Cormac Mac Duinnshléibhe (

anglicized Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...

as Cormac MacDonlevy) was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

and

scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

, fl. c. 1460. He was an influential medieval Irish physician and medical scholar of the Arabian school educated at universities on the Continent. He is famed for advancing Irish medieval medical practice by, for the first time, translating seminal Continental European medical texts from Latin to vernacular. His translations provided the, then, exclusively, Irish speaking and normally hereditarily apprenticed majority of Irish physicians with their first reference access to these texts.

Background

Cormac was descended from the

Donlevy Donlevy is a firstname and surname of Irish origin. Also spelt as MacDonlevy, Donleavy, Dunleavy, MacAleavey, and McAlevey, it derives from the Irish ''Mac Duinnshléibhe'', meaning "son of Donn of the mountain". ''Ó Duinnshléibhe'' is a variant ...

, who were the last ruling dynasty of the over-kingdom of

Ulaid Ulaid (Old Irish, ) or Ulaidh (Modern Irish, ) was a Gaelic over-kingdom in north-eastern Ireland during the Middle Ages made up of a confederation of dynastic groups. Alternative names include Ulidia, which is the Latin form of Ulaid, and in ...

. They migrated to the kingdom of

Tyrconnell Tyrconnell (), also spelled Tirconnell, was a kingdom of Gaelic Ireland, associated geographically with present-day County Donegal, which has sometimes been called ''County Tyrconnell''. At times it also included parts of County Fermanagh, Cou ...

and became hereditary chief physicians to its rulers, the Ó Domhnail clan. He held a '' bachelor of physic'', although the medical school or university from which he graduated is unknown.

Works

Mac Duinnshléibhe was notable for being a prolific translator, creating and consolidating Irish medical, anatomical, pharmaceutical, and botanical terms. In 1459, in Cloyne, Co. Cork, he translated ''De Dosibus Medicarum'' by Walter de Agilon. In or about 1470, Cormac MacDonlevy, M.B. commenced the 12-year task of first translating the French physician Bernard of Gordon's extensive medical work, the ''Lilium medicine'' (1320), from Latin to Irish. Thereafter, as it had some 150 years earlier with the Continental European medical community, the monumental ''Lilium medicine'' or English "Lily of Medicine" achieved great popularity among the medical community of the

Celtic nations The Celtic nations are a cultural area and collection of geographical regions in Northwestern Europe where the Celtic languages and cultural traits have survived. The term ''nation'' is used in its original sense to mean a people who shar ...

. Excerpts were included in the ''Catalogue of the Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum'' by

Standish Hayes O'Grady Standish Hayes O'Grady ( ga, Anéislis Aodh Ó Grádaigh; 19 May 1832 – 16 October 1915) was an Irish antiquarian. He was born at Erinagh House, Castleconnell, County Limerick, the son of Admiral Hayes O'Grady. He was a cousin of the writer Sta ...

and

Robin Flower Robin Ernest William Flower (16 October 1881 – 16 January 1946) was an English poet and scholar, a Celticist, Anglo-Saxonist and translator from the Irish language. He is commonly known in Ireland as "Bláithín" (Little Flower). Life He wa ...

. Cormac, also, first translated Gordon's ''De pronosticis'' (c. 1295) and Gaulteris Agilon's ''De dosibus'' (c. 1250) from Latin into Irish. Gaulteris' ''De dosibus'' is a pharmaceutical tract and well used historical source, providing a concise introduction to the basic principles and operations of medieval European pharmacy. Cormac, too, first translated from Latin to Irish the French surgeon

Guy de Chauliac Guy de Chauliac (), also called Guido or Guigo de Cauliaco ( 1300 – 25 July 1368), was a French physician and surgeon who wrote a lengthy and influential treatise on surgery in Latin, titled '' Chirurgia Magna''. It was translated into many othe ...

's Chirurgia magna, a major surgical text by that French physician and surgeon (c. 1363) and, also, 5 other major Continental European medical texts in addition to those hereto cited.A. Nic Donnchadha, ibid, at page 218 at paragraphs 5, 6 and 7 under the subtitle "Medical texts in Irish". Mac Duinnshléibhe also translated Gordon's ''De decem ingeniis curandorum morborum'' (1299).

References

15th-century Irish writers Irish scribes 15th-century Irish medical doctors 15th-century translators Irish translators Technical translators Translators from Latin Translators to Irish {{Ireland-bio-stub