about whether this being his first attempt at writing a novel means that it is lacking in some respect compared to his later novels. I didn't find it at all lacking. Its edges are sharper, his verbosity at times is unchecked, but the storytelling is compelling, and the best recommendation to read it may be that it reveals what his true political and social views were before they were toned down in order to sell books to an English readership. How different his later novels might have been had The Macdermots been a success instead of a commercial failure! We might have had Anthony Trollope, crusader for social justice.

If you can find an unabridged edition which includes the three chapters subsequently deleted after the first edition, do so.

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

His first novel, and, um, not his greatest. Oh, Trollope, whyfor phonetically rendered Irish dialect?

[Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I am making my way through as many Trollope novels as I can, I was hesitant about starting this one, for three reasons. First, it is his first novel, so who knows? Second, it is an Irish novel, with all Irish characters. Trollope is of course well known for his insights into English life, politics, and social relations, so how likely is this to be equally insightful? Third, it is quite long. My Oxford World’s Classics edition is 694 pages long. As it turns out, I shouldn’t have hesitated. Although it is probably a bit too long, it is a very worthwhile read.

In spite of being Trollope’s first novel, it is well constructed, with most of the intertwined plots and interesting characters we see in the novels of his prime. In fact, it is remarkable to me how well constructed and generally well written it is, for someone with no education or prior experience in professional novel writing. The book is indeed very Irish, but Trollope spent a number of years working for the British post office in Ireland, and it seems that he picked up a huge amount about the country. By riding to post offices and interacting with postmasters and mail carriers, he got to know the ordinary people and their stories. The introduction to my edition compliments Trollope on how well he captured Irish speech, manners, geography, and the economic situation people found themselves in.

In fact, I found it surprising that the book contains something of a pointed social criticism of what had happened to Ireland at the time, just before the potato famine started (see below). Trollope recognizes that discrimination against the old gentry and against Catholics in general had led to hardship and increased poverty. Absentee Anglo-Irish landlords caused the land to be sucked dry and the renters starved. His description of the poverty is really frightening. It is hard to imagine people living that way, or that others who could help them doing nothing. But the book is not a political screed. The poverty and problems are essential to the plot, and he communicates the problems and his view of them without much preaching. That said, I think he felt that responsibility largely fell on bad landlords or specific policies, rather than the problems inherent in British colonization of Ireland and the essentially unfair economic system of the time.

Finally, as to the length... it *is* probably somewhat too long. He deleted three chapters in later editions, which were appended in the World’s Classic reprint for those who are interested. (That’s one reason why the book is so long.) These chapters are described as “suppressed” on the book cover, but really they were just edited out to help with the length. It must be said that the print in this edition is rather large, so I found myself getting through 50 pages at a time without much effort.

The plot is a tragic one surrounding the title family, which is pressed on two sides, by the discrimination that reduced its holdings and bad decisions to try to maintain a social position that they could not afford. All that is left in the family are the increasingly demented father, the son trying to keep the estate together in spite of crushing debt and tenants who are unable to pay their rents, and an oblivious daughter in love with a Protestant revenue officer, who happens to be loathed by all the locals. Conflict is inevitable, and it occurs with a vengeance. I have to say that there is some gruesome violence here of the sort that would never appear in a later novel. There is also detailed description of the Irish towns and countryside that I found most interesting, but that would not appear in his English tales. Presumably he thought that British readers would find it interesting to read about this exotic locale, but they didn’t really need a detailed description of an English market town. Through all this one somehow finds Trollope’s usual humor, along with minor plot lines and scenes that are generally humorous, as in his later novel. So, although the book in outline sounds like a downer, it is generally quite entertaining to read.

I am surprised that the novel was very unsuccessful on its initial publication. (It was republished later, after Trollope was successful, which is when he edited and shortened it.) The introduction explains this as due to the publication being delayed for a couple of years until after the potato blight had begun. Irish problems were all over the news and a source of great debate and anxiety, and it seems likely that readers did not want to relax with a tragic tale about Ireland after reading about its actual tragedy in the news. I found the introduction to be quite informative, but I would strongly suggest reading it *after* finishing the book, because it is loaded with spoilers. You can get through its first few pages describing the book’s writing and publishing history without any damage though.

In sum, if you have time to devote to this book, I think you may find it very interesting. It is in some ways up to the standards of the mature Trollope, but it is also unique in subject matter in a way that may change the way I look at his later English novels.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

An obscure choice for only the second Trollope I've ever read (the first was, predictably, Barchester Towers). But, as so often with me, it's been on my shelves for years and sooner or later I will get round to reading it.

And glad I did. Trollope's first novel and one of a number he wrote with an Irish setting, written during the years he was posted in the country as a post office inspector. He arrived in 1841, which meant his insights were of a country which, just a few years later, would descend into the horrors of the Famine, which halved the population of the country through death and forced emigration. No one doubts any longer that the severity of the effects of the blight on the potato crops which formed the staple for the peasant classes was magnified ten-fold by the social and economic structure of tenant farming under the the regime imposed by absentee landlords. This sad story of the fate of poor Thady Macdermot gives us a picture of the evils of that system.

The Macdermots were unusual in being among the tiny percentage of Catholic landowners - about 8% of the total - in Ireland at that time. In this family's case their property was in the poor western county of Leitrim and the pickings that came its way was slender. Living in a crumbling house mortgaged to an avaricious rack-renter and presiding over tenants permanently without the wherewithal to pay rent, the Macdermots are permanently at risk of being dispossessed of the few assets they cling to.

But there is Feemy, Thady's sister, a striking beauty in the godforsaken Macdermot household. But she loves Ussher, a captain in the local revenue police - a special outfit charged with disrupting the peasant industry distilling potheen. Being the sole relief from abject misery which was the poor farmer's lot, the revenue police were particularly despised by the people, as much for the deprivation of the source of one of the few solaces in life as the cruelty in smashing up the potheen brewing enterprises and sending the distillers to long spells in prison. Thady has good reasons for not approving of his sister's choice in suitors.

Even more so because the dreadful Ussher is quite simply a cad who is intent on exploiting the affections of the besmitten Feemy. There is also, in the background, a cabal of local Ribbonmen -vengence-seeking peasants using the tactics of property destruction and violence against the agents of the landlord class - who see ways in which Macdermot resentments might be recruited to their cause. It is only the saintly ministrations of Father John, the parish priest, who restrains Thady from pledging himself to the insurrectionary cause by taking an illegal oath.

Whilst the story of Thady, Feemy and Ussher unwinds we get to learn a lot about the misery and poverty of the vast majority of the Irish at this point in time, as well as the social diversions of the small, relatively prosperous middle classes. The Macdermot clan are in a headlong fall into tragedy in this story, but it is only a shadow of the even greater disaster that falls Ireland a few years later, when the potato crop begins to fail.

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trollope's first novel is fascinatingly both very Trollopean and very non-Trollopean. In many respects, Trollope's distinctive narrative voice is already in evidence, in its tone and in its general sympathy to the characters, though there is rather more of simple good/bad binarism than in later Trollope, wherein the complexity of character becomes central. Ussher is more a typical seducer/villain than one would expect. Feemy, his victim, is a typical Trollopean woman, incapable of controlling or changing her love for a scapegrace, and almost perversely devoted to her own will. She is nevertheless not merely a type, as Trollope shows us a woman who knows (or is pretty sure) that she will be eloping to become a mistress, rather than a wife, and will subsequently be discarded, but who goes anyway. Of course, she's pregnant at the time, so.... Trollope said in his autobiography that he thought this novel had the best plot he ever constructed, and it is certainly more plot-driven than many of Trollope's later novels. It nevertheless features characteristic Trollopean digressions--one of which he cut after the first publication, though in doing so he deleted not only an inessential chapter of a comic trip to Dublin but also an important chapter of legal finery. There's rather more melodrama than one would expect from Trollope (he was evidently under the spell of Dickens, an influence he soon discarded), especially in the depiction of Feemy, and the novel is much darker in tone than most of his subsequent work. There isn't even really that Trollopean staple, the love story, as Feemy and Ussher's relationship hardly qualifies as such. However, Trollope's penchant for quiet realism is also on display here. This is a worthy and engaging, if flawed, novel.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

For his first novel, Trollope wrote a potboiler, and it's hot mess. Set in Ireland (as one may have deduced from the title), it's a wild and implausible tale of murder and revenge. Feuds, lost inheritances, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, duels, and a horrific and graphic scene where a character is set upon by ruffians who chop his foot off with a sharp stone. There is more plot in any 50 pages of this book than there are in the whole of the Barsetshire Chronicles, and yet the book manages to be dull. Trollope fails to create a single interesting or compelling character, so stuff just ... happens. In Trollope's classic novels, he de-emphasizes plot in favor of deep and human characterization - that's one of this strengths, and the reason why he's one of my favorite authors. But little of that is here. There is one extended scene late in the book, where the village priest journeys from Ballycloran to Dublin for a trial, and Trollope goes into minute detail about how the priest has to negotiate a place to sit on the carriage. Trollope deftly sketches in the coachman and all the other passengers, and this lengthy, low-stakes chapter was easily my favorite part of the book. It hints at the Trollope he would soon become.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not particularly enjoying this one, and itt is his first and I know he gets better because I've read several of those. I'm mostly reading this for completeness' sake, but I'm not presently in the mood for a 688-page flawed early novel, so I'm setting it aside. If ever I feel like returning to it (perhaps I'll run out of prolific Victorian novelists), it's not going anywhere.

But for now, no. The length wouldn't daunt me if I were enjoying it, but for now it's just there. Plus it has an odd framing device, where a visitor is visiting (chapter about that), then a local starts to tell them the story (chapter about that), then we cut to the point-of-view of the characters, including minute details of dialogue that the original tale-teller couldn't have known, so what's the point of the frame? (But I guess Wuthering Heights did the same thing almost exactly, and no one seems to mind that.)

(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)

[Jim Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trollope’s first novel was a commercial failure, but it packs a punch. Subversively political, it is set entirely in the NW of Ireland just before the Famine. The novel follows the ruin of the McDermot family, poor landed gentry, who suffer almost as much as their poor tenants. At first Trollope seems to make fun of the Irish--their indolence, their way of speaking, their lack of education and grace, but it is simply a way to lure the English reader into the story. The novel turns out to be highly sympathetic to their plight and critical of their English overlords and those who do their bidding. The greatest flaw in the novel is that it tries to be a bit of everything--It veers from political intrigue, murder, and illicit sex to a humorous wedding, horse race, and court scene, but then ends in tragedy. The changes in tone can be a bit jarring. It also suffers from a common Victorian novelists’ dilemma. What to do to a pregnant unwed character (95% of the time the answer is to kill her off). I would recommend this to any reader who is a Trollope fan, or anyone interested in pre-famine rural life in Ireland.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anthony Trollope’s first novel is set in Ireland where he lived and worked for many years. It concerns the Macdermot family who are down on their luck and look set to lose their house to the builder Joe Flannery. Thady Macdermot is fighting hard to stop this from happening while his sister Feemy is spending far too much time with a Royal Irish Constabulary officer called Captain Ussher who is there to stop the illegal homemade brew trade that many of the locals take part in. There are some great scenes in pubs and descriptions of the countryside, a real sense of inevitability to the plot and for a first novel it's really quite good but it is more serious than much of Trollope’s other works. There is social commentary on the state of the country at this time, the role of the constabulary and the conditions in which people were living in and there is little humor. If this was your first Trollope, it would probably be more successful having nothing else to compare it too, but I found myself craving the lightness of many of his other works even as I could appreciate much of what this novel was doing.

[Petra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately Trollope's debut novel didn't hold my interest the same way his later ones have in the past. The Macdermots of Ballycloran takes its' place in Ireland, focusing on a family called Macdermots living in a house that is falling apart. While the father is falling apart in the same way the house is, Thady, the son, is working hard to keep the family together. His sister, Feemy, is being courted by a soldier that doesn't seem to have any intention of marrying Feemy. The novel focuses on how worried Thady is about the future of the estate, Ballycloran, and also his sister Feemy. It is a gloomy novel, without a blink of light. What I found the most disappointing is the lack of Trollope's usual humour and the brilliance of the characters. I didn't find any connection towards the characters and that made the plot dreadfully boring. But again, it is a debut novel of a man that I know can write brilliantly so this is not diminishing my love for Trollope.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was Trollope’s first published book. Set in Ireland before the famine, and written partly in dialect, it is a remarkable work.
Although it doesn’t have the depth of insight into women’s feelings which is so prevalent in his later novels, the book was written with compassion and sympathy.
The trial scenes are truly heartbreaking.
I definitely recommend that you get the Oxford Classics edition of the book which has three chapters which originally appeared in the syndicated version of the story but were cut when it was first published in book form. These chapters contain very interesting information not found elsewhere. In addition the Oxford Classics edition has notes to the text (including a glossary) which explain both some of the expressions in Irish dialect and historic customs and archaic words you are probably not familiar with.

[Tom James · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sad tale of a once prosperous landowning Irish family on the decline during the years just prior to the potato famine. Ireland's woes did not begin with the famine of the 1840s, but reached back in time and this story gives us a small glimpse into the customs, the conditions, and the circumstances that lead to the death of a government official and the arrest and trial of a man who has some very real motives and enough circumstantial evidence to hang him. Not typical Trollope fare, at least if you're used to his style in "Barchester Towers". This is his first novel (1847), but its dark tone would lead one to think that it came from a later period, when novelists were taking more risks. Another realistic and believable portrait of life in the nineteenth century.

[Julie Bye · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the novel and the ending surprised me. I would have given it a higher rating except for some glaring plot faults and would wishy washy female characters. I know it’s written in a different time and ladies were more delicate, but the main female character of Feemy is shallow, stupid and feints every five minutes. The deterioration of the father would have been more believable if he was older. But the novel does make you wonder who in the novel are good people and who are not, what is justice and what isn’t. Few of the characters are straightforward good or bad, and the prose is well written. I can understand why it was unpopular as it left me feeling a flat and unhappy, but it definitely makes you think, which is what a good novel should do.

[Erika RS · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book because it was the first in a complete works of Anthony Trollope that I'd bought for my Kindle. It was only after that I learned that this was a mistake and that this was not the Trollope novel to start with. (That, at least according to many on the internet, being The Warden.)

I didn't dislike this book, but I couldn't quite like it either. It had a lot of elements that were interesting, but the overall story was just so unrelentingly sad and hopeless that I kept getting distracted by other books while reading it.

[Margaret Dorroh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing what can be revealed on a plod through a part of Western Ireland. The narrator comes across a tumbledown estate (desmane) and a few of its remaining inhabitants and proceeds to learn of its sad history. On the way to its conclusion, we read about serfdom, moonshining, horse racing and ultimately the justice system. The courtroom scene and its witnesses make reading the book worthwhile. Memorable characters.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Trollope landed in Dublin in 1841, in order to become clerk to a postal surveyor, few, if any, would have detected in him the successful novelist. Yet it was in Ireland, and while occupying that seemingly most unliterary position, that he wrote his first novel, The Macdermots of Ballycloran.

Very hard to read. Like the Irish themselves, the conversation is convoluted, repetitive.