Life
fl.1662 [var. Plunkett; Ristéard Pluincéad]; completed first
Irish-English dictionary in Trim, 1662; owned by Dr. Dudley Loftus; bought
from his widow by Archbishop Narcissus Marsh, and later used by Edward
Lhuyd at MS in Marsh’s Library (MS Z4.2.5); edition by Seán
Ua Suilleabháin pending in 1995.
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Notes
Muriel McCarthy and Caroline Sherwood-Smith, eds., Hibernia Resurgens:
Catalogue of Marsh’s Library (1994): Vocabularium latinum et
hibernum (1662), MS 420 fols. ; 29.4x18.2; Bernard 878; compiled Sept.
1662; orig. owned by Dublin orientalist Dr. Dudley Loftus purchsed by
Archb. Marsh from his widow, 1695; Pluncéad mentions that he finished
it in the Franciscan monastery at Trim, 1662; refers to self as bráthair
bocht d’ord. S. Froinsias’ on title-page, providing only information;
dictionary draws on archaic sources and uses phrases in common speech;
contains earliest known examples of certain words; earliest surviving
attempt a a compete Irish dictionary; availed of Mícheál
Ó Cléirigh’s Foclóir nó sanasán
nua (Lobháin 1643).
The MS dictionary held in Marsh’s Library is cited with shelf mark
in Norman Vance, Irish Literature, A Social History (Basil Blackwell
1990).
William Molyneux conveyed the dictionary to him under strict conditions and with a pledge of payment of £10 to Narcissus Marsh, who acquired it in the collection of Dudley Loftus. See Muriel McCarthy, Catalogue of Marsh’s Library (1994), p.6.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)