John O'Brien (bishop)
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Bishop John O'Brien (1701–1769) was an Irish bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese Cork and Cloyne. He was also appointed as the
vicar general A vicar general (previously, archdeacon) is the principal deputy of the bishop or archbishop of a diocese or an archdiocese for the exercise of administrative authority and possesses the title of local ordinary. As vicar of the bishop, the vica ...
of Cork, Cloyne and
Ross Ross may refer to: People and fictional characters * Ross (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning * Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan Places Antarctica * Ross Sea ...
. He is best remembered as the author of one of the earliest Irish-English
dictionaries A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...
.


Early career

Like most Irish Catholic priests in the eighteenth century, O'Brien travelled to Europe to study due to the
Penal Laws Penal law refers to criminal law. It may also refer to: * Penal law (British), laws to uphold the establishment of the Church of England against Catholicism * Penal laws (Ireland) In Ireland, the penal laws () were a series of Disabilities (C ...
restricting the training of priests in Ireland.
Irish College Irish Colleges is the collective name used for approximately 34 centres of education for Irish Catholic clergy and lay people opened on continental Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. History The Colleges were set up to educate Rom ...
s had been set up to educate Roman Catholics from Ireland in their own religion following the Tudor conquest of Ireland. In 1725, O'Brien entered the Irish seminary at
Toulouse Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...
. After his ordination, he went to
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
for further study in 1731. He graduated as a bachelor of divinity at Toulouse in 1733 and worked as a tutor in Spain until returning to Ireland in 1738. Three of his sermons, written in Irish between 1739 and 1740 (on
Mortal sin A mortal sin (), in Christian theology, is a gravely sinful act which can lead to damnation if a person does not repent of the sin before death. It is alternatively called deadly, grave, and serious; the concept of mortal sin is found in both ...
, on the
Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...
, and on The Passion) survive today and are in the Royal Irish Academy. Upon his return he was concerned that the practice of educating Irish Catholic priests on the continent meant that they were disconnected from the Irish language and that this could limit their capacity for pastoral work, especially compared to the Church of Ireland which had translated the New Testament and The Book of Common Prayer into Irish in the 17th century.


Focalóir Gaoidhilge-Sax Bhéarla

O'Brien appealed to the
Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...
for financial assistance in compiling the dictionary. He argued the dictionary was needed for the preservation of Catholicism in Ireland, primarily for the use of young priests beginning their work there. This appeal was unsuccessful, but Cardinal Joseph Maria Castelli, the prefect of Propaganda, made a personal donation. By 1762 O'Brien had completed an Irish–English dictionary that drew heavily on
Edward Lhuyd Edward Lhuyd (1660– 30 June 1709), also known as Edward Lhwyd and by other spellings, was a Welsh scientist, geographer, historian and antiquary. He was the second Keeper of the University of Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, and published the firs ...
's dictionary of 1707 but incorporated many additional terms collected from manuscript sources. ''Focalóir Gaoidhilge-Sax-Bharla'' or "The Irish-English Dictionary" was published in France in 1768. Focalóir Gaoidhilge-Sax-Bhéarla or an Irish-English Dictionary was used by famed writer,
Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...
, to translate pieces of
James MacPherson James Macpherson ( Gaelic: ''Seumas MacMhuirich'' or ''Seumas Mac a' Phearsain''; 27 October 1736 – 17 February 1796) was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector, and politician. He is known for the Ossian cycle of epic poems, which he ...
’s
Ossian Ossian (; Irish Gaelic/Scottish Gaelic: ''Oisean'') is the narrator and purported author of a cycle of epic poems published by the Scottish poet James Macpherson, originally as ''Fingal'' (1761) and ''Temora (poem), Temora'' (1763), and later c ...
from Scots-Gaelic (Gàidhlig) into his native
German language German (, ) is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family, mainly spoken in Western Europe, Western and Central Europe. It is the majority and Official language, official (or co-official) language in Germany, Austria, Switze ...
.
The reception of Ossian in Europe
While the ''Focalóir'' uses obsolete spellings and has been superseded as a reference text, it was an important source for future dictionaries. In Dinneen's dictionary, O'Brien is cited as a source in over thirty entries.


Entries In O'Brien's Dictionary

The ''Focalóir Gaoidhilge-Sax Bhéarla'' contains words which have fallen out of use, have been omitted from modern dictionaries, or which have definitions which appear quaint to modern readers.


Work as a Bishop

Upon O'Brien's elevation to bishop, the poet Seán na Ráithíneach Ó Murchadha composed celebratory verse and was rewarded with a gold coin. Before long, O'Brien acquired a reputation as a disciplinarian and reformer. A book of regulations for the clergy of his diocese published in 1756 was notable for the emphasis it placed on catechesis, its determined opposition to clandestine marriages, and the large number of sins that were reserved for episcopal absolution. In August 1758 O'Brien placed
Mitchelstown Mitchelstown () is a town in the north of County Cork, Ireland with a population of over 3,740. It is situated in the valley to the south of the Galtee Mountains. Mitchelstown is 13 km south-west of the Mitchelstown Cave, 53 km nor ...
and the surrounding area under interdict when a dispute concerning a local clerical appointment turned violent, an action that prompted
Baron Kingston Baron Kingston is a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of Ireland and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The first creation came in 1660 when the military commander Sir John King was made Baron Kingston, of Kingston in the C ...
to issue a warrant for the bishop's arrest in 1758, offering a reward of £20". In March 1762 O'Brien
excommunicated Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community or to restrict certain rights within it, in particular those of being in communion with other members of the con ...
those who were involved in the
Whiteboys The Whiteboys () were a secret Irish agrarian organisation in 18th-century Ireland which defended tenant-farmer land-rights for subsistence farming. Their name derives from the white smocks that members wore in their nighttime raids. Becaus ...
– which he characterised as a "dangerous contagion" in a pastoral letter.


Further reading

* ''A Bishop of Penal Times: The Life and Times of John O’Brien, Bishop of Cloyne and Ross 1701–1767'' * ''History of West Cork and the Diocese of Ross'' (1949)


References

*


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obrien, John 1767 deaths Roman Catholic bishops of Cork and Cloyne 18th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland 18th-century Irish bishops 18th-century Irish male writers Irish Roman Catholic writers Roman Catholic Diocese of Cork and Ross 1701 births