Daft Eddie and the Smugglers of Strangford Lough; a Tale of Killinchy (1914 edition)

I was delighted to pick this up online this week, from a bookseller in England, after many years of searching for this particular edition. When I was about 18 my late aunt Doris gave me a copy of the very familiar 1979 Mourne Observer large format hardback edition which includes an important collection of black and white photos of what were then the continuing traditions of the smugglers' stories (she also gave me a Betsy Gray and the Hearts of Down which was also written by WG Lyttle. The character dialogue in Daft Eddie is of course in light Ulster-Scots. It's a very famous book round these parts; Eddie is a folk hero and there is a restaurant named after him near Sketrick Castle.

The edition I have just acquired is the rare Carswell printing from 1914 with the full colour cover depicting a gang of smugglers around a farmhouse table, replete with skulls and candles. Intriguingly, inside is a stamp which reads "Libraries NI Withdrawn from Stock". On the inside has been pencilled "v scarce, £48" but I was happy to pay the website its asking price of just £25 including postage. I wonder how frequently Libraries NI dispose of such rare editions and by what mechanism that is done?

As you can see it was once owned by a Newtownards man called G. Ivan Patterson.