O‟CONOR, Carola D.D. Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores Veteres … Epistolam nuncupatoriam quae Codicum Vetustissimorum Hibernensium notitiam … Annales Tigernachi … Annales Inisfalenses … Annales Buellianos … Annales 1V Magistrorum, ex Ipso O‟Clerii Autographo in Bibliotheca Stowense … Annales Ultonienses, ab Anno D. CCCCXXXI, ad Annum D. MCXXXI … Itemque Indicem Generalem. Illustrated with 13 plates. Four volumes. Buckingham: J. Seeley,

200 COPIES PRIVATELY PRINTED

Sold by T. Payne, London, 1814-1826. Quarto. Green buckram, titled in gilt. A fine set. Very rare in commerce.

Dix OC 127. Bradshaw 6096. Gilbert 594. Best, 67. Bradshaw 6096.
The author was born at Belanagare in 1764, second son of Denis O‟Conor and grandson of Charles
O‟Conor of Belanagare, the distinguished Irish scholar and antiquary. Educated for the priesthood at
Rome, after his ordination he was appointed Parish Priest of Kilkeevan (Castlerea). In 1796 he
published a memoir of his grandfather: Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Charles O’Conor
(1710-1791), now an exceedingly rare book. The Marquis of Buckingham had purchased the
grandfather‟s massive collection of manuscripts, and Fr. Charles was introduced to the Marquis as the
person most suitable to translate and catalogue them. In 1798 he was appointed Chaplain to the
Marchioness of Buckingham at Stowe, and following her death in 1813 he continued as Librarian to the
Duke. It was here he edited the present work which was privately printed, only two hundred copies
were issued at the personal expense of the Duke of Buckingham. A special type fount was cut by
Vincent Figgins, for the second volume, based on the copper-plate examples of Irish words in
Vallancey‟s Grammar of the Iberno-Celtic or Irish Language (See item 352). The author was afflicted
by illness in later life and was confined to an asylum in Finglas, where he met Dr. Lanigan, his former
classmate and fellow antiquarian, also an inmate. He died at his brother‟s house at Belanagare in 1828,
and was buried in the family buriel place at Ballintober.
Includes the knowledge of the oldest Irish codices and the chronology of the kings; also the
Prolegomena to the Annales, part II, the first of which includes the oldest historical records of
Hibernia, the second the catalogs of the Annals and Irish Poems.
John Martin‟s A Bibliographical Catalogue of Books Privately Printed (London, 1834), 143-5, relates:
“About two hundred sets were made complete of the four volumes. On its first appearance, it was the
intention of the Duke of Buckingham to permit it to be generally sold; but circumstances induced his
Grace to change his determination; and the work was withdrawn from public sale, when, it is believed,
not more than ten copies of the first volume had found their way into the hands of individuals. Twentysix copies were printed in large paper; Mr Grenville possesses one” [BL G.5822-5].