CARVE, THOMAS. – Irish prelate and historian, b. at Mobeman in County Tipperary in 1590, d. around 1672. Initially chaplain to an Irish regiment in the service of Ferdinand II of Austria, in 1640 he was appointed general chaplain of all the English, Irish, and Scottish forces in the imperial armies.
His best-known work is the Itinerarium (part 1, 1639; 2nd, 1641; 3rd, 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 concerning the Thirty Years’ War. Reprinted in London in 1859 in an edition of only 102 copies, it is now extremely rare, as are all his other minor writings, among which there is also a history of Ireland from 1148 to 1650.
BIBL.: T. Cooper, s. V. in Dictionary of National Biography, III (1937-38), p. 1144 ff. Gabriele Musatti