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with enthusiasm by numbers of his coun- trymen, who, placing faith in an ancient prophecy, believed him destined to deliver their land from its connexion with Eng- land. He was commissioned by James II. to command an irregular force of some 5,000 men, raised mainly by himself ; but in consequence of the jealousy of other Irish officers, was not permitted to take much part in the regular operations of the war. He carried on a desultory warfare in James's interest, and had to trust to forced requisitions for the provisioning and arming of his force. After the battle of Augh- rim he went over, with 1,200 men, to the Williamite side, on being secured a pension of £500 per annum. His services in Sligo against his former friends will be found detailed in D' Alton's Annals of Boyle. After the capitulation of Limerick, he retired to Spain, served three years in Piedmont, and in 1695 was appointed a major-general. He probably died about 1703, as his pension does not appear to have been paid after that date, ^t
O'Donovan, John, a distinguished Irish scholar, was born at Atateemore, in the County of Kilkenny, 9th July 1809. The death of his father in 1817 caused the dispersion of the family, and John was brought to Dublin by his elder brother Michael, who although in poor circum- stances, procured for him the rudiments of a sound education. He often ascribed his taste for historical pursuits to the narrations of his uncle, Patrick O'Dono- van, who was well versed in the Gaelic lore of the county of his birth. In 1826 O'Donovan began to apply himself to archae- ological investigations and to the philoso- phical study of the Irish language. Through James Hardiman he was engaged to tran- scribe legal and historical documents in the Irish Eecord Office ; and with some slight assistance from his brother, was enabled to suppo.., himself until he obtained a situation on the Ordnance Survey of Ire- land, in the historical department, under George Petrie, left vacant on Edward O'Reilly's death in 1 829. To him was con- fided the examination of the ancient manu- scripts in the Irish language in the Royal Irish Academy and elsewhere, for the pur- pose of fixing the nomenclature on the maps, and extracting the local information they contained. Already acquainted with modern Gaelic, in the course of these labours he gradually acquired a knowledge of the language in its ancient and obsolete forms. Working in company with Petrie, O'Curry, and Mangan, after researches in all parts of Ireland, the names of the 62,000 townlands were satisfactorily
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fixed. "Of the entire 144,000 names on the maps, every one was made the subject of more or less investigation ; the name finally adopted being that among the modern modes of spelling most consistent with the ancient orthography, and ap- proaching as near to correctness as prac- ticable, without restoring the original and often obsolete appellation." ^^* His first important essays appeared in the Dublin Fenny Journal, to which he was a frequent contributor, until the fifty-sixth number, in July 1833, when the paper passed out of the management of John S. Folds. His articles upon such subjects as " The antiquity of Corn in Ireland," "The Battle of Clontarf," "Irish Pro- verbs," " Antiquity of MiUs in Ireland," " Dunseverick Castle," " Cormac's Glos- sary," established his character as an his- toric topographer. Several of his papers will also be found in the Irish Penny Journal, i84o-'4i — indeed it is chiefly his writings that make sets of these magazines now so valuable. In 1836 he commenced the compilation of an analytical catalogue of the Irish manu- scripts in Trinity College, Dublin. The residt of these investigations satisfied all conversant with the subject that the writings of many who during the previous century had been considered authorities on Irish history were worse than useless. Mainly through the instrumentality of Dr. Todd, the Irish Archaeological Society was formed in 1840. O'Donovan edited the first and many of its most important publications, as the Battle of Magh Rath, the Tribes and Cicstoms of Hy Fiachrach, and the Miscellany ; he also edited the Book of Rights for the Celtic Society — " with the exception of the Brehon Laws, the most valuable extant document illustrative of the clan government of the ancient Irish." In 1845 his Irish Grammar appeared, which had engaged his attention at in- tervals during the preceding seventeen years. In its compilation he was much assisted by Dr. Todd and Eugene O'Curry. It treated both of the vernacular and the language of ancient records, and " although not marked by profound philo- sophical or philological dissertations," or at all coming up to Zeuss's subsequent work (the importance of which he was the first to impress on the British public), it gained for him a high place amongst European scholars. In 1842 the Govern- ment had unexpectedly stopped the grant for the Historic Department of the Ord- nance Survey of Ireland, and O'Donovan and his fellow labourers, just when they were prepared to arrange and give to the
