Long Lost Archive of Daniel MacCarthy Glas Launched in Cork
15/08/2025
The Cork City and County Archives Service is delighted to announce that it is opening the long-lost archive of writer and historian Daniel MacCarthy Glas (1807- 1884) to the public.
The archive was donated by his descendants Susan MacCarthy and Don MacCarthy, and families, of Oregon, USA. The archives have also created a public exhibition for National Heritage Week, “The Tanist of Carbery: Daniel MacCarthy Glas and His Long-Lost Archive” which will be on display at the Cork City and County Archives, Blackpool, for National Heritage Week 2025. The exhibition will tour libraries and other locations around Cork city and county at a later date. The Heritage Council of Ireland, under their 2025 Heritage Stewardship Scheme, has funded the purchase of 2 state of the art exhibition cases that enable the secure display of original items from the MacCarthy Glas archive.
Comprising almost 1,400 unique items the archive is of major historical importance containing personal letters, manuscripts, photographs and drawings from Daniel and other family members. Some of Daniel’s family were poets and writers, and some held important positions, reflecting the fact that they intermarried with some of the London élite. Daniels father-in-law was Rear-Admiral Sir Home Riggs Popham who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and invented a code of signals adopted by the Royal Navy in 1803. Also, within are various manuscripts relating to Daniel’s historical and literary research and publications. As with any large personal or family archive, the scope of the collection is immense, documenting a range of topics: from the MacCarthy aristocratic lineage, to 19th century poetry and historiography, the Irish nationalist movement, the history of Early Modern Ireland, the French Revolution of 1848, the British Empire in India and South Africa, emigration, to the Great Famine and its dire impact on the local population in West Cork.
One historically priceless document in the archive has been identified as having immense significance: this is a 1784 family pedigree of the Gaelic prince Jeremiah MacCarthy (‘Diarmuid MacCárthaigh an Dúna’) compiled by famous poet-schoolmaster Séan Ó Coileáin of Myross ‘The Last Bard of Munster’, who, it is said, could recite much of the ancient history and genealogies of the region. This unique parchment document, written in a combination of both Irish and English, is one of very few original manuscripts that we know of in existence from Ó Coileain or indeed any other Gaelic scholar from the period. The pedigree has been subject to a detailed process of transcription and interpretation by Prof. Cornelius Buttimer, formerly of UCC. The Exhibition “The Last Tanist of Carbery: Daniel MacCarthy Glas and His Long-Lost Archive” will be on show at the Cork City and County Archives, Blackpool from 18th August for National Heritage Week and beyond.
The MacCarthy Glas archive has been painstakingly listed, arranged and catalogued in detail by the archivists of the Cork City and County Archives Service. Thanks to this, and the efforts of historians, and the kind generosity of Susan and Don MacCarthy and families, the archive is now a permanent public and historical research resource. In the coming years parts of the archive shall also be digitised and placed online.
Notes to Editor:
McCarthy Glas was born to a wealthy Irish Catholic merchant family in London in 1807. His grandfather had emigrated from Cork in 1763. The family was directly descended from the princes of Carbery, the MacCarthy Reaghs and the MacCarthy Glas’, based at Togher Castle and other locations near Dunmanway in West Cork. The process of returning the long lost MacCarthy Glas archive to Cork was successfully concluded thanks to the efforts of Dunmanway historian Michelle O’Mahony, Dr. Mervyn O’Driscoll (School of History, UCC), Nigel McCarthy (McCarthy DNA Project), and the archivists of the Cork City and County Archives Service.
Daniel is an important historical figure who took a major interest in both his MacCarthy ancestry and in Irish history more generally, going on to author two important books, The Life and Letters of Florence MacCarthy Reagh (1867) and A Historical Pedigree of the Sliochd Feidhlimidh, the MacCarthys of Gleannacroim (1875). He also contributed historical articles to The Nation newspaper and various journals during the Irish cultural and historical awakening of the 19th century. Many of his works involved painstaking research through State Papers and other records in Ireland, Britain and France. He was also in detailed correspondence with celebrated Cork historian Dr. Richard Caulfield LLD and a large circle of other Irish scholars, antiquarians, archaeologists, and poets including John O’Donovan, Samuel Ferguson, Denis Florence MacCarthy, Aubrey Thomas De Vere, Thomas Keightley, and James Henthorn Todd, to name but a few.
A noted philanthropist, Daniel sponsored the education of many students, assisted Catholic institutions, and helped to preserve historic buildings and monuments. James Coleman MRSAI, wrote: “a more interesting personality or a better type of Irishman could hardly be found than this English-born scion of the ancient sept of MacCarthys whose name is seldom absent from the annals of our country”.