This is the first English translation of an important
seventeenth-century contention between two Irish clerics. The detail
uncovered reveals much about Gaelic-Irish culture and society at this
turbulent period in Irish history. The two clerics, Antonius Bruodinus
and Thomas Carve, present an image of Ireland that was split between
native Gaelic and Old-English culture and the influence of these two
cultures on competing views about Ireland's past. The seventeenth
century was a period of turmoil and upheaval in Ireland. The politics of
religious identity were visceral, giving rise to controversies and
bitter clashes. In 1671 the Irish Franciscan, Antonius Bruodinus (Antóin
Mac Bruideadha; b. 1625, Clare -- 7 May 1680 Prague), a former pupil of
Luke Wadding in Rome, published Anatomicum Examen Enchiridii
Apologetici, refuting the statements made by Fr Thomas Carve ('Carew',
b. Tipperary, 1590; d.c. 1672 Vienna). Carve was from a family of
Old-English allegiance whose previous works contain much of value on the
Thirty Years War, he having been chaplain to Irish regiments fighting
for the imperial Hapsburgs in central Europe. The intense exchange of
views between the two clerics went to the core of many of the vexed
controversies regarding identity, authority and legitimacy which
characterised the debates of the time. This is the first time that one
of the main works that so explicitly focuses on culture and identity has
been translated into English and treated to a detailed examination. In
Culture, Contention and Identity in Seventeenth-Century Ireland, the
editors provide a helpful apparatus to guide the modern reader through a
myriad of arguments and retorts by the two protagonists, which reveal
much information about life and politics in seventeenth-century Ireland.
The book, which provides a critical edition of the text with facing
translation, sheds new light on the viewpoints of Gaelic-Irish and
Old-English alike, as well as the impact of the Cromwellian invasion on
the country. In translating this heated exchange between the two clerics
we come closer to grasping some of the pressing issues troubling
Ireland's population at the time. Much new detail can be harvested
concerning the activities of learned Gaelic families, Irish marriage
customs, place names and much else besides.. The writings of these two
clerics also provide a fascinating portrait of Irish clerics and their
émigré networks at a time when the two traditions which each claimed to
represent - Gaelic-Irish and Old-English - were being supplanted by a
different élite in Ireland, the New-English.
