O'DONOVAN, JOHN. - Irish historian, b. 9 July 1809 at Atteemore (County Kilkenny), d. 9 Dec. 1861 at Dublin. In 1826 he began working in the Irish Record Office, and three years later he obtained a post in the historical department of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland.
He investigated above all Irish manuscripts and documents with the aim of elucidating the nomenclature used, and in 1837 he published an extensive Irish text, accompanied by a translation. In the meantime he published articles on Irish topography and history in the Dublin Penny Journal. When the Irish Archaeological Society was founded in 1840, O'D. edited, in the first volume of the society's publications, which appeared in 1841, the text and translation of the Voyage of Ireland by Muircheartach Mac Neill, a poem written in 942 by Cormacan Eigeas, providing it with valuable notes. O'D.'s opus magnum, however, is the Annala Rioghachta Eireann, seven quarto volumes, published from 1848 to 1851. These annals, compiled between 1632 and 1636 by Michael O'Clery under the reign of Charles I, comprise the history of Ireland from its origins to 1616. O'D. edited them and translated them, providing them with numerous notes. From 1852 onward O'D. devoted himself almost exclusively to the edition of the ancient laws of Ireland, but death prevented him from seeing it published. In 1864 there appeared posthumously, through the work of Bishop Reeves, his edition and translation of the Martyrology of Donegal. O'D. was a practicing Catholic, and he is perhaps « the greatest Irish scholar who ever lived » in the field of historical topography, and his editions are authoritative.