O’DONNELL, Thomas J. Ed. by. Selections from the Zoilomastix of Philip O’Sullivan Beare.

Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, 1960. Royal octavo. pp. lxviii, 111. Green buckram, titled in gilt. A fine copy. Scarce.
The seventeenth century historian Philip O’Sullivan Beare left an unpublished manuscript entitled ‘Zoilomastix’ in which he defends his fellow Irishmen against their critics. Although John Lynch had knowledge of this manuscript for centuries its whereabouts was unknown to Irish historians, until it turned up over fifty years ago in the University Library of Upsala, Sweden. The work is divided into five books and the present volume comprises material selected for its historical interest, together with a table of contents of the entire manuscript. The introduction chronicles the early history of the O’Sullivans of Beare and Bantry supplemented with a genealogical chart. Professor Tomás de Bhaldraithe, in an appendix to the introduction, presents the Irish names (as well as the English and Latin equivalents) of birds, animals, fishes, plants and minerals given by O’Sullivan in what is apparently the earliest Modern Irish list of its kind.

[TVR 1A]