CARVE, Thomas. - Prelate and Irish historian, born at Mobeam in County Tipperary in 1590, died about 1672. He was first chaplain to an Irish regiment serving Ferdinand II of Austria, and in 1640 was appointed chaplain general of all English, Irish, and Scottish forces in the imperial armies.
His best-known work is the Itinerarium (part 1, 1639; part 2, 1641; part 3, 1646). Written “under the tents of war,” as he stated in the dedication to the Marquis of Ormonde, it is a rich source of information and news about the Thirty Years' War. Reprinted in London in 1859 in an edition of only 102 copies, it is now as rare as all his other minor writings, among which is also a history of Ireland from 1148 to 1650.
BIBL.: T. Cooper, s. V. in Dictionary of National Biography, III (1937-38), pp. 1144 ff.