S90 



O'Conor got the original copy of the Annals made for the O'Grara, from 

 the direct representative of that Lord, as early as the year 1734, In 

 the Prologomena to the first volume of the Rerum Hib. Scriptores, 

 p. 51, the following extract is given from a letter written by Charles 

 O'Conor to Doctor Curry, and dated Roscommon, July the 16th, 1756, 

 " In regard to the Four Masters, I shall write to Colonel O'Gara, in 

 St. Sebastian-, where he is quartered with his regiment, and reproach 

 him with giving more of his confidence to a little ignorant ecclesiastic, 

 than to me his nearest relation in this kingdom, his father and mine 

 being brother and sister's children. I got that work in 1734, through 

 the interest of Bishop O'Rourke, my uncle." It is remarkable that this 

 same letter is again quoted in the ' Testimonia,' prefixed to the Annals, 

 in the second volume of the same work, but as addressed, not to Doctor 

 Curry, but to a Mr. O'Reilly. It also diflfers in the wording, as will 

 appear from the following extract: " I shall write to Colonel O'Gara, 

 &c." "This expedient will, I hope, confirm the book (the Annals of the 

 Four Masters) to me." From this it would appear, that, though he 

 had gotten the work from the O'Gara family, as early as 1734, there 

 was, nevertheless, a claim put forward relative to it, on the part of some 

 branch of that family so late as 1756. In the same ' Testimonia,' p. 11, 

 Doctor O'Conor quotes his grandfather as writing that he obtained the 

 work in 1734, from Brian O'Gara, Archbishop of Tuam, viz. — 



f, " Liber hie nunc pertinet ad Cathaldum juniorem O'Conor, fihum 

 Donchadi, &c., et ejusdem libri possessio tributa fuit ei per Brianum 

 O'Gara, Archiepiscopum prseclarum Tuamiie, A. D. 1734. 



"Cathaldus O'Conor." 



And in the memoirs of his grandfather, written by Doctor O'Conor, 

 there is the following passage : " Colonel O'Gara, who commanded a 



