Chronicles of Eri

title page of the Chroniclles of Eri

The Chronicles of Eri; Being the History of the Gaal Sciot Iber: or, the Irish People; Translated from the Original Manuscripts in the Phoenecian Dialect of the Scythian Language is an 1822 book in two volumes by Roger O'Connor (1762–1834), purporting to detail the history of the Irish from the creation of the world. The work contains multiple plates and maps and is prefaced with the author naming himself "head of his race" and "chief of the prostrated people of this nation".[1]

Of the supposed original Phoenecian manuscripts, the only evidence O'Connor ever produced for examination was an eighteen-inch-long scroll purporting to be "a facsimile of part of the great roll of the Laws of Eri",[2] currently held in the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester.[3] Scholars who have examined this manuscript "are unable to find in them the likeness of any known ancient language".[2] The rest O'Connor claimed were lost or destroyed in various circumstances.[2]

R. A. Stewart Macalister dismissed the book as "an amalgam of bombastic paraphrases of Irish annalistic matter, irreverent parodies of Biblical exerpts, 'etymologies' (which have to be seen to be believed), and wildly irresponsible inventions resembling those in the closely analogous Book of Mormon."[4] Alfred Webb in his A Compendium of Irish Biography (1878) was less charitable, deeming the Chronicles of Eri to be "a piece of gross literary forgery."[1]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Webb, Alfred John (1878). A Compendium of Irish Biography: Comprising Sketches of Distinguished Irishmen, and of Eminent Persons Connected with Ireland by Office Or by Their Writings. Dublin: M.H. Gill & son. p. 383. OCLC 122693688.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Prendergast, John P. (January 1884). "Dangan and Roger O'Connor". The Irish Monthly 12 (127): 35–47. Retrieved 24 December 2014.
  3. ↑ Holdings: A roll bearing lettering stated by Roger O'Connor in his Chronicles of Eri to be the laws of Eri in the Phoenician dialect of the Scythian language., National Library of Ireland
  4. ↑ R. A. Stewart Macalister, Review: The Chronicles of Eri (The Ancient Irish: Who They Were, and Their Connections with the Coronation Stone) by F. T. Perry, Irish Historical Studies Vol 2, No 7, March 1941 OCLC 5557120402

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