This text by Louis Lainé traces the history of the MacCarthys — from Heber, third son of Milesius. The MacCarthy name is the most numerous of Irish families with a Mac prefix. Due to intermarriage between the French nobility and Irish families, such as the MacCarthys, Lainé's attention was drawn towards the antiquities of Ireland for the Archives généalogiques et historiques [...] series.
The following work is divided into five parts which concentrate on the principles of an honourable name, their noble works and particular calling in life:—
As the title to the 1839 volume suggests, the primary sources consist of chronicles, poetry, deeds and charters relating to the history of Ireland. In his history of the MacCarthys, the most substantial part of the text, Lainé refers to a valuable eighteenth-century register of the family entitled Généalogie de la Royale et Sérénissime Maison de Mac-Carthy, two folio volumes of parchemin-vélin, the first devoted to historical evidence and the second to genealogical. Lainé specifies that the following sources were consulted in its compilation: the tenth-century Psalter of Cashel, eleventh-century poetry by O'Duvegan, the Leabhar Breac by MacEgan, Chronicum Scotorum, the Annals of Innisfallen, Clonmacnoise, Connacht, and the Four Masters, the Codex Momoniensis or Book of Munster, Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, Roderic O'Flaherty's Ogygia, and the Abbé MacGeoghegan's Histoire de l'Irlande ancienne et moderne. This material was gathered by Ralph Bigland, Clarenceux King of Arms, and Isaac Heard, Norroy King of Arms, and completed at the College of Arms, London. Each page was ‘paraphed, attested and signed’ by the two English kings of arms and ‘sealed with their seal of office at London on 8 June 1776.’ Sixty years thereafter Lainé stated that these volumes were extant in the archives of the Comte MacCarthy Reagh. Lainé regarded the library of the Comte MacCarthy Reagh as one of the richest in Europe, made ‘more remarkable by the selection of works, the rarity of editions and the sumptuous condition of their bindings.’1 On the evidence of this register, his grandfather, Justin, Comte MacCarthy Reagh, was naturalised and admitted with honours to the French court.2
Throughout Lainé cites his sources and includes copious notes, thus enabling the reader to substantiate his viewpoint. Apart from the references to Charles Vallencey, Sylvester O'Halloran, Sir James Ware, Charles Smith, Mervyn Archdall and James Gordon in his narrative, Lainé mentions MacGeoghegan, O'Flaherty, Leland and Keating in ascending order. MacGeoghegan's position was openly Catholic whereas Dr Thomas Leland, a respected Protestant clergyman and librarian at Trinity College, endorsed early Christian Ireland's reputation for scholarship.3 Up to the early seventh century, Lainé's narrative repeatedly quotes from the Ogygia by Roderic O'Flaherty, first published in 1685. According to Clare O'Halloran, ‘O'Flaherty's main aim was to outline a chronology of Irish history which would establish the antiquity of an Irish kingship, beginning with Milesius.’4 This is consistent with a key theory in European thought. Invasion and conquest were regarded as principal forces of change in history, a pattern for pre-history and a method by which western European origins came to be explained.5 Lainé noted the Milesian, Viking, English, and Bruce invasions. In common with MacGeoghegan, he identified the Vikings as an external force which undermined Irish society before the Norman conquest, referring to Sitric as 'perfidious'.6 Though named on only six occasions, special praise is reserved for Sylvester O'Halloran who Lainé terms an 'esteemed historian' who corresponded with the lexicographer John O'Brien, Catholic bishop of Cloyne.7 Echoing Lainés methodology, Sylvester O'Halloran supported the idea of a Milesian migration and referred to the Psalter of Cashel among his sources while relying upon the annals and Keating.8
Lainé consulted the 1809 edition of Dermod O'Connor's translation of Keating, rather than the 1811 version by William Haliday.9 O'Connor's translation had a significant influence on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century views of Gaelic civility. Seeking to broaden his readership among Protestant antiquarians, O'Connor also changed the tone of Keating's history by replacing the term 'Catholic' with 'Christian'.10 In 1784, the chevalier Thomas O'Gorman of Co. Clare, an officer in the French military, expressed the opinion that ‘the chief value of the present work of Doctor Keating and his translator [...] consists in the Genealogical Tables of the kings & principal families which are really curious and deserve a great degree of credits’.11 This reflects the value that Lainé placed on ‘le docteur Keating’. When citing the obits in his work, Lainé distinguished between the annals by including the variant years of death. He notes when there is only source as authority and interrogates secondary sources such as Leland and Gordon.12 Beyond the events of the seventeenth century, Lainé depended upon peerages of Ireland, a point underlined by the inclusion of the arms of families mentioned in his marginalia for the later period.
Louis Lainé was born in the early 1790s. Following military service and work as an industrial accountant, he began his career in heraldry in 1814 collaborating with Nicolas Viton de Saint-Allais at the Bureau du Nobilaire Universel de France in Paris.13 Their work was in demand with an eager readership among nobles seeking the return of titles and privileges lost in the revolution of 1789.14
In the words of his assistant, J. J. L. Lainé, ‘the abolition of titles does not destroy the prestige of names.’ Relying upon nobles to provide them with access to relevant manuscript sources, Louis Lainé and De Saint-Allais produced Nobiliaire universel de France [...] and Dictionnaire encyclopédique de la noblesse de France in eighteen volumes and two volumes respectively. From 1827, Lainé worked as an associate of Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Jullien de Courcelles, honorary genealogist to both Louis XVIII and his younger brother Charles X. Together, Lainé and De Courcelles compiled the Dictionnaire historique et biographique des généraux français in nine volumes dealing with events from the eleventh century until 1820. These were followed by the Dictionnaire de la noblesse in five, and Histoire généalogique et héraldique des pairs de France in twelve volumes.
Bringing to press his Dictionnaire véridique des origines des maisons nobles ou anobles du Royaume de France in two volumes in 1818, Lainé embarked upon the publication of Archives généalogiques et historiques de la noblesse de France ten years later. From 1831 to 1835, he co-operated in editing the Dictionnaire de la Conversation et la Lecture. During this period, he also responded in print to defamatory statements made against him. In total, eleven volumes appeared in the Archives généalogiques et historiques series up to 1850. To quote J. J. L. Lainé, ‘the measure of [Louis Lainé's] erudition and the surety of his judgment’ was his critical review of the museum at Versailles, printed in the ninth volume. Publication of the final volume was posthumous, due to the revolution of February 1848 which overthrew Louis Philippe I. These events led to the abolition of the nobility's legal status. On 24 August the following year, Louis Lainé died in Paris at fifty-nine years of age during a cholera epidemic.15
Lainé's writings reflect the popular interest which history enjoyed in French- and German-speaking lands during the nineteenth century where the study of history rivalled that of philosophy.16 On the title page to the volume, Lainé states that he was successor to De Courcelles, genealogist to Louis XVIII and Charles X. Among his other works, De Courcelles compiled several tomes on verifying the date of documents. In a similar way to Sylvester O'Halloran, Lainé exults in martial prowess from early medieval times onwards, thereby setting the precedent for MacCarthy military service in France. During the Bourbon restoration, from the fall of Napoleon to 1830, old Jacobite feats at victories, such as the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, were celebrated by the French.17 Among the prominent Jacobites referred to here by Lainé are Justin, Lord Mountcashel (d.1694), and Robert, fifth earl of Clancarthy (d.1769).
Louis Philippe, duke of Orléans, a cousin of Louis XVIII and Charles X, was elected to the French throne in 1830. With its concern for sovereignty, inheritance and fealty to legitimate authority, Lainé's book on the MacCarthys is a work of its times. It was written when the Orléanists were in the political ascendancy in France. Followers of the house of Orléans believed in a constitutional rather than absolutist monarchy and came to power after the revolution of 1830.18 Bearing in mind that Louis Philippe I was elected 'King of the French,' it is interesting to note Lainé's favourable treatment of succession by the Brehon law of 'tanistrie.' This contrasts with the view that it caused instability espoused by John Davies and Thomas Leland, both of whom Lainé quotes elsewhere. Indeed, in dwelling on a perceived golden age of civilisation, Lainé's work reflects the tendency to see the revolution of 1789 as a renewed source of instability and barbarism.19
David Hume, the eighteenth-century Scottish empiricist, recommended comparing the language and customs of neighbouring countries.20 There are several specific reasons to explain Lainé's interest in Ireland's past. France had offered a hospitable welcome to antiquarians from Ireland since Ware's sojourn in exile from 1649 to 1660.21 A century later, the Catholic bishop of Cloyne, John O'Brien, owned the copy of the Chronicum Scotorum now preserved in Dublin, Trinity College Library, probably during his residence in France where he lived prior to his death in 1769.22 Moreover, Irish troops were levied to serve in French armies for much of the early-modern era.23 By the second half of the eighteenth century, descendants of the MacCarthys were ennobled in France and, as such, remained royalist in their outlook. As with many French writers, Louis Lainé took every opportunity to express sympathy for the Irish cause and regularly expounds upon their disdain for the English, especially from the twelfth to the seventeenth century.24 In doing so, he overemphasises the idea of a united Irish effort, a concept of nationalism which would have been difficult to conceive in the medieval period.25
From the earliest times, Lainé emphasises the consolidation of landholdings through strategic marriages. By his union with Cairea, daughter of Laoghaire, Cronan, third son of Corc, son of Lugh, obtained in east Meath the territory of Cuirone which today forms the barony of East Kilkenny, or Dillon's country. After explaining the Eóghanachta and Dál gCais descent from Oilioll Olum, third-century king of Munster, Lainé deals with the struggle of the MacCarthys and the O'Briens for supremacy over the two Munsters. To counteract this rivalry during the medieval period, several marriages were arranged: Sara MacCarthy with Dermod O'Brien, ruler of the two Munsters; and Sabia MacCarthy with Turlogh O'Brien, prince of Thomond, for instance. The subsequent concentration of the MacCarthys' political authority in Desmond is reflected in their alliances with the Fitzmaurice earls of Desmond and lords of Kerry. To retain control over their territories, intermarriage between branches of the MacCarthys also occurred. Other references here show that the MacCarthys entered into alliances with neighbouring dynasties such as the Butlers, Fitzgeralds, Barrys, O'Sullivans, O'Driscolls, O'Donovans and O'Callaghans. Later, the geographical distribution of MacCarthy marriages occasionally extended beyond these groups to England and France. From the closing quarter of the eighteenth century, alliances between the MacCarthys and the French nobility become more apparent. At the time Lainé was writing, the last named member of the family—the son of Robert, comte MacCarthy-Reagh, and Emilie-Marie de Bressac—was twenty-eight years of age.
Prior to its donation to the Library at University College Cork in 1931, the present volume of Lainé's work on the MacCarthys had three owners. The first was Robert Donovan who wrote his name and the year 1840 on the title page, appending his crest and initials on the inside board of the cover. Notes that he made in the book are included here. The magistrate and a Poor Law guardian, Richard Donovan of Lisheens House, Ballincollig, Co. Cork, wrote on genealogical matters to John O'Donovan from June to December 1842 and January 1847 until March 1848.26 Offering evidence that works such as Lainé's were prized by readers, Richard Donovan's notes marvel at the translation of the Battle of Magh Rath by John O'Donovan with its genealogical tree. The O'Donovans were among the followers of the MacCarthys who traced their descent to the Eóghanachta. Further, in the eighteenth century, intermarriages occurred with the MacCarthys of Carbery and the O'Donovans. It is a mark of Lainé's accomplishment that he applied himself to publishing his findings more than a decade before others in Ireland. As such Lainé's work provides a bridge between Gaelic manuscript culture and the printed research of later scholars such as John O'Donovan, Eugene O'Curry, Whitley Stokes and W. M. Hennessy. That said, occasional shortcomings in Lainé's research are understandable, such as his claim that the McCartneys of Scotland were descended from the MacCarthys.27
The second owner of this copy, John Paul Dalton, is identified in a letter dated 10 September 1893 and written at Bournemouth by Herbert Webb Gillman.28 Dalton was instrumental in founding the Cork Municipal Museum and became first curator. Joint Honorary Secretary of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, he was elected a member of the Cork School of Music and Art, belonged to the Cork Literary and Scientific Society and addressed the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. From 1892 until 1909, he published essays, poems and review articles in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society and the New Ireland Review. He died at a comparatively young age in 1912.29 Dalton's correspondent, Herbert Webb Gillman, was a founding member of Cork Historical and Archaeological Society.30 He contributed many articles to the Journal of the Society in the 1890s concerning military matters, souterrains, castles and native enclosed settlements, marriage, clans and clan systems. These included: 'Sir Cormac McTeige MacCarthy and the sept lands of Muskerry, Co. Cork; with a historical pedigree' and 'Carrignamuck Castle, County Cork: a stronghold of the MacCarthys'. According to Gillman's letter to Dalton, most of the historical research compiled on the MacCarthys by the late nineteenth century related 'chiefly to the MacCarthys of Gleannacruim'. The work of Lainé 'is of larger interest' because it deals with other branches of the family.31 A postscript to the letter states that Dalton was 'very fortunate' to have a copy of Lainé's book and asks for a loan of it.32
A stamp on a verso leaf before the title page states that this copy was: 'Presented to Cork University Library by Senator J.C. Dowdall, L.L.D.' while the accompanying library stamps are dated 15 May 1931. This relates to James Dowdall, a businessman and a member of the governing body of University College Cork. Born 1874 in Chatham, England, he lived at Sunday's Well. Dowdall O'Mahony & Company exported butter products from its factory on Union Quay, Cork.33 In 1903, James Dowdall was a founder member and president of the Cork Industrial Development Association. He was also a company director at Lucania Cycles, Cork Gas, and Hibernian Insurance.34 In December 1922, the President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, W. T. Cosgrave, nominated Dowdall to Seanad Éireann for 12 years as an Independent candidate. Senator Dowdall received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from University College Cork in 1926.35 In the Seanad election eight years later, he stood for Fianna Fáil and was re-elected for nine years. James Dowdall died on 28 June 1939 and is buried in St Finbarr's Cemetery, Cork. It is appropriate, therefore, that a present-day member of the governing body of University College Cork has sponsored this electronic edition. Dr Brian McCarthy of Fexco Financial Services has a long-standing interest in the history and heritage of the MacCarthy name. We are most grateful for his generous support.