Life
1676-1728 [Caleb Threlkeld, M.D] Irish physician and botanist; author of Synopsis Stirpium Hibernicarum .....Dispositarum sive Commentatio de Plantis Indigenis praesertim Dublinensibus instituta (Dublin 1726).
Synopsis stirpium hibernicarum alphabetice dispositarum: Sive commentatio de plantis indigenis præsertim dublinensibus instituta[,] being a short treatise of native plants, especially such as grow spontaneously in the vicinity of Dublin; with their Latin, English, and Irish names: and an abridgment of their vertues: With several new discoverys. With an appendix of observations made upon plants [b]y Dr. Molyneux, physician to the state in Ireland. The first essay of this kind in the kingdom of Ireland. (Dublin: Printed by S. Powell, for F. Davys in Ross-lane, Richard Norris in Essex-street, at the Corner of Crane-lane, and Josiah Worrall opposite to the Swan-tavern on the Blind-key, MDCCXXVII [1727]), 26,[176];60p. ; 8⁰. [reiss. of 1926 firdst edition printed ‘for the author’, with cancelled t.p.; copies in Durham, Leeds, Nat. Lib. of Scotland, Nottingham and York Univ. libraries.]
Do., rep. as The First Irish Flora: Synopsis stirpium hibernicarum, intro. by E. Charles Nelson, with a glossary of Irish plant names by Donal Synnott; reproduced under the direction of Leslie Hewitt (Kilkenny : Boethius Press 1988), lii, 26, 176, 60, 48pp., facs.; 23 cm. [ltd.edn. 585 copies; copies in TCD and QUB Libraries; also Aberdeen and Natural History Mus., London.]
Criticism
E.C. Nelson and M. Raven, Caleb Threlkeld’s family, in Glasra, 3 (1998), pp.161-66 [noticed in Wikipedia - online.]
Commentary
Alannah Hopkin, The Living Legend of St. Patrick, NY: St Martin’s Press 1989)l quotes Caleb Threkald’s reference to ‘the current tradition that by this three-leaved grass [shamrock], he [St. Patrick] emblematically set forth to them [the Irish] the mystery of the Holy Trinity.’ (p.109.)
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