Daniel MacCarthy Glas Collection- Descriptive List

Descriptive list of the Daniel MacCarthy (Glas) Collection

Another story is that Florence and Alice’s daughter Aileen inherited the collection after Alice’s death . Aileen [Sister MF Xavier] was a nun in St Mary's High School, Romford, Essex, England which experienced air raids during the First World War [see letters from Aileen to her brother Donal Percy relating to this topic: PR70/B/601]. Some believe that Aileen was concerned that the collection could be destroyed in an air raid and sent it to her brother Donal Percy in Oregon, USA. The collection was then inherited by Donal Percy’s son Eugene Daniel and finally by Eugene Daniel ’ s children Susan and Donal.

CONTENT AND STRUCTURE Scope and Content

The Daniel MacCarthy (Glas) Collection comprises almost 1,400 unique items, containing personal letters, manuscripts, photographs, paintings, and drawings. As with any large personal or family archive, the scope of the collection is immense, documenting a range of topics: from the lineage of the MacCarthy clan, to 19th-century poetry and historiography, the Irish nationalist movement, the history of Early Modern Ireland, the French Revolution of 1848, the British Empire in India and South Africa, and the Great Famine in Ireland. Most of the material in the collection relates to Daniel's historical research into the life of Florence (Finian, Finghín) MacCarthy Reagh (c.1562 – c.1640), Gaelic chieftain and scholar, and the MacCarthy clan. His published works and manuscript volumes demonstrate the enormous amount of research he dedicated to these topics, meticulously transcribing records from archives and libraries in England and Ireland. His dedication to these topics is also demonstrated by his knowledge of the Irish language [see PR70/B/382 and PR70/B/574]. Daniel’s correspondence comprises of almost 1,200 items and details his deep engagement with a network of the leading Irish scholars, antiquarians, historians, and poets of the day, including Samuel Ferguson, Richard Caulfield, Aubrey Thomas De Vere, Thomas Keightley, James Anthony Froude, Sir John Maclean, and James Henthorn Todd, to name but a few. Two of Daniel’s most regular correspondents were John O’Donovan and Denis Florence MacCarthy. O’Donovan – one of the leading Irish scholars and historians of his day – had an extensive correspondence with Daniel MacCarthy over many years, answering queries, carrying out record searches in archives and libraries, and sharing their research with one another. Daniel recognised the great historical value of the letters from O’Donovan, and bound most of their correspondence into a volume which he then deposited with Dr. Richard Caulfield of the Royal Cork Institution for safekeeping. This volume of letters is now in the National Library of Ireland, but Daniel kept a number of O’Donovan’s letters and they can be seen in the Daniel MacCarthy (Glas) Collection. While Denis Florence MacCarthy, who “at the height of his fame … was popularly regarded as one of Ireland's foremost poets, and was often referred to as the poet laureate of Ireland” 1 , corresponded with Daniel constantly from 1867 to 1879. Their close friendship is evident in the personal nature of their letters and in Daniel's dedication to Denis in his book 'A Historical Pedigree of the Sliochd Feidhlimidh, the MacCarthys of Gleannacroim …' The letters offer a detailed insight into the tri als

1 Denis Florence MacCarthy entry by James Quinn in the Dictionary of Irish Biography : https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.005126.v1.