The Synge Letters

Edward Synge wrote 221 letters to Alicia, his daughter, betweeen May and October of 1746 to 1752. He was an adoring though not uncritical father, advising, gossiping and instructing her from his country estate. Synge was a wealthy man and Alicia a considerable heiress; his concern about her need to marry well and her motherless condition is a running, if tacit, theme of the letters.While writing of his life in the diocese, he counsels Alicia on her conduct and mode of life in Dublin; deals with manners and reading matter; with food (how to make good bread) and drink; discusses the false modesty of women and menstruation. He advises her about how to talk to doctors and on matters of taste, house-building and decoration; instructs her on methods of dealing with Dublin tradesmen, the upkeep of his garden and the correct way to plant a border. Throughout this correspondence he describes his Roscommon neighbours and life in the Irish provinces in fascinating detail. These vivid, wide-ranging and sympathetic letters from father to daughter open a window onto social and domestic life in the mid-eighteenth century, revealing lost worlds with the illumination of a Vermeer or a Montaillou. Immediate and richly detailed they constitute a major new source for the history of eighteenth-century Ireland and – in a great age of letter-writing – form an exciting contribution to that most intimate of genres. The letters are fully annotated and accompanied by a biographical register, maps, index, bibliography, and appendix on Synge property and wealth. They will delight the scholar and general reader alike. Bishop Synge was a member of a formidable clerical dynasty dominating social and ecclesiastical life in Ireland for several generations. Born in Cork in 1691 of a family that included an archbishop and four bishops, Synge was Chancellor of St Patrick’s Cathedral from 1726-30, Bishop of Clonfert and then Cloyne 1731, Ferns in 1733, and Elphin in 1740. During the summer he lived at Elphin, Co. Roscommon, and during the parliamentary winter term at his large house in Kevin Street, Dublin. He had six children by Jane Curtis, of whom only one, Alicia, survived, before he was widowed. A busy public figure in Dublin, he was Commissioner of the Tillage Act, Governor of the Workhouse, of Dr Steevens’ Hospital and of the Blue Coat Hospital, and Treasurer of Erasmus Smith’s Schools. He attended the first performance of Handel’s Messiah and corresponded with the composer. He died in 1762, and is buried in St Patrick’s Cathedral. These letters to his daughter form his most enduring legacy.