W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (1961): The Academy persuaded the English Government to finance an ordance survey on a large scale; scholars, including that great scholar John ODonovan, were sent from village to village recording names and their legends. Perhaps it was the last moment when such a work could be well done, the memory of the people was still intact, the collectors themselves had perhaps heard or seen the banshee [ ], p.512.)
John Cunningham, A Quarryman in Digging in the Bowels of Antiquity, The Letters of John ODonovan, in Causeway (Summer 1994), pp.24-28. Cunningham quotes: the downfall of the Irish families has been brought about by war, women, and madness. Capt. Hugh Maguire when an old man turned off his wife, the mother of his nine legitimate children, and kept his own house-maid … The Milesian families of uninterrupted heredity [and] respectability are ebbing fastly to their finish. Maguire left no legitimate male issue, and Lord ONeill will soon die without issue, legitmiate or illegitimate, for he was never known to approach any of the lovely sex except another mans wife. Bibl. incls. Patricia Boyne, John ODonovan 1806-1861, A Biography (Boethius: Irish Studies 1987); Graham Mawhinney, ed., John ODonovans Letters from Co. Londonderry, 1834 (Ballinscreen Hist. Soc. 1992); and The Letters of John ODonovan from Co. Fermanagh, 1834 (St Davogs Press, Belleek 1993).
[ top ] George A. Little, Dublin Before the Vikings (Dublin: M. H. Gill 1957), givces citations from ODonovan: ITEM I] I cannot at all believe that the settlement of Dublin as a place of commerce and as a fortified town can be attributed to the Scandanavian pirates, in the ninth century. (John ODonovan, Annals of Dublin, Dublin Penny Journal, vol. I, no 1, p.174). ITEM II] In regard to the use of the Scandanavian v form which reflects the phonetic rendering of the compound word Duibh/linn in its genitive case Little also cites infra, ODonovan, Annals of Dublin of 1832 (Dublin Penny Journal, vol. 1, No. 22., 24 Nov. 1832). ITEM III] Little aligns what he calls a school of romantics that postured to fashionable prominence [and] attracted a swarm of imitators and admirers, being made up of Stanihurst, Holinshed, Vallancy, Ledwich and Beetham who suppress all matter that reflects credit on Ireland, summoning the fullest efforts of Keating, White, Lynch, Petrie, ODonovan, and OCurry to dislodge them. [xv] ITEM IV] The translation of The History of the Galls of Ath Cliath - concerning the arrival of St Patrick and his clerics - was done by ODonovan. [Little, 1957 App. on various Irish Annals.] ITEM V] In a note in the Book of Rights, ODonovan states without authority that Dún-na-n-Gall us intended to denote Dún Duibh-linne (p.226, n.) [30] ITEM VI] ODonovan, in his preface to the Annals of Dublin uses this name [Ath Cliath Duiblinne] with an assurance that leaves no doubt that [it] was in his opinion the full and proper title for the city … he repeats (if indeed the introduction is his) the Book of Rights. (Annals [for] 1650, ed. ODonovan, p.127). ITEM VII] ODonovan, [The esker] extended from High St. in Dublin to Ath Cliath Meadhraighe in Galway. This esker, which is a continuoous line of gravel hills, is describied in our ancient MSS … The writer has walked along this ridge, and found it to extend by the (Greenhills) hills of Crumlin, and so along by Esker of Lucan, then south of Liffey, near Celbridge, and so across that river near Clane onwards to Donadea, until it strikes the high-road near Clonard, thus extending southwards of the conspicuous Hill of Croghan, until near Philipstown a line of road takes advantage of its elevation to run between bogs. It is next to be seen in a very conspicuous ridge two miles north of Tullamore, where Conn and Mogha fought the batte of Maggh Léna, and then it extends in a very well developed line through the Barony of Garrycastle unti its strikes the Shannon at Clonmacnoise. It can be sen in a very distinct line at Clonburren on the west side of the Shannon, and at the town of Ballinasloe, whence it extends in the direction of the abbey of Kilconnell; thence it wends in the direction of Athenry, and son to the promontory of Tinn Tamham (now Towan Point) in Meadhraighe, or th parish of Ballynacourty, a few files south of the town of Galway. (Tracts relating to Ireland, Irish Arch. Soc., vol. X, p.45) [50] ITEM VIII] Fragments of Annals of Ireland, ed. ODonovan, incl. Annals of Tigherach, or parts thereof. [69-70] ITEM IX] John ODonovan, There is sufficient foreign and domestic testimony to prove that Ireland had commerce, and several cities of note, at a very early period, and unquestionably several centuries before the Danes obtained any footing in it. (Probably from the same source as the joining of issue) [95] ITEM X] In his Preface to The Book of Rights, ODonovan quotes Cormacs Glossary in regard to the grades of road in ancient Ireland, rot, i.e., ro-shet, a great set or path, ró-set, a chariot goes upon it to a fair ..; ramhat, wider than a rot, … an open space or street, found in front of the fort of kings; slighe, sufficiently wide for the passing of two large chariots ..; Lamhróta, avenue connecting two slighte … to a fort or important seat; tuaghróta (farmers road), for the convenience of husbandmen ..; bothar, two cows fit upon it, one lengthwise and the other athwart. [Little does not cite the page in ODonovan.] ITEM XI] Book of Rights work of St. Benin, companion to and successor of St Patrick to the see of Armagh; various editors of the same tradition transmitted it; among them Cormac Mac Airt and Brian Bórumha; included in a compilation of tracts, the Psalter of Cashel, in the 10th or 11th c. The editor of the Book of Rights, ODonovan, supposes the Book was not - could not have been - compiled until the era of the Norse possession of Dublin. In Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, note, OCurry speaks of the authorship of the introduction of that edition, The admirable edition of this work [Book of Rights] by the Celtic Society was prepared by the late J. ODonovan, with the assistance of Prof. OCurry; the valuable introductions were the work of the late WE Hudson, who superintended the publication on the part of the Council of the Society. (vol. II, lect. II, pp.45). In other parts of the Manners &c., OCurry refers to ODonovans opinion in the same Introduction (viz, in Lect. VIII, ibid, p.137). The solution is apparent in the fact that the said Introduction is comprised untypically of nine unconnected essays. ORahilly (Early Irish History & Mythology, Chp. VIII, p.487) comments that the introduction is usually accredited to ODonovan but that according to WK Sullivan it was work of the late W.E. Hudson. Little considers it of some importance to decide which portion is ODonovans since the opinion of this great scholar may never be dismissed lightly. [172] ITEM XII] In his introduction to the Annals of Dublin, [ODonovan] admits that pre-Norse Dublin was a large and important city, and in his commentary on the Book of Rights his opinion appears to have remained unchanged; but the conviction that Gaill in this context meant Norsemen left him no alternative but to impugn the authenticity of this source … influencing OCurry, Hudson, and many more to acquiesce in this opinion. / Surely nowhere is the confusion of Irish history, resulting from the idée fixe of a Norse-founded Dublin, better exemplified than in the illogical position into which these experts were forced. [173] ITEM XIV] Gne. bibl. ODonovan; ed., Annals of Dublin; ed., Martyrology of Gorman; ed., the Book of Rights; Tracts relating to Ireland. [END]
Cathy Swift, John ODonovan and the Framing of early Medieval Ireland in the Nineteenth Century, in Bullán, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 1994), pp.91-103: quotes, Donovan, I have a letter from Mr Petrie complainging that I am becoming a dry topgraher. Iagree with him entirely but I do not understand how he conceived that I could do more than I am doing; all my time is consumed looking for townlands, lochans, and bits and noses of townlands to ascertain their correct hames; this is what I conceive I am employed to do and nothing else. I dont look on the letters I write as any part of my business. Be this as it may, I have made every enquiry for traditiosn connected with the monuments which he alludes to (Letter from Boyle, 27 July 1837; in M. Flanagan, ed., Letters containing Information Relative to the Antiquities of the Country of Roscommon [ &c.], 2 vols., Bray 1927; Swift, p.94); notes that ODonovan misled revivalists in locating the site of St Patricks Paschal fire at the Hill of Slane rather than at Trim, favouring Colgan over Dr. Charles OConor [Rerum Hib.] (p.97-98); ODonovans identifiaction, even when based entirely on oral information, must still be considered carefully by the contemporary Irish scholar and the grounds fro rejection of his suggestions shoud be stated (p.99); ODonovans legacy in terms of the identitifiaction of the political organisation of the landscape is a rather less happy one. Although he recognised the incursion of new families into the Irish landscape and the possibility of changes in political control, he appears to have visiaulsied the land-units themselves as being largely permanent. [ ] Likewise in the topographcial poemsof the fortheen-century poets O Dubhagain and O hUidrin, also edited by ODonovan, the poets themselves appear to ignore the possibility of territorial change. ODonoacvn is, therefore, merely publishing long-held tenets of Irish literature [and these] appear to have effected his own interpretation of historical change (p.99); territorial unit[s] remained inteact from prehistoric times [and] the boundariers of this ancestral unit remained sufficiently well-knownf or them to be identified with some certainty in the nineteenth century (p.100); In recend years, the historians of later medieval Ireland have increasingly emphasised the extent to which this model of a largely unchanging landscape can no longer be substantiated (p.100). Bibl. incl. J. H. andres, The survey of Ireland to 1847[, in W. A. Seymour, ed., A History of the Ordnance Survey (Folkestone 1980); Andrews, A Paper Landscape, the Ordnance Survey in Nineteeth-Century Ireland (Oxford 1975); T. J. Clohesy, John ODonovan, in Old Kilkenny Review, xiv (1962). [ top ] Tim Robinson, Listening to the Landscape, Irish Review, 14 (Autumn 1993), According to John ODonovan, who was the Ordnance Surveys expert on placemanes for the first survey in the 1830s, Tullaghlumman meant Lómans hill - whenever ODonovan could not otherwise interpret a placename he would derive it from some personal name, and he invented an amazing number of peculiarly named persons in the process…… In Ireland ODonovan himself, the greatest Irish scholar of his age, presided over the systematic corruption of Irish placenames - after the sappers on the ground had noted down the placenames from the locals as best they could, it was ODonovan who checked the earlier textual and cartographical sources, and having decided on the correct Irish form of each name, wrote down not the Irish but the anglicised form that was to appear on the map; it was a very great betrayal, for as he himself noted, many of these names become very indistinct when transcribed in English phonetic values…. the second great trauma of the sense of place in Ireland [ &c.] (pp.25, 28-9). Note that Robinson talks, in conclusion, about the geophanic language of Ireland.
Willie Smyth, review of Michael Herity, ed., Ordnance Survey Letters: Donegal, pref. Brian Friel (Four Masters Press [2000]), 148pp., Irish Times, 18 Nov. 2000. John ODonovan records that he has a large field to work in during his employment by the commission 1834-43; writes at speed under poor conditions; I shall now proceed to decide, to settle the names of Kilmacrenan barony; notes ODonovans metaphorical use of attack and conquest to describe his work in Tir Connall; Are we keeping pace with the engravers?; of Archdall: I am sure he is wrong; admits no authority except Moses and Keating; sensitive to what he calls constant tradition, for tradition [he says,] always retains some glimmer of truth; notes nutritional over-dependence on potato, a present state of things [which] must end in destruction; I am anxious to collect all the rhymes and rags of history [ ] that they may be hereafter digested and arranged in proper order.; remarks that the predominantly Presbyterians inhabitants of Upper Fahy and Raphoe as Scottified and never talk of old times; underestimated the Norse-Scandinavian contribution to Donegal and Irish place-names, viz., Tory Island; 12 weeks in Donegal, 1835. There is a portrait by Charles Grey (NGI).
Claire Connolly, Irish Romanticism, 1800-1839, in Cambridge History of Irish Literature (Cambridge UP 2006), Vol. I [Chap. 10]: Although they form no part of the print culture of this period and do not constitute travel literature in any ordinary sense of the word, it is also worth noting here that the 1820s and I830s saw the composition of Gaelic scholar john ODonovans (1806-61) extraordinary field reports detailing Irish place-names and local history. The letters languished in the Ordnance Survey office in Phoenix Parkin in Dublin until the period of the Literary Revival. For readers keen to know more of the world represented in the texts of Irish Romanticism, they stand as a rich and densely textured resource with which our scholarship has yet to fully engage. (p.425; Connolly cites J. H. Andrews, A Paper Landscape: The Orddnace Survey in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, Dublin: Four Courts Press 2002.) [ top ] |