Bartholomew MacCarthy facts for kids

Bartholomew MacCarthy (born December 12, 1843, in Conna, County Cork, Ireland – died March 6, 1904, in Inniscarra, Co. Cork) was a very smart scholar and historian. He spent his life studying and writing a lot about old Irish writings and history.

He went to school at Mount Melleray Abbey and St Colman's College, Fermoy in Ireland. Later, he studied in Rome, where he became a priest in 1869. When he came back to Ireland, he became a professor of Classics (studying ancient Greek and Roman culture) at St. Colman's College for about three years.

After that, he worked as a priest in different towns like Mitchelstown, Macroom, and Youghal. In 1895, he became the main priest for the parish of Inniscarra, near Cork, where he lived until he passed away. Just a few months before he died, the government asked him to help edit an important historical book called the Annals of Tighearnach.

Bartholomew MacCarthy's Published Works

Bartholomew MacCarthy wrote many important books and essays. He was known for carefully studying old texts and figuring out their true meanings and dates.

Essays on Early Irish Writings

• Essays on various Early Irish Ecclesiastical Fragments: These were some of his first writings. He wrote them while he was studying in Rome. They were about old pieces of writing from the early Irish church.

The Stowe Missal

• The Stowe Missal: This is one of his most famous works. It's about a very old Irish prayer book called the Stowe Missal. He figured out that parts of this book were written around the year 750 AD, or even earlier. He also showed that some old Irish words and phrases found in the book were actually from very old manuscripts, some from before the 9th century. He even separated the original parts of the Mass in the book, which he believed dated back to at least 500 AD, from later additions.

Studies on Old Irish History

• Four Dissertations on the Codex Palatino-Vaticanus, No. 830 (Chronica Mariani Scotti): This work involved studying an old manuscript from the Vatican library. He also included studies on Old Irish poetry, historical timelines from the Book of Ballymote, and how people in Ireland used to calculate the date of Easter. He also looked at other important Irish historical documents.

• New Textual Studies on the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick: In this work, he studied an old book about the life of Saint Patrick. He proved that some of the information in this book must have come from as far back as the middle of the sixth century.

The Annals of Ulster

• The Annals of Ulster: This is a very important collection of historical records from Ireland. After another scholar, William M. Hennessey, passed away, Dr. MacCarthy was asked by the government to continue editing this huge project. He published three volumes of these annals: Volume II in 1893, Volume III in 1895, and Volume IV in 1901.

In the introduction to the last volume, he wrote a lot about how people in Western Europe figured out dates and time in the past. He discussed old ways of calculating Easter dates, how the A.D. (Anno Domini) dating system started in Irish history books, and how to fix mistakes in these old dates. He was known as an expert on the "Paschal question," which was all about the correct way to determine the date of Easter.