Irishman Came Through', a little deflating. This is an account of Irish poet Tom Moore's stay here in 1804, when he acted as Registrar to Bermuda's Court of the Vice-Admiralty.

I suppose all factual and clinical accounts which reduce Art to Science are generally deflating, especially if you happen to be a romantic. I really would have liked to have lived on in the cloudy world of nymph-like heroines in the form of Hester Tucker (`Nea') and Moore, the vigorous and dynamic young poet banished to Bermuda's backwater paradise.

David Raine is a research guru. If you read any of his previous books you will admire his diligence and skill in researching background details not only about events but more especially about people.

We have heard, or read, over the years many reports of Tom Moore's short stay here, and his reasons for coming and leaving so quickly. David Raine dismisses most of them as idle gossip. After you read his account (and read it you must, even if you are not Irish) you may agree with him. I feel, however, that gossip is really the people's spoken record, which I agree has a tendency to be embellished over the years, but shouldn't be totally ignored.

The picture Mr. Raine paints of the classical scholar (he translated `Odes to Anacreon' from the ancient Greek at the age of 18) and was Irish Poet Laureate at the age of 21, certainly shows that Moore was no ordinary government official! Quoting from Moore's friends -- Sir Walter Scott, Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron, to name a few -- we get a clear picture of Moore's physical appearance: "much below middle size, a frank and merry manner and eyes that sparkle like a champagne bubble.'' We also get a picture of the high esteem in which he was held in the literary world of London at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but most of the account is taken up with Moore's job as Registrar, and with the officials that he came in contact with during his short stay.

Sure, `Nea' is mentioned, and sure, Moore is portrayed as someone who befriended her in the Winter of 1803 and Spring of 1804. (Any romance must be added by the reader).

The book is actually an interesting account of the life of St. George's and her people at this period in history, and for this we should all be grateful to Mr. Raine. As an alderman of the Olde Towne himself he is part of that history, and obviously enjoys researching its past. Moore was part of that past, whether you regard him as a Government official or as a romantic poet.

I learned a lot from this book, as all who read it will. I also got a pleasant surprise in the appendix when I discovered a very comprehensive collection of Moore's Bermuda poems.

David Raine has written a book which needed to be written to allay all these rumours and gossip going around about "the wee Irishmen''. I will still imagine the nymph-like `Nea' and the young poet walking hand in hand "Through the Lime Covered Alleys'' of Olde St. George's. But Romantics (and Irishmen to boot) like it that way! An Irishman Came Through ($10 in softback) is available in bookstores Island-wide. A signed, limited edition of 100 hardback copies ($20) is available through Bridge House Gallery, St. George's, telephone 297-8211.

OLLIE MCKITTRICK