[Sir] William O’Kelly

Life
fl.1700-05 [Sir William O’Kelly de Aghrim; var. D'Aghrim]; author of poetry [carmen] and prose in Latin, published in Prague, incl. birthday poem for his patron Theodoro Othoni (1705) and Philosophia Aulica juxta Veterum ac Recentiorum Philosophorum Placita [ Court Philosopy &c.] (1701), for ‘the studious nobility [...] who could not bear the tediousness of the schools [and] had an appetite for curious things’; works on Irish history, reissued in Dublin by Patrick O’Kelly (1838, 1844).

 

Works
Rubra Domus vulgo Rotenhaus ... heroico Carmine accuratè descripta (Neo-Pragae 1700), 4o.; Carmen panegyricum serenissimo principi ac Domino, Domino Carolo Theodoro Othoni: die 4. novembris 1705. feleciter natalizanti / composuit & obtulit Guil. O Kelly de Aghrim (Viennae Austriae: typis Andreae Heyinger 1705), [6]pp., 36 cm. [rep. in German Baroque Literature, Harold Jantz Collection, No. 1892, Reel 397]; Philosophia aulica, juxta veterum, ac recentiorum philosophorum placita: Compendiose, ac methodo parisiensi pertractata, et illustrioribus superioris aevi inventis, et experimentis illustrata, et quatuor in partes, amputata prolixitate, divisa in gratiam studiosae nobilitatis, aut vulgarem philosophiam fastidientis, aut scholarum taedium non ferentis, aut denique rerum curiosarum avidae (Neo-Pragae: Typis Hampelianis, Impressit J.G. Hofaeker 1701), 120, 80, 232, 60pp, 20cm. Also, Historica descriptio Hiberniae / Auctore Perillustri Domino Guil. D. O'Kelly / Hoc opus editum est de novo a P. O'Kelly (Dublinii: Typis R. Graisberry, 1838, 1844), 242pp., [29] cm.; [COPAC].

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Commentary
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition ( IAP 1984): ‘William O’Kelly [of Aughrim], published an erudite semi-philosophical treatise in Prague, entitled Philosophia Aulica juxta Veterum ac Recentiorum Philosophorum Placita [Court Philosopy &c.], for the use of “the studious nobility who either despised the common philosophy or else could not bear the tediousness of the schools, or at any rate had an appetite for curious things [vulgarem ... rerum curiosum avidae.]”’ (Stanford, p.194.)

 

Notes
Patrick O’Kelly, bio-dates 1754-1835 [Manchester Library Cat.]

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