O’HART, John. Irish Pedigrees; or The Origin and Stem of The Irish Nation. (Limited American Edition)

Two volumes. New York: Murphy & McCarthy, 1915. 4to. Vol. I: pp. xxiii, 912, [40 coloured armorial plates], 19A; Vol. II: pp. xxiv, 948, 22. Bound in full green morocco, covers framed by gilt fillets with shamrock tools at the corners, the gilt armorial device of the Office of Arms, with the motto ‘Patrum Memores’, prominently displayed at the centre of each cover. Spines divided into six compartments by five gilt raised bands, title and author lettered in gilt direct in the second and fourth compartments, the remainder richly decorated with gilt fleur-de-lis and shamrock tools; green and gold endbands; striking gold, white, black and blue splash-marbled endpapers. All edges gilt. A superb set in slipcase.
The most desirable American edition of O’Hart’s monumental genealogical work, extensively revised and incorporating material from the earlier editions of Irish Pedigrees together with genealogical information from his Irish Landed Gentry when Cromwell came to Ireland. The work traces the descent of a vast number of Irish families and supplements the genealogies with descriptions of their armorial bearings.
John O’Hart (1824-1902), genealogist and antiquary, was born at Crossmolina, County Mayo. Originally intended for the priesthood, he subsequently pursued a career in education and devoted much of his life to the study of Irish genealogy. Irish Pedigrees, first published in the nineteenth century and repeatedly enlarged, became his best-known work and remains one of the most frequently consulted compendia of traditional Irish genealogy. O’Hart drew upon printed histories, genealogical manuscripts and earlier antiquarian authorities in an ambitious attempt to trace Irish families from their ancient origins through the medieval and early modern periods and into his own time. While modern genealogical scholarship does not accept all of O’Hart’s earliest pedigrees without corroborating evidence, the enormous body of family history assembled in these volumes continues to make the work an important starting point for research into Irish surnames and genealogy.
The scope extends beyond the ancient Gaelic and Norman families. Of particular interest are the genealogies of numerous Huguenot families, descendants of the French Protestant refugees who settled in Ireland following the religious persecutions associated with the reign of Louis XIV and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.
This edition is further enhanced by forty coloured plates displaying the coats of arms of hundreds of Irish families, giving the work considerable visual as well as genealogical interest.
An exceptionally handsome and imposing set of O’Hart’s magnum opus, combining one of the standard works of Irish genealogy with an unusually distinguished armorial binding.
O’Hart’s Irish Pedigrees was an extraordinarily ambitious attempt to gather the genealogical traditions of the Irish nation within a single work. Its enduring value lies not only in the individual pedigrees but in the enormous quantity of historical, heraldic and family material brought together from sources which were widely scattered and, in some cases, difficult of access. Although the legendary and very early generations of certain pedigrees require the caution appropriate to nineteenth-century genealogical scholarship, for the later historical period O’Hart remains an indispensable point of departure. This lavish American edition, with its forty coloured armorial plates and magnificent binding bearing the arms and motto ‘Patrum Memores’, is a particularly appropriate presentation of a work devoted to the preservation of ancestral memory.
Of particular distinction in the present set is the handsome full green morocco binding. The covers bear in gilt the heraldic device associated with the Irish Office of Arms, surmounted by a crown and accompanied by the motto ‘Patrum Memores’ — ‘Mindful of our Fathers’ or ‘Mindful of our Ancestors’. The motto is especially appropriate to O’Hart’s great genealogical undertaking. The Office of Arms tradition is today continued by the Genealogical Office and the Chief Herald of Ireland.

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