[Sir] James Ware (1594-66)

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Bibliographical details
De præsulibus Lageniae, sive provinciæ Dubliniensis. Liber vnus. Iacobo Wareo authore (Dublini: Ex officina Societatis Bibliopolarum, Anno. M.DC.XXVIII [1628]), [8], 104, [4]pp.; rep as. De Praesulibus Hageniae, sive Provinciae Dublin i ensis (Dublin: Samuelis Dancer 1665), [12], 283pp.

Bedae Venerabilis Opera quaedam theologica/ nunc primùm edita nec non historica antea semel edita accesserunt Egberti archiespicopi Eboracensis Dialogus de ecclesiasticâ institutione et Aldhelmi episcopi scireburnensis Liber de virginitate ex codice antiquissimo emendatus (Londini: Typis S. Roycroft, LL. Oriental. typographi regis: Impensis Roberti Clavell: ad insigne Pavonis in Coemeterio D. Pauli, 1693), [10], 369, [1]pp. 4o. [21cm]. CONTENTS: Expositio Geneseos libris III - Expositio in Canticum Abacuc Prophetae - Historia de vitis Abbatum Wiremuthensium & Girwiensium, necnon epistolae duae insignes; accessit Egberti Dialogus de ecclesiasticâ institutione, ex antiquis codicibus mss. emisit & notis illustravit Jacobus Waraeus - S. Aldhelmi Liber de laudibus virginitatis.

The Historie of Ireland, collected by three learned authors, viz., M[eredith] Hanmer, E[dmund] Campion, and E[dmund] Spenser [published by Ware in 3 fol. vols.] (Dublin: by the Societie of Stationers 1633), also as “Histories of Ireland” [sic] in Walter Harris, ed., Works of Sir James Ware (Dublin 1739-46 [recte 1764]) [cited under ‘Authorities’ in Bradshaw Cat., 1916]; Do., rep. as Ancient Irish Histories, 2 vols. (Dublin: Hibernia Press 1809), 24cm [Vol. 1: Spencer’s view of the state of Ireland and Campion’s Historie of Ireland; Vol.2: Doctor Meredith Hammer’s and Henry Marleburrough’s Chronicles of Ireland]; and Do. (NY: Kennikat Press [1970]), 2 vols.

De Scriptoribus Hibernia (1639); rep. in trans. as History of the Writers of Ireland 2 vols. (1764). CONTENTS: Vol I. Such Writers Who Were Born in the Kingdom; Vol. II. Such who, though Foreigners, enjoyed Perferments or Offices there, or had their Education in it ...’. [see R. Alspach, 1959, p.46.]

De Hibernia & antiquitatibus ejus, disquisitiones: In quibus, præter ea quæ de Hiberniâ antiquâ explicantur, mores & consuetudines Hibernorum, tàm veterum, quàm mediorum temporum, describuntur. Unà cum formâ imperii eorum, nummis, academiis, episcopatibus & coenobiis; necnon Ostmannorum in Hibernia rebus gestis, & coloniis ex Anglia & Wallia in Hiberniam emissis, tempore Henrici II, sub quo, insula Anglici juris facta est / Authore Jacobo Waræo Equ. Aur (Londini: Typis J. Grismond, impensis Jo. Crook & Thomas Heath., MDCLIV [1654]), [14], 253, [1]pp., ill. [map; metal and wood-cuts, 8o.] Also, Editio secunda / emendatior & quarta parte auctior. Accesserunt rerum hibernicarum regnante Henrico VII ; annales, nunc primum in lucem editi. (Londini: Typis E. Tyler, impensis Jo. Crook 1658), 8o [17x11 cm.]

The Antiquities and History of Ireland, Now first published in one volume in English; and the life of Sir James Ware prefixed, 1 vol. (Dublin: Printed by A. Crook, printer to the Queens most Excellent Majesty, for E. Dobson in Castle-Street, and M. Gunne at Essex-Street-Gate 1705), ill. [front. port., pls., map.], 32cm [various pagings; each sect. has special t.p., the first two dated 1705, the last three 1704]. Contents: “Inquiries concerning Ireland, and its antiquities”; “The annals of the affairs of Ireland”; “A commentary of the prelates of Ireland”; “Two books of the writers of Ireland”; “Historical relations: or, A discovery of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued, by Sir John Davies”.

Do. [London edition, as] The Antiquities and History of Ireland by the Right Honourable Sir James Ware, Knt. Containing 1. His inquiries into the antiquities of Ireland, ... 5. By way of appendix is added that ... discourse of Sir John Davis ... Now first published in one volume in English; and the life of Sir James Ware prefixed (London: Printed for Awnsham and John Churchill [...] and Jonathan Robinson [...] MDCCV [1705]), [16]; [4], 164, 163-170, 167-172, [10]; [4], 60, 57-76, 164, 64, 175-196; [4],70, 44, 37, [1], 37-55, [1], 28; [4], 23, 20-42, [4]; 59, [3] p., [5] leaves of plates: ill. [map, port.]; fol.

Do. [another edition, as] The Antiquities and History of Ireland by the Right Honourable Sir James Ware, Knt. [1714] Containing I. His inquiries into the antiquities of Ireland, illustrated with copper cutts, &c. II. His annals of Ireland from the first conquest by the English ... III. His commentaries of the prelates of Ireland, from the first planting of Christianity there, to the year 1665 ... IV. His two books of the writers of Ireland ... V. By way of appendix is added that rare and admirable discourse of Sir John Davis [i.e. Davies], Knight, of the cause why Ireland was no sooner reduced to the obedience of the crown of England. Very useful for all persons who are desirous of being acquainted with the ancient and present estate of that kingdom. Now first published in one volume in English; and the life of Sir James Ware prefixed (London: Printed for R. Robinson, at the Golden Lyon 1714), [770]pp.; various pagings, each part with t.p. and imprint (Dublin: Printed by Andrew Cook, for Matthew Gunne ..., 1704-1705), ill. [engrav. maps [some fold.] & pls. incl. engr. front. port. of Queen Anne; fol. [31 cm].

The Whole Works of Sir James Ware concerning Ireland, Vol. I. Containing, The history of the bishops ... [3 vols.] (Dublin: for the author by E. Jones 1739) [folio copy presented to Marsh’s Library by the editor, Walter Harris].

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Criticism
Kathleen Hughes, ‘A Manuscript of James Ware, British Museum, Additional 4788’, Proc. RIA ser. C., 55 (1952-53), pp.111-16; also NHI, III.; see also Russell K. Alspach, Irish Poetry from the English Invasion to 1798 (Phil: Pennsylvania UP 1959), p.46 & .95f.; Michael Herity, ‘Rathmulcah, Ware and Macfirbisigh’, in Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 33 (1970), pp.49-53 [contrasting antiquarian traditions represented by these].

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Commentary

Sir John T. Gilbert, History of Dublin, Vol. 1 (1854): ‘Ware always maintained in his house an Irish amanuensis to interpret and transcribe Gaelic documents, and at the period of his death, Duald Mac Firbis, the most learned native historiographer of the time, was resident with him in that capacity. / While in Ware’s house in Castle St., Mac Firbis translated the ‘Registry of Clonmacnois’, and the Annals of Ireland by 1443 to 1468, the latter of which, together with his ‘History of the Tribes and Customs of Tigeragh’, has been published by the Archaeological Society. Four years after Ware’s death, our “antiquities received an irreparable blow” by the murder of Mac Firbis at Dunflin in Sligo. / The manuscripts which Sir James Ware had collected with great trouble and expense were brought to England by Lord Clarendon in the reign of James II, and afterwards sold to the Duke of Chandos, who was vainly solicited by Swift in 1734 to restore them to Ireland. On the Duke’s death, the documents passed to Dean Milles, who bequeathed them to the British Museum, where they now form the principal portion of the collection known as the Clarendon Manuscripts. / Sir James Ware was succeeded as Auditor-General by his eldest son James ... [&c.;] (p.5.)

[Q.auth.,] ‘The Diocese of Ross in the Sixteenth Century’, in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record (Dec. 1864) [1st iss.], pp.1-36: ‘The Lives of the Irish Bishops, published by Ware, in 1665, and rewritten by Harris in the beginning of the last century, have been long regarded as authentic history; and the statements of these learned writers have been generally accepted without hesitation, being supposed to rest on ancient and indubious documents. It is thus, to take a quite recent example, that the Rev. W. Maziere Brady, D.D., in the third volume of his Records of Cork, Cloyne, and Ross (London, 1864), adopts, with only a few verbal variations, the whole narrative of Ware regarding St. Fachnan and his successors in the see of Ross. Nevertheless, many of his statements are inaccurate, and some of them, too, are wholly at variance with historic truth. At the very threshold of our present inquiry we meet with one instance which alone should suffice to render us cautious in accepting the assertions of such historians, when unconfirmed by other authorities.

“One Thady” (Ware thus writes), “was Bishop of Ross on the 29th of January, 1488, and died a little after; but I have not found where he was consecrated. One Odo succeeded in 1489, and sat only five years. He died in 1494.” (Ware, p.587; Brady, Records [... &c.], Vol. III., p.139.)

‘How many errors are contained in these few words! This Thadeus was never Bishop of Ross, and so far from Odo being appointed in 1489, he was already Bishop of the see on the accession of Pope Innocent VIII, in 1484. A letter of this Pontiff addressed to Odo, Bishop of Ross, on 21st of July, 1488, has happily been preserved, and it presents to us the following particulars connected with the see. No sooner had the see of Ross become vacant by the demise of its Bishop about 1480, than Odo was elected its chief pastor, and his election was duly confirmed by the Vicar of Christ. A certain person, however, named Thadeus MacCarryg, had aspired to the dignity of successor of Saint Fachnan, and as he enjoyed high influence with the civil authorities, he easily obtained possession of the temporalities of the see. Several monitory letters were addressed to him from Rome, exhorting him to desist from such an iniquitous course; but as these were of no avail, sentence of excommunication was fulminated against him by Pope Sixtus, and promulgated in a synod of the southern Bishops, held in Cashel in 1484; it was repeated by Innocent VIII. in 1488. Thus, then, the individual who is described by Ware as Bishop of Ross, was merely an usurper of the temporalities of the see, whilst the true Bishop, Odo, continued to govern the diocese till his death in 1494.’

Note: The ensuing text quotes a letter from Henry VIII to the Pope regarding the voluntary retirement of the aged bishop of Ross and the appointment of a Cistercian at his behest - offering the letter as "a solemn condemnation of the subsequent rebellion of that monarch against the authority of the Vicar of Christ", viz., Ex Regia nostra apud Richemontem die xvii. Julii, 1517 (Theiner, Monumenta, &c., p.520.)

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Thomas King Moylan, ‘Vagabonds and Sturdy Beggars’, in Dublin Historical Record (March 1938), p.11-18, making reference to an account of the ninth admonition to Dublin Mayors on swearing in, which Warburton copied from Robert Ware who has it presumably from Sir James Ware’s papers (‘an honest antiquarian’ in comparison with ‘the scratchings of Robert ‘Ware’s busy pen’) [p.11].

William J. Maguire, Irish Literary Figures, Vol. 1 [& only] (1945), on Thomas D’Arcy Magee, whose History of Ireland is based largely on Ware’s manuscripts, wrote that he was ‘a great, persevering book-worm, and sincere receiver and transmitter of truth.’

George A. Little, Dublin Before the Vikings (1957), Little constructs a list of pre-Scandinavian Dublin bishops from Ware’s Bishop’s of Dublin and others such as Dr Colgan, Ussher, etc. [19]. Also: To some earlier writers the Colgan-Ware list of bishops had proved so delusive that they declared it apocryphal, if not worse. The fact that MacFirbisigh (a hereditary historian of great repute) was Ware’s secretary and is believed to have supplied them with much of his early Irish history had no weight with them. They were trapped, apparently, into the error by the fact that there was no separate dioceses of Dublin until after the Norman conquest ... [a] judgement based on diocesan conventions not practised contemporaneously. [96] Little counters this by quoting his own Brendan, where he says that ‘in early Ireland the title bishop indicated rank without charge (op. cit., p.208). He adverts in a footnote to the same argument in Ryan, Irish Monasticism, p.82. [97]. Further: Harris, Ware’s Bishops of Dublin, pp.303-06, contains list of bishops (also in Dalton, History of the Archbishops of Dublin, Vol. 1, p.16ff.) These, augmented from Colgan’s Acta Sanctorum and the Annals of the Four Masters, are: Livinius (Molibba), d.633; Wiro (Bearaidh), d.650; Desibod, d.675; Gaulafar, d.?; Rumold (Rumself), d.775; Sedulius (Siadhal Mac Luath), d.675; Cormac, d.840. Dates calculated by Shearman, in Loco Patriciana. [97-98]. (See also under Quotations, infra.)

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Maurice Craig, in Dublin 1660-1860; cites his History and speaks of Harris as being ‘unjustifiably’ regarded as first Dublin historian. Rerum Hibernicarum Annales (Dublin 1664), cited in Clarke, Early Irish Stage, ‘The History and Antiquities of Dublin collected from Authentic Record and the MSS. collection of Sir James Ware’, MS. De Rebus Eblanae 74, 75, Gilbert Collection, Pearse Street Library Dublin.

W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1976; 1984), notes that British Museum Add. ms 481 f. 157v-8r is Robert Ware’s trans. of his father Sir James Ware’s Latin account of the teaching of a ‘newe grammar’ by Richard Owde at St Patrick’s Grammar School in Dublin in 1587, and the ensuing controversy, arbitrated in favour of the older grammar of Lily (1540) by Archbishop Loftus since ‘diversities of grammars would be destructive of learning’. [21]

Robert E. Ward, et al., eds, Letters of Charles O’Conor of Belanagare (Cath. Univ. of America Press 1988), Ussher and Ware called into question the existence of writing in pre-Patrician Ireland, had done irreparable damage to Irish historiography and had lent credence to the prejudice that before the coming of Christianity the Irish were savages. (p.xxiv.)

Joseph Th. Leerssen, Mere Irish & Fior-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, Its Development and Literary Expression Prior To The Nineteenth Century (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub. Co. 1986): Edmund Campion fled from England and stayed with his erstwhile Oxford acquaintance Richard Stanyhurst, producing a History of Ireland in manuscript there in 1596, which he revised in an initial version of 1571. the MS was published by Sir James Ware in 1633, but by that date, Stanyhurst’s Description of Ireland, printed in Holinshed’s Chronicle of 1577, was already based upon it [45]. Ussher, his mentor; established Dublin family; claims pride of place as first important historian of Ireland of non-Gaelic descent; ed. and published older texts by Campion, Spenser, and Cambrensis; employed Duald MacFirbis [Mac Firbisighe] as scribe, translator and amanuensis; friend of Bochart, with whom he stayed in Paris during the interregnum; donated Bochart’s Hierozoicon to TCD Library; exploded Giraldus’s descriptions of Ireland in De Hibernia et antiquitatibus eius disquisitiones (London 1705): ‘Admonendus est etenim lector, Topographiam eam caute legendam, id quod ipse Giraldus quodammodo fatetur in apologia quam habemus in prima sua praefatione in librum Expugnationis Hibernicae, cum ob fabulosa, iam dicta Topographia inserta, insimularetur ... Atqui non posssum non mirari viros aliquos huius seculi, alioqui graves & doctos, figmenta ea Giraldi, mundum iterum pro veris, obstrusisse. Plurimi addi possent ex aliis authoribus, quae aliorum etiam industriis relinquimus.’ [‘The reader should be warned that Topography is to be read with caution, as Giraldus himself somehow states in an apology which we find in his first preface to the book of the Conquest of Ireland, where he refers to charges of having inserted fabulous material in his aforementioned Topography ... And all the greater is my amazement to see some men of the present day and age, otherwise grave and scholarly, again obstrude those fictions of Giraldus on the world as if they were facts. Many more examples to the same effect could be added from other authors, but that I leave to the industry of others. [61-62] Also bibl. The Antiquities and history of Ireland (London 1705).

Norman Vance, Irish Literature, A Social History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1990), p.26, Complex literary tradition indicated by surviving manuscripts ... first charted in Sir James Ware’s De Scriptoribus Hiberniae; made distinction between writers born in Ireland and [those] who made later contact, both generously classified as Irish; cultural legitimation of the English in Ireland by assimilating their writings to a partly purpose-built, pluralist Irish literary tradition; ... Two hundred years later Walter Harris’s augmented English version, The Writers of Ireland (Dublin 1746) was invaluable to Thomas D’Arcy McGee in writing his Irish Writers of the Seventeenth Century (Dublin 1946).

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Quotations

Gaels & Gauls: ‘The ancient Irish called all foreigners, especially their neighbours, Gauls, as the Jews once called all foreigners Grecians.’ (Antiquities and History of Ireland, Dublin 1705, p.3; quoted in George A. Little, Dublin Before the Vikings, Dublin: M. H. Gill 1957, p.171.)

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References

Charles Read, A Cabinet of Irish Literature (3 vols., 1876-78), narrates that he was imprisoned in Tower of London on his way to Ireland in 1684; exchanged, and captured again at surrender of Dublin in 1647; 2 years in London prison; lived 2 more years in France after 1649. ‘The Camden of Ireland’; his Antiquitatibus began to appear with his Lives of the Bishops in 1626 (London); bur. St. Werburgh’s St.; CAB selects passage on ‘Surnames of the Ancient Irish,’ ‘The Origin of the Irish’ (”the posterity of Japhet”), and ‘A Life of St. Patrick’ (which begins by remarking that the biographer’s pen has so far unhappily “fallen into weak and injudicious hands.”); all in Harris’s translation. NOTE that Justin McCarthy, Irish Literatre (1904) , excerpts same essays.

Dictionary of National Biography, calls him an Irish historian, MA TCD, 1616; collected Irish MSS and studied Irish history and antiquities; knighted 1629; auditor gen. of Ireland, 1632-49?; mission to Charles I at Oxford, 1644; hon. DCL Oxon., prisoner in Tower, 1644-5; hostage in England, 1647; banished from Dublin by Michael Jones, 1649; resided in London, 1651-60; returned to Dublin, 1660; published important contributions to Irish history and biography, 1626-65. See also Richard Ryan, Biographia Hibernica, Irish Worthies (1821), Vol. II, pp.622-36. DIW compares him with Micheál O’Cleirigh [chief of the Four Masters].

Alan Eager, A Guide to Irish Bibliographical Material and Some Sources of Information (London: Library Association 1964), lists History of the Writers of Ireland, 2 bks., 1) those born in that kingdom, 2) foreigners who enjoyed preferment or office, or were educated in it; continued to the present date by Walter Harris, 2 vols. (Dublin 1764).

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1 selects De Hibernia et Antiquitatibus Ejus ... Disquisitiones, trans. Robert Ware, 264-65 [the passage deals chiefly with Cormac, son of Culinan, who was both king and bishop, and his death at the battle of Moy-albe, XVI Aug. 908; his authorship of Psalter-Cashel ‘which is yet extant, and in great esteem’; version in Ware’s possession, manuscript (antient parchment’ called Psalter Narran [Saltair na Rann]; Ware makes reference to reading ‘in a certain MS of Cotton’s library’ a version of the death of Cormac’; also Irish Annals; discusses Irish tonsures, but resigns the topic to Ussher in his Antiquities of the British Churches, and Prosperus Stellartius in his book on crowns and tonsures]; notes at 175 [Ware’s heavily edited version and truncated version of Spenser’s View, 1933; for comm. see Rudolf Gottfriend, ed., Spenser’s Prose Works, Vol. IX and variorum ed. of Spenser’s works (Johns Hopkins UP 1949); Ware’s ed. held sway until replaced by Renwick’s 1934]; 236 [Ware collected MSS and used native scholars Mac Firbisigh and Tadhg Ó Rodaigh; his MSS descended to his son, a less tolerant author who nevertheless translated his works in 1705]; 867n., 880, 978n, 1015n.; Note also that he is cited in connection with the ‘Book of Rosse or Waterford’ [1608], known to him as the source of the Entrenchment of Rosse, in Norman French [FDA1 150]. BIOG., 273, James Ussher his uncle. WORKS & CRIT [as supra].

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Catalogues

British Library holds J. Wariae equitis aurati de Hibernia et antiquitibus eius disquisitiones, editio seconda &c. (?186), containing Spenser’s View of the Present State of Ireland; Historie of Ireland by three learned authors, Hanmer, Campion, and Spenser, with Marrleborrough’s Chronicle of Ireland (Soc. of Stationers, Dublin 1633); Ancient Irish Histories, Hanmer, Campion and Spenser (Hibernia Press, Dublin 1809, reprinted from 1633 ed.; MOR 4 DA 905.W26). Also De Scriptores Hiberniae, 2 vols. (Dublinii 1639); and Collected Works, inc. ‘Writers of Ireland’ (Dublin 1739, 1746, 1764); Antiquities and History of Ireland ... with His 2 books of the Writers of Ireland ... added ... that rare and admirable discourse of Sir John Davis [sic] (London 1704-05; [OS 4 DA940.W26 [Dobson, Dublin 1705]). Some other works incl. Archiepisc. Casseliensis ... quibis adjicitur Historia Coenobiorium Cisterciensum Hiberniae (Dublin 1626); De Praesulibus Hiberniae (Dublin 1665), and De Praesulibus Lageneniae sive Provinciae Dublinensis (Dublin 1628); Hunting the Roman Fox ... a specimen of popery and separation, writings of Sir James Ware collected by R[ichard] Ware (Dublin 1683). A library catalogue was issued in 1648.

Hyland Books (Cat. 224; Dec 1996), lists The Antiquities and History of Ireland, Containing 1: His Inquiries ...; 2: Annals of Ireland ... 3: The Prelates ...; 4 Writers ...; 5: Historical Relations by Sir John Davies (Dublin 1705/4), 4 pls., incl. pl. of Hibernia; preliminaries and ‘Encouragement’ [single vol.]. Also, The Works of Sir James Ware Concerning Ireland, Revised & Improved; Vol. 1, Containing the ... Bishops ... (Dublin: E. Jones 173), 1-660pp. [Bradshaw 1473]; Vol. II, Containing 1. Antiquities ..; 2. The Writers (Dublin: S. Powerll 1750) (8)+1-384+(4)pp., port. & 20 pls. [Bradshaw 450]; [Vol. III], The Writers (Dublin: A. Reilly 1746) (2)+354++(5)pp., with index [Bradshaw 1460], this copy formerly the property of Anthony Dopping. Also, The Works of Sir James Ware, Concerning Irlnad, revised and improved; Vol II: The Hisotry & Antiquities of Ireland ... The Writers of Ireland (Dublin 1764) [Bradshaw 460], ports. and 21 pls.; list of plates; large paper copy; Writers bearing a title-page imprint of 1746 [£200].

Ulster Libraries: UNIV. OF ULSTER LIBRARY (Morris Collection) holds Ancient Irish Histories, the Works of Spencer, Campion, Hamnerr and Marlburrough [sic] (Hibernia Press 1908). BELFAST CENTRAL LIBRARY holds Antiquities and History of Ireland (1705); Ancient Irish Histories, Sir James Ware’s collection of Hamner, Spenser, and Campion (1633, 1809). BELFAST LINENHALL LIBRARY holds Antiquities of Ireland, 1764 (Works, v. ii).

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