Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: T100071

The Description of Ireland

Author: Fynes Moryson

Background details and bibliographic information

File Description

Charles Hughes

translated by Charles Hughes Electronic edition compiled by Beatrix Färber

Funded by University College, Cork and
The President's Strategic Fund via the Writers of Ireland II Project.

3. Third draft, with further bibliographical details.

Extent of text: 10600 words

Publication

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork
College Road, Cork, Ireland—http://www.ucc.ie/celt

(2007) (2010) (2014)

Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
Text ID Number: T100071

Availability

Available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of academic research and teaching only.

Sources

    Manuscript sources
  1. Oxford, Corpus Christi College Library, MS 94.
    Editions/Translations
  1. Fynes Moryson, A history of Ireland from the year 1599 to 1603: with a short narration of the state of the kingdom from the year 1169; to which is added a description of Ireland (2 vols, Dublin 1735). A reprint of part 2 and 3, Book 3, chapter 5 of the Itinerary, the Description is at the end of volume 2.
  2. Henry Morley (ed.), Ireland under Elizabeth and James the first, described by Edmund Spenser, by Sir John Davies, ... and by Fynes Moryson [Carisbrooke Library Series 10] (London & New York 1890).
  3. Charles Hughes, Shakespeare's Europe. Unpublished chapters of Fynes Moryson's Itinerary: being a survey of the condition of Europe at the end of the sixteenth century. With an Introduction and an account of Fynes Moryson's career (London 1903). For chapters on Ireland, see especially 185–260, 285–289, 481–486.
  4. Fynes Moryson, An itinerary, containing his ten yeeres travell through the twelve dominions of Germany, Bohmerland, Sweitzerland, Netherland, Denmarke, Poland, Italy, Turky, France, England, Scotland & Ireland [Reprint of 1617 edition] (4 vols, Glasgow 1907–1908).
  5. Graham Kew (ed.), The Irish sections of Fynes Moryson's unpublished Itinerary (Dublin 1998) [first published in Analecta Hibernica 37 (1995/1996) 1–137].
  6. See www.archive.org for the complete work made available by the University of Toronto Centre for Classical and Renaissance Literature.
    Selected further reading (
  1. Edward Campion, A historie of Ireland (London 1571; facsimile, ed. M. Hamner, repr. 1971).
  2. Richard Stanihurst, A treatise containing a plain and perfect description of Ireland (London 1577).
  3. William Camden, Britannia, trans. Philemon Holland (London 1610). For a full critical edition in Latin and English, see http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/cambrit/
  4. Barnaby Rich, A new description of Ireland (London 1610).
  5. John Davies, A discoverie of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued, nor brought under obedience of the crowne of England, until the beginning of his Majestie's happie raigne (London 1612; repr. 1969).
  6. Thomas Stafford, Pacata Hibernia: or, A history of the wars in Ireland during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, especially within the province of Munster under the government of Sir George Carew, and compiled by his direction and appointment (London 1633, repr. 2 vols; Dublin 1896).
  7. Charles Smith, The ancient and present state of the county and city of Cork: Containing a natural, civil, ecclesiastical, historical, and topographical description thereof (Dublin 1774). Reprinted by the Cork Historical and Archæological Society, with the addition of numerous original notes, etc., from the mss. of the late Thomas Crofton Croker, F.S.A., and Richard Caulfield, LL.D. ed. Robert Day & W.A. Copinger. (Cork 1893–1894).
  8. Charles Smith, The ancient and present state of the county and city of Waterford: containing a natural, civil, ecclesiastical, historical and topographical description thereof (Dublin 1773; 1774).
  9. Charles Smith, The ancient and present state of the county of Kerry. Containing a natural, civil, ecclesiastical, historical and topographical description thereof. (Dublin 1774; repr. Dublin & Cork 1979).
  10. Philip O'Sullivan Beare, 'Briefe relation of Ireland, and the diversity of Irish in the same,' ed. James Hardiman, in The Complete Catholic Directory, Almanack and Registry for the Year of our Lord 1841, vol. 1 (Dublin 1841) 362–373. With an introduction by Benjamin Hazard. (Online at CELT).
  11. Roderic O'Flaherty, A chorographical description of West or h-Iar Connaught, written A.D. 1684; ed. James Hardiman (Dublin 1846).
  12. Thomas Dinely, 'Observations on a tour through the kingdom of Ireland in 1681,' in Journal of the Kilkenny & South-East of Ireland Archæological Society, 2nd ser., 4 (1856–57) 143–46, 170–88; 5 (1858–59) 22–32, 55–56; 7 (1862–63) 38–52, 103–109, 320–38; 8 (1864–66) 40–48, 268–90; 425–46; 9 (1867) 73–91, 176–204.
  13. James Spedding (ed.), The letters and life of Francis Bacon (7 vols, 1861–1874), vol. 2.
  14. P. W. Joyce, The origin and history of Irish names of places (facs. of original edition in 3 vols, 1869–1913.] With a new introductory essay on P.W. Joyce by Mainchín Seoighe (repr. Dublin 1995).
  15. Louis Prosper Gachard & Charles Piot, Collection des voyages des souverains des Pays-Bas (4 vols, Brussels, 1874–1882) vol. 3, 1881. This book includes an account of the visit made to Kinsale by Archduke Ferdinand I in 1518. See pp 276–296. This extract is available online at CELT with an English translation.
  16. Charles Haliday, The Scandinavian kingdom of Dublin (Dublin 1882).
  17. Richard Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors: with a succinct account of the earlier history (3 vols, London 1885–1890).
  18. Richard Pococke, A tour in Ireland in 1752; ed. by George T. Stokes, as 'Bishop Pococke's tour in Ireland in 1752' (Dublin & London 1891). (Online at CELT).
  19. Geoffrey Keating, The history of Ireland (Foras Feasa ar Éirinn), eds. David Comyn & Patrick Dinneen (London 1902–1914). (Online at CELT).
  20. P. W. Joyce, A social history of Ancient Ireland. 2 volumes (New York, London & Bombay 1903).
  21. Adolphus William Ward, 'An Elizabethan traveller (Fynes Moryson),' in Collected papers, 3 (1921) 198–230.
  22. J. C. Whitebrook, 'Fynes Moryson, Giordano Bruno and William Shakespeare', Notes & Queries, 171 (1936) 255–260.
  23. Boies Penrose, Urbane travelers, 1591-1635 (Philadelphia PA & London 1942).
  24. Gilbert Waterhouse, 'Fynes Moryson: traveller,' Bulletin, Irish Committee of Historical Sciences, 36 (1945).
  25. Constantia Maxwell, The stranger in Ireland: from the reign of Elizabeth to the Great Famine (London 1954).
  26. F. Walsham, 'Fynes Moryson and four indentures,' Lincolnshire Historian 2/2 (1955) 18–23.
  27. L. W. Kenny, 'Contemporary sources for Essex's lieutenancy in Ireland, 1599,' Irish Historical Studies, 11/41 (1958–1959) 8–17.
  28. William Lithgow, The rare adventures and painful peregrinations of William Lithgow (1632), ed. with an Introduction by Gilbert Phelps (London 1974). (Extract online at CELT).
  29. Joseph Canning, 'A stranger in County Armagh,' in 'Before I Forget...': Journal of the Poyntzpass & District Local History Society, 5 (1991) 7–18.
  30. Andrew Hadfield & John McVeagh (eds.), Strangers to that land: British perceptions of Ireland from the reformation to the famine [Ulster Editions & Monographs 5] (Gerards Cross 1994).
  31. Antoni Maczak, Travel in early modern Europe, trans. Ursula Phillips (Cambridge 1995).
  32. Edward Thompson, 'Elizabethan economic analysis: Fynes Moryson's account of the economics of Europe,' in History of Economic Ideas, 3/1 (1995) 1–25.
  33. John McVeagh (ed.), Irish travel writing. A bibliography (Dublin 1996).
  34. Brian Lockey, 'Conquest and English legal identity in Renaissance Ireland,' in Journal of the History of Ideas, 65/4 (2004) 543–558.
  35. Hiram Morgan (ed.), The Battle of Kinsale (Bray 2004).
  36. Edward Thompson, 'Moryson, Fynes (1565/6–1630), traveller and writer,' in Brian Harrison et al. (eds.), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (60 vols, Oxford 2004) [online at www.oxforddnb.com].
  37. David Holeton, 'Fynes Moryson's Itinerary: a sixteenth century English traveller's observations on Bohemia, its reformation, and its liturgy,' in Zdenek V. David (ed.), The Bohemian reformation and religious practice, 5/2 (Prague 2005) 379–412.
  38. C. J. Woods, Travellers' accounts as source material for Irish historians (Dublin 2009).
  39. Stephan Schmuck, ''Familiar strangers': dissimulation, tolerance and faith in early Anglo-Ottoman travel,' in Isabel Karremann, Cornel Zwierlein, Inga Mai Groote (eds.), Forgetting faith? Negotiating confessional conflict in early modern Europe [Pluralisierung & Autorität, 29] (Berlin 2012) 241–260.
  40. Ruth Hegarty, 'Ulster on the eve of the Plantation,' in The Bann Disc: Journal of the Coleraine Historical Society, 19 (2013) 41–51.
    The edition used in the digital edition
  1. Illustrations of Irish History and Topography, mainly of the seventeenth century. C. Litton Falkiner (ed), First edition [xvii + 426 pages] Longmans Green, and Co.London, New York, Bombay (1904)

Encoding

Project Description

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

Sampling Declaration

The present text covers pages 212–232 of the volume. C. Litton Falkiner's Introduction is included.

Editorial Declaration

Correction

Text proofread twice at CELT.

Normalization

The electronic text was first edited by Charles Hughes in Shakespeare's Europe, and reprinted in the Illustrations of Irish History by C. Litton Falkiner, from which it is taken. Some passages not printed by Hughes are supplied by Falkiner. and marked sup resp="CLF". Footnotes by Falkiner are included in note tags.

Quotation

Direct speech is tagged q.

Hyphenation

Soft hyphens are silently removed. When a hyphenated word (hard or soft) crosses a page-break or line-break, this break is marked after the completion of the hyphenated word.

Segmentation

div0=the whole text; div1=the chapter; div2=the sub-section; page-breaks are marked.

Standard Values

Dates are standardized in the ISO form yyyy-mm-dd.

Interpretation

Place-names, personal and organisation names, and terms are tagged. Words and phrases from languages other than English are tagged.

Canonical References

This text uses the DIV1 element to represent the chapter.

Profile Description

Created: Translation by Charles Hughes and C. L. Falkiner Date range: 1902–1903.

Use of language

Language: [EN] The editor has modernized Fynes Moryson's Elizabethan idiom.
Language: [GA] A few words are in Irish.
Language: [LA] A few words are in Latin.
Language: [GR] A word (proper name) is in Greek.
Language: [CY] A word (proper name) is in Welsh.

Revision History