James MacGeoghegan (1702 at

Uisneach , alternate_name = Ushnagh (anglicisation) , image = Hill of Uisneach.jpg , alt = , caption = Information sign , map = , map_caption = , map_type = island of Ireland , map_alt = A map of Ireland , map_size = , location = ...

Westmeath "Noble above nobility" , image_map = Island of Ireland location map Westmeath.svg , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Ireland , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = , subdivis ...

, Ireland – 1763 at Paris) was an Irish

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

priest and historian, known in French as the Abbé Mac-Geoghegan.

Life

He came of the Geoghegan family long settled in Westmeath and long holding a high position among the

Leinster Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of ...

chiefs, and was related to Richard MacGeoghegan, who defended the Castle of Dunboy against Carew, and also to Connell MacGeoghegan, who translated the ''

Annals of Clonmacnoise The ''Annals of Clonmacnoise'' ( ga, Annála Chluain Mhic Nóis) are an early 17th-century Early Modern English translation of a lost Irish chronicle, which covered events in Ireland from prehistory to 1408. The work is sometimes known as ''Mag ...

'', as well as to Francis O'Molloy, author of the ''Lucerna Fidelium.'' MacGeoghegan went abroad, and received a Catholic education at the Lombard College (later the

Irish College, Paris The Irish College in Paris (french: Collège des Irlandais, links=no, la, Collegium Clericorum Hibernoram) was for three centuries a major Roman Catholic educational establishment for Irish students. It was founded in the late 16th century, and c ...

), and in due course was ordained priest. Then for five years he filled the position of vicar in the parish of Possy, in the

Diocese of Chartres The Diocese of Chartres (Latin: ''Dioecesis Carnutensis''; French: ''Diocèse de Chartres'') is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in France. The diocese is a suffragan in the ecclesiastical province of th ...

, "attending in choir, hearing confessions and administering sacraments in a laudable and edifying manner". In 1734, he was elected one of the provisors of the Lombard College, and subsequently was attached to the

Church of Saint-Merri The Church of Saint-Merri or ''Église Saint-Merry'') is a parish church in Paris, located near the Centre Pompidou along the rue Saint Martin, in the 4th arrondissement on the Rive Droite (Right Bank). It is dedicated to the 8th century abbot of ...

in Paris. He was also for some time chaplain to the Irish Brigade in the service of France.

Works

He wrote a ''History of Ireland'' in French, published at Paris from 1758. It was dedicated by the author to the Irish Brigade, and claims that during the fifty years following the

Treaty of Limerick }), signed on 3 October 1691, ended the 1689 to 1691 Williamite War in Ireland, a conflict related to the 1688 to 1697 Nine Years' War. It consisted of two separate agreements, one with military terms of surrender, signed by commanders of a French ...

(1691) no fewer than 450,000 Irish soldiers died in the service of France. MacGeoghegan was shut out from access to the manuscript materials of history in Ireland, and had to rely chiefly on John Lynch and John Colgan.

John Mitchel John Mitchel ( ga, Seán Mistéal; 3 November 1815 – 20 March 1875) was an Irish nationalist activist, author, and political journalist. In the Famine years of the 1840s he was a leading writer for ''The Nation'' newspaper produced by the ...

's 1869 ''History of Ireland'' professes to be merely a continuation of MacGeoghegan, though Mitchel is throughout much more of a partisan than MacGeoghegan.

Life

Works

Bibliography

References

Attribution

Sources

Citations

Further reading