Wishing you every happiness, I remain dear sir, yours ever,
J. O’Donovan.
Dublin, March 21, 1860.
My dear Friend—I have promised to write for Sir Bernard Burk’s “Family Vicissitudes” a few articles on fallen Irish families, and I was thinking of giving a note of James O’Donovan of Cooldurragha, whom you told me was in the poorhouse, Skibbereen. You mentioned to me that he had no son. Perhaps you might not think it troublesome to ask himself if he would like this notice of him to appear. If he should like it, you will oblige me by letting me know exactly what he has to say on the “vicissitudes” of his family. I know you have a quick apprehension and a lively imagination, and I will therefore expect from your pen a curious story from the dictation of James O’D. himself, on the vicissitudes of his family. I believe that his descent is pure, and that he is now the senior representative of Donogh, the fourth son of O’Donovan by the daughter of Sir Owen McCarthy-Reagh. This is a high descent for one who is a porter in the poorhouse, and I think his story might be worked up into a narrative that might do justice to the genius of Plutarch.
Your friend Edmond, the painter, has got free access to the records of the Ulster King’s Tower. I am almost afraid to let him indulge his tastes for heraldry; but I am willing to let him go there every second day, on condition that he will not neglect his classical studies. Should you be writing to your cousin Florence, of New York, you will oblige me by asking him to call on my nephew-in-law, Thomas Francis Kerrigan, telling him that I wish them to become acquainted.
This has been a very severe March, but as you have youth, health and enthusiasm on your side, you must have come off more scathless from the effects of it than one who is a regular Mananan Mac Lir—a regular thermometer—from the effects of rheumatism.
Yours, ever sincerely,
John O’Donovan.
As he asked me to see James O’Donovan, I saw him. He was a porter at the entrance gate of the Skibbereen Poorhouse, at a salary of twelve pounds a year.