O’FLAHERTY, Roderic. Esq. Ogygia, or, A Chronological Account of Irish Events: Collected from very ancient documents, faithfully compared with each other, and supported by the genealogical and chronological aid of the sacred and prophane writings of the first nations of the globe.

THE OGYGIA BY ONE OF THE MOST LEARNED MEN OF EUROPE

Written originally in Latin and now translated by Rev. James Hely. With list of subscribers. Two volumes in one. Dublin: Printed by W. M’Kenzie, No. 33, College-Green, and G. Faulkner, in Parliament-Street, 1793. Crown octavo. pp. lxxxiii, [1], 8 (List of Subscribers and errata), 292; [4], 419, [1]. Bound by J. Larkins in contemporary half calf over marbled boards [binder’s name stamped on verso of front endpaper], spine divided into six panels by five gilt raised bands, title and author in gilt on green morocco labels in the second and third, the remainder tooled in gilt to a centre-and-corner design; marbled endpapers; gold and yellow endbands. All edges marbled. A very good copy. Very rare.
ESTC T186390. Bradshaw 2394 Gilbert 602.
Roderick O’Flaherty, the noted historian and antiquarian of west Connaught was born at Moycullen Castle, County Galway, in 1629. His father Hugh, was the last chief of that proud race. He devoted his life to the study of Irish history and antiquities and was a contemporary of Dr. John Lynch, Bishop Kirwan of Killala, and he studied Irish literature and history under Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh of Lecan, then resident in the college of St. Nicholas in Galway. In 1652 without having taken part in rebellion, he was included in the general Cromwellian proscription. He appealed to the Commissioners at Athlone, and was allowed a portion of his family’s estate in Iar Connaught. Afterwards he wrote: “I live a banished man within the bounds of my native soil; a spectator of others enriched by my birth-right; an object of condoling to my relatives and friends, and a condoler of their miseries.”
His first important work was a reply to Dr. Borlace’s History of the Rebellion. He also wrote A Description of West or hIar Connaught which was first published by the Irish Archaeological Society in 1846. His magnum opus however was the present work on offer here, the Ogygia. First published 1685), which according to Hardiman “remains a lasting monument of our author’s learning and genius.” Immediately on its appearance it excited the curiosity and attracted the attention of the learned of Europe, many of whom testified their approbation of the work in the most flattering terms.
A monumental work on the history of Ireland from the earliest times to the year 1684. O’Flaherty consulted the Book of Lecan, the chronicle of Tighearnach O’Braein, the Liber Migrationum of Michael O’Cleary, and numerous other Irish medieval manuscripts. Our ablest antiquaries since that time have admitted that in it he has given secure anchorage to Irish history.
Edward Lloyd of Oxford, who visited O’Flaherty in 1700, described him as “affable and learned”, but added the revolutions in Ireland had “reduced him to great poverty, and destroyed his books and papers”. In 1709, Sir Thomas Molyneux visited Roderick O’Flaherty in his castle at Moycullen in Connemara, and he wrote of his trip: “I went to visit old Flaherty, who lives very old, in a miserable condition ... I expected to have seen here some old Irish manuscripts, but his ill-fortune had stripped him of these as well as his other goods, so that he had nothing now left but some few pieces of his own writing and a few old rummish books of history, printed”.
He died in 1718 in his 89th year, leaving an only son Michael, to whom, in 1736, a portion of the family estates were restored.
The list of subscribers included: Mervyn Archdall, Sir Richard d’Burgho, Lord Charlemont, Lord Cloncurry, John Ferrar, Mess. Flin & Haly of Cork, George Grierson, John Hely Hutchinson, John Kelly of Carraroe, Duke of Leinster, David Latouche, Hugh M’Dermot of Culavin, John Monk Mason, William M’Kenzie, Patrick Molarchy of Sligo, Earl of Ormond, Charles O’Conor of Belenagare, Chevalier O’Gorman, Anthony O’Flaherty of Renville, Sir Laurence Parsons, Archibald Hamilton Roan, Dominic Trant, Col. Vallancey, Joseph Cooper Walker, Emmett, Esq. M.D. Earl of Moira, Lord Rawdon, Archbishop Troy, Hon. Barry Yelverton, etc.

[CAT 164]