Charles O'Conor, the Elder

O'Conor, Charles, the Elder (1710-1791), Irish scholar and founder of the Catholic Committee. Born in Co. Sligo, and educated by an Irish-speaking Franciscan, he made his first journey to Dublin in 1727, meeting Gaelic scholars and Anglo-Irish antiquarians there. During the 1750s O'Conor issued a number of lengthy pamphlets, often pseudonymously or by proxy, arguing for the relaxation of the Penal Laws. O'Conor's chief work is Dissertations: An Account of the Ancient Government, Letters, Sciences, Religion, Manners and Customs of Ireland (1753), the second edition of which includes a refutation of Macpherson's assertions about Gaelic literature (1766). In 1756 he was co-opted with Sylvester O'Halloran onto the RDS committee charged with founding the Royal Irish Academy (RIA). Throughout his career O'Conor worked in close association with John Curry, founding the Catholic Committee with him and others of the Catholic gentry party. As a pamphleter and letter-writer he campaigned tirelessly against the misrepresentations of the Rebellion of 1641 in the Anglo-Irish chronicles. The O'Conor family at Belanagare were hosts to Carolan (Toirdhealbhach Ó Cearbhalláin), whose harp remains in the library at Clonalis. At some time O'Conor came into possession of the Book of the O'Conor Don.

Bibliography

Joseph Th. Leerssen, Mere Irish and Fíor-Ghael (1986).