Mac Aingil, Aodh (Hugh MacCaghwell, Hugo Cavello)
An exceptionally rare Irish devotional: the first edition of the first original work by a living author in Irish. The few works printed in Irish appearing prior to this were the Bible, liturgy, or translations of the works of others. This is one of a small group of books from the first press to print and promote Irish writing in the vernacular. The press was an outgrowth of a concentration of scholars skilled in Irish and other languages at St. Anthony's, the Franciscan college at Louvain, which acquired the press in 1611. Active from 1614 to 1618, it issued five books. Though their primary purpose was to train priests for the Irish and Scottish missions, they also published literary works for a wider Irish audience. This was the last production before the press became inactive in Irish printing until 1641, by which date a new fount had been made.
Further images
12mo, (90 x 140 mm). (12), 581 [i.e. 569], (43) pp. (*, A-3F). Gaelic letter (Louvain type A). Title within typographical border, "Emanuel Telaph" within typographical ornaments. With small woodcut initials and woodcut tailpieces. Contemporary limp vellum. Stored in a morocco-backed brown cloth solander. Light age yellowing some browning in places, title a little dustsoiled, light occasional waterstaining. Vellum darkened and a little soiled. A very good, entirely unsophisticated copy.
MacAingil (or MacCaghwell) came from an old Irish family. He was born in County Tyrone and early in life entered the service of Hiugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, as tutor to his sons. In 1604 in Spain he entered the Franciscans, and in 1606 went to the Spanish Netherlands, where he helped set up the Franciscan College in Louvain, and played an active role in Irish spiritual and intellectual life. For the publication of this work the author used his Irish name, although the Latin form of his name is given at the end of the book.
The title means "A mirror of the sacrament of penance", and the work is devotional in nature. "Although this acknowledged James I as the rightful ruler of Ireland, it also identified Ireland as a Catholic nation and demonstrates a very modern sense of national consciousness. Moreover, the work is a prominent example of how the literary language of contemporary Irish poets was used to produce a readable prose text" (ODNB).
“The word 'Emanuel' serves as an invocation or prayer [...] The use of 'Emanuel' as an invocation can be found in Irish manuscripts as far back as the 12th and 13th centuries [...] It was customary with the Irish scribes to use that word at the heads of chapters and pages, implying that in the Holy Name of Emanuel they began that work, chapter, or page [...] The words 'Emanuel Telaph' in a frame appear to be intended as a Hebrew motto, but 'telaph' has not been interpreted. The Revd Charles O'Conor, who translated Irish titles for the descriptive catalogue Bibliotheca Grenvilliana (1842), I.127, took it for the printer’s name, though he was aware that Emanuel was used as an invocation by Irish scribes” (Clóliosta).
Provenance: manuscript prayer in Latin on verso of last flyleaf, with the note “fochorum compostum” in an early hand below; HP Kraus (book-label loosely inserted) and sold at the 2003 Kraus sale, Sotheby's NY, 4 Dec. 2003, lot 416; old again at Sotheby's, 9 July 2018, lot 414. Last in a French private collection.
STC 17157. ESTC S2226. McGuinne 35. Best 248. Allison & Rogers, Catholic 489. Allison & Rogers, Counter-Reformation II, 507. Allison & Rogers, Recusant 371. Bradshaw 8612. Shaaber M4. Clóliosta 18. Lowndes/Bohn 395.
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