Texts

Grammar, dictionary and chronicle in the Irish tongue (Matthew de Renzy)

  • Early Modern Irish
  • prose
  • extent: not extant
In the epitaph for Matthew de Renzy (1577–1634) on a plaque in the church of Athlone, it is claimed that he composed, within three years, “a grammar, dictionary, and chronicle in the Irish tongue”. The nature and true authorship of these works are unknown. As for the grammar, Roderic O'Flaherty (1627/30–1716/18) suggested that it was De Renzi's tutor Tadhg Óg Ó hUiginn who wrote the grammar and that De Renzi intended to have it published under his own name until his tutor came up with a prosodic challenge he could not accomplish. This grammar has been equated with the tract known as Graiméar Uí Mhaolchonaire. Little can be said of the other works ascribed to De Renzy.
Author
Ascribed to: de Renzy (Matthew)
De Renzy (Matthew)
(1577–1634)
No short description available

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Language
  • Early Modern Irish
Form
prose (primary)
Textual relationships
Related: Graiméar Uí MhaolchonaireGraiméar Uí Mhaolchonaire

Classification

Sources

Secondary sources (select)

Ua Súilleabháin, Seán, “The lost has been found: the earliest surviving bilingual Irish dictionary”, in: John Carey, Máire Herbert, and Kevin Murray (eds), Cín Chille Cúile: texts, saints and places. Essays in honour of Pádraig Ó Riain, 9, Aberystwyth: Celtic Studies Publications, 2004. 392–405.
Mac Cuarta, Brian, “A planter's interaction with Gaelic culture: Sir Matthew de Renzy (1577–1634)”, Irish Economic and Social History 20 (1993): 1–17.
Mac Cuarta, Brian, “[Miscellaneous contributions]”, Oxford dictionary of national biography, Online: Oxford University Press, 2004.
[‘Renzy, Sir Matthew de (1577–1634)’]
English, N. W., “The Sir Mathew De Renzi memorial in Athlone”, Journal of the Old Athlone Society 2:5 (1978): 1–5.
Contributors
C. A., Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
August 2019, last updated: April 2023