Matthew O’Conor

Life
1773-1844 [occas. err. O’Connor]; b. Co. Sligo, br. Rev. Charles O’Conor [the Younger; q.v.]; prepared for priesthood at Rome, but changed to law and qualified as a barrister; wrote History of Irish Catholics from the Settlement in 1691 (1813), based on letters of his grandfather Charles O’Conor to Dr. John Curry, which he held at his estate at Mt. Druid, and are now in the Clonalis collection, amounting to some 285 letters; also issued Military History of the Irish Nation comprising a Memoir of the Irish Brigade [...] (1845), ending at 1713. ODNB DIH

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Works
  • History of Irish Catholics from the Settlement in 1691 (Dublin: J. Stockdale, 71 Abbey-street 1813), viii, 333pp., [1], xxix, [1]; 22cm.
  • Military History of the Irish Nation comprising a Memoir of the Irish Brigade in the Service of France with an appendix of official papers relative to the brigade, from the archives at Paris. [being] Official Papers, AD 1550-1738 , By the late Matthew O'Conor (Dublin: Hodges & Smith 1845), x, 421pp., ill. [1 lf.]; Do. [rep. facs. of 1845 Edn.] (Whitefish MT: Kessinger Publishing, [2007]), x, 421p., 23cm.
  • Do. [reiss. as] The Irish Brigades, or Memoirs of the Most Eminent Irish Military Commanders who distinguished themselves in the Elizabethan and Williamite Wars in their own country, and in the service of France, Spains, &c: with an [second] appendix containing memoirs of Gen. Thomas Preston, Owen Roe O'Neill, &c. (Dublin: Duffy 1855), 464pp., 22cm.

See also Picturesque and historical recollections : during a tour through Belgium, Germany, France, and Switzerland in the summer vacation of 1835 (London: W. S. Orr 1837), ii, 260pp. [iii], ill., 8 unnum. lvs. of pls. 18 cm [t.p. engraving of Convent of Einsidlen. [Preface.: ‘In the hope of inducing the richer classes of his countrymen to mix with the enlightened and polished nations of Europe, to see their manners and adopt their institutions, the writer has endeavoured to develope [sic] in the following pages the pleasures of a continental tour, the facility and cheapness of travelling, and the amusements of some of the watering-places in the south of Germany. He has made a feeble effort to delineate the Alpine regions [...].“ (p.[i].) [Available via HathiTrust - online; accessed 17.09.2024.]

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Commentary
Maureen Wall, Catholic Ireland in the Eighteenth Century: Collected Essays, ed. Gerard O’Brien, Dublin: Geog. Publ. 1989) for quotation from History of the Irish Catholics (1813), ‘The constant degradation lowered them in their own estimation, and rendered them crouching and pusillanimous. Sorrow and dejection were stamped in their foreheads; their timid gait and cautious reserve marked their abject condition. They did not dare to look a protestant in the face, they avoided the side of the street he walked, just as the slave evades the countenance of the master’ (pp.329-30); Bibl. note, MS continuation of The history of the Irish Catholics (in the possession of the Rev. Charles O’Conor Don, SJ.).

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Quotations
History of the Irish Catholics [ ...; &c.] (1813): ‘By Dr. [John] Curry’s great exertions, a committee for the management of Catholic affairs was formed in the city; but owing to the divisions and parties among the Catholics at that time it was confined to the citizens merely.’ (p.249)

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