Starting in January I will begin posting on the lives of individual Irish saints and as a chief source will be using the nine-volume collection, The Lives of the Irish Saints, by the Reverend John O’Hanlon (1821-1905). Since I first began researching the lives of our native holy men and women some years ago, I have become very fond of Canon O’Hanlon and my admiration for what he achieved continues to grow. Below is an obituary to this wonderful Irish priest published as a foreword to one of his historical works not concerned with the Irish saints. In it we can see how Canon O’Hanlon’s life encompassed the great cultural and religious revival of nineteenth-century Ireland, indeed his work is described here as having taken on ‘the character of a national monument’. In truth though, I would have to dissent from the description of his style as ‘lucid and simple’. On the contrary, his Victorian, wordy style can often be impenetrable for a modern reader and the work as a whole suffers from a lack of editing. That said, however, given the size of the task he undertook and the circumstances under which he was working, I can only marvel at the scale of the achievement. After a while, one gets used to his style and I personally enjoy the period charm of his pious homiletics and the travelogues which often accompany the accounts of the saints, particularly those saints about whom not a great deal is known. Scholarship has naturally moved on since the Canon was writing, but as a scholar he is scrupulous about citing his sources and often uses specialized sources which would otherwise be difficult for the general reader to track down. It is sad that only nine complete volumes of The Lives of the Irish Saints were published, a partial volume for October was issued, the rest remain in unpublished manuscript form. A good modern introduction to the way Canon O’Hanlon worked can be found here, but below, we see what one of his contemporaries, Father Thomas J. Shahan of the Catholic University of America, had to say of the man and his work:
John O’Hanlon was born April 30, 1821, at
Stradbally, in Queens County, Ireland. He received his early training in local
and neighboring schools, and was sent at the age of seventeen to Carlow
College. Four years later his studies were interrupted by the resolution to
accompany some relatives to the New World. He landed at Quebec in 1842, but after a
sojourn of some months went on to St. Louis. He soon entered (1843) the
Ecclesiastical Seminary of that diocese, and was ordained to the priesthood by
Archbishop Kendrick in 1847. For five or six years he devoted himself to the
duties of his calling, arduous enough at that period of rapid national growth
and economic expansion. But failing health turned his thoughts again to the land
of his fathers, and in 1853 he returned to Dublin, where he was made curate at
the Church of Saints Michael and John, a post that he occupied until 1880, when
he was promoted to the parish of Sandymount. In 1885 he was made a Canon of the
Dublin Cathedral by Archbishop Walsh. In 1897 he celebrated the Golden Jubilee
of his priesthood. His death occurred on May 15, 1905, at the advanced age of
eighty-four. He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.
Canon O’Hanlon is remembered by his faithful
flock as a devoted priest, to whom the beauty and glory of the house of God,
the parish schools and property, the industrial schools of the neighborhood,
were especially dear. Amid his learned occupations he never neglected the work
of his sacred ministry, nor the care of the poor, sick and lowly. As an
Irishman, he was one of the foremost patriotic figures of the nineteenth
century. He had heard O’Connell, as a boy of fifteen, in 1836, on the Great
Heath at Maryborough, and was present at the banquet then given at Stradbally
to the Liberator. He loved to recall the political ballads of that decade
apropos of Sir Henry Parnell and his “History of the Penal Laws,” and
the melodious folk-tunes of the pre-famine period, many of which to his great
regret, he lived to see perish from the popular memory. His love of Moore’s
Melodies was well-known to all his friends. He was also a great admirer of the
“Young Ireland” poetry, and at his death was engaged on an edition of
the fugitive writings of the patriot-poet, John Keegan. He was an active member
of the committee on the centenary celebration in honor of O’Connell, and as
secretary of the O’Connell Memorial Committee drew up the valuable report of
its proceedings from 1862 to 1882. To him is owing in no small measure the splendid
Dublin monument to O’Connell, the masterpiece of Foley’s art, and one of the
finest monumental sculptures in Europe. He was also active in the creation of
memorials to the poets Thomas Moore and Denis Florence McCarthy. His
earnestness in the work of the Gaelic League is well known, likewise his
intelligent devotion to the historical monuments of Ireland, the manuscripts,
records, books, and curious remains that still enshrine no little of the
glorious past of the beloved island. He was for forty years an active and
painstaking member of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, to which he had been
elected on the proposition of such an Irish antiquarian as Bishop Graves.
Within the limits of his sacred calling he seems to have omitted no endeavor to
serve his native country as a scholar, a poet, and a man of action.
The catalogue of Canon O’Hanlon’s literary labors
is a long one, and covers a period of more than fifty years of incessant study,
research, and publication. He was a man of adamantine endurance, and though by
his departure the Church of the United States surely lost a pen of great power,
the larger world of ecclesiastical learning was proportionately the gainer. It
may be stated at once that he never ceased to love the great Republic, whose
institutions and spirit he thoroughly understood and admired, as the work here
offered to the reader will make clear. Among his published writings is a volume
of reminiscences entitled, “Life and Scenery in Missouri” (Dublin, 1890).
In 1897 he crossed the ocean to take part in the Golden Episcopal Jubilee of
Archbishop Kendrick, who fifty years earlier had raised him to the dignity of
priesthood. It would seem that Canon O’Hanlon became an historian out of the
fulness of his conviction that the Christian history of Ireland is one of the
noblest chapters of all theology. His first work was an “Abridgment of
Irish History from the Final Subjection of Ireland to the Present Time”
(Boston, 1849), written with the view, no doubt, of fixing on the mind of the
young Irish emigrant the great religious lesson of his
forefathers’ patient endurance and fidelity. It was followed by “The Irish
Emigrant’s Guide to the United States” (Boston, 1851), long a very popular
work among the unfortunate Irish wanderers in a new land. During the years of
his American ministry he contributed frequently to literary magazines and
newspapers, and was known, before he left us, as an ecclesiastical scholar and
an antiquarian of promise. It will be admitted that, given the duties of the
parochial service in the United States and the scarcity of good libraries of
Irish lore, these first zealous efforts deserve special commendation. He was
soon, however, to find himself in a centre where opportunity, talent and energy
might combine to make of him, if not an historical genius, at least one of the
most useful writers who have yet appeared on the soil of Ireland. Shortly after
his return he began his career as the hagiologist of Ireland, and at the same
time complimented his adopted city with a little volume entitled, “A Short
Life of St. Lawrence O’Toole”(Dublin, 1857). A good judge says of it that
“it dispelled the cloud of ignorance respecting the life of St. Lawrence,
which had been created by the wanton misrepresentation of hostile, careless and
faithless chroniclers, successfully refuted the false views which had been
propagated by political or religious malevolence and set the character of the
illustrious subject of his work in a true light before the public.” In a sense
this judgment is applicable to all the good Canon’s later writings. Two years
later he brought out a “Life of St. Malachy O’Morgair” (Dublin,
1859), that had originally been undertaken in the Boston Pilot (1853). Then
followed at various intervals other lives of famous ancient saints of Ireland:
St. Dympna (Dublin, 1863); St. Aengus, the Culdee (ibid., 1868); St. David
(ibid., 1869); St. Grellan (ibid., 1881). One of his most useful books is his
“Catechism of Irish History from the earliest times to the death of
O’Connell” (Dublin, 1864).
This gifted priest was not only an excellent
historian, but also a graceful poet, who knew how to clothe in pleasing metre
the thousand and one traditions that everywhere cling to the soil of Ireland.
In 1870 he published, under the nom de plume of Lageniensis (the man of Leix),
a volume of poetry entitled, “Legend Lays of Ireland,” in which old
and familiar fairy legends of his people were treated with much success. In the
same year he published a prose volume of popular traditions, “Irish Folk-Lore,”
which embraces “a vast amount of antiquarian and historical information
connected with various periods of the national annals.” The grave of the
famous O’Carolan, the last of the Irish harpers, was visited by him in 1881,
and suggested to him a new volume of verse, “The Buried Lady: A Legend of
Kilronan.” In 1893 he made a collection of all his metrical writings,
under the title, “Poetical Works of Lageniensis,” and dedicated the
same to the Countess of Aberdeen, as a tribute to her genuine love for the
Irish people. Another volume on “Irish Local Legends” appeared in
1895, and placed him among the most successful collectors of the rare and
curious antique lore that has been so long drifting down the ages in Ireland,
but that is now on the wane, and will perhaps not survive many more
generations. In the meantime he brought the nation more deeply in his debt by
new editions of two important works, Monck-Mason’s “Essay on the Antiquity
and Constitution of Parliaments in Ireland” (Dublin, 1891), and William
Molyneaux’s “The Case of Ireland’s Being Bound by Acts of Parliament in
England Stated” (Dublin, 1893). The latter work, originally published in
1698, had been burned by the common hangman, and only one edition had since
then seen the light. The tireless pen of this scholarly antiquarian seemed,
indeed, never to rest. He compiled a “Catechism of Greek Grammar” and
“Devotions for Confession and Holy Communion,” almost as a rest from
his many heavier labors. During his last illness he was still busied with a history
of the antiquities of his native Leix (Queens County), on which, in his
intervals of leisure, he had spent considerable research. He reminds us,
indeed, of Saint Columba and Saint Bede, both of whom died almost in the act of
dictating to their brother scribes. It seems incredible that amid so many
enterprises he found time to compose the work that is here presented to our readers.
It will always possess an added interest from the fact that the original text
perished in the fire that had consumed his publishers’ premises in 1898.
Nothing daunted, he sat down to the task a second time, rewrote the entire
work, and published it as a large quarto (Dublin, 1903).
We have yet, however, to mention the great work
on which his fame will forever rest, “The Lives of the Irish Saints.”
As early as 1857 he announced his resolution to compose a series of lives of
the Saints of Ireland in twelve volumes, following the order of the calendar.
It was to be for Irish history what Alban Butler’s “Lives of the
Saints” had long been for general ecclesiastical history, a vast and final
work of reference and edification. The Jesuit Henry Fitzsimon, the priest
Thomas Messingham, above all the Franciscans Patrick Fleming, Luke Wadding,
Hugh Ward and John Colgan, had all toiled variously and with great success, in
the first half of the seventeenth century, at a great compilation that was
eventually to be known as the “Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae” or the
“Lives of the Saints of Ireland.” In the sad and dreary period that
followed the “thorough” work of Oliver Cromwell the Irish clergy
found no longer heart or occasion to take up a task so congenial to their
temper and the character of their nation. It was reserved for the modest and
laborious curate of Saints Michael and John to bend his shoulders to a work
that might well challenge the organized efforts of a community of writers. In
1872 he issued the prospectus of his enterprise, as a subscription work, and
promised to bring it out monthly in parts of sixty-four pages each, profusely
illustrated. He kept his promise, and finished the herculean undertaking shortly
before his death. It includes the lives of about 3,500 saints of Ireland, some
of them dealt with briefly, but many at very great length. The nine volumes
before us number over six thousand large octavo pages, and the remaining parts,
when they issue from the press as volumes, will probably raise this figure to
eight thousand pages or more. It is a very unique performance in the department
of hagiology, whether we consider the unbroken ardor of fifty years’ toil, the
faithful execution of a perilous promise, the uniform excellence of the work,
or the admitted need and value of a history of Irish sanctity that shall
correspond to our modern methods and attainments in the province of history.
That he succeeded in endowing his native land with a monument that any Catholic
people would forever cherish is allowed by all who are familiar with the field
of labor, among others by the Bollandists, to whose scholarly company he must henceforth
be accredited as an associate, at least in learning, faith, spirit, and good
work. These volumes include the result of infinite research in all the
departments of Irish history, for the Saints of Ireland, since St. Patrick, are
its true heroes, its representatives, and the flower of its thought and action.
In so old a land the identification of place and personal names is no slight
task. A chief source of information is the collection of ancient maps and
manuscripts belonging to the Irish Ordnance Survey Department in Dublin. Canon O’Hanlon had an intimate acquaintance with
all this material; he was likewise master of the contents of the rich public
libraries of his native city and of other cites, as well as of valuable private
collections of books on the topography and antiquities of Ireland. In the
course of his labors he was encouraged and often helped by such scholars as Dr.
John O’Donovan, Professor Eugene O’Curry, Dr. Todd, and other Irish
antiquarians of the first rank. The beautiful font of Irish type occasionally
used in his “Lives of the Irish Saints” was originally designed by Dr.
Petrie for the Catholic University of Ireland.
The work of Canon O’Hanlon took on the character
of a national monument. And as it progressed the learned world in general
applauded the rare erudition, good judgment and moderation, skilful order and
sense of proportion, grasp of environment and unflagging regularity of industry
which he brought to the execution of this imperishable Hall of Fame, in which
each of the model national worthies has his appropriate niche or pedestal. It
has been truly said that the future ecclesiastical historian of Ireland — whoever
he may be — must forever feel indebted to the good priest, whose labors for
half a century have resulted in placing at his disposal an inexhaustible fund
of well-digested and reliable information, not only concerning the personal
history of the Irish Saints, but also about the social, political, literary and
aesthetic life of Ireland during the period of her native independence and
brilliancy. Archbishop Walsh, in commending the proposal to erect a suitable
memorial to the deceased scholar, took occasion to state that in the erudite
volumes of the “Lives of the Irish Saints,” compiled with zeal and
diligence in the spare moments of a busy missionary life. Canon O’Hanlon had
“preserved for the instruction and edification of future generations all
that has been handed down to us of the lives and labors of the recorded saints
of our Irish Church.”
As a writer Canon O’Hanlon was habitually
painstaking and accurate. His information, when possible, was gathered at first
hand, and the habit of composition enabled him to set it forth with good order
and proportion. His style is lucid and simple, a good specimen of the historical
narrative, and his diction always select and dignified. He seizes with ease on
the salient and distinctive traits of a personality or a situation, and thereby
relieves the reader of that vagueness and complexity that sometimes diminishes
the satisfaction afforded by otherwise good histories. His spirit was ever
aflame with the love of his native religion and his native land. Yet nothing
gladdened him more through a long life than the consciousness that he was
working, not alone for those who dwelt within the “four seas of Ireland,”
but also for that greater Ireland-over-sea, to whose children and whose
children’s children he would forever speak as a trustworthy herald of
long-forgotten ages of glorious endeavor that might otherwise, perhaps, perish
only too easily from the minds and the hearts of Irishmen in the United States
of America, Canada, Southern Africa, United States of Australia, India and
other parts of the world. May he rest in peace!
OMNIUM SANCTORUM HIBERNIAE 