Lectures on the manuscript materials of ancient Irish history by Eugene O'Curry 1861

Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History: Delivered at the Catholic ...(1861)

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Born at Dunaha, County Clare, O’Curry was an autodidact and a major authority on Irish manuscript material. From 1834 he was employed by the Ordnance Survey working in conjunction with John O’Donovan on historical and topographical material. From 1837 he was engaged on a programme of examining, copying and translating Irish language manuscripts in the major British and Irish libraries. He was appointed Professor of Irish History and Archaeology in the newly founded Catholic University in 1854 and his lectures there were published as Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History (1861). http://www.ucd.ie/archives/html/collections/ocurry-eugene.htm

(EOGHAN O COMHRAIDHE)

An Irish scholar, born at Dunaha near Carrigaholt, Co. Clare, 1796; died 1862. His father, a farmer of modestmeans, was an Irish scholar, a good singer, and well-informed as to the traditions of his people. His son Eugene, or Owen, grew up amid perfect Irish surroundings, and soon learned to read the Irish Manuscripts which were still common among the people. After the fall of Napoleon (1815), there followed a period of much agricultural distress in Ireland, and the O'Curry farm was broken up. In 1834 Eugene joined the number of men engaged upon the topographical and historical part of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, Petrie, Wakeman, Clarence Manganthe poet, and last but not least John O'Donovan. In search of information concerning Irish places O'Curry visited the British Museum (where he catalogued the Irish Manuscripts for the authorities), the Bodleian Library atOxford, the Library of Trinity College, the Royal Irish Academy, and other places. But the Government, afraid, it is said, of the national memories that the work was evoking, abandoned the survey three or four years later and dissolved the staff. The great collection of materials, upwards of 400 quarto volumes of letters and documents bearing upon the topography, social history, language, antiquities, and genealogies of the districts surveyed, wasstowed away.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11205b.htm

Eugene O'Curry was born in Dunaha, County Clare on 2 November 1794, the third son of 'Eoghan Mor', a peddler and collector of Irish manuscripts. He received little by way of formal education but was taught to read and write in Irish by his father. He had a variety of occupations including farming and teaching before he moved to Limerick in 1824. He worked there as a labourer until he secured a position in the Limerick Lunatic Asylum.

In 1835 he successfully applied to join the staff of the Ordnance Survey (LA38/21), where he was employed as a researcher in the historical department, principally engaged in the study of Irish manuscripts for historical and topographical information. He remained with the Ordnance Survey until 1842 when the topographical staff was dispersed. That same year he was employed by the Royal Irish Academy to catalogue their collection of manuscripts. He also catalogued Irish manuscripts held in British repositories, especially those in the British Museum.

He was involved in the founding of both the Irish Archaeological Society (1840) and the Celtic Society (1845), and his pioneering work on early Irish law texts led to the creation of the Brehon Law Commission in 1852. He remained involved with the Commission until his death. In 1853 he became a member of the Royal Irish Academy and in 1854 was appointed the first Professor of Archaeology and Irish History in the Catholic University.

He published a collection of his lectures entitled 'Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History' in 1861. He died suddenly in Dublin on 30 July 1862. A second collection of lectures entitled 'Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish' appeared after his death.

O'Curry married Anne Broughton during his sojourn in Limerick. Anne died in 1858 (LA38/11). They had several children, four of whom - two boys and two girls - were still alive at the time of O'Curry's own death.

http://digital.ucd.ie/view/ivrla:2620