Life
?-1614 [also Bonaventura O’Hussey; OFM]; b. prob. Ballyhosey, Co.
Fermanagh; ed. Douai, ord. 1609; professor of theology, St. Anthony’s,
Louvain; Guardian of St Anthony’s College, Louvain; An Teagasg
Críosdaidhe (Antwerp 1611; Louvain 1614), some of it in verse
form, was the first Catholic text published in Irish type. Rudimenta
Grammaticae Hibernicae [but see infra], earliest treatise on the Irish
language; two extant exile poems, ‘Truagh an t-amharcsa a Eire [bad
this sight, Ireland]’, and ‘A sgríbhionn luigheas tar
lear [writing that speeds over the sea]’. ODNB DIW FDA OCIL
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Works
Grammaticae Hibernicae rudimenta (completed April 1655). COMM,
Bibl., Tomás Ó Cléirigh, Aodh Mac Aingil agus
an Scoil Nua-Ghaeilge i Lobháin (1935; repr. 1985),
and Cuthbert Mhág Craith, Dán na mBráthar Mionúr,
2 vols. (1967, 1980).
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References
Dictionary of National Biography:
O’Hussey or O’Heoghusa [sic], Maelbrighde, in religion Bonaventura;
guardian of Louvain, auth. religious works and poems; d. 1614, Louvain.
[No entry in DIB.] DIW, b. Enniskillen, c.1575, d. Louvain; prob. brother
of Eochaid, and ed. in poetic schools; entered Louvain as a Franciscan
in 1607; Teagasc Críostaidhe (Louvain 1608; rep. Antwerp
1611); long poem under the same title by Gille-Bríghde (Paris 1642);
See T Ó Rahile [sic], Measgra Dánta (Cork 1927);
L McKenna SJ, Dioghluim Dána (Dublin 1938); OJ Begin, ‘Unpublished
Irish Poems’, in Studies VII 1918 and Eriu VIII, 1916-17);
also P Walsh, articles in Irish Eccles. Record, XXXI (1928), and Irish Book Lover, XVIII (1930).
Muriel McCarthy & Caroline Sherwood-Smith, eds., Hibernia Resurgens: Catalogue of Marsh’s Library (1994): Marsh’s library holds Grammaticae Hibernicae rudimenta (‘Finis per me Christopherum Geraldinum decimo tertio die Aprillii, 1655’), MS 45 fols.; Bernard 879; divided in 4 parts; Pt. 1 consists of 11 chaps. treating of letetrs and syllables and their pronunciation; compares Irish phonetics with Latin and Greek, resorting to Hebrew to illustrate [initial] ‘ng’; Pt. 2, in 36 chaps., deals with word-formation, then declensions of nouns and adjs.;l conjugations of verbs; trypes of pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions; Pt. 3, in 11 chaps., deals with syntax; Pt. 4 is a treatise on prosody written in Irish; Further: McCarthy records that O’Hussey was b. in Clogher [Tyrone]; received into Franciscan order [i.e., ordained] 1607; MA, Douai; the first truly Irish type was prepared to print An Teagasg Críosdaidhe (1611); the MS in Marsh’s Library orig. belonged to Dudley Loftus, being purchased from his widow by Archb. Narcissus Marsh. Note that the copy made by Anthony Haly, also held in Marsh’s library, does include the treatise on prosody.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1, prints A friend’s consolation (In praise of Conn, son of Ó Domhnaill) [280-81]; BIOG, 325, yonger relation of Eochaid; b. c.1570; trained as professional poet, went to the continent in 1590s; first catechism in Irish, reputed compiler of grammar of Irish; d. Louvain.
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