The Martyrology of Donegal. A Calendar of the Saints of Ireland. Translated from the Original Irish by the Late John O’Donovan. Edited, with the Irish Text by James Henthorn Todd and by William Reeves. Dublin: Irish Archaeological & Celtic Society, 1864. Pp, [lv], 566, [vii], 12. Large 8vo. Ex library copy, with ink stamps & with occasional label residue to endpapers. Rebound in half maroon calf & cloth boards, title in gilt to spine. A very good copy.

Tipped-in ALS from J.T. Gilbert to the editor, William Reeves. Sir John Thomas Gilbert (1854-1859) was librarian of the Royal Irish Academy for 34 years. The Gilbert Library in Dublin’s Pearse Street is named for him.

The ‘Martyrology of Donegal’ is so called because it was begun and finished (as the colophon at the end of the work tells us) in the Franciscan Convent of Donegal, on the 19th April, 1630.

Michael O’Cleary, the compiler of this work, was the chief of the celebrated antiquaries known as ‘The Four Masters.’ In his Irish Epistle, prefixed to the Annals of the Four Masters, O’Cleary mentions the Martyrology and states that he had been ten years engaged in the compilation of it.