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About the selected image

Ruairí Óg Ó Mórdha, from The Image of Irelande by John Derricke (Plate 11). Source.

A module for identifying agents - encompassing persons, peoples and organisations - and managing information about them has been around for many years, continually evolving as time went by, but what was absent all this time is a public interface for accessing relevant data in a user-friendly way.

This is a first attempt at offering such an interface, which is provided "as-is" and should be considered beta-quality for now (not that there is any official product release cycle as such but using the label is a convenient means to sound the right alarm bells). It currently consists of a basic search, aggregated data overviews for individual agents, and hover-card labels that you will meet elsewhere in the catalogue.

I am aware of duplicates, uneven coverage and other shortcomings that typically arise from the progressive nature of this website or simply, lack of personpower. An earlier version of the interface was available to editors partly because it helps us address some of those issues. None of these objections, however, seemed to weigh heavily against the alternative, which is having nothing at all to offer.

Note that for convenience's sake, many agents are not formally indexed but are nonetheless included by exclusive virtue of being linked. It is a wonderful forte of the system that allows us to retrieve and bring together disparate data from disparate data sources, but some useful metadata will be missing and discoverability is more limited as a result. For instance, we may be linking to a scribe whose name and associated data can be retrieved and presented, but without, say, a floruit it will be difficult to find this person within the appropriate time range. I say "difficult" because it is possible, to an extent, to rely on the dates we have, if any, for associated objects (manuscripts, scribal hands), but such a circuitous approach comes with limitations of its own and is not necessarily methodologically sound.

Meanwhile, I hope that the new interface will improve your experience in using this website. Next up are thematic categories for scribes (in the broadest, non-pejorative sense of the word), authors and scholars.

Last added

People

• Eoghan Ó Caoimh
  1656–1726
  Munster poet and scribe.
• Stiabhna Ríghis
  s. xvii^ex / s. xviii¹
  Stiabhna Ríghis/Rís or Stephen Rice, a Munster scribe who became active in Dublin and befriended Tadhg Ó Neachtáin.
• Piet Avonds
• Thomas Gee [d. 1845]
  1780–1845
  Welsh printer and founder of Gwasg Gee. His son was the preacher and journalist Thomas Gee.
• Robert Davies [d. 1835]
  1769–1835
  Welsh poet and grammarian, a native of Nantglyn (Denbighshire).
• John Goolde [friar and scribe]
  fl. c.17th century, first half
  Friar, guardian of the Franciscan friary in Cashel, and scribe who was responsible for a copy of the Vitae sanctorum Hiberniae and had worked together with the Four Masters.
• Boethius
  d. 524
  Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, a Roman senator, statesman, philosopher and historian. His best known work may be De consolatione philosophiae, which he wrote in prison after running into conflict at the Ostrogothic court. Others include De topicis differentiis, De institutione arithmetica, De institutione musica and five theological treatises known collectively as the Opuscula sacra.
• Jehan Lagadeuc
  fl. 15th century
  Breton priest in Plougonven (Tréguier) and lexicographer, who compiled a Breton-French-Latin dictionary, the Catholicon (1464).
• Cosmo Innes
  1798–1874
  Scottish judge and antiquarian.
• Alcuin
  d. 804
  English clergyman, scholar and poet.
• John Davies [d. 1626]
  bap. 1569–d. 1626
  English lawyer, poet and politician, who spent part of his career as a legal officer and adviser on behalf of the Crown in Ireland.
• John Beaton [d. 1657]
  1594–1657
  Scottish physician whose family was based in Pennycross (Isle of Mull), principal physician to the MacLeans of Duart.
• Donald MacQueen [minister of Kilmuir]
  fl. c.1715–d. 1785
  Church of Scotland minister of Kilmuir, Isle of Skye. He is one of the ministers who were visited by (and briefly joined) Samuel Johnson and James Boswell on their tour of the Hebrides.
• Beaton family
• Bernard de Gordon
  fl. 1270–1330
  French physician, professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier and author of a number of medical treatises. His Lilium medicinae was translated into Irish.

Institutions

• Villanova University, Falvey Memorial Library

  Library belonging to Villanova University.

• Sancreed church

  Parish church of Sancreed, Cornwall. The place is first recorded in the 12th century as Egglossant and from the following century onwards, identified by its patron saint, Sancred or Sancret (Orme, Saints of Cornwall).

• Redruth, Kresen Kernow

  Archival centre of Cornwall. It houses collections previously held by the Cornwall Record Office, Cornish Studies Library and other archival institutions.
  

• Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society

  Cornish charity organisation. The Cornwall Polytechnic Society, as it was first known, was founded in 1832 by the Fox family of Falmouth, Cornwall, and received royal patronage in 1835.
  

• Saint-Méen abbey
• Chichester, West Sussex Record Office
  County record office holding the archives on behalf of West Sussex.
  
• Bilbao, Biblioteca Foral de Bizkaia
• Nonantola abbey
• Honourable and Loyal Society of Antient Britons
  Welsh society based in London, which was founded in 1715 and had ceased to be active by the end of the same century.
  
• Welsh Charity School

  Originally the British Charity School in London, founded in 1718 by the ‘Most Honourable and Loyal Society of Antient Britons’, in some ways the precursor to the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. It housed a considerable collection of manuscripts, which were presented to the British Museum in the early 1840s. The school moved to Ashford in 1857, became a girls school in 1882 and was renamed to St David's School in 1967.
  

• Tintern abbey [Co. Wexford]
  Cistercian monastery.
  
• Tintern abbey
• Angers, Saint-Aubin
  Monastery of Saint-Aubin in Angers.
  
• Nanhyfer [Nevern, Pembrokeshire]

  Church on the river Nevern (Nyfer) in Pembrokeshire, said to have been an early church (clas) founded by St Brynach.

• Alt Fharannáin

Randomised results

Scribes

Patrick Sandford

Seán Ó Conaire [ob. 1773]

c.1739–1773

Irish priest and scholar

Eoghan Ó Caoimh

1656–1726

Munster poet and scribe.

Anonymous [LU scribe H]

s. xii

Anonymous scribe, usually known simply as H or the Interpolator, who significantly annotated, revised and interpolated parts of the Lebor na hUidre (RIA MS 23 E 25) and sometimes intercalated leaves to add material. The modern name H stands for ‘Homilist’, which stems from the fact that he added two homilies, Scéla laí brátha and Scéla na hEsérgi. His identity, background and precise floruit remain uncertain.

Seán Riabhach Ó Duibhgheannáin

16th century

Irish scribe

Philip O'Sullivan Beare

d. 1634 or after

Irish historian and author, of the O'Sullivans of Beare and Bantry, who lived as an exile in Spain and Portugal, following the Nine Years’ War and the Irish defeat at Kinsale. He wrote a number of Latin treatises on subjects of Irish interest.

Hugh Ward

c.1592–1635

Irish Franciscan friar, historian and author

Peadar Ó Conaill [d. 1826]

1755–1826

Irish lexicographer

Ruaidhrí Ó Luinín

fl. 16th century

Ruaidhrí Ó Luinín, Irish scribe

Mícheál mac Peadair Ó Longáin

c.1693–c.1770

scribe from Limerick

Tuileagna Ó Maoil Chonaire

Seán Ó Cléirigh [d. 1846]

1778–1846

Seán (or John) Ó Cleirigh, Irish scribe who could probably claim descent from certain illustrious scholars of the Uí Chléirigh, even if his own testimony seems fuzzy and inconsistent. He appears to have had, perhaps inherited, an unknown number of Irish manuscripts written by or associated with Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh, five of which he brought to Dublin in 1817.

Matha Ó Luinín

fl. 16th century

Irish scribe and scholar of Arda on the Erne (Co. Fermanagh)

Conchubhar Mhágaodh

s. xvii

Irish scribe.

Seághan Ó Conuill

fl. 18th/19th century

Seághan Ó Conuill / John O'Connell, Irish scribe

Authors

A random selecton of authors and those so described.

Mathau Brwmffild

fl. c.1530–1545

wandering Welsh poet

John Jones [Myrddin Fardd]

1836–1921

Andrew Boorde

c. 1490–1549

English physician and author, who embarked on a journey through Europe and wrote a travel treatise The fyrste boke of the introduction of knowledge (completed in 1542). To Celticists, he may be known for his descriptions of Wales and Cornwall, which include some basic lexical information.

Bernard de Gordon

fl. 1270–1330

French physician, professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier and author of a number of medical treatises. His Lilium medicinae was translated into Irish.

Manchán of Lemanaghan

Manchán mac Silláin, patron saint of Liath Mancháin (Lemanaghan, Co. Offaly)

Anonymous [LU scribe H]

s. xii

Anonymous scribe, usually known simply as H or the Interpolator, who significantly annotated, revised and interpolated parts of the Lebor na hUidre (RIA MS 23 E 25) and sometimes intercalated leaves to add material. The modern name H stands for ‘Homilist’, which stems from the fact that he added two homilies, Scéla laí brátha and Scéla na hEsérgi. His identity, background and precise floruit remain uncertain.

Robert Davies [d. 1835]

1769–1835

Welsh poet and grammarian, a native of Nantglyn (Denbighshire).

Niocól Ó hÍceadha

''fl. c''. 1403

Niocól Ó hÍceadha, Irish medical scholar who together with Aonghus Ó Callanáin undertook a vernacular translation of a commentary on the ''Aphorisms'' of Hippocrates.

Cumméne Ailbe

ob. 669

Al. Cumméne Find, seventh abbot of Iona; author of Liber de virtutibus sancti Columbae.

Cú Chuimne

d. 747

monk and scholar at Iona, called sapiens, who is credited with having co-compiled the Collectio canonum Hibernensis and having authored a Latin hymn in praise of Mary.

Senchán Torpéist

fl. 6th–7th century

Irish poet associated with Gúaire Aidne, king of Connacht; popular figure in Irish literary tradition, notably as one credited for having retrieved the Táin and, especially in Tromdám Gúaire, as the leader of a band of poets seeking to test the limits of Gúaire’s hospitality.

Fíacc of Sletty

supp. fl. 5th century

reputed disciple of Saint Patrick, abbot and patron saint of Sléibte (Sletty, Co. Laois).

Asser

d. c.908/909

monk of St David’s and later, bishop of Sherborne; author of a contemporary Life of King Alfred.

John Davies [of Mallwyd]

d. 1644

John Davies of Mallwyd, Welsh scholar, author of a Welsh grammar and dictionary

William Bottrell

1816–1881

Author and collector of Cornish folk-tales, who is best known for three volumes of folk-tale collections (1870, 1873 and 1880).