O'Donovan (No.3) family genealogy

124. EDMUND O'DONOVAN: son of Donal, who is No. 123 on the "O'Donovan" Lords of Clancahill (No.1) pedigree; m. a Miss Burke; d. 1643, being slain in the battle of Ballinvegga, fought on the 18th of March of that year between Ormond and General Preston.

125. Richard: his son.

126. Conn (or Cornelius): his son; m. Rose Cavanagh, sister of Brian-na-Stroice ("of the strokes"), who fought at the Boyne.

127. William: his second son.

128. Richard: his son.

129. Edmond: his son; d. 1817.

130. Dr. John O'Donovan [1] (d. 1861): his son; Barrister-at-Law; and honoris causa, LL.D., T.C.D., in consideration of his translation, etc., of the Annals of the Four Masters; had a brother Michael.

Notes

[1] O'Donovan: Webb, in his great work, the Compendium of Irish Biography, writes:—"John O'Donovan, a distinguished Irish scholar, was born at Atateemore, in the co. Kilkenny, 9th July, 1809. The death of his father in 1817 caused the dispersion of the family, and John was brought to Dublin by his elder brother Michael, who, although in poor circumstances, procured for him the rudiments of a sound education, He often ascribed his taste for historical pursuits to the narrations of his uncle, Patrick O'Donovan, who was well versed in the Gaelic lore of the county of his birth. In 1826 O'Donovan began to apply himself to archaeological investigations and to the philosophical study of the Irish language. Through James Hardiman he was engaged to transcribe legal and historical documents in the Irish Record Office; and, with some slight assistance from his brother, was enabled to support himself until he obtained a situation on the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, in the historical department, under George Petrie, left vacant on Edward O'Reilly's death in 1829. To him was confided the examination of the ancient manuscripts in the Irish language in the Royal Irish Academy, and elsewhere, for the purpose of fixing the nomenclature on the maps, and extracting the local information they contained. Already acquainted with modern Gaelic, in the course of these labours he gradually acquired a knowledge of the language in its ancient and obsolete forms. Working in company with Petrie, O'Curry and Mangan, after researches in all parts of Ireland, the names of 62,000 townlands were satisfactorily fixed. . . . His first important essays appeared in the Dublin Penny Journal, to which he was a frequent contributor, until the fifty-sixth number, in July, 1833, when the paper passed out of the management of John S. Folds. ..... Several of his papers will also be found in the Irish Penny Journal, 1840-1841. In 1836 he commenced the compilation of an analytical catalogue of the Irish manuscripts in Trinity College, Dublin. ... He was called to the Bar in 1847. He was now engaged on the great work of his life—the translation, annotating and editing of the first complete edition of the Annals of the Four Masters, for Hodges and Smith, the Dublin Publishers. .... O'Donovan may be said to have been the first historic topographer that Ireland ever produced. He died in Dublin. 9th December, 1861, aged 52, and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.