Flaherty, Roderic

, an Irish gentleman of learning, who had a considerable knowledge in the history and antiquities of his country, was born in. 1650, at Moycullin, co. Galway, the ancient estate of his family, which became forfeited by the rebellion in 1641, when he was only eleven years old. He published at London, 1685, a book under the singular and mystic title of “Ogygia, or Rerum Hibernicarum Chronologia,” containing chronological memoirs upon the antiquities of the kingdom of Ireland; compiled, as he observes, “ex pervetustis monumentis fideliter inter se collatis eruta, atque e sacris et profanis litteris primarum orbis gentium, tarn genealogicis, quam chronologicis suffulta prresidiis.” This work, a 4to volume, containing about 600 pages, he" dedicated to the then duke of York, afterwards king James II. of England. The author commences his history from the deluge, continues it to the year of Christ 42 8, and has divided it into three parts. The first describes the island, its various names, inhabitants, extent, kings, the manner of their annual | election, &c. The second is a kind of chronological parallel of the Irish affairs, with the events that happened during the same period in other countries. The third is a more ample detail of particular transactions in the same kingdom. To this is added a professedly exact chronological table of all the Christian kings who have ruled over Ireland, from A. D. 482 till A. D. 1022; and a brief relation of the most prominent historic features of the island till the time of Charles II. in 1685. To this succeeds a chronological poem, which forms a summary of Irish history to the same period. At the end is a very curious catalogue of the Scottish kings, Irish, who have reigned in the British isles. In his genealogical remarks on the regal house of the Stewarts, the author attempts to prove they were originally an Irish family. It is surprising that neither the author nor his work has been noticed by Macpherson or Whitaker in their controversy respecting the peopling of Hibernia, and the origin of the Caledonians; although he is particularly noticed by O’Hallaran in his History of Ireland.

Mr. O-Flaherty promised a second part, in which he intended to give an account at large of the Christian kings of Ireland, but never accomplished it; although Harris mentions a report that it existed in manuscript, in the hands of his relations, which probably was only a short abstract of annals from 1187 to 1327, which Nicolson say was extant in his time. He wrote also a treatise in vindication of his “Ogygia” against the objections of sir George Mackenzie and others, which was intended for the press, but we know not that it ever appeared. Sir Richard Cox only seems to speak slightingly -of the “Ogygia,” which is highly praised by Dr.Dudley Loftus, Belling, and Stillingfleet. ¹