Life
1571-1626 [Hugh MacCaghwell; Aodh MacCathmhaoil; “Cavellus”]; b. Co. Down; early years on Isle of Man; made tutor to Hugh O’Neill’s sons; went to Spain on defeat of Earls, entered Franciscan Order at Salamanca; Catholic Archbishop of Armagh; ed. Salamanca, famous as reader in theology; taught at Irish Franciscan College of St Anthony of Padua, at Louvain, 1616, Colgan and Patrick Fleming being among his pupils; travelled to Rome in 1623, where he served as reader in theology at convent of Ara Coeli, Rome, 1623;
consecreted archb. of Armagh at Rome, 1626; d. when preparing to go to Ireland; composed four Christmas carols in Irish; Latin and theological works; Scáthain Sacrameinte na hAithridhe [or Tractatus de Poenitentia et Indulgentiis] (Louvain 1618); Scoti Commentaria (Antwerp 1620); Quaestiones in Metaphysicam &c (Venice 1625); engaged in Franciscan defence of Duns Scotus [recte Eriugena] against Dominican-inspired attacks of Bovius and Jansen, claiming him as an Irishman, in Apologia pro Johanne Duns-Scoto adversus Abr. Bzovium (Paris 1623). ODNB DIW DUB OCIL
Works
Scáthain Sacrameinte na hAithridhe [or Tractatus de Poenitentia et Indulgentiis] (Louvain 1618); Scoti Commentaria (Antwerp 1620); Apologiam pro eodum vindicando ab injuriis allatis per Abrahamum Bzovium (q.d.); and [inter alia] Apologiam Apologiae supradictae pro Johanne Scoto Scriptae, in respondet Nicolao Jansenio Belgae Ord. Praedicatorum, Abrahami Bzovii partes suscipienti, no sine gravi Scoti et regni Hiberniae injuria. Prodiit Parisiis sub nomine Hugonis Magnesii discipuli Cavelli apud Michaelum Sonnium, anno 1623 (Paris 1623); Quaestiones in Metaphysicam &c (Venice 1625).
Criticism
Paul Walsh, Gleanings from Irish MSS (1930; 2nd edn. 1933); Tomás Ó Cléirigh, Aodh Mac Aingil agus an Scoil Nua-Gheadhilge i Lobháin [Louvain] (Baile Atha Claith: An Gúm 1936; 1985).
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A. S. Stopford, The Making of Ireland and Its Undoing, 1200-1600 (London: Macmillan 1909): ‘The powerful influence of Galway as a centre of the higher learning may have stimulated the lagging zeal of the English to found anThe orthodox university in Dublin; and presently to ensure its monopoly by the utter destruction of the Irish school. / The long roll of writers that distinguished Ireland in the end of the sixteenth century, and on to 1648, shows the effect produced by these town schools, and how ably the Irish youths were trained for the foreign universities to which they were forced to go for their degrees—men such as Hugh MacCaghwell, reckoned a man of b. 1574. great learning, of singular piety and humility, as well as one of the greatest among the school-men of his time.’ (p.371; [Chap. on Education, ‘Effect of the Town Schools’].)
Michael Cronin, Translating Ireland: Tranlsations, Languages, Cultures (Cork UP 1996): quotes Scáthán Shacramuinte na hAithridhe, explicitly mentioning Ó Domhnaill’s translations of the Bible as part of efforts to spread what he regarded as heresy in Ireland: ‘Mara atá leabhar Aifreann ag an Eaglais Chatoilc, do-conncas d’eiricibh na hÉirionn ghé leanbahir Aifrainn do bheith aca fhéin dá gcuiridis “fallsa” leis. Ó Nar chuireadar, ní leasainm dhó Leabhar Iffrin Eareaceachda do thabhairt air. Do chuirsead an leabhar so agus móran don Bhíobla a nGaoidhilg agus as lór a neimhchirti sgríobhthar iad.’ [As the Catholic Church has a prayer book heretics of Ireland saw to it that they had their own kind of prayer book called the Common Book and it is not a bad name if you add the word “false” to it. As this was not done, it is no minomer to call it the Book of the Hell of Heretics. This book and a lot of the Bible were translated into Irish and they were uin the fullness of error’ [trans. Cronin, Canneach Ó Maonaigh, ed., Scáthán Shacramuinte na hAithridhe, Institúid Ardéin, DIAS 1952 1952, p.5; Cronin, p.61.)
References
The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, gen. ed., Seamus Deane (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, selects Scáthán Shacramuinte na hAithrí [The Mirror of the Sacrament of Repentence], 321-22; BIOG., 325 [no bibl.].
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