Life
1655-1727 [var. Nicholson]; English-born Bishop of Derry; MA Queen’s
College, Oxford, 1679; visited Leipzig to learn German and northern European
languages; prependary of Carlisle, 1702; archdeacon of Carlisle, 1682;
bishop of Carlisle, involved by impetuosity in perpetual strife [DNB];
translated to Derry, 1718; founded Anglicans and Presbyterians unable
to agree on joint celebration of the lifting of the siege of Derry; translated
to Cashel and Emly, 1727, but did not live to take charge; zeal for preserving
official [sic] documents for which he built special rooms in Derry; issued
a series of antiquarian works in a ‘learned library’ properly
entitled Historical Library (English part, 1696, 1697, and 1699;
Scottish, 1702; Irish, 1724; republished in its entirety, 1776); also
Leges marchiarum, or Border Laws (1704; rep. 1747);
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Quoatations
William [Nicolson] Bishop of Derry, The Irish Historical Library,
pointing at most of the Authors and Records in Print or Manuscript which
may be serviceable to the compilers of a general History of Ireland, by
William, Lord Bishop of Derry [John vi.12, ‘Gather up the Fragments’]
(Dublin Aaron Rhames for R Owen Skinner Row 1724). 246pp.+index. Ded.
William Conolly, Esq, Speaker of the House of Commons. The author translated
from see of Carli[s]le to Derry, dedication dated 30 Nov. Dublin, signed
William Derry. CONTENTS, 1] Of the writers on the general and special
geography, natural history and state government of Ireland, 1-26. 2].
Of the general historians of this kingdom, 27-66. 3] Of our Ecclesiastical
historians, 67-80. 4] Writers of the lives of Irish saints, 81-107. 5]
Of the register-books, of cathedrals, monasteries, &c., 108-118. 6]
Of the Irish biographers, 119-132. 7] Of irish records and Law-books,
133-53. 8] Of Irish coins and medals, 154-175. PREFACE, ‘The general
acceptance which my English and Scottish libraries met with, in the neighbouring
kingdom, easily drew me into a resolution of endeavouring to do the like
agreeable Service to Ireland ... In the gathering of collections for the
two aforesaid books, I had frequent opportunities of observing what Irish
historians were contemporaries, and wrote of the same times, with those
of the then separate kingdoms of England and Scotland; and twas a matter
of no great labour to throw these into some short distinct Adversaria
... paying my dying respects to the country which gives me and my family
the present comfortable supports of life. ... [PARA] ... began with Cotton
library ... Harleyan ... Sir Symonds Dewes had from T Stafford, publication
of Carew’s Pacata Hibernia ... [at] Trinity we have the greatest
part of Archbishop Usher’s collection of manuscripts relating to
the history of this kingdom, though (to our sorrow) several of these,
and particularly the famed Liber Lecanus, are lately lost and embezled.
Whatever of this kind was pick’d up by the late ingenious Mr Madden
MD, is happily fallen into the hand of the present bishop of Clogher,
whose collection will be frequently referred to in the following Papers.
... his Grace the Duke of Chandois’s library is the most richly stored
with our Irish manuscripts of all sorts.’ Remarks follow on the Irish
Language, including allusions to the Abecedarian and Bethluisnion letters
[ogham]; runick monuments; Cambrensis quoted on destruction of places
of learning by Turgesius [xv] cites ‘Richard Creagh, ‘titular
archbishop of Ardmagh ... wrote a treatise De Origine Linguae Hibernicae;
which is quoted by the Analectes and said by Sir James Ware to
be still extant in manuscript ... the anonymous Rudimenta Grammatica Hibrnice
in the late Primate Marsh’s library in Dublin may supply the want
of Creagh’s book, if it be really lost. Besides these, E. Lhuyd has
obliged us with an abstract of a Latin-Irish grammar, published at Rome
by Father Ó Molloy in the year 1677. References also to Dr Davies;
Mr Flaherty [Ogygia, ftn.] had three genealogical sonnets ‘the chief
pillars whereon our old history is founded’, 1] G Coeman 2] G. Modude
3] Conan Ó Malconar. Also Colman Ó Sefnan. Further remarks
on Keating [xviii] ‘If what Keating and others report of the care
taken by the government of the publick records be true, tis hardly possible
to imagine that any kingdom of the world should outdo Ireland; either
in the antiquity or certainty of her histories’. Cites Ollamh Fodhla;
Psalter of Taragh; Book of Ardmach; Psalter of Cashel; Book of Glean da
Loch. Discusses ‘seminaries of learning’ called universities,
as Ardmagh, Cashel, Dundaleathglass, and Lismore. [xx] ‘That these
Irish filadha and the northern Skialdi (or bards &c) were of the same
class, and that the histories composed upon the credit of their poems
and ballads, were of the like Matter and Manner in their Texture, will
easily appear to any that shall take the trouble of comparing the late
edition of our Keating with the Heims Kringla of Snorro Sturloson who
wrote about five hundred years ago in the Icelandic tongue.’ [xxi]
An paraphrastic account of Heims follows, xxi-xxv. The late Mr Toland
valu[e]d himself much on the Historical Discoveries which he met with
in an old Latin Manuscript of the four Gospels in Irish characters; and
fell foul upon Fr Simon for affirming that the Book was written in Saxon
letters, that the writer was an English Benedictine monk, and his name
Dom. Aelbrigte, whereas, says Nazarenus, the truth of the matter is, Do
is an Irish prepositive Particle; and Maelbrigte, the Transcriber’s
name, signifies servant of Brigit ... Mr Toland’s book is (since
he first perused it) fallen into other good Company in the Harleyan Library’
[xxvi] There is a venerable vellum manuscript in the college Library at
Dublin of the four Latin Gospels ... prefixed [material] in Irish ...
called Book of St Columbkille ... given by Dr Jones ... I shall not dispute
Mr Toland’s skill in the Irish tongue [xxvii] lest I give my self
an air of knowing what I do not ... [author disputes Toland’s interpretation
of -anus suffix in inscription of said Book]. Also disputes Toland’s
account of the Culdees as a ‘sort of Lay-religious who had th power
of electing their own bishops’ [xxix] ... Scottish culdees [xxx]
dward Lhuyd’s catalogue of Welsh manuscripts [xxx] tuatha de Dannan,
’tis a very blind account which our writers give of the TDD; whom
they represent as a barbarous and bloody generation of strangers, who
for some time domineer’d in this country. It calls to mind what the
English say about ... their Lord-Danes [xxxiii] In his closing remarks,
he mentions books viewed since the body of the present work went to press,
1] English trans. of Book of Tighernach 2] Archdeacon Lynch to M. Boleus
proving the Scoti were Irish ‘tis only an enlargement of the 17th
chp. of his Cambrensis Eversus 4] Hibernia resurgens, ascribed
by Usher to Lynch, said on title page to be b Donat Rourke ‘whose
sole business it is to lash Tho. Dempster and to rescue some scores of
Irish saints who had been kidnapped by that Northern Rover; J Lynch, tit.
bishop of Kilala, prob. author of Analecta 5] a pamphlet on ‘bloody
doings’ of 23 Oct 1641 to 15 June 1642 by Henry Jones 6] John Richardson
of Belturbet’s history of attempts to convert Popish natives to the
Establish’d religion, who published about the same time Irish sermons
translated from Bishops Tillotson, Beveridge et al., &c . INDEX inc.
Bedel [sic], Book[s] of (Leabar) [24 in number]; Edmund Borlase [whose
Brief Reflections was in defence of his father and William Parsons, and
whom Dr Nalson [has censured as ‘being openly and avowedly a favourer
of faction’ and ‘an author of such strange Inconsistency’
that he is ‘rather a paradox than a history’, noting that Clarendon’s
manuscript has been ‘very unartfully blended it with his own rough
and unpolish;d heap of Matter’ (Nelson, intro. to Impart. Collect.,
ii p.8) [56]; Richard Bulkely; Cambrensis; George Carew; Castlehaven;
Colgan; Richard Cox; Ó Daly; John Davis [sic]; G. Dowdale; Galafy
Mac V Firbis; Rod Ó Flaherty [19, 48, 244]; flanagh; Gratianus
Lucius v. Lynch; Hanmer; Holinshed; Henry Jones; Keating; Lhuyd; John
Lynch; Mac Curtin; Messingham [his Florilegium gave John Dempster
occasion for his ‘book of pyracy’ which he called Historia
Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum Libris XIX qua viri Sanctitate, Literis,
dignitatibus, toto orbe illustres, et familiae etiam Scoticae in varias
Urbes transmissae, &c., recensentur [84]; Dan., Will, and Tho.
Molyneux; Monasticon Hibernicum [anonymous publisher of
this, very modestly, owns that the forementioned French author [M. Alemand,
Monastique d’Irlande] did not only lay the foundations of the work,
but also provided most of the materials ... yet he will not allow it to
be called a bare translation ... it pretends to give its readers a perfect
and full view &c. [79]; Richard Plunket; Maurice Regan; John Richardson;
David Rothe; Tho. Stafford; Richard Stanihurst; Sir John Temple; John
Toland; Viscount Castlehaven Touchet; James Usher; Hugh Ward; Sir James
Ware; Sir Thomas Ware; Robert Ware. APPENDIX I [179-84], An alphabetical
account of several ancient Irish historians, annals, &c. pp.176-190,
Antiquaries [Ollamh Fodhla et al.]; Books [Cion Droma Sneachta et al.];
Boiremhe Laighen; Cambrensis Girald [‘this author deserves no manner
of regard or credit to be given to him; and his chronicle is the most
partial representation [182] of the Irish history that ever was impos’d
on any nation of the world. He has endeavoured to make the venerable antiquities
of the Island a meer fable; and given occasion to the historians that
came after him to abuse the World, with the same fictitious relations’];
Caoilte MacRonain; Chronicle of the Saints; Cogadh Gall ra Gaoidhealuibh;
Columkil [amhra]; Cormac Mac Cuillenan; Creagh; The Irish tongue; MacCarty,
Florence; Psalters of I; Poets, the office of the poet in the necessary
retinue of the kings of Ireland was to transmit to posterity the heroick
and memorable actions of famous men, or whatsoever quality they were;
to compose satyrs upon debauchery and vice; and to [?blast] the immorality
of courtiers and inferior person, without partiality or affection ...
dromceat [185-88]; Romantick Tales [Tain Bo Cuailgne, et al.]; Ruanus,
i.e., Caoilte mac Ronain; Sanders, Nic; Usher, ‘that prodigy of learning
and industry’. [Dublin ed. of Keating cited in this part, whereas
London ed. cited in foregoing chaps.] APPENDIX II, A Translation of the
Irish Preface, to Mr Lhuyd’s Irish Dictionary’ [191-215]. Lhuyd
apologises for writing in a language which he never learnt from a speaker,
though he travelled in Ireland, and explains that he compiled his dictionary
from Keating’s History, have set out to make a dictionary of the
British language. He marks the words from Keating with K. He has taken
words from Bedell and O’Donnell’s biblical translations and
inserted the entire of Michael Ó Clery’s Seanasan Nuadh (‘Glossary
of difficult words’) into his own dictionary, marking the obsolete
and unintelligible with a dagger. Cites a dictionary completed by Richard
Plunket, Trim, 1662. Long discussion of orthography, proposing an alphabet
made up of Latin and Irish characters, and Greek chars. as alternatives
where the presses will not support the Irish ones; prints CREED in Irish,
Roman letters, using K [Kreidim]; VI, Molloy’s grammar ‘defective’;
Lhuyd’s book sold by Jeremiah Pepyat in Dublin. He ends with 6 reasons
for the preservation of Irish, following the statement, ‘I have already
declared that it was through Ignorance that many Persons would have Language
and ours buried in Oblivion; and I have no reason upon any account to
recal [sic] my words, but rather to make this additional Remark, that
it argues so great a want of Judgement, that any Man, who would pretend
to Learning, ought to be ashamed. (Ded. To the gentlemen and other learned
persons of the Irish Nation, whether Irish, Scots, or other Foreigners,
Long Health and happiness. 1 May 1706, Oxford). APPENDIX III [216-242],
‘Translation of the Welsh Preface to Mr Lhuyd’s Gloss[o]graphy’
[Ded. to the Welsh] This includes a list, p.225-27, of old Spanish and
present Irish words, displaying their supposed affinity. As for Wales,
‘the Irish must have been the inhabitants where those names were
imposed on them [rivers]’ [228] A further list, 230-232, adduced
to show that Welsh and Irish are related to the Galli whom the Romans
called Celtae. In the following para., he asserts that Vergobretus, called
a magistrate by Caesar, was Ir. fear go breath, a judge, verbatim,
‘man who judges’. [232] Belgae [Teutons] are fir bolg
‘as it seemed probable also to the learned Irish antiquary Mr Roderic
Ó Flaherty [233] ... the Irish is one of the Teutonic Languages,
though it has antiently borrowed some words frm the British, and the latter
ages a great number for the Latin and French [233]. APPENDIX IV [243-246],
‘An Account of Several Chronicles and Annals brought to me since
the printing of the foregoing sheets’, incl. Ulster annals; Annals
of Inch-mac-creen, Annals of Donegal signed by Four Masters, Collection
of Flowers made by John Lynch; abstract of Annals drawn up by Roderick
O’Flaherty, 1187-1327, being loose papers in his handwriting ‘and
ought to be preserved with due respect, since we all [245] know with what
scrupulous care he endeavour’d to ascertain its own time to every
Occurrence under the sun.’ Also Conry, extracts from Liber Lecanus
(in a Collectanea); H. Ward, or Vardaeus acc. Ware, and mentions
John Colgan in connection with him. ‘I cannot here but take notice
of the good services done to this Kingdom, by Tho. Dempster’s robbing
us of our Irish saints, and transporting them (by scores) into his own
Albanian territories. This rais’d a just resentment in the Antiquaries
of Ireland; who forthwith betook themselves to Arms, and march’d
out in Troops for the recovery of their stol’n Goods. That the Scoti
of antient times were (all of ’em) Irishmen has been clearly prov’d
by our Author Ward, Lynch, and others, who have also occasionally illustrated
a great many darker passages in our oldest Histories.’ [END]
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Notes
Became a member of the RIA Standing Committee on Antiquities, fnd. 14
May 1772 under the chairmanship of Lucius O’Brien, with Charlemont,
Moira, the Bishop of Cloyne, Vallancey, Leland, and the Speaker of the
House of Commons (cited from Gilbert, ‘The Streets of Dublin’,
p.36; in Ward and Ward, eds., Letters of Charles O’Conor,
1988, p.275, n.4.
This publication included the 6pp. Irish glossary prepared by Robert Kirk in connection with the Scottish 1690 printing of William Bedell’s Bible in Gaelic (1690).
‘the whole fit of madness is owing to the resentments of a single ecclesiastical grandee [Archbishop King]; who feeling himself to sink in the esteem of his late associates in power, resolv’d to make himself considerable by an after-game with the mob; whose darling he how is, as amply as he was (a few months ago) their aversion. The Angel of St. Patrick’s [presum. Swift] is now the Guardian of the Kingdom.’ (Bishop Wm. Nicholson, to Archbishop of Canterbury, 31 Oct. 1719; BL, Add. MS 6116 ff 94-5quoted in Patrick MacNally, ‘Irish and English Interests’: national conflict within the Church of Ireland episcopate in the reign of George I’, in Irish Historical Studies, xxix, no.115, May 1995, pp.295-314; cited in Rosinne Aubertine, MADip 1996. NOTE further McNally’s remarks, ‘Nicolson singled out Archbishop King, supported by Jonoathan Swift, as the leader of what he called the ‘new sect of State-Independents’ (p.302); Nicholson also tells a correspondent that he ‘and other English foreigners’ were ‘being treated by friends and foes, Whigs and Tories, as enemies to the public interests of this kingdom’, and blamed Irish-born bishops; he also comments that ‘many of theme seem exceedingly afraid of provoking our Roman neighbours’ (BL [&c.] ff 127; McNally, 303.
Also, Bishop Nicolson of Derry, sitting in the Irish House of Lords, helped to forward a bill to set up Chauch administered schools (Roebrt E. Ward, Encyclopaedia of Irish Schools, Lewister NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1995, p.12; citing Francis Godwin James, ‘North County Bishop’, in Yale Historical Publications, Miscellany 65 (1956).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)