Donegal Annual / Bliainiris Thír Chonaill, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1951)

tlioce~e of Raphue. IHs work HS a piuneer was, however, hau.dic'appc.~J by his fooli ~ i-1 reliance on a prodigious lneinory and a hapl1'az·- anl rnd1l:ud of notctaking. Maguire could r~ • rely re.strain his subjecUvity ;and some of his caustic remarkrs are full of cynicvl humour whiich wm soon lose their topical flavour, and beicome meaningless, unless some of his fellow clergy of Raphoc underhlkc to annotate the rl:istory with fuller biographical notus! He can be cx:aspcraiing too, when, 1without quoting his a uthoriticis, .he emulated O'Hurt's Irish Pedigr.ees with assertions such :t. ts that the O''Donnells of Ballyshlannon migrated from the Roisst:s in the seventeenth century; that the nineteenth century Callughers of Ballinaglack were the lineal descendants ,of Sir Eoin O'if1·~tllagher , etc. Unsubstantiated statements, suc1b ais th€(3e have allorw-:ed skeptics to discredit A History of the Diocesl~ of Rail:hoe and thereby reduce its geanealogical value to the level of that section of our Sunday national press which recently splashed its p1agas with the story of a mythical king of Arranmore, who was a direct descendant (sic) of Red Hugh O'Donnell. (Which of the Red Hughs?). These imperfections are relatively unimportant ~when set 1against the magnitude of fMaguire's A History of the Diocese of Raphc+~. For tlhi•s reason our remarks 1must not be interpreted, or used, as destructive critic~sm since they iare offered as structural alterations to an odifi1ce, whkh .rnuist al1wlays bear his name. T'he time factot, alone, leaves us in his debit since much of the triaditional lore V\1hich. he recorded 1woul.d have been lost, forever, hlad he awaited visi101nary opportunities. AJctuated by gratitude for his timely work and hailing him as the pre~ursor of the County Donegal Hisitorical So.cietry we isalute his memory; and, by way of tribute to it, offer the folli01wing additions, and correctior.s, to ;his A Hi.story of th.~ Diocese of R1Dipboe : .Pa:rish of Rapboe-"\Rev John Campbell, !P.P., Raphoe"- Subiscription list Daniel Roderick O'Conor's "His~oiry of Ireland" elated November, 1798. That this list was prepared about til:e year 179() is evident from the fact that it includes tJhe n:ame of Rev. William Hamilton, who was slain at Sharon 1Rectory, M1arch 1797. Pa:·isb of Inmshkeel- "Rev. Patri·ek O'Coigley, iR.C.D. of Raphoe (address) lnnishkeel, Co. Done•gal." (O'Conor op. t('it.). The Dean to whom tht:re i:s no reference in M·nguire was one of some hundredls of Donegal ;people whose names were set ,out in Faulkner's Journal, December) 1799, under a petition from County Donegal for "an Act of Union between Great Britain 1and Ireland." The De~rn's name is given as "Rev. Patrick Coyle, R.C.D."-a misprint or 1a forgery? Was :he 1a .relative of the Rit. Rev. Dean George Quigley (O'Coigley) mentioned in Maguire vol. 1, p.p. 2CH, 483, 484? Parish of Temp1ecrone-"Rev. Connell O'Donnell, P.P., Templecrone,'' (O'Conor ~p. cit.). Compare this with Maguire vol. 1, 479, and vol. 11 p. 224. Parish of Killygia,va.n-''Rev. John ,McE·lwee, p ,P., Killygarvan'' (Pro. Union Petition Dec. 1799, op. cit). See Maguire vol. 1, p.p. 3123, 320.

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