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- 1826 (Creation)
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130 pp; printed
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A facsimile copy of Conor O’Mahony, ‘Disputatio apologetica de iure regni Hiberniae pro Catholicis Hibernis adversus haereticos Anglos’ ([Dublin: G. Mullen, 1826]). The volume has pasted-in newspaper clippings advertising the edition and offering some contextual information about the author and text. The title page of the volume is a facsimile of the original from 1645. A note from James Coleman FRSAI (dated 1921) relating to the text is also pasted into the volume.
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- Latin
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Note
‘Disputatio apologetica de iure regni Hiberniae pro Catholicis Hibernis adversus haereticos Anglos’ (or ‘Explanatory argument concerning the authority of the kingdom of Ireland on behalf of Irish Catholics against English heretics’ usually shortened to ‘An argument defending the right of the Kingdom of Ireland’) by Conor O’Mahony’s (c.1594-1656). The book was originally published in 1645, and it marks a critical milestone in Irish political thought as it makes one of the first full statements for Irish separatism. O’Mahony was a Cork-born Jesuit priest educated in Lisbon, Portugal. He sought to disguise his identity and the place of publication as ‘C.M. Hiberno’ and ‘Francofurti’ (Frankfurt). O’Mahony argued that the Irish Catholics (or Hiberni) were entitled to reject the authority of the English kings, attacking by turn the legal arguments used to legitimise their authority. He urged the Irish to choose a native monarch, a policy which ran counter to the ideology of the Catholic Confederation of Kilkenny which supported the claims of Charles I and sought to preserve an alliance against the insurgent English Parliament. As a result, O’Mahony’s radical text was not well received in Ireland and the Confederation’s Council ordered that copies of it should be burned. This edition (no. 27) was one of only 100 facsimile copies published in Dublin in 1826.
Note
A digital copy of the text is available online at https://archive.org/details/disputatioapolo00omagoog