250 year old dictionary ‘comes home’
Earlier this week a significant event of remembrance took place outside Bishop John O’Brien Memorial National School in Bartlemy. Local history enthusiasts, John Arnold and Christy Roche, were in attendance to mark the 320th anniversary of the birth of the man that the school, built in the 1980s, is named after.
On Tuesday, Paudie Walsh NT and other staff members had the senior students of the school lined up to hear about the life and times of a famous churchman and educator.
Christy Roche is the proud owner of a very rare copy of O’Brien’s ‘labour of love’, his Irish English dictionary and he brought it to Bartlemy on the day. John Arnold outlined the background of John O’Brien and his local connections, with Christy informing those present of the work of Bishop O’Brien and the publication of the dictionary. Christy also mentioned a very good biography of John O’Brien, written by Rev’d. James Coombes in 1981. A Question and Answer session then followed.
On behalf of the staff and pupils, Paudie Walsh thanked both John and Christy for visiting the school that bears such a historic name.
FIRST IRISH-ENGLISH DICTIONARY
John O’Brien was born in the year 1701 at Ballyvoddy, near Rockmills in the parish St. Natlash - the modern Kildorrery. His parents were Patrick O’Brien and Eleanor McEniry - both are buried in Rockmills Cemetery.
Young John O’Brien answered the call to the religious life. O’Brien studied in the Irish College at Toulouse in France and was ordained to the priesthood around 1726. In total, he spent nearly twenty years in France and Spain.
After studying in the Sorbonne in Paris, Fr O Brien returned to Toulouse where received a Doctorate in Canon and Civil Law in 1733. He spent several years working as a private tutor to the sons of prominent Irish families who had fled to Europe. These included the Dillons, Connocks and Fitzgerald families.
However, the 1700’s in Ireland was the era of the Penal Laws, so no Catholic seminary was allowed to function. When back in Ireland in 1738, Dr John O’Brien was appointed Parish Priest to the United Parishes of Castlelyons and Rathcormac. It is likely that it was around this time that O’Brien came to live in a little thatched house in the parish of Rathcormac, about a mile from Bartlemy village. A great lover of the Irish language John O’Brien commenced working on what would be his lifetime ‘labour of love’, the compilation of an Irish English dictionary.
In August 1747, the long-ailing Bishop McCarthy died and Fr James Butler - of the Cashel Butler dynasty - was ‘on for the job’. The exiled King James III had the right to nominate candidates when a Bishop’s position came up and he backed Dr. John O’Brien. There was a lot of push and pull before Pope Benedict XV appointed the Rev’d Dr John O’Brien as Bishop of Cloyne and Ross in January 1748. The simple mud-walled cabin in Ballinterry became the ‘Bishop’s Palace’.
The Penal Laws were still in force, but O’Brien managed to live peacefully at Ballinterry. He was a reforming Bishop and tried to bring about major improvements in the way the Church operated under his rule. He continued work on his dictionary and in the 1760s, he left Ireland for France.
He appealed for financial backing to Rome and other benefactors for his project. Eventually, and over 250 years ago, his magnum opus was published in France. Bishop John O’Brien died in 1769 and is buried in Lyon Cathedral.