Bibliography
Richard
Sharpe b. 17 February 1954–d. 22 March 2020
Works authored
Sharpe, Richard, and Mícheál Hoyne, Clóliosta. Printing in the Irish language, 1571–1871: an attempt at narrative bibliography, Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Celtic Studies, 2020.
abstract:
Clóliosta is a catalogue of more than three centuries of printing in Irish, from the earliest instances of the language in print down to the eve of the modern revival. Entire books printed in Irish as well as pamphlets and other ephemera are described in detail. Information is provided on the Irish types used, on the background, content and reception of the works catalogued, and how they relate to the manuscript tradition.
Every printing of every book was a publishing event. Looked at in sequence in Clóliosta, these events add up to larger stories about authors, publishers, printers, and readers. The history of printing in Irish is national and international, local and European. It begins with presses in Dublin, Louvain, Rome, London, and Paris. By the end of the eighteenth century provincial towns in Ireland were producing Irish books for Irish-speaking readers. Clóliosta allows us to tell stories about the Reformation and its aftermath, the rise of romantic nationalism and antiquarianism, the re-discovery of Ireland’s ancient literary monuments, and early efforts to stem and even reverse the decline of the language. The works catalogued in Clóliosta, in all their variety, allow us to tell a story of the Irish language very different from that built on the manuscript tradition alone.
abstract:
Clóliosta is a catalogue of more than three centuries of printing in Irish, from the earliest instances of the language in print down to the eve of the modern revival. Entire books printed in Irish as well as pamphlets and other ephemera are described in detail. Information is provided on the Irish types used, on the background, content and reception of the works catalogued, and how they relate to the manuscript tradition.
Every printing of every book was a publishing event. Looked at in sequence in Clóliosta, these events add up to larger stories about authors, publishers, printers, and readers. The history of printing in Irish is national and international, local and European. It begins with presses in Dublin, Louvain, Rome, London, and Paris. By the end of the eighteenth century provincial towns in Ireland were producing Irish books for Irish-speaking readers. Clóliosta allows us to tell stories about the Reformation and its aftermath, the rise of romantic nationalism and antiquarianism, the re-discovery of Ireland’s ancient literary monuments, and early efforts to stem and even reverse the decline of the language. The works catalogued in Clóliosta, in all their variety, allow us to tell a story of the Irish language very different from that built on the manuscript tradition alone.
Sharpe, Richard, and Mícheál Hoyne, Clóliosta: printing in the Irish language, 1571–1871. An attempt at narrative bibliography, Online (pre-publication): Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2019–present. URL: <https://www.dias.ie/celt/celt-publications-2/cloliosta/>.
Sharpe, Richard, Roderick O’Flaherty’s letters to William Molyneux, Edward Lhwyd and Samuel Molyneux, 1696–1709, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2013.
An edition, with introduction and notes, of Roderick O’Flaherty’s letters to William Molyneux, Edward Lhwyd and Samuel Molyneux
abstract:
Roderick O’Flaherty, in Irish, Ruaidhri Ó Flaithbheartaigh (1629–1716/18), was an Irish aristocrat whose father Hugh held the castle and manor of Moycullen, Co. Galway. He was an eminent historian and collector of Irish manuscripts and, as author of Ogygia seu rerum hibernicarum chronologia (London 1685), he enjoyed a high reputation for his learning in the profound antiquities of Ireland. For this reason the great Welsh scholar Edward Lhwyd (1660–1709), when touring Ireland in 1700, visited Ó Flaithbheartaigh at his home in Cois Fhairrge, Co. Galway. From this meeting a correspondence developed, fitful at first but regular from 1704 to 1708. During this period Ó Flaithbheartaigh read and commented on the sheets of Lhwyd’s Irish–English Dictionary, which was published as part of his Archaeologia Britannica (Oxford 1707). A substantial part of those comments still survives, a window on the making of Lhwyd’s book and on the learned Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s command of his native language. The correspondence between the two, almost unknown until now, opens up to us the world of a great Irish scholar in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. In this book, the letters are published and commented upon for the first time by leading medievalist Richard Sharpe FBA, Professor of Diplomatic at Oxford and Fellow of Wadham College. Starting with the 29 letters from Ó Flaithbheartaigh to Lhwyd, Sharpe has framed a unique portrait of a Gaelic lord, Latin author, learned historian, and unique witness to Irish antiquarian learning. Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s Iar Connaught (1684), a lively description of the barony of Moycullen, was written for the philosopher, scientist, member of parliament and political writer, William Molyneux (1656–98), translator of Descartes and founder of the Dublin Philosophical Society. Sharpe also brings together Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s surviving letters to William and the correspondence between Ó Flaithbheartaigh and Molyneux’s son Samuel (1689–1728), who would visit the 80-year-old Ó Flaithbheartaigh in 1709. The letters are edited with rich annotation, and they are preceded by an exceptionally detailed and original biographical study of the life and learning of the author. Ó Flaithbheartaigh lost his estate through the policy of transplantation under Cromwell and made his home at Park between Spiddal and Furbo. During the reign of King James II, he appears to have returned to Moycullen, but he lost almost everything when King William’s government began to assert control over Galway in 1696. The correspondence from late in his life shows Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s continued involvement at a distance with the world of books and learning in Dublin and Oxford and provides a remarkable insight into scholarly engagement and interchange across cultures and countries.
(source: Royal Irish Academy)
An edition, with introduction and notes, of Roderick O’Flaherty’s letters to William Molyneux, Edward Lhwyd and Samuel Molyneux
abstract:
Roderick O’Flaherty, in Irish, Ruaidhri Ó Flaithbheartaigh (1629–1716/18), was an Irish aristocrat whose father Hugh held the castle and manor of Moycullen, Co. Galway. He was an eminent historian and collector of Irish manuscripts and, as author of Ogygia seu rerum hibernicarum chronologia (London 1685), he enjoyed a high reputation for his learning in the profound antiquities of Ireland. For this reason the great Welsh scholar Edward Lhwyd (1660–1709), when touring Ireland in 1700, visited Ó Flaithbheartaigh at his home in Cois Fhairrge, Co. Galway. From this meeting a correspondence developed, fitful at first but regular from 1704 to 1708. During this period Ó Flaithbheartaigh read and commented on the sheets of Lhwyd’s Irish–English Dictionary, which was published as part of his Archaeologia Britannica (Oxford 1707). A substantial part of those comments still survives, a window on the making of Lhwyd’s book and on the learned Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s command of his native language. The correspondence between the two, almost unknown until now, opens up to us the world of a great Irish scholar in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. In this book, the letters are published and commented upon for the first time by leading medievalist Richard Sharpe FBA, Professor of Diplomatic at Oxford and Fellow of Wadham College. Starting with the 29 letters from Ó Flaithbheartaigh to Lhwyd, Sharpe has framed a unique portrait of a Gaelic lord, Latin author, learned historian, and unique witness to Irish antiquarian learning. Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s Iar Connaught (1684), a lively description of the barony of Moycullen, was written for the philosopher, scientist, member of parliament and political writer, William Molyneux (1656–98), translator of Descartes and founder of the Dublin Philosophical Society. Sharpe also brings together Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s surviving letters to William and the correspondence between Ó Flaithbheartaigh and Molyneux’s son Samuel (1689–1728), who would visit the 80-year-old Ó Flaithbheartaigh in 1709. The letters are edited with rich annotation, and they are preceded by an exceptionally detailed and original biographical study of the life and learning of the author. Ó Flaithbheartaigh lost his estate through the policy of transplantation under Cromwell and made his home at Park between Spiddal and Furbo. During the reign of King James II, he appears to have returned to Moycullen, but he lost almost everything when King William’s government began to assert control over Galway in 1696. The correspondence from late in his life shows Ó Flaithbheartaigh’s continued involvement at a distance with the world of books and learning in Dublin and Oxford and provides a remarkable insight into scholarly engagement and interchange across cultures and countries.
(source: Royal Irish Academy)
Easting, Robert, and Richard Sharpe, Peter of Cornwall’s Book of Revelations, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts, 184, Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Bodleian Library, 2013. xvi + 615 pp.
abstract:
This is the first book-length study of Peter of Cornwall, prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, London, whose Liber Reuelationum (Lambeth Palace Library, MS 51), dated to the year 1200, is a compilation of over 1,100 chapters, excerpted from some 275 Latin texts, dealing with visions of the otherworld and revelatory appearances of God, Christ, Mary, angels, saints, devils, and revenants. Peter’s purpose in collecting such material from saints’ Lives, chronicles, and free-standing vision texts from the first century AD through to his own day was to provide evidence to convince unbelievers of the existence of God, the soul, and life after death. Accounts of new visionary experiences circulating in England in the 1190s doubtless prompted his collection. Like his other large-scale work, Pantheologus, Peter of Cornwall’s Book of Revelations was intended to assist preachers with propagating the fundamentals of the faith. This volume introduces Peter’s life and writings and presents editions with parallel English translations of those parts of the Lambeth manuscript that Peter composed himself. A detailed description of the manuscript is included, and a Calendar identifies the source for each of Peter’s chapters. A bibliography and indices complete this volume, which provides a marvellous resource for scholars interested in the Latin literature of medieval dreams, visionary experience, and the eschatological concerns of sin, penance, death, the afterlife, and the judgement of the soul.
abstract:
This is the first book-length study of Peter of Cornwall, prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, London, whose Liber Reuelationum (Lambeth Palace Library, MS 51), dated to the year 1200, is a compilation of over 1,100 chapters, excerpted from some 275 Latin texts, dealing with visions of the otherworld and revelatory appearances of God, Christ, Mary, angels, saints, devils, and revenants. Peter’s purpose in collecting such material from saints’ Lives, chronicles, and free-standing vision texts from the first century AD through to his own day was to provide evidence to convince unbelievers of the existence of God, the soul, and life after death. Accounts of new visionary experiences circulating in England in the 1190s doubtless prompted his collection. Like his other large-scale work, Pantheologus, Peter of Cornwall’s Book of Revelations was intended to assist preachers with propagating the fundamentals of the faith. This volume introduces Peter’s life and writings and presents editions with parallel English translations of those parts of the Lambeth manuscript that Peter composed himself. A detailed description of the manuscript is included, and a Calendar identifies the source for each of Peter’s chapters. A bibliography and indices complete this volume, which provides a marvellous resource for scholars interested in the Latin literature of medieval dreams, visionary experience, and the eschatological concerns of sin, penance, death, the afterlife, and the judgement of the soul.
Sharpe, Richard, and James Willoughby [dirs], Medieval libraries of Great Britain, Online: Oxford University, 2009–present. URL: <http://mlgb3.bodleian.ox.ac.uk>.
Sharpe, Richard, James P. Carley, Rodney M. Thomson, and Andrew G. Watson, English Benedictine libraries: the shorter catalogues, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 4, London: British Library, British Academy, 1996.
abstract:
The Benedictine abbeys were renowned for containing the finest libraries of medieval England. Among the 120 documents brought together in this volume, there are a significant number of catalogues from major libraries in every century from the 12th to the 16th, including a unique 15th-century index catalogue, recently identified as coming from St Mary's Abbey, York. The documentary evidence recorded here varies greatly in form, including not only catalogues and inventories but also records of books borrowed, account rolls detailing expenditure on book production, memoranda on the contributions of individual abbots or priors, wills and simple lists of texts seen by visitors to the libraries. This volume encompasses the whole range of Benedictine libraries, including those which best illustrate what was typical of Benedictine learning in medieval England.
abstract:
The Benedictine abbeys were renowned for containing the finest libraries of medieval England. Among the 120 documents brought together in this volume, there are a significant number of catalogues from major libraries in every century from the 12th to the 16th, including a unique 15th-century index catalogue, recently identified as coming from St Mary's Abbey, York. The documentary evidence recorded here varies greatly in form, including not only catalogues and inventories but also records of books borrowed, account rolls detailing expenditure on book production, memoranda on the contributions of individual abbots or priors, wills and simple lists of texts seen by visitors to the libraries. This volume encompasses the whole range of Benedictine libraries, including those which best illustrate what was typical of Benedictine learning in medieval England.
Works edited
Contributions to journals
Sharpe, Richard, “Génair Pátraicc: Old Irish between print and manuscript, 1647–1853”, Ériu 68 (2018): 1–28.
abstract:
The ninth-century Old Irish poem Génair Pátraicc was printed with a Latin translation by Fr John Colgan at Louvain in 1647 from one of the manuscripts of the Irish Liber Hymnorum, a collection of the late tenth or early eleventh century. Its early entry into print made it, alongside Ní car Brigit, one of the first pieces of Old Irish to be widely available. This produced, in the first instance, a secondary transmission in manuscript, as it re-entered the native tradition; this was followed by numerous reprints, often with translations based on Colgan's Latin. In the late eighteenth century a Modern Irish translation was made and printed on facing pages by Richard Plunket in 1791, which in turn seems to have entered manuscript transmission. Until J.C. Zeuss revealed the grammar of the Old Irish glosses, this poem was the most widely known example of Old Irish, and it was studied as soon as Zeuss's work became available: it provided Whitley Stokes with an early test for Zeuss's results on a work transmitted down the centuries in Ireland, revealed in his letters to John O'Donovan from 1857. Since Stokes's fifth re-editing of the poem in 1903, it has been largely unstudied.
abstract:
The ninth-century Old Irish poem Génair Pátraicc was printed with a Latin translation by Fr John Colgan at Louvain in 1647 from one of the manuscripts of the Irish Liber Hymnorum, a collection of the late tenth or early eleventh century. Its early entry into print made it, alongside Ní car Brigit, one of the first pieces of Old Irish to be widely available. This produced, in the first instance, a secondary transmission in manuscript, as it re-entered the native tradition; this was followed by numerous reprints, often with translations based on Colgan's Latin. In the late eighteenth century a Modern Irish translation was made and printed on facing pages by Richard Plunket in 1791, which in turn seems to have entered manuscript transmission. Until J.C. Zeuss revealed the grammar of the Old Irish glosses, this poem was the most widely known example of Old Irish, and it was studied as soon as Zeuss's work became available: it provided Whitley Stokes with an early test for Zeuss's results on a work transmitted down the centuries in Ireland, revealed in his letters to John O'Donovan from 1857. Since Stokes's fifth re-editing of the poem in 1903, it has been largely unstudied.
Sharpe, Richard, “Humfrey Wanley, Bishop John O’Brien, and the colophons of Mael Brigte’s gospels”, Celtica 29 (2017): 251–292.
abstract:
Mael Brigte's Gospels, BL MS Harley 1802, a manuscript written at Armagh in the twelfth century, is datable from reference in its colophons to the killing of Cormac Mac Carthaig, king of Munster and of Ireland. The date was first worked out as 1139 from unpublished annals by Humfrey Wanley (1672-1726), Harley's librarian, in 1713-14, in a remarkable piece of scholarship. Wanley understood the importance of a dated manuscript as a basis for palaeographical judgement of undated books. The manuscript and, almost certainly, Wanley's discussion came to the notice of John O'Brien (1701-1769), bishop of Cloyne, who saw the manuscript in the British Museum in 1767. Using the so-called Dublin Annals of Inisfallen, compiled for him by Fr John Connery, O'Brien was able to refine the dating to 1138, and he added a discussion of this colophon when he prepared his Focaloir for the press in 1767-8. The tenor of one colophon's reference to Cormac's killing is interpreted as itself significant: from the perspective of the all-Ireland primatial see where Mael Brigte wrote, the killing of King Cormac ended hope of a faithful all-Ireland monarchy. The colophon can be read as a contemporary judgement.
(source: Oxford University Research Archives)
abstract:
Mael Brigte's Gospels, BL MS Harley 1802, a manuscript written at Armagh in the twelfth century, is datable from reference in its colophons to the killing of Cormac Mac Carthaig, king of Munster and of Ireland. The date was first worked out as 1139 from unpublished annals by Humfrey Wanley (1672-1726), Harley's librarian, in 1713-14, in a remarkable piece of scholarship. Wanley understood the importance of a dated manuscript as a basis for palaeographical judgement of undated books. The manuscript and, almost certainly, Wanley's discussion came to the notice of John O'Brien (1701-1769), bishop of Cloyne, who saw the manuscript in the British Museum in 1767. Using the so-called Dublin Annals of Inisfallen, compiled for him by Fr John Connery, O'Brien was able to refine the dating to 1138, and he added a discussion of this colophon when he prepared his Focaloir for the press in 1767-8. The tenor of one colophon's reference to Cormac's killing is interpreted as itself significant: from the perspective of the all-Ireland primatial see where Mael Brigte wrote, the killing of King Cormac ended hope of a faithful all-Ireland monarchy. The colophon can be read as a contemporary judgement.
(source: Oxford University Research Archives)
Sharpe, Richard, “Destruction of Irish manuscripts and the National Board of Education”, Studia Hibernica 43 (2017): 95–116.
abstract:
BL MS Add. 40767 is a nineteenth-century copy of Richard Plunket’s ‘Rugadh Pádraig’, thrown out with other manuscripts by its owner’s descendants in 1899 and rescued by a visitor from Liverpool, who showed four fragments to Kuno Meyer. Meyer wrote to Douglas Hyde, and Hyde wrote to the newspapers, using the episode to castigate the board of intermediate education, which he blamed for the ignorance of Irish language and literature that lay behind such destruction. He was much engaged in an argument over Irish in schools, but here he brings the preservation of modern vernacular manuscripts into the discussion. He shows himself well aware of the important collections in the Royal Irish Academy, but he is at the same time critical of the Academy, whether in line with external prejudice or in the hope of inducing greater effort. Saving manuscripts was not high on the agenda of the Gaelic League, and, though Hyde was himself a collector, he offered no remedy for the loss of manuscripts other than a revival of the use of Irish.
abstract:
BL MS Add. 40767 is a nineteenth-century copy of Richard Plunket’s ‘Rugadh Pádraig’, thrown out with other manuscripts by its owner’s descendants in 1899 and rescued by a visitor from Liverpool, who showed four fragments to Kuno Meyer. Meyer wrote to Douglas Hyde, and Hyde wrote to the newspapers, using the episode to castigate the board of intermediate education, which he blamed for the ignorance of Irish language and literature that lay behind such destruction. He was much engaged in an argument over Irish in schools, but here he brings the preservation of modern vernacular manuscripts into the discussion. He shows himself well aware of the important collections in the Royal Irish Academy, but he is at the same time critical of the Academy, whether in line with external prejudice or in the hope of inducing greater effort. Saving manuscripts was not high on the agenda of the Gaelic League, and, though Hyde was himself a collector, he offered no remedy for the loss of manuscripts other than a revival of the use of Irish.
Sharpe, Richard, “Medieval manuscripts found at Bonamargy friary and other hidden manuscripts”, Studia Hibernica 41 (2015): 49–85.
abstract:
The well-documented story that four manuscripts were found during building work in the ruins of Bonamargy friary in or before 1822 is tested and found not to fit the assumptions that have been brought to it. The books could not have been old Franciscan books, hidden by the friars, and it is not even apparent that they were deliberately hidden. Other manuscripts now known have stories about their hiding or their discovery, and some are patently false, others become doubtful when probed, such that the idea of deliberate hiding of manuscripts is scarcely credible. The Book of Lismore was found, neglected, it appears, in Lismore castle. The Domnach Airgid was, apparently hidden as a relic and retrieved soon afterwards at the time of the Williamite war. The Book of Dimma was never hidden, and the manuscripts at Cong may have been lost long before the story told about them. The finding of the Stowe Missal in an old wall is a story not attested before Eugene O’Curry (1841), who had shortly before worked on the Book of Lismore. The Bonamargy books remain unexplained.
abstract:
The well-documented story that four manuscripts were found during building work in the ruins of Bonamargy friary in or before 1822 is tested and found not to fit the assumptions that have been brought to it. The books could not have been old Franciscan books, hidden by the friars, and it is not even apparent that they were deliberately hidden. Other manuscripts now known have stories about their hiding or their discovery, and some are patently false, others become doubtful when probed, such that the idea of deliberate hiding of manuscripts is scarcely credible. The Book of Lismore was found, neglected, it appears, in Lismore castle. The Domnach Airgid was, apparently hidden as a relic and retrieved soon afterwards at the time of the Williamite war. The Book of Dimma was never hidden, and the manuscripts at Cong may have been lost long before the story told about them. The finding of the Stowe Missal in an old wall is a story not attested before Eugene O’Curry (1841), who had shortly before worked on the Book of Lismore. The Bonamargy books remain unexplained.
Sharpe, Richard, “King William and the Brecc Bennach in 1211: reliquary or holy banner?”, The Innes Review 66:2 (2015): 163–190.
abstract:
In his Rhind Lectures of 1879 Joseph Anderson argued for identifying the Monymusk Reliquary, now in the National Museum of Scotland, with the Brecc Bennach, something whose custody was granted to Arbroath abbey by King William in 1211. In 2001 David H. Caldwell called this into question with good reason. Part of the argument relied on different interpretations of the word uexillum, ‘banner’, taken for a portable shrine by William Reeves and for a reliquary used as battle-standard by Anderson. It is argued here that none of this is relevant to the question. The Brecc Bennach is called a banner only as a guess at its long-forgotten nature in two late deeds. The word brecc, however, is used in the name of an extant reliquary, Brecc Máedóc, and Anderson was correct to think this provided a clue to the real nature of the Brecc Bennach. It was almost certainly a small portable reliquary, of unknown provenance but associated with St Columba. The king granted custody to the monks of Arbroath at a time when he was facing a rebellion in Ross, posing intriguing questions about his intentions towards this old Gaelic object of veneration.
(source: Publisher)
abstract:
In his Rhind Lectures of 1879 Joseph Anderson argued for identifying the Monymusk Reliquary, now in the National Museum of Scotland, with the Brecc Bennach, something whose custody was granted to Arbroath abbey by King William in 1211. In 2001 David H. Caldwell called this into question with good reason. Part of the argument relied on different interpretations of the word uexillum, ‘banner’, taken for a portable shrine by William Reeves and for a reliquary used as battle-standard by Anderson. It is argued here that none of this is relevant to the question. The Brecc Bennach is called a banner only as a guess at its long-forgotten nature in two late deeds. The word brecc, however, is used in the name of an extant reliquary, Brecc Máedóc, and Anderson was correct to think this provided a clue to the real nature of the Brecc Bennach. It was almost certainly a small portable reliquary, of unknown provenance but associated with St Columba. The king granted custody to the monks of Arbroath at a time when he was facing a rebellion in Ross, posing intriguing questions about his intentions towards this old Gaelic object of veneration.
(source: Publisher)
Sharpe, Richard, “Were there British bishops at the council of Serdica, AD 343?”, Peritia 15 (2001): 188–194.
abstract:
An interdisciplinary note, showing how specialists in late antique Britain have preserved Athanasius’ claim of a British presence at the council of Serdica (AD 343) against all other evidence and without reference to other early church scholarship.
abstract:
An interdisciplinary note, showing how specialists in late antique Britain have preserved Athanasius’ claim of a British presence at the council of Serdica (AD 343) against all other evidence and without reference to other early church scholarship.
Contributions to edited collections or authored works
Sharpe, Richard, “Franciscan copies of Lucerna fidelium. Lóchrann na gcreidmheach in Ireland”, in: Caoimhín Breatnach, Meidhbhín Ní Úrdail, and Gordon Ó Riain (eds), Lorg na leabhar: a Festschrift for Pádraig A. Breatnach, Dublin: National University of Ireland, 2019. 332–342.
abstract:
Focused primarily on the nine copies of Francis O’Molloy’s Lucerna Fidelium (Rome, 1676) that were transferred from the Franciscan House of Studies to UCD in 2017, the discussion shows how they reflect the two phases in the distribution of the book, initially from Rome in the first thirty years after publication, and then in a second phase following the purchase of the unsold stock by Hodges & Smith in 1845. A copy now in Collegio S. Isidoro in Rome provides evidence for contemporary despatch to religious houses in Ireland, while the later distribution supplied many modern Franciscan houses in Ireland. In changed times these institutions have closed or given up their libraries, and the books were centralized at the House of Studies until that too ceased to function. UCD Special Collections has become their place of safety, but Catholic books remain at risk in many small institutions.
(source: ora.ox.ac.uk)
abstract:
Focused primarily on the nine copies of Francis O’Molloy’s Lucerna Fidelium (Rome, 1676) that were transferred from the Franciscan House of Studies to UCD in 2017, the discussion shows how they reflect the two phases in the distribution of the book, initially from Rome in the first thirty years after publication, and then in a second phase following the purchase of the unsold stock by Hodges & Smith in 1845. A copy now in Collegio S. Isidoro in Rome provides evidence for contemporary despatch to religious houses in Ireland, while the later distribution supplied many modern Franciscan houses in Ireland. In changed times these institutions have closed or given up their libraries, and the books were centralized at the House of Studies until that too ceased to function. UCD Special Collections has become their place of safety, but Catholic books remain at risk in many small institutions.
(source: ora.ox.ac.uk)
Sharpe, Richard, “Seán Ó Cléirigh and his manuscripts”, in: Pádraic Moran, and Immo Warntjes (eds), Early medieval Ireland and Europe: chronology, contacts, scholarship. A Festschrift for Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, 14, Turnhout: Brepols, 2015. 645–670.
abstract:
Seán Ó Cléirigh (†1846) was fifth in descent from Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh (†1665), one of the Four Masters, and in 1817 he brought to Dublin five manuscripts in the hand of or in one case merely owned by his ancestor and sold them. During the 1840s different stories circulated about this transaction, put on record by Eugene O’Curry and John O’Donovan, and this paper draws together the evidence that shows, for the first time, that Ó Cleirigh sold manuscripts to three different buyers, Edward O’Reilly, William Monck Mason, and Patrick Lynch. All survive, but one was split into parts at the time of the sales. The increase in prices during the 1830s and 1840s appears to have led Seán Ó Cléirigh to argue that these manuscripts had not been sold but merely lent to Edward O’Reilly.
abstract:
Seán Ó Cléirigh (†1846) was fifth in descent from Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh (†1665), one of the Four Masters, and in 1817 he brought to Dublin five manuscripts in the hand of or in one case merely owned by his ancestor and sold them. During the 1840s different stories circulated about this transaction, put on record by Eugene O’Curry and John O’Donovan, and this paper draws together the evidence that shows, for the first time, that Ó Cleirigh sold manuscripts to three different buyers, Edward O’Reilly, William Monck Mason, and Patrick Lynch. All survive, but one was split into parts at the time of the sales. The increase in prices during the 1830s and 1840s appears to have led Seán Ó Cléirigh to argue that these manuscripts had not been sold but merely lent to Edward O’Reilly.
Roberts, Brynley F., Richard Sharpe, Helen Watt, and Cultures of Knowledge, “The correspondence of Edward Lhuyd”, Early modern letters online (EMLO), Online: Oxford, Bodleian Library, 2013. URL: <http://emlo-portal.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections/?catalogue=edward-lhwyd>.
abstract:
The second Keeper of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, Edward Lhwyd was an important naturalist, archaeologist, and linguist. He published the first catalogue of English fossils, the Lithophilacii Britannici Ichnographia (1699), in a limited edition of 120 copies, and many of the specific fossils he illustrated survive still in Oxford’s collections. A keen naturalist, he assisted (among many others) John Ray with his botanical work. Perhaps Lhwyd’s greatest claim to scholarly significance, however, rests upon the extensive tours he made of the Celtic lands to continue his work as a naturalist and for the dual purposes of archaeological and linguistic survey. This resulted, on the one hand, in the most sophisticated archaeological work of the day; and on the other, in the first serious comparative study of the Welsh, Scots and Irish Gaelic, Cornish, and Breton languages. For this latter achievement Lhwyd is now regarded as the father of Celtic linguistics. His results were printed in Glossography (1707), the first volume of his projected Archaeologia Britannica, giving some account additional to what has hitherto been publish’d, of the languages, histories, and customs of the original inhabitants of Great Britain: from collections and observations in travels through Wales, Cornwal, Bas-Bretagne, Ireland and Scotland. This linguistic work, of course, must be associated with Lhwyd’s broader intellectual pursuits in Oxford, where he was not only Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, but also an active member of the Oxford Philosophical Society in its early years.
abstract:
The second Keeper of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, Edward Lhwyd was an important naturalist, archaeologist, and linguist. He published the first catalogue of English fossils, the Lithophilacii Britannici Ichnographia (1699), in a limited edition of 120 copies, and many of the specific fossils he illustrated survive still in Oxford’s collections. A keen naturalist, he assisted (among many others) John Ray with his botanical work. Perhaps Lhwyd’s greatest claim to scholarly significance, however, rests upon the extensive tours he made of the Celtic lands to continue his work as a naturalist and for the dual purposes of archaeological and linguistic survey. This resulted, on the one hand, in the most sophisticated archaeological work of the day; and on the other, in the first serious comparative study of the Welsh, Scots and Irish Gaelic, Cornish, and Breton languages. For this latter achievement Lhwyd is now regarded as the father of Celtic linguistics. His results were printed in Glossography (1707), the first volume of his projected Archaeologia Britannica, giving some account additional to what has hitherto been publish’d, of the languages, histories, and customs of the original inhabitants of Great Britain: from collections and observations in travels through Wales, Cornwal, Bas-Bretagne, Ireland and Scotland. This linguistic work, of course, must be associated with Lhwyd’s broader intellectual pursuits in Oxford, where he was not only Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, but also an active member of the Oxford Philosophical Society in its early years.
