A young friend of mine, William John O’Donovan of the Middle Temple, London, has been making researches in London about O’Donovans, and has found some particulars about the sept of Kilmeen, or Mac Enesles, which escaped me. I will write to him on the subject when I hear of his arriving in London. He is a very young man of some fortune, and a most enthusiastic herald and genealogist.
Since I wrote to you last, I lost my only brother, and am now the last of my generation. He left one grandson of the ominous name of Kerrigan (which was the name of the old bishop of Cork who left a curse on our race for their having murdered Mahon King of Munster, the brother of Brian Boru). My brother’s daughter, Adelia ni Donovan was married to Thomas Frederick Kerrigan, the only son of an old merchant of New York. She had no money, of course, and the old man turned his son out of doors for this imprudent marriage. Then the son went to California, where he went through a variety of adventures. At length the father died, and the hero of California has returned to his wife and child, and taken his father’s place in New York.
I enclose you his note to me, from which I infer that he believed I had known all about my brother’s death; but I had not known a word about it except in a dream, from which I would venture to calculate the minute at which he died.
The enclosed extract from a note from the Reverend Mr. Hayman, Protestant minister of Youghal, reminded me of you, and I send it, hoping that you will be able to tell me something about the Nagles mentioned by him. I remain, dear sir, yours ever sincerely,
John O’Donovan.
Dublin, 36 Upper Buckingham Street,
October 25, 1858.
Diarmuid O’Donnobhain (Mac Enesles, Rosa-Mhoir.)
My dear Friend—The O’Donovan and I are good friends? He seems to me to be a kind and good man, and really an Irishman of some spirit. I gave the young gentleman of the Inner Temple, London, a letter of introduction to him last August, and he spent about ten days with him at Montpelier, while he was examining the registry of Cork, for O’Donovan Wills. He told me that The O’Donovan treated him with great urbanity, hospitality and kindness. This young gentleman is of the Wexford Sept of the Hy-Figenti; is about twenty-six years old, six feet two inches tall; a Protestant, (but he is likely to be fished up by the Pope some day or another, like the Ramm of Gorey!) Next year, during the vacation, he promises to examine the Herbert documents for me. Herbert had given me permission to examine his papers several years since, but I have not been able to take time to go to Killarney. This young gentleman has been in receipt of £350 per annum in right of his mother, who died when he was eighteen months old. His father, who is about sixty-seven years old, married a young wife a year or two since, but he will leave this young Mr. John O’Donovan £400 a year in addition to what he has already. He is the cousin-german of the Captain E. O’Donovan, who took the Russian battery at Alma, and of Henry O’Donovan who was shot through the head at the taking of the Little Redan at Sebastopol.
As I feel convinced that you take a great interest in all true branches of our name, I enclose you a letter from a Daniel Donovan of Queenstown (Cove of Cork) who appears to me to be a very respectable and worthy man, though little known in his neighborhood, except as a baker. Who is he? I firmly believe that the name will become important again, though now sunk low enough as regards landed property.