Irish Reading Societies and Circulating Libraries Founded Be

"... The idea of 'mutual improvement' in the eighteenth ... [century] ... underpinned the spread of rural workers' reading societies in Ulster and urban middle-class private subscription libraries among the Anglo-Irish and educated Catholics ... But libraries ... [in] 1798 ... were destroyed by government troops--knowledge in its printed form was considered dangerous ... while the rise of Protestant tract societies encouraged Catholic chapel and other local religious libraries for the poorer classes. The crucial idea behind all of these libraries was ... books held in common, with the borrower having freedom of choice over what was borrowed. Private libraries too demonstrate how they related to ideas of 'self-help' ..." -- Dust jacket