Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/454

 and popular, as restless and adventurous as he was brave. His acquirements were rather broad than deep. He was a good linguist, speaking French, German, Spanish, and Jagatai Tartar. He knew something of medicine and botany, was a fair draughtsman, and a good surveyor.

 O'DONOVAN, JOHN (1809–1861), Irish scholar, fourth son of Edmond O'Donovan and his wife Eleanor Hoberlin of Rochestown, was born on 9 July 1809 at his father's farm of Attateemore, co. Kilkenny, at the foot of Tory Hill (note in, Annals, p. 267). He was descended from Edmond O'Donovan, who was killed in a battle between General Preston and the Duke of Ormonde at Balinvegga, co. Kilkenny, on 18 March 1643, and who, in consequence of a local quarrel, had moved from Bawnlahan, co. Cork, to Gaulstown, co. Kilkenny. Through this ancestor he was descended from Eoghan, son of Oilliol Oluim, king of Munster about 250, and common ancestor of most of the families of Munster, and from Mogh Nuadhat, after whom the south of Ireland is always called in Irish literature Leth Mogha. His father died on 29 July 1817, and on his death-bed repeated several times to his sons who were present his descent, and desired his eldest son, Michael, always to remember it. The eldest son took his brother John to Dublin, and defrayed the cost of his education. In 1821, 1822, and 1823 he paid long visits to an uncle, Patrick O'Donovan, from whom he first caught a love for ancient Irish and Anglo-Irish history and traditions. O'Donovan in 1826 obtained work in the Irish Record Office, and in 1829 was appointed to a post in the historical department of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland. His work was mainly the examination of Irish manuscripts and records, with a view to determining the nomenclature to be used on the maps, but he also visited every part of Ireland, and recorded observations and notes in letters, many volumes of which are preserved in the Royal Irish Academy, and well deserve publication. The maps contain 144,000 names, including those of 62,000 townlands, the smallest local divisions in Ireland, and all these were discussed, and those modern methods of spelling most representative of the literary Irish designation were adopted. The single volume published by the survey in 1837 contains a long Irish text and translation from the ‘Dinnsenchus’ by O'Donovan. During 1832 and 1833 O'Donovan wrote many articles, on Irish topography and history, in the ‘Dublin Penny Journal,’ and he wrote in the ‘Irish Penny Journal’ during 1840–1. Every one of these articles contains much valuable original work. The best are perhaps the series of six essays on the origin and meaning of Irish family names, in which he shows wide knowledge of the ancient and modern topography and inhabitants of Ireland, as well as an intimate acquaintance with the Irish language. The Irish Archæological Society was formed in 1840, and the first volume of its publications, which appeared in 1841, contained a text and translation, with notes, of ‘The Circuit of Ireland by Muircheartach MacNeill, a Poem written in 942 by Cormacan Eigeas,’ in which O'Donovan published the first good map of ancient Ireland. In 1842 he published ‘The Banquet of Dun na ngedh and the Battle of Magh Rath,’ two dependent historical tales. This quarto of 350 pages, besides the texts and translations, contains admirable notes, genealogies, and an appendix, showing extensive Irish reading. In 1843 he published ‘The Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many, commonly called O'Kelly's Country,’ from the ‘Book of Lecan,’ a manuscript of 1418. Very varied original information is contained in the notes to this text and translation; as well as texts and translations of a long Irish treatise on the boundaries of O'Maine and of another on the descent and merits of the O'Maddens. In 1844 he published a quarto of five hundred pages, ‘The Genealogies, Tribes, and Customs of Hy Fiachrach, commonly called O'Dowda's Country,’ the text printed from a manuscript of Duald MacFirbis. This is again accompanied by a beautiful map, and many considerable extracts from other manuscripts are given and translated in the notes.

In 1846 O'Donovan published the Irish charters in the ‘Book of Kells,’ an Irish covenant and ancient poem in Irish attributed to St. Columba, and Duald Mac Firbis's translation of Irish annals 1443–1468. The Irish Archæological and Celtic Society published three other texts and translations of his, one in 1860, ‘Three Fragments of Irish Annals, with Translation and Notes;’ the second in 1862, after his death, ‘The Topographical Poems of O'Dubhagain and O'Huidhrin.’ The last contains a reprint of his articles on Irish names, and both are full of original work. The third was ‘The Martyrology of Donegal,’ published in 1864, and edited by Bishop Reeves. The Celtic Society published for him two large volumes—in 1847 ‘Leabhar na gCeart,’ from a manu-