Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland

Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland (1864), a verse-novel about the Land War [see Land League] by William Allingham. Bloomfield, an idealistic young landlord who has been travelling abroad, returns to his estate at Lisnamoy. An inclusive canvas—with hovels, big house, round tower and lake, violent peasantry and feckless ascendancy, flashy Catholic chapel and trim Protestant church—the settings of the poem encapsulate Allingham's vision of mid-19th-cent. Ireland.