Charles O'Conor (historian)

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This article discusses the Irish writer and antiquary who flourished from 1710 to 1791. His name is infrequently spelled with two n's (O'Connor). He himself used one 'n' when writing in English. For other people named Charles O'Conor or Charles O'Connor, see Charles O'Conor (person).


Charles O'Conor
Born January 1, 1710
Killintrany, County Sligo, Ireland
Died July 1, 1791 (aged 81)
Belanagare, County Roscommon, Ireland
Occupation Writer, Antiquarian
Nationality Irish
Notable work(s) Dissertations on the ancient history of Ireland
Spouse(s) Catherine O'Fagan
Children Denis, Charles, Bridget, Anne
Influenced

Charles O'Conor (1710 – 1791) was an Irish writer and antiquarian who was enormously influential as a protagonist for the preservation of Irish culture and history in the eighteenth century. He combined an encyclopedic knowledge of Irish manuscripts and Gaelic culture with a calm and dispassionate writing style that made him an effective voice in demolishing many specious theories and suppositions concerning Irish history, and his authority was universally respected.

O'Conor was a protagonist for Catholic civil rights in eighteenth century Ireland. He worked relentlessly for the mitigation and repeal of the Penal Laws, and was a co-founder of the first Catholic Committee in 1757, along with his friend Dr. John Curry and Mr. Wyse of Waterford.

Contents

His collection of manuscripts and manuscript copies, annotated with his copious notes and comments, made up the first part of the Annals of the Four Masters that were collected at the Stowe Library, and at that time many of them were the only copies known to exist. It is unlikely that there is any serious researcher of ancient Irish history who is unfamiliar with O'Conor's substantial contributions.

[edit] Early life

Charles O'Conor was born in 1710 to the impoverished O'Conor Don in County Sligo, and spent his early years there. Denied the opportunity for a substantial education because he was Catholic, he nevertheless acquired a sufficient one largely through the efforts of priests, some of whom defied British laws simply by teaching him to read.

O'Conor grew up in an environment that celebrated Gaelic culture and heritage, and his love for both was deeply set. Steeped in that culture and possessing an attested heritage that was contemporary with the arrival of Saint Patrick in Ireland, he began collecting and studying ancient manuscripts at an early age.

His marriage brought him financial stability so that he could devote himself to his writing, but he was widowed in 1750, within a year of his father's death, when he himself assumed the role of the O'Conor Don. When his eldest son Denis married in 1760, he gave up the residence at Belanagare to him and moved into a small cottage that he had built on the estate. He would devote the remainder of his life to the collection and study of Irish manuscripts, to the publication of dissertations, and especially to the cause of Irish and Catholic emancipation.

[edit] Professional life

Arms of the O'Conor Don, Prince of Connácht.
Arms of the O'Conor Don, Prince of Connácht.

It cannot be said that Charles O'Conor broke onto the literary scene. He was well-known in Ireland from his youth, as a civil-tongued but adamant advocate of Gaelic culture and history, who had suffered for his adherence to Catholicism, and who was the recognised Ó Conchubhair Donn, profoundly knowledgeable about Irish culture and history.

Samuel Johnson in 1775.
Samuel Johnson in 1775.

He came to the attention of those outside of Ireland through his Dissertations on the ancient history of Ireland in 1753, offering a perspective of Ireland as the origin of ancient Gaelic culture and the disseminator of literacy. Like all of his works, his account was everywhere consistent with the historical record, and nowhere inconsistent. His writing style was calm and dispassionate, and easy to read. The book was generally well-received by those without a conflicting agenda, and when Samuel Johnson was made aware of it, he was moved to write a letter to O'Conor in 1755, complimenting the book, complimenting the Irish people, and urging O'Conor to write on the topic of Celtic languages.

Malvine, dying in the arms of Fingal, by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson.
Malvine, dying in the arms of Fingal, by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson.

The book was less well received in some Scottish circles, where there existed a movement to write Celtic history based upon Scottish origins. When James MacPherson published a spurious story in 1761 that he had found an ancient Gaelic (and Scottish) cycle of poems by a certain "Ossian", among the Irish critics who correctly pointed out its falsity was Charles O'Conor, as an inclusion (Remarks on Mr. Mac Pherson's translation of Fingal and Temora) in the 1766 rewrite of his 1753 work. While the issue was laid to public rest by others (notably Samuel Johnson), the issue was laid to intellectual rest by O'Conor in 1775, with the publication of his Dissertation on the origin and antiquities of the antient Scots. The issue should never have occurred, as Scottish Gaelic was not a written language before the seventeenth century. However, the fact that the issue did occur provided O'Conor (more than all others) the opportunity to establish Ireland as the source of Gaelic culture in the minds of the non-Irish general public, a perspective that is still considered to be no more than factual truth.

A page of text from the Book of Armagh.
A page of text from the Book of Armagh.
An Irish manuscript. This one is from the Cathach of St. Columba.
An Irish manuscript. This one is from the Cathach of St. Columba.

O'Conor's later life was that of the respected dean of Irish historians. He continued to write as he had always done, in favor of ideas that he himself favored and were consistent with the historical record, and against any and all ideas that were inconsistent with the historical record, including those of other Irish historians. Such was his esteemed reputation that even those whom he challenged would include his challenges in the next edition of their own books. He would continue to collect, study, and annotate Irish manuscripts, and when he died, his collection became the first part of the Annals of the Four Masters at the Stowe Library.

[edit] Legacy

Regarding the writing of ancient histories of peoples, the essential difference between O'Conor and most of his contemporaries was that O'Conor had the means and the inclination to be sure that his own telling of history did not conflict with the historical record. His dissertations on the histories presented by others were authoritative for that same reason: he dispassionately noted the consistencies and conflicts of any particular account of history with the historical record itself.

His legacy in modern history is succinct. Though the effort was promoted by many, it was largely through his effectiveness that Ireland received the recognition that it deserved as the font of Gaelic culture and the premier disseminator of literacy in ancient times. O'Conor also strove for the presentation of Celtic Christianity as something separate from early Roman Catholicism as a means of allaying Protestant British distrust of the Catholic Irish, a perspective that has survived into modern times.

For long after his death in 1791, O'Conor was referred to simply as "the venerable O'Conor", in part to distinguish him from others bearing the same name, but also and always to denote a man who richly deserved respect and whose only agenda in the telling of history was that the telling was an honest one.

[edit] Partial bibliography

Among O'Conor's principle works are:

  • Dissertations on the ancient history of Ireland (1753)
  • Principles of the Roman Catholics (1756)
  • Introduction to Dr. Curry's Civil Wars (1756)
  • The Protestant Interest of Ireland considered (1757)
  • Dissertations on the ancient history of Ireland. To which is subjoined, a dissertation on the Irish colonies established in Britain. With some remarks on Mr. Mac Pherson's translation of Fingal and Temora. (1766)
  • A dissertation on the origin and antiquities of the antient Scots, and notes, critical and explanatory, on Mr. O'Flaherty's text - included in The Ogygia vindicated: against the objections of sir George Mackenzie, king's advocate for Scotland in the reign of king James II, by Roderic O'Flaherty (1775)
  • On the Heathen State and Topography of Ancient Ireland (1783)

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[edit] Notes

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