Graves Collection
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_________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Catalogue of The Graves Collection. Consisting of the correspondence of John O’Donovan, Rev. James Graves, Rev. Charles Graves. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Special List/ Liosta Speisialta: A037 Catalogued by Martin Fagan. April 2011 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Contents. page no. Introduction. Overview of Collection. 2 John O’Donovan Series. 4 Rev. James Graves Series. 10 Rev. Charles Graves Series. 12 John O’Donovan Series Catalogue. 16 - 240 Rev. James Graves Series Catalogue. 241 - 328 Rev Charles Graves Series Catalogue. 329 - 428 Appendices Box List created in 2007 429 Todd to Larcom letters regarding purchase of O’Donovan letters 430 The Graves Collection. Introduction. Overview of Collection. The Graves Collection is an amalgamation of three separate, but related, correspondence collections of three prominent Irish antiquarians; John O’Donovan, Rev. James Graves and Rev. Charles Graves. The provenance of each of these separate collections, or series, is unfortunately open to conjecture. They appear to have been merged together in the past under the inaccurate title of ‘The Graves Correspondence’. As part of this cataloguing process the collection has been renamed ‘The Graves Collection’. The documents have been renumbered and arranged in such a way as to reflect the three separate series, as shown in the following diagram. Graves Collection 24 O 39 John O’Donovan Series Individual files/items 24 O 39/JOD 24 O 39/JOD/1 -395 Rev. James Graves Series Individual files/items 24 O 39/JG 24 O 39/JG/1-201 Rev. Charles Graves Series 24 O 39/CG Individual files/items Brehon Law Sub-series 24 O 39/CG/BL 24 O 39/CG/BL/1-185 Individual files/items Endowed Schools Sub-series 24 O 39/CG/ES 24 O 39/CG/ES/1 -47 Individual files/items Ogham Sub-series 24 O 39/CG/OGH 24 O 39/CG/OGH/1-9 The recent processing of the entire collection was as follows. The unprocessed collection was assessed in 2006 by Lisa Dolan, archivist who recorded that the collection was housed in nine, tightly-packed boxes numbered 24 O 39 (a)–(d), 24 O 40 (a)–(c) and 24 O 41 (a)–(b). It was also noted that the documents were tied together into bundles with twine and ribbon and were in a soiled condition. Preliminary work was carried out on the collection by Chantal Kobel, archivist, in 2007 – the documents were cleaned, flattened and placed in acid-free folders and rehoused in new boxes. A box-list was created and it was observed that the collection was comprised of three series 1. Ms. Kobel commenced cataloguing work on the John O’Donovan letters and this work was continued and completed by Martin Fagan, archivist, in 2010/11. As the collection had originally been numbered by bundle it was therefore necessary to renumber the entire collection – it was decided to assign one collection number to the entire collection (24 O 39) and to include a suffix to denote the three sub-divisions – all documents were individually numbered using this new system. Care was taken throughout the processing to maintain the original order of the collection and documents were not moved between the three series. The collection was formerly numbered 12 O 39 (a-d), 12 O 40 (a-c) and 24 O 41 (a-b). It has now been renumbered 12 O 39 and suffixes have been added to denote the three separate series. The suffixes are ‘JOD’ for John O’Donovan, ‘JG’ for James Graves and ‘CG’ for Charles Graves. The Charles Graves documents have been further divided into three sub-series and these have been given the following further suffixes – ‘BL’ for Brehon Laws, ‘ES’ for Endowed Schools and ‘OGH’ for documents on Ogham. Finally all documents have been given a number. Examples- 24 O 39/JOD/25 = ‘Graves Collection/John O’Donovan Series/Number 25’ - ‘Holograph letters from Ulick Joseph Bourke, Roman Catholic priest and writer, St Jarlath's College, Tuam, to John O’Donovan, Dublin.’ 24 O 39/CG/BL/23 = ‘Graves Collection/Charles Graves Series/Brehon Law Sub-Series/Number 23’ - ‘Holograph letters from Rudolph Appel, Anastatic and Appelotype Printing, 43 Gerrard Street, Soho, to Rev. Charles Graves.’ The documents are fully accessible subject to the rules of the Library of the Royal Irish Academy. The Royal Irish Academy wishes to thank Professor Michael Herity, MRIA and former RIA President, for sharing his knowledge and providing financial assistance to this cataloguing project. The following aims to provide biographical information, information on the provenance, archival history, scope, content and arrangement of each of the three series. 1 A copy of this box-list has been placed in an appendix at the end of this catalogue. John O’Donovan Series. 2 Background information. John O’Donovan was an Irish scholar, born in Co. Kilkenny in 1806. His early study of Latin and Irish commenced under Richard Monck and continued at a Latin school in Dublin until 1827. Following the abandonment of initial plans to become a Catholic priest he was employed by James Hardiman to copy Irish manuscripts and legal documents and he subsequently conducted similar work for Myles John O’Reilly. In 1830 he secured a position as an orthographer with the Ordnance Survey, working for his former pupil Thomas Larcom. Throughout the 1830s he was engaged in fieldwork for the Ordnance Survey, assisted by his brother-in-law, Eugene O’Curry, George Petrie and others, during which time he travelled throughout the island collecting historical information and folklore which was transmitted to the survey by way of letters. He edited and published texts for the Irish Archaeological Society and the Celtic Society during the 1840s, including Leabhar na gceart and also published a Grammar of the Irish language in 1845. In 1847 he was elected a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a year later was awarded the prestigious Cunningham medal. In 1849 he was appointed professor of Celtic languages in Queen’s College Belfast. He was keenly interested in the family pedigrees of the ‘native Irish’ or ‘Old-English’ families including his own family, many of whom had seen their wealth and position dwindle following the Cromwellian confiscations - many of the letters in this collection relate to this pursuit. O’Donovan’s edition of the Annals of the Four Masters was published between 1848 and 1851. In 1852 the Brehon Law Commission was established to oversee the collection and publication of the ancient laws of Ireland – Rev. Charles Graves had a prominent role in the commission. O’Donovan and O’Curry were appointed co-editors but a weakening of their relationship and other difficulties resulted in long delays and both men died before the final publication of, what is judged to be, the ‘unreliable’ Ancient laws of Ireland . O’Donovan suffered from poor health throughout his life which was exacerbated by over-work. He died in 1861 and was buried in Glasnevin cemetery. 2 Source: Dictionary of Irish Biography. http://dib.cambridge.org/ Accessed April 2011 Provenance and Archival History. While it is reasonable to assume that O’Donovan amassed his own correspondence, it is not clear how these papers were acquired by the RIA, although the likely source is James Henthorn Todd, MRIA and President of the RIA. Todd bought O’Donovan’s letters from his widow in 1867 and subsequently extracted both his and Sir Thomas Larcom’s letters from the collection. He sold the Larcom letters to Larcom himself and these letters are now in the National Library of Ireland. 3 Researchers will note that the correspondence spans a long period and contains what might be termed personal correspondence (e.g. research into his own genealogy) mixed with official correspondence (e.g. Ordnance Survey letters and drafts). The correspondence in this series was found in rough alphabetical order, arranged by sender, but individual pages were often scattered and there was a large ‘unidentified sender’ bundle – this has been greatly reduced. Researchers interested in the provenance of the O’Donovan letters should examine the items numbered 24 O 39/JOD/395, which have been transcribed below. They consist of former cataloguers' lists of names of O’Donovan’s correspondents – there is no overlap between the names on the alphabetical lists and it is possible that these may correspond to some earlier division of the O’Donovan correspondence which has now been erased. It is also likely that draft material by John O’Donovan arising from his work with the Brehon Law Commission was collected by the Charles Graves in his capacity as a commissioner – this O’Donovan material can be found in the Charles Graves series alongside O’Curry’s transcripts and translations. O’Donovan’s papers are held by the Royal Irish Academy 4, University College Dublin, National Archives of Ireland 5 and the National Library of Ireland. 3 Todd to Larcom correspondence in National Library, NLI MS 7564. See Appendix Two for transcripts of these letters. Professor Michael Herity generously provided this information and transcripts which have been reproduced in Appendix Two at the rear of this catalogue. 4 See especially: RIA’s collection of Ordnance Survey letters; MS 4 B 54 (a collection of O’Donovan’s correspondence relating to family and genealogical research) 5 All Ordnance Survey papers have been transferred to the N.A.I. but some have yet to be catalogued. 24 O 39/JOD/395 (i) – Copy of the first list of names discovered with the collection during the cataloguing process. ‘Correspondence. Chiefly on matters of Genealogical interest.’ Adare (Viscount) *Duffy (Chas Gavan) Kelly (Matthew) Moore (P) O’Keefe (Cha s) Allen (J C) Dunne (Colonel) Keightly (Thos) [sic.