Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Magrath, John Macrory
MAGRATH, JOHN MACRORY, in Irish Eoghan MacRuadhri MacCraith (fl. 1459), Irish historian, was born in Munster of a family of hereditary men of letters, other members of which mentioned in the Irish chronicles are: Eoghan (d. 1240), poet; Ruadhri (d. 1342), historian; Maelmuire (d. 1390), poet, author of a long lament on the death of Domhnall MacCarthy; Thomas (d. 1410), chief poet of Thomond, son of Maelmuire; Diarmait (d. 1411), chief poet of Thomond, son of Gilla Isa; Aedh Og (d. 1426), chief poet of Thomond, plundered by Sir John Talbot in 1415; Oengus (d. 1461), poet. John MacRory became chief historian to the Dal Cais in Thomond. He wrote a history of the wars of Thomond from 1194 to 1318, called ‘Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh.’ This is not a chronicle, but a finished historical composition, giving a very full account from contemporary sources of the long struggle for the possession of Clare with the De Clares, which ended in the defeat and death of Robert de Clare and his son, and the final expulsion of the Normans and their allies at the battle of Disert O'Dea in 1318. Important events are celebrated in verse, which is as good as the admirable prose which makes up the great part of the book. The best existing copy is one made by Andrew MacCuirtin [q. v.] for Teigne MacNamara of Ranna in 1721 (H. 1. 18, in library of Trinity College, Dublin); an imperfect copy, made in 1509, is in the library of the Royal Irish Academy. The ‘Cathreim’ has been translated by Standish Hayes O'Grady.
Subsequent members of the literary family of Magrath were: Flann (d. 1580), poet, son of Eoghan, author of a poem on Thomas Butler, tenth earl of Ormonde [q. v.], beginning ‘Eolach me air mheirge an iarla’ (‘I know the standard of the earl’), of verses on death, and of a poem on the woes of Ireland; and Eoghan (fl. 1620), poet, author of verses on the death of Donough O'Brien, fourth earl of Thomond.
[Manuscript translation of Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh, kindly lent by the author, S. H. O'Grady; O'Curry's Lectures, vol. i.; Transactions of Iberno-Celtic Society, 1820; Annala Rioghachta Eireann, ed. J. O'Donovan.]