Geoffrey Keating (?1570-?1644)

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Bibliographical details

1st Editions of 1723 - Dublin & London

1723 Edition (Dublin) The General History of Ireland containing [ List of I-VI as infra] Collected by the Learned Jeoffrey Keating, D.D. Faithfully translated from the original Irish language, with many curious amendments taken from the Psalters of Tara and Cashel, and other auth-entick Records by Dermod O’Connor, Antiquarian of the Kingdom of Ireland DUBLIN Printed by James Carson, in Coghill’s Court, Dame- Street, opposite the Castle-Market, and sold by the Book-sellers MD,CC,XXIII [1723] Click image to enlarge Title-page details of some editions of General History The General History of Ireland. [2 parts in 1 vol.] Containing 1. A full and impartial Account of the first inhabitants of the Kingdom with the lives and reigns of an Hundred and Seventy Four succeeding Monarchs of the Milesian Race. 2. The Original of the Gadelians, their travels into Spain, and from thence into Ireland. 3. A succinct account of the Reigns of all the Kings of Ireland with several attempts and invasions upon that Island. 4. Of the frequent assistance the Irish afforded the Scots against their enemies the Romans and Britons, particularly their obliging the Britons to make a ditch from Sea to Sea, between England and Scotland, to guard themselves from the Surprize and Frequent incursions of the Scots and Irish. 5. A genuine description of the Liberality of the Ancient Irish, their severe laws to preserve their Records and Antiquities, and the punishment inflicted upon those Antiquaries who presumed to vary from the Truth; with an account of the Laws and Customs of the Irish, and their Royal Assemblies at Tara, &c. 6. A relation of the long and bloody wars of the Irish against the Danes, whose Yoke they at last threw off, and restored Liberty to their Country, which they preserved till the Arrival of Henry II, King of England. Collected by the Learned Jeoffrey Keating, D.D.Faithfully translated from the original Irish language, with many curious amendments taken from the Psalters of Tara and Cashel, and other authentick Records by Dermod O’Connor, Antiquarian of the Kingdom of Ireland (Printed James Carson, in Coghill’s Court, Dame-Street, opposite the Castle-Market, and sold by the Book-sellers MD,CC,XXIII 1723). Front. Brian Boirimhe [sub-caption: Bryan Boirimhe, Monarch of Ireland, 1027] [ See Mallams bookseller - online; sale record - sold for £620 against estimated £100-200 - 23 Feb. 2022. ]

1738 Edition (London) A General History of Ireland, [containing] a Full and Impartial Account of the Original of that Kingdom, with the Lives and Reigns of an Hundred and Seventy-four succeeding Monarchs of the Milesian Race. The Original of the Gaedelians. Their Travels into Spain, and from thence into Ireland. [... A relation of the long and bloody wars of the irish against the Danes, which Yoke they at last threw off, and [installed] Liberty of theit Country which they preserved till the [Arrival] of Henry II King of England. Collected by the Learned Jeoffry Keating D.D. [and] faithfully translated from the Original Irish language by Dermot O’Connor, Esq., with many Improvements from the Psalms of Tara and Cashel, and other AUTHENTIC RECORDS / Engraved with above one Hundred and Sixty Coats of Arms of the Ancient IRISH, with particular Genealogies of many Noble Familes, curiously Engraved upon Forty Two COPPER-Plates. Also, / A Curious Print of Brian Boirimhe, Monarch of Ireland in 1027. The Third Edition, with a Appendix (not in the former Edition) from the REMARKS / Of the Learned Dr. Anthony Raymond, of Trim. London: Printed for B. Creake, and sold by Oliver Payne, at [Horace]-Head, in Round-Court, in the Strand / MDCCXXXVIII [1738]. (Click image to enlarge.)

Irish Text Society edition, 4 vols (London 1902-14) - Publishing Chronology and Contents Foras feasa ar Eirinn: The History of Ireland, ed David Comyn [for Irish Texts Society], 4 vols. [being Vols. 4, 8-9, 15 in the ITS series], Vol. I (ITS 1902); Vol. II (ITS 1908); Vol. III (ITS 1908); Vol. IV ITS 1914). CONTENTS: Vol. I: The Introduction (pp.iii-xviii.) and the First Book of the History; Vol. II: The Book of the History from Sect. XV to the End; Vol. III: The Second Book of the History; Vol. IV [ed. P. S. Dinneen], Genealogies and Synchronisms; index incls. elucidation of place names and annotations to text of Vols. I, II, III [483pp.]. Do. [rep. edn.] (London: Irish Texts Society 1987), 230pp. [ See Díonbhrollach Foras Feasa ar Eirinn; or, Vindication of the Sources of Irish History by [...] G. Keating, being the introduction to ‘Groundwork of Knowledge of Ireland’, [with] notes, vocabulary [Vol. I] (Dublin: Gill 1898), 112pp. [infra].

CATALOGUES

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Commentary
See separate life - infra.

Quotations
See separate file - infra

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References
Charles A. Read, The Cabinet of Irish Literature (London, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast & Edinburgh: Blackie & Son [1876-78]); Keating is the first author in Read’s Cabinet (ed. T. P. O’Connor, 1880), on Keating, b. Tubbrid [sic] nr. Clogheen, co. Tipperary; ed. Salamanca at early age and for 23 years; famous at home for eloquence on his return; ‘Among others came a gentleman’s wife whom common fame reported to be too familiar with the Lord president of Munster. The preacher’s discourse was on the sin of adultery, and the eyes of the whole congregation being on the lady, she was in great confusion, and, imagining that the doctor had preached that sermon on purpose to insult her, she made loud complaint of him to the president, who was so enraged that he gave orders for apprehending him, intending to punish him with all the rigour of the law’; fled to the Galtee Mts.; his History of Ireland prepared in hiding and ultimately complete 1625; in 1603 [sic] enabled by recall of president Sir George Carew to England to return to his parish [this identification like the date of the whole account is dubious]; a church door erected at Tubbrid in 1644 said to bear inscription, ‘in Tybrid, hid from mortal eye,/A priest, a poet, and a prophet lie/All these and more than in one man could be/Concentred was in famous Jeoffry’; skilful writer in Latin and Irish. Various opinions incl. Peter Talbot, ‘an able but extravagantly mad performance’; D’Arcy Magee, ‘a semi-barbaric, semi-historic work, full of faith in legends and trust in traditions’ and acknowledges that ‘if it contains improbabilities or absurdities they are not of his creation’; O’Curry, ‘This book is written in the modified Gaedhilic of Keating’s own time’; also O’Curry, better for those who extract information from him to ‘endeavour to imitate his devoted industry and scholarship, than to attempt to elevate themselves to a higher position of literary fame by a display of critical pedantry and what they suppose to be independence of opinion in scoffing at the presumed credulity of those whose labours have laid in modern times the very groundwork of Irish history’. With regard to the pre-Flood portion of his History, Keating wrote, ‘nor have I inserted it in the beginning of this history with any desire that it should be believed, but only for the same of order, and out of respect to some records of the kingdom that make mention of it.’ MS in of the original but Mulcoury [sic for Mulconry] to be found in TCD Lib. ‘Thoughts on Inisfail’, translated by Darcy Magee; ‘A Farewell to Ireland’, addressed to his harper; ‘An elegy on the Death of Lord de Decies’; and the ‘Three Shafts of Death’, treatise in Irish prose, which Irish soldiers have long held in admiration; d. c.1650. CAB selects, ‘Thoughts on Inisfail’, trans. by Reade; ‘How the Milesians Came’ [n. Keating dates the event 1300BC]; ‘Parliament at Tara, instituted by King Ollamh Fodhla, 3082AM’, ‘The Fenians of the Olden Time’ (c.230AD); ‘How the Dailgais Returned Home after Clontarf’ (1014), all the foregoing in Dermod O’Connor’s translation; also ‘Keating to His Letter’, verse [from trans. by John D’Alton in Hardiman’s Irish Minstrelsy].

Dictionary of National Biography lists Keating (?1570-?1644); author of Foras Feasa ar Eirinn (‘Foundation of Knowledge on Ireland’), history to English invasion, never printed except in translation, widely circulated in MSS; his Trí Biorghaoithe an Bhais printed by [Dr.] Atkinson, 1890. See also Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica: Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, p.348.

Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington: University of America 1904); Gaelic Index (Vol. 10, 4012), contains biographical note recounting that Douglas Hyde calls Keating ‘the Herodotus of Ireland’, in Literary History of Ireland. Further, ‘He brought limpid Irish to its highest perfection’; ‘I consider him the first Irish historian and trained scholar who [...] wrote for the masses not the classes ...’; b. Tubbrid, nr. Clogheeen, etc.; sent to Spain, etc [this biog. plainly copied in brief from Reade]; ALSO PS Dineen on, 10, 3959 [extract from Irish Prose by Dineen [in Irish and English l/r], ‘No author has done as much as Keating to preserve Irish amongst the people, especially the people of Leath Mhogha. Not that Keating wrote a very accurate or critical history, but he ammassed into one repository the accounts of Ireland given in the old books [...] It seems to us that had the Forus [sic] Feasa not been written, the remembrance of by-gone times, or the names of the old chieftains, or the exploits of the heroes would not have been half so fresh in the minds of the people as they were some fifty years ago [...] the poor people as well as the upper classes had it [...] Geoffrey also prefixed a splendid ‘Apology’ to his Forus Feasa [Is álainn an díon-brollach a chuireann Seathrún le n-a Fhorus Feasa’] [...] he did not leave much of Stanihurst that he did not rend to bits; heavy is the weight of his hand falling on Camden and on Spenser [...] he is like some great champion, some Cuchulainn or Achilles, his arms ready in his hands, clad in armour from head to foot, while he strikes down with zeal and fierce wrath those diminutive persons who gave false evidence against his country and who insulted his people’ [...] &c. [Dineen suggests that if he were alive today he would strike down equally Froude, Macauley, and Hume, 3963]; Keating’s Cave in Aherlow Glen, 7, 2615 [William O’Brien, ‘And still in Keating’s cave in Aherlow, and O’Flaherty’s cabin in Connemara, and Lynch’s cell in Louvain, the undying spark is kept alive, and the treasonous manuscripts of the Gael are cherished for happier days. Not happier, more unhappy days arrive’; from A Plea for the Study of Irish, in a lecture, ‘The Influence of the Irish Language’, given before Cork Nat. Soc., May 13 1902] .

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, ed. A. W. Ward & A. R. Waller, 18 vols. (1907–21), Vol. XIV [“The Victorian Age, Pt. 2”], IX: Anglo-Irish Literature; Sect. 5: ‘Geoffrey Keating’: Works by Anglo-Irish writers of the seventeenth century are largely in Latin and, therefore, are not dealt with here. A reference to the bibliography of this chapter will, however, show that a few of these have been rendered into English and should be consulted, in this or in their original form by students interested in Irish history, archaeology and hagiology, secular and religious, and in the treatment of these subjects by such distinguished contemporary writers as John Colgan, Sir James Ware—whom archbishop Ussher had educated into an interest in Irish history and antiquities - Luke Wadding and Philip O’Sullivan Beare. These, too, were the times of Geoffrey Keating, the first writer of modern Irish who can claim to possess literary style, and of the O’Clery family. Keating was a poet as well as a historian, and his lyric Geoffrey Keating to his Letter on its way to Ireland is one of the most charming of Irish patriotic poems. Keating’s History of Ireland has been recently issued by the Irish Text society, with an excellent English translation facing the original Irish, and Annals of the Four Masters may also be consulted in a satisfactory English version. [See Bartleby.com: Great Books Online: link.]

Stephen Gwynn (The Fair Hills of Ireland, Dublin: Maunsel 1906): ‘Keating’s significance is other and greater than merely as a historian. He was contemporary with the Four Masters who like him gathered and digested all that they could find in the ancient records of their country. But they, the descendants of hereditary and professed historians, maintained the professional tradition of a deliberately archaic style, which scorned popular comprehensions. Keating wrote for the people in the Irish which was spoken by educated men of his day. He is the first classic of modern Irish prose.’ (Quoted in P. J. Kavanagh, Voices in Ireland, 1994, pp.135-36.)

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Frank O’Connor, Book of Ireland (1968), gives extracts, “The Origin of the Battle of Clontarf”, [includes the story of Gormley, dg. of Murrough, refusing to sew Brian’s button, and the game of chess between Murrough and the abbot of Glendalough, in which Maol Mordha advises the losing move, pp.74-76]; “The Return from Fingal” [the wounded men of Dal gCais led by Donough, son of Brian, stuff moss in their wounds to fight with their comrades against the greater numbers of the men of South Munster; Giolla Padraic advises the men of Ossary (S. Munster) to skirmish rather than give battle, pp.76-9]; “Mo Chua and His Three Treasures” [Colm Cille consoles him when his cock, mouse, and fly die, that possessions are misery, ‘I think by this joking of real saints that they were not much interested in worldly goods, unlike most of the people of our time’], all from History of Ireland [Foras Feasa] in O’Connor’s translations.

Robert Hogan, ed., Dictionary of Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1979), Deirdre jumps from a chariot, strikes her head on a stone, and dies, rather than leaping in the grave after Naisi, in Keating’s version of the ‘Death of the Sons of Uisnech [Uislui]’. The essay on Gaelic Literature includes a paragraph on Keating, his aim to refute the false impressions of his country given by writers such as Stanyhurst, Moryson, William Camden, and Sir John Davies. Keating’s history will not stand up to modern critical examination for he accepted much of the legendary accounts of the past as the truth, but his work is a masterpiece of Gaelic prose [...] limpid narrative style [...] Few students of modern Irish have not delighted in Bergin’s Stories from Keating’s History of Ireland [...] such is the magic of style. [Seamus O’Neill.]

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1: selects Foras Feasa ar Eirinn, 255-59 & 323-24; News from Ireland, 282; Trí Biorhaoithe ar Bháis, 322-23. Editors remark that the cultural importance of Foras [Feasa] is that it fills the gaps in the transmission of seanchas which inevitably occurred follow-ing the demise of the bardic schools [...] [inform[ing] the political attitudes of those in opposition to the English domination of Ireland [...] almost racial polarisation in the writing of history [...] paralleled by opposition between protestant and catholic historians [236]; BIOG, 272. Notes that Foras &c, written in early 1630s; in Turbid; it appears that [Keating] offended a local lady in a sermon and was pursued by the authorities [...] went into hiding; travelled widely; [enjoyed] protection of protestants while consulting manuscripts; [given] access to library of TCD; said to have been murdered by Cromwellian soldiers in St Nicolas’s Church, Clonmel; mentions Dermot O’Connor’s trans. of Foras (1723).

CELT lists secondary sources: Risteard Ó Foghludha [“Fiachra Eilgeach”], Saoghal-ré Sheathrúin Céitinn: Sacart is dochtúir san diadhacht, staruidhe, file, ughdar, &c. [rep. from Gaelic Journal, XVIII, 1-12, 47-5708] (Dublin 1908); R. Henebry, ‘Geoffrey Keating’, in Journal of the Ivernian Society, 5 (1913) 197-202; Réamonn Ó Muireadaigh, ‘Lámhscríbhinn agus blúirí eile ó Mhainistir Bhuithe’, in Seanchas Ard Mhacha, 5 (No.270), pp.397-400 [desc. of 18th c. MS of Foras Feasa in Monasterboice, Co. Louth]; M. J. Connellan, ‘The See of Tuaim in Rath Breasail Synod’, in Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, 24 (1950/51), pp.19-26 [ad FF iii, 302-5]; Anne Cronin, ‘The sources of Keating’s Forus Feasa ar éirinn’, in éigse, 43/44 (1945), pp.235-79; & 45/47 (1948), pp.122-35 [1. The printed sources; 2. Manuscript sources (1) The manuscript sources of book 1, Chaps. 4-23; no more publ.]; Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin, ‘Céitinn agus Caesarius Heisterbacensis’, in éigse, 9 (1958/61) [4], p.242; Brian Ó Cuív, ed., ‘An Eighteenth-century account of Keating and his Foras feasa ar éirinn’, in éigse, 9 (1958), pp.263-69; Brian Ó Cuív, ed., ‘A seventeenth-century Criticism of Keating’s Forus Feasa ar éirinn’, in éigse, 11 (1964/66) (pt. 265), pp.119-40 [from MS R.I.A. 23 M 40; with notes]; Brian Ó Cuív, ed., l. Labraid Loingsech [incl. edn. of relevant scholia to ACC, from MS N.L. G 50; on Keating’s use of Source Material for the LL section in Foras Feasa], in éigse, 11 (1964/66), pp.167-87, 290; Pádraig Ó Fiannachta, ‘Stair Finnscéal agus Snnála’, in LCC, 2 (1971) [No. 1], pp.5-13; Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin, ‘A possible source for Keating’s Forus feasa ar éirinn’, in éigse, 19 (1982-83) 61-81; Nicholas Canny, ‘The Formation of the Irish Mind: Religion, Politics and Gaelic Irish Literature 1580-1750’, in Past and Present, 95 (1982), pp.91-116; Seán Ó Dúshláine, ‘More about Keating’s Use of the Simile of the Dung-Beetle’, in Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie, 40 (1984), pp.282-85; Ó Dúshláine, ‘Seathrún Céitinn agus an Stíl Bharócach [baroque] a Thug Sé go h-éirinn’, in Feasta, 37/10 (1984) 10-15; Donnchadh Ó Corráin, ‘Seathrún Céitinn (c.1580-c.1644): an cúlra stairiúil’, in Feasta 37/10 (1984) 17-21; Bernadette Cunningham, ‘Seventeenth-Century Interpretations of the Past: The Case of Geoffrey Keating’, Irish Historical Studies, 25, No. 98 (1986), pp.116-28; Breandán Ó Buachalla, ‘Annála Ríoghachta éireann agus Foras Feasa ar éirinn: An Comhthéacs Comhaimseartha’, in Studia Hibernica, 22-23 (1982-83), pp.59-105; Diarmaid Ó Catháin, Dermot O’Connor: translator of Keating’, in Eighteenth Century Ireland, 2 (1987) 67-87; Brendan Bradshaw, ‘Geoffrey Keating: apologist of Irish Ireland’, in Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origins of the Conflict, 1534-1660, ed. Brenda Bradshaw, Andrew Hadfield & Willy Maley (Cambridge 1993), pp.166-90; Bernadette Cunningham, ‘Representations of King, Parliament and the Irish People in Geoffrey Keating’s Foras Feasa ar éirinn and John Lynch’s Cambrensis eversus (1662)’, in Political thought in seventeenth-centuy Ireland, ed. Jane Ohlmyer (Cambridge UP 2000); Bernadette Cunningham, The World of Geoffrey Keating: History, Myth and Religion in Seventeenth-century Ireland (Dublin 2000); Bernadette Cunningham & Raymond Gillespie, ‘Patrick Logan and Foras Feasa ar éirinn’, in éigse, 32 (2000), pp.146-52; Bernadette Cunningham, ‘Geoffrey Keating’s Foras Feasa ar érinn’, in History Ireland, 9/1 (Spring 2001). [Go to CELT web pages: link.]

COPAC lists Díonbhrollach fórais feasa ar éirinn: or, Vindication of the sources of Irish history. By [...] G. Keating, being the introduction to his “Groundwork of Knowledge on Ireland”. Edited ... with new translation, notes, vocabulary, &c. by D. Comyn. Irish & Eng. Publisher: Dublin, 1898. pp. 112.; 8o. Also as Foras feasa ar Eirinn. The History of Ireland [Irish Texts Society; 4,8-9,15] 3 vols.(London: Irish Texts Soc. 1902-14) [being] Vol.1: The introduction and the first book of the history. Vol.2: The book of the history from sect. XV to the end. Vol.3: The second book of the history. Foras feasa ar Eirinn. The history of Ireland [Irish Texts Society; 4,8-9,15] London: Irish Texts Soc. 1902-14), Vol.1: The introduction and the first book of the history. Vol.2: The book of the history from sect. XV to the end. Vol.3: The second book of the history.

Hyland Books (Cat. 220; 1996) lists J. Keating, D. O’Connor trans., The General History of Ireland (Duffy 1854), 556pp.; but cf. Hyland No. 219 (Oct. 1995), listing General History [...] &c. (1868); also ‘RJC’, Geoffrey Keating, priest, poet, and patriot, his life, times, and literary work (Dublin: CTS n.d.) [pamphlet], 36pp.

Belfast Public Library holds The History of Ireland under variant titles and editions, 1811, 1841, 1861, 1902. Library of Herbert Bell, Belfast, holds Jeoffry [sic] Keating, The General History of Ireland Vol. I (Newry 1820).

University of Ulster Library, Morris Collection, holds Foras Feasa ar Eirinn, 4 vols. (Irish Texts Soc., 1902-1914); also Bk I, Pt. I ([Dublin:] Gill 1880); The General History of Ireland, 2 vols. (Christie 1809); Eochair-Sgiath an Aifrinn ar na chnuasach agus ar na sgriobhadh le Seathrun Ceitinn (Dublin 1898) 128pp.; Sgealaigh-eacht Cheitinn, Stories from Keating’s History of Ireland (RIA 1930) 121pp.

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Notes
Translators of Foras Feasa ar Eirinn: William Holliday, Vol. I (Dublin 1811); John O’Mahoney (New York 1857); Patrick Weston Joyce, Bk. I, Pt. I (Dublin 1900); David Comyn & Patrick S. Dineen [Irish Texts Society] (London 1902, 1908, 1914). [All cited in Russell K. Alspach, Irish Poetry from the English Invasion to 1978, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania UP 1959]. Also, a Latin Translation by John Lynch (Louvain 1660).

MS versions: MS in the Franciscan Convent Library, Dublin; written in the convent of Kildare before 1640, and probably the oldest extant transcription; MS of James O’Mulconry of Ballymecuda, Co. Clare, held in TCD Library (MS H. 5 26; Cat. No. 1397); another (MS H. 5 32, Cat. No. 1403); Haliday’s text stated to have been printed from MS by O’Mulconry dated 1657, but varying from the foregoing; MS written by O’Mulconry (1643), and formerly in possession of David Comyn; MS by Teig O’Nachtan (1704), formerly in possession of David Comyn. [Information available on CELT web pages.]

Marsh’s Library: A MS copy, Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, transcribed by Christopher Geraldinus, 1651 [imperfect] is part of the Marsh’s Library Collection.

George A. Little cites Keating as his authority for saying that Sean Mhagh Ealta Eadair [The Old Plain of the Flocks of Howth] was cleared about 1500 b.c., being the first meadowland of Ireland. (Dublin Before the Vikings, 1957, p.86.)

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