The Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Volume 1, November 1864

by Unknown

C. Episcopus Portuen. et S. Rufinae Card. Patrizi S. R. C. Praef. Loco ✠ Signi D. Bartolini S. R. C. Secretarius.

Notices Of Books.

I.

Martyrologium Dungallense, seu Calendarium Sanctorum Hiberniae. Collegit et digessit Fr. Michael O'Clery, Ord. Fr. Min. Strictioris Observantiae. Permissu et facultate Superiorum. 1630.

The Martyrology of Donegal: a Calendar of the Saints of Ireland, translated from the original Irish by the late John O'Donovan, LL.D., M.R.I.A., Professor of Celtic Literature in the Queen's College, Belfast. Edited, with the Irish text, by James Henthorn Todd, D.D., M.R.I.A., F.S.A., Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin; and by William Reeves, D.D., M.R.I.A., Vicar of Lusk, etc. Dublin: printed for the Archaeological Society. Thom, 1864, lv.-566 pp.

The Martyrology of Donegal was completed on the 19th of April, 1630, in the Franciscan convent of Donegal. The compilers were Brother Michael O'Clery, a lay brother of that convent, with three associates who with him are so well known by the name of “The Four Masters”. Colgan (Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae, tom. 1, p. 5 a.) thus speaks of it: “Martyrologium quod Dungallense vocamus, nostris diebus ex diversis tum Martyrologiis, tum annalibus patriis collectum est, partim operâ Authorum qui Annales communes, de [pg 099] quibus infra, compilarunt in Conventu Dungallensi; partim opera Patrum ejusdem Conventus qui sanctos, qui extra patriam vixerunt et de quibus hystorici exteri scripserunt, addiderant”. The Donegal copy of 1630 was a more complete transcript of a first copy, made by Michael O'Clery in the preceding year at Douay. Both copies are now extant in the Burgundian Library at Brussels, but circumstances have not permitted Dr. Todd to get the first copy also transcribed. Both copies are autographs of Michael O'Clery.

The first to discover the mine of Irish MSS. in Brussels was Mr. L. Waldron, M.P., who, in 1844, at the request of Professor O'Curry, examined the library there. By the influence of Lord Clarendon, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, with the government, Dr. Todd procured from the Belgian government, in 1848, the loan of several MSS. of the greatest importance, with the permission to have them transcribed. One of these was the autograph MS. of the Martyrology of Donegal, prepared for the press by the author, with the approbations of his ecclesiastical superiors. A copy of it was executed by the late Professor O'Curry with the skill and beauty of his unequalled penmanship; and this copy was collated with the original, whilst it was still in Dr. Todd's possession. From O'Curry's copy Dr. Reeves made another for his own use, and from this he made a third transcript for the printers, and the translator, Dr. O'Donovan. This translation was the last labour of Dr. O'Donovan's life.

The contents of the volume are distributed as follows: An introduction (ix.-xxiv.) by Dr. Todd is followed by an appendix (xxiv.-xlix.) containing “a number of memoranda, references to authorities, and miscellaneous notes, which have been written by the author, and others, through whose hands the MS. has passed, on the fly-leaves at the beginning and end of each volume”. Many of them are of great interest. Then come the Testimonia et Approbationes (xlix.-lv.) of Flann Mac Egan, Conner McBrody, Dr. Malachy O'Cadhla, Archbishop of Tuam; Dr. Boetius Mac Egan, Bishop of Elphin; Dr. Thomas Fleming, Archbishop of Dublin; and Dr. Roth Mac Geoghegan, Bishop of Kildare. The Martyrology proper follows (1-351) with the Irish text on one page and Dr. O'Donovan's translation on the other. The notes appended are but few, and serve merely to explain obscurities in the text, to settle the reading, or to correct some obvious mistake. For almost all the notes we are indebted to Dr. Todd himself. A table of the Martyrology, compiled by the author, and translated by Dr. Todd, occupies from page 354 to page 479, and is followed by three indexes, compiled by Dr. Reeves, one of persons (485-528), another of places (529-553), and a third of matters (544-566). These indexes, says Dr. Todd, “possess a topographical and historical interest quite independent of their connection with [pg 100] the present work, and are in themselves a most important practical help to the study of Irish history”.

What is the value of this work? What position does it occupy among Irish Ecclesiastical documents? It cannot be regarded as an original authority. “It is confessedly a compilation, and of comparatively recent date, having been completed, as we have seen, in the early part of the seventeenth century. But it is a compilation made by a scholar peculiarly well fitted for the task, who had access to all the original documents then extant in the Irish language, the matter of which he has transferred either in whole or in part into the present work, quoting in almost every instance the sources from which he drew his information” (Introd., p. xiii.). The bare enumeration of these sources will serve to show the value of the book. I. The Metrical Calendar, or Festilogium of Aengus Ceile De, commonly called the Felire of Aengus. Its author was a monk of Tallaght, near Dublin, in the days when Saint Maolruain was abbot, about the beginning of the ninth century. Dr. Kelly of Maynooth has published a translation of a portion of this Metrical Calendar in his Calendar of Irish Saints. II. The Martyrology of Tallaght. This is a transcript of a very ancient martyrology containing the names of the saints and martyrs of the entire Church, with the Irish saints added under each day. It was composed at the close of the ninth or very early in the tenth century. The Brussels MS. is an abstract of the ancient copy at Saint Isidore's at Rome, but it contains the Irish saints alone, omitting altogether the general martyrology. It was from a transcript of the Belgian MS. that Dr. Kelly published in 1857 the calendar alluded to above. III. The Calendar of Cashel, which is not now known to exist. According to Colgan, its author flourished about the year 1030. IV. The Martyrology of Maolmuire (or Marianus) O'Gorman, written in Irish verse, in the times of Gelasius, Archbishop of Armagh, about 1167. Its author was abbot of Knock, near Louth, and the work is taken from the Felire of Tallaght, and is not confined to Irish saints. V. The Book of Hymns, a portion of which has already been published by the Irish Archaeological and Celtic Society, and of which a second portion is in the press, under the care of Dr. Todd. VI. Poems, such as the Poem of St. Cuimin of Condeire (Connor), of the middle of the seventh century, published by Dr. Kelly, with a translation by Professor O'Curry; the Naoimhseanchus, attributed by Colgan to Selbach of the tenth century; the Poem of St. Moling of Ferns (a.d. 675-695), and several minor poems. VII. Several of the great collections or Bibliothecae, of which he names expressly the Book of Lecan, the Leabhar na Huidre, and the Book of Lismore. VIII. The lives of saints in Irish and [pg 101] Latin. Of these he quotes no less than thirty-one. From this list it will be seen that almost all the literature of the early Irish Church has helped to enrich the pages of the Martyrology of Donegal. And since norma orandi legem statuit credendi, we could scarcely find a nobler monument of the faith and practice of our forefathers. The Church that places on her list of saints, bishops, and priests, and abbots, and consecrated virgins, and hermits, possesses in that very calendar a mark deep and broad enough to distinguish her from all the sects that belong to modern Protestantism.