Henry O’Brien

Life
1808-1835 [form. Turlogh Henry O’Brien], b. Co. Kerry, son of Bryan O’Brien and Ellan [nee MacCarthy], a minor Catholic gentry; informal early education ("I was twelve [...] before I ever same a Testament in any language']; native Irish speaker; ed. TCD, tutored by Charles Boyton; settled in London; tutor to the children of the Master of the Rolls; wrote the essay which became The Round Towers of Ireland (1834) as a later entry to the prize competition for the Cunningham Gold Medal but was beaten by George Petrie in confused circumstances where the announcement of the result was leaked priorly by Caesar Otway in the Dublin Penny Journal;

received consolation prize of £20 as runner-up, and took vengeance at the supposed partiality of the RIA Council towards to one of its own member, Petrie, by loosely translating Joaquim Villaneuva’s Latin book on round towers as Phoenician Ireland (1832) - viz., Villaneuva, Ibernia Phoenicia, Dublin 1831 [see note]- while adding his own more extravagant notions about their character as phallic symbols involved in sexualised idolatry pertaining to a Phoenician people who colonised Ireland (in his view); subjected to a particularly harsh reviews in Dublin Penny Journal and ridiicule elsewhere, and dismissively by Thomas Moore (Edin. Rev., April 1834) in a review that triggered a defence by “Fr Prout” [Sylvester Mahony, q.v.]; apparently driven insane by the reviews, d. 28 June 1835 [aetat. 27], in London; said to be preparing a work on Pyramids when he died. ODNB DIW RAF

Bibliographical details:
Phoenician Ireland / Auctore Doctore Joachimo Laurentio Villanueva, Regii Hisp. Ordinis Caroli III. equite, conchensis ecclesiae canonico, regio ecclesiaste, et matritensium academiarum hispanae et historiae socio. Translated, and illustrated with notes, an additional plate, and Ptolem[e]y’s map made modern, by Henry O’Brien, Esq. A.B., Author of the ‘Prize Essay’ upon the “Round Towers” of Ireland.(London: Longman & Co. Paternoster Row; [...] Dublin: R.M. Timms, Grafton Street; M. Keene & Son, College Green; and F.W. [sic] Wakeman, D'Ollier Street. 1833), xi, [1], xxxii, [3], 36-361, [3]pp., [2] lvs. of pls. (1 fold.): map, facsim.; 8°. [A translation of Ibernia Phoenicea first published in 1831; Robins and Sons, printers, Southwark- - foot of p.361; incls. as an appendix, the original Latin dedication and extracts from the text of Villanueva’s work. [Note: Ptolemy as Ptolomey in sole COPAC record assoc. with the name of Villaneuva.]

The Round Towers of Ireland: or, The History of the Tuath-De-Danaans [2nd Edn. Morris Library] (London: Parbury and Allen 1834), 2pp. l., 524, [2]pp., ill. [4] lvs. of pls: [22 cm.]; Do. [another edn.] ( London & Calcutta: W. Thacker & Co.; Thacker, Spink & Co. 1898), xcv, 551 p. [22] ill. [lvs. of pls.; port.; 23 cm.; tp. from 1834 edn.; 750 copies only of this edition have been printed - T.p. verso. [See other editions listed under References > Booksellers - infra.

See also note on Joaquín Lorenzo Villanueva - as infra.

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Commentary

Henry O’Neill, in The Fine Arts and Civilisation of Ancient Ireland (London: Smith, Elder, and Co.; G. [Dublin:] Herbert 1863): ‘The theory of O’Brien is the one which Dr. Petrie shunned; he sneered at it, as not deserving his notices and ‘utterly absurd’. O’Brien’s book throws much light on Phallic worship, but the poor fellow wrote it in a few months, and lost his reason and his life after the over-exertion: it bears evidence of haste. We have many proofs in support of O’Brien’s theory, but we wish to write at leisure, and will, therefore, not introduce them in the present work. [...] And so, reader, these mysterious monuments belong to the night of time [...] They tell us of a people of rare practical skill, and of strange creed [...] But we can only whisper these secrets now; some other time they may be fully revealed.’ (p.111-12; quoted in Leerssen, Remembrance and Imagination [...] Cork UP/FDA 1996, p.138.)

Ethel Mannin, Two Studies in Integrity (London: Jarrolds 1954), ‘Rev. Francis Mahony’, in connection with Mahony’s accounts of Moore’s review of O’Brien’s book. According to Mannin, Moore wrote a review of Henry O’Brien’s Round Towers [1834/5], claiming that his theory had already been put forward by the Hon. Reginald Herbert in Nimrod (1826). Father Prout considered this ‘ineffable impudence’ since Herbert’s theory was that they were the towers were fire altars, and went on to express his indignation at the injustice done to his friend’s ‘grand and unparalleled discovery’ and more, ‘But to accuse a writer of plagiarism, he should be himself immaculate; and while he dwells in a glass house, he should not throw stones at a man in a tower’. He then charged Moore with taking songs from troubadours, &c. Returning to O’Brien after a series of mock-translations, he writes, ‘O’Brien’s book can, and will, no doubt, afford much matter for witticism and merriment to the superficial, the unthinking, and the profane; but to the eye of [candour] it ought to have presented a page rightly fraught with wondrous research ... the volume, at least, should not be indicated to the vulgar by the fingers of scorn. Even granting that there were in the books some errors of fancy, of judgement, or of style, which [is] without reproach for our juvenile productions ... must [we] scare away O’Brien because he approaches with a rude and unpolished but serviceable lantern ... I should shudder at the thought of crushing with my foot that dim speck of brilliancy [glow-worm] ... I would not harm the little lamplighter as a passed along in the woodland shade.’ In the obituary of O’Brien which is added to Father Prout’s paper in this issue of Fraser’s [Magazine], the author declares that his book on Round Towers has thrown more light on early history of Ireland and of the freemasonry of these gigantic puzzles than will ever shine from the cracked pitchers of the Royal Irish Academy or the farthing candle of Tommy Moore’, and further speaks of ‘malignant hostility’ of Irish Academy twaddlers’ and ‘their paltry transactions in the matter of the prize-essay, &c. (pp.160-64.)

Rev. Dr. Healy, [Archb. of Tuam], The Round Towers and Holy Wells of Ireland (Dublin: CTS [1898?]), 28pp.; '[republication of O’Brien’s Essay, 1898 is] ‘not worthy of a serious refutation’, in the style ‘puerile and turgid’, the alleged facts unfounded; quotations inaccurate, &c.

A. P. Graves, Irish Literature and Musical Studies (1913), writes: ‘When George Petrie won the RIA gold medal with his essay, ‘Origin and Uses of the Round Towers,’ with two other papers on the same subject, O’Brien received the second prize of £20, supporting the contention that they were of Danish origin, and was supported by Sir William Bentham in a virulent attack on the council’s decision, which Petrie answered in Illustrations of the Round Towers.’ (p.220f.)

Joep Leerssen, Remembrance and Imagination: Patterns in the Historical and Literary Representation of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century (Cork UP/Field Day 1996) - on the prize competition for an essay explaining the round towers of Ireland (1830-34)

The appearance of The Round Towers of Ireland (or the mysterious freemasonory, of sabaism, and of budhism, now for the first time unveiled, in 1834, was slightly delayed: O’Brien had initially placed his essay with the printer P. Dixon Hardy, who was a member of the Royal Irish Academy and one of the more prominent Dublin publishers in the field of Irish history and antiquity at the time (he took over the Dublin Penny Journal when that magazine became too burdensome for Petrie and Otway, and was later to publish the works of Sir William Betham). However, Hardy, upon becoming acquainted with the scandalous nature of the work, declined publishing it, and the book appeared under a [118] joint London and Dublin imprint. It caused an immense sensation, though not in the author’s favour. The book opened with a ludicrous dedication and was preceded by a lengthy introduction which recapitulated (in more extensive form than in Phoenician Ireland) the contentious origin of the text, often in highly derogatory terms, evidently written with much anger, much frustration and little self-control. The main body of the book was no less intemperate. Previous theories were set aside with scorn, exclamation marks and italics, and to the extent that an argument could be detected in the author’s ravings, that argument was both far-fetched and shocking. O’Brien started out from four clues. One was that Round Towers look like erect penises; the second (pointed out by Miss Beaufort also) was that the word ‘Erin’ looks like the word ‘Iran’; the third was that Iran lies in the east, the cradle of Irish civilization, and that in the east there are pagodas, which, to the extent that they look like Round Towers, also look like erect penises; and the fourth one (clinching the matter) was that the Gaelic word for penis, bod, looks like the first syllable in the word ‘Buddhism’, denoting an eastern religion. The rest follows as a matter of course. There was once a Persian civilization, where the creative fertility principle was worshipped under the shape of the phallus, and in phallic-shaped pagodas. This religion, originally taught by Zoroaster, was known as Buddhism or, alternatively, as Sabaism. These Buddhist-cum-Zoroastrian Sabaists were expelled from Persia, settled in Ireland under the name of Tuath-De-Danaans and built pagodas there (the Round Towers) to continue their phallic worship. The hypothesis is given extra clout by the illustrations, which deliberately appear to emphasize the penis-shaped aspect of Round Towers by turning sharp angles into curves and rounding off their conical roofs to give a hint of the glans penis. This hypothesis by itself forms an archimedian fulcrum with which O’Brien unhinges all of ancient and middle-eastern history and re-interprets the entire religious history of the world as a cover-up exercise in effacing the heritage of the noble Sabaists. The serpent and the apple in the Garden of Eden are interpreted as genital symbols; serpent-worship is seen as a derivation of phallus worship; the Hinduist veneration of sexual polarity in the shape of lingam and yoni is adduced in evidence; and if there are carvings of crucifixes to be seen on Round Towers, then O’Brien immediately explains this by the fact that there was in fact a pre-Christian, Buddhist worship of the crucifix. In other words, this is madness surpassing even Roger O’Connor’s Chronicles of Eri. But whereas the Chronicles of Eri never gained much serious attention, Henry O’Brien’s book became a cause celebre. Nobody endorsed O’Brien’s theory, but there were always some who refused to reject it wholly and utterly. For better or for worse, O’Brien’s name was made famous by becoming the subject of scandal and ridicule; his theory was given exemplary status by being so memorably unmentionable in polite society; and he remained, if only at the symbolic level, a locus for all those who had misgivings about Petrie’s factualism. (p.118.)

(For further extracts from this section, see Leerseen, op. cit., 1996, see attached.)

Charlotte Salter-Townshend, “Round Towers and the Birth of Irish Archaeology: George Petrie and Changing Perceptions of Irish Archaeology in the 19th Century” [MPhil candidate, TCD] (Archaeology Journal, 2013) - incls. remarks on O’Brien: ‘Petrie’s opponent for the RIA prize was Henry O’Brien, a Trinity student. O’Brien concluded that the towers were fertility “temples constructed by the early Indian colonists of the country, in honour of that fructifying principle of nature.” Although Petrie won the gold medal and £50 for his essay, O’Brien was awarded a consolation prize of £25. The Academy also agreed to publish his essay. A drawn-out correspondence between O’Brien and the Academy ensued concerning the extent to which O’Brien would be permitted to supplement the essay. Eventually, the RIA terminated this correspondence and washed its hands of the essay as “the language appeared to them not sufficiently delicate.” O’Brien decided to publish The Round Towers of Ireland, or the Mysteries of Freemasonry, of Sabaism, and of Buddhism, now for the first time unveiled himself in 1834 as a 524 page tome. [...]’ (See further under George Petrie - as infra.)

Roger Stalley in Irish Round Towers (Dublin: Country House 2000), notes that in 1832 one Henry O’Brien, who had a theory that they were relics of phallus worship, was awarded £20 by the Royal Irish Academy for his research, or possibly, as Stalley argues, ‘to keep him quiet’. (see Irish Times review, 15 July 2000.)

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References
John Crone, A Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography (Dublin: Talbot 1928), remarks that he urged a phallic theory of origin, hotly debated.

Brian Cleeve & Anne Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985) and Dictionary of National Biography note that he ‘attempted to show that [the round towers] were Buddhist remains’.

Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. 2; Irish archaeologist and author of The Round Towers of Ireland (London 1833; Dublin 1834); O’Brien accused Thomas Moore of plagiarising him in his History of Ireland, F. S. Mahon[e]y siding with O’Brien.

Booksellers

Belfast Public Library holds J. L. Vilanueva, Phoenician Ireland [1833], trans. with notes, by H. O’Brien (1867) [q.d.].

Hyland Books (Cat. 214) lists The Round Towers of Ireland, or The History of the Tuath-de-Dananns, intro. W.H.C. [new edition] (.e. 1898), xcv+551pp., port, ills.

Notes
G. B. Shaw : Father Dempsey, in John Bull’s Other Island (1904) refers to O’Brien’s theory: “Oh, I thought you did [believe myth about Fin]. D’ye see the top of the Round Tower there? that’s an antiquity worth looking at.” Broadbent: “(Deeply interested) have you any theory as to what the Round Towers were for?” Father Dempsey: “(A Little offended) A theory? Me!” (Stage direction: Theories are connected in his mind with the late Prof. Tyndall, and with scientific scepticism generally: also perhaps with the view that the Round Towers are phallic symbols.)

Joaquín Lorenzo Villanueva Astengo (10 August 1757–26 March 1837) was a Spanish priest, historian and writer; ed. at the University of Valencia, and became a prominent historian of the Church; appt. court preacher at Madrid and confessor at the royal chapel; moved to Ireland in 1823 where he published Phoenician Ireland in 1833, an attempt to prove an ancient Phoenician colonization of the country - a work translated with heavy alterations by by Henry O’Brien. in 1837 [sic for 1831] (See Wikipedia - online; accessed 09.09.2024.)

Load of Trollope: Rare copy of Henry O’Brien, Phoenician Ireland (1833), notes and add. pls., with inscription from the author and Anthony Trollope’s bookplate; to be sold by Martin Walsh Books at National Book Fair, Masonic Hall, Molesworth St. Dublin (Irish Times, 24 Aug. 1996, p.17).

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