
The Natural History of Ireland
By Philip O'Sullivan Beare
Denis O'Sullivan(Editor)
Cork University Press
Published on 26. May 2009
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-1-85918-439-4 (ISBN)
Description
"The Natural History of Ireland" by Philip O'Sullivan Beare is an important source of the history of Ireland's natural environment and its political history. It was originally written in Latin by Don Philip O'Sullivan Beara, an Irish nobleman living in exile in Spain. He wrote the "Zoilomastix" in order to refute "Topographia Hiberniae", written by Giraldus Cambrewsis, which was very derogatory of Ireland and the Irish people. It was still the accepted text on Ireland in the Seventeenth Century which angered Philip O'Sullivan as it contained so many inaccuracies in its description of Ireland."Book One of the Zoilomastix" highlights his reaction to these propagandist texts denigrating Ireland and comments on the natural habitat and features, such as rivers, plants, animals, fish and birds, of Ireland. Species listed are named in four languages, including Irish. An introduction by Denis O'Sullivan gives an overall history of the O'Sullivan's and Philip in particular. This book has never been translated into English before, thus making this a completely unique publication. This translation is both faithful to the original and accessible to the general reader.
The ability to deal with a complex, multilingual manuscript of this kind is now rare and it is to the credit of the author that this is such a readable edition of the text. This translation constitutes an important contribution to scholarship pertaining to O'Sullivan Beare, early modern Irish Latin literature and Irish history in general.
The ability to deal with a complex, multilingual manuscript of this kind is now rare and it is to the credit of the author that this is such a readable edition of the text. This translation constitutes an important contribution to scholarship pertaining to O'Sullivan Beare, early modern Irish Latin literature and Irish history in general.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cork
Ireland
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-85918-439-4 (9781859184394)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Denis C. O'Sullivan was a consultant urologist at Cork University Hospital and the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork and a lecturer in urology at Cork University Hospital. He graduated in Ancient Classics from University College Cork.