Charles O'Conor (priest)

:O’Conor was a man of mild and timid disposition, liked by every one who knew him, and possessing extensive historical and ‘bookish’ information. In appearance he was short and slight, of sallow complexion, with prominent but distinguished looking features, giving him as age advanced a most vulnerable appearance. His manners were a curious compound of Irish and Italian. He was known locally as ‘the Abbé,’ and was for many years daily to be seen walking between Stowe and Buckingham, with his book and gold-headed cane, reading as he walked.{{cite DNB|wstitle=O'Conor, Charles (1764-1828)|volume=41}}

Charles O'Conor was educated in Ludovisi College, Rome from 1779 to 1791 and was appointed parish priest of Kilkeevin, County Roscommon (1792–98). In 1796 he published a memoir of his grandfather, the historian Charles O'Connor which he later suppressed.[http://www.dukesofbuckingham.org.uk/people/staff/oconor.htm Charles O’Conor : Librarian at Stowe] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220000121/http://www.dukesofbuckingham.org.uk/people/staff/oconor.htm |date=December 20, 2013 }}

In 1798 he was invited to become chaplain to Mary Nugent, the Marchioness of Buckingham and to organize and translate a collection of Gaelic manuscripts at Stowe. With him he brought papers of his grandfather to Stowe, including fifty-nine Gaelic manuscripts. In Stowe O'Conor wrote Columbanus ad Hibernos (1810–13),a series of letters supporting the royal veto on Catholic episcopal appointments in Ireland. These were answered by Francis Plowden and saw him suspended from duties of parish priest by John Troy, Archbishop of Dublin. In his duties as librarian he edited the Four Masters, and other chronicles from the Stowe Library as Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores Veteres (1814–26), an edition regarded as unreliable.[http://www.dukesofbuckingham.org.uk/people/staff/oconor.htm Charles O’Conor : Librarian at Stowe] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131220000121/http://www.dukesofbuckingham.org.uk/people/staff/oconor.htm |date=December 20, 2013 }}[http://www.ricorso.net/terms.htm RICORSO: see O’Conor, Charles in Authors A-Z]

Connor experienced mental illness. After leaving Stowe in 1827, he was briefly confined in a Dublin asylum. He died in Belenagare and is buried in Ballintober.

• Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Late Charles O’Connor (1796)
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=7MkGAAAAQAAJ An Historical Address, on the Calamities Occasioned by Foreign Influence, in the Nomination of Bishops to Irish Sees]. (1812)
• Columbanus ad Hibernos (1810-1813) [https://archive.org/details/a601145700oconuoft part VI (1813) ]
• Narrative of the most Interesting Events in Irish History (1812)
• [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000196582 Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores Veteres (1814–26)], [https://books.google.com/books?id=TdE_AAAAcAAJ Volume II (1825)], [https://books.google.com/books?id=NYQJAAAAIAAJ Volume IV (1826)]
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=Gwk4yyyHMuMC Bibliotheca Ms. Stowensis: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Stowe Library ] (1818)

• [http://www.araltas.com/features/oconnor/ O'Conor Family Tree] Retrieved Oct. 09, 2007.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20131220000121/http://www.dukesofbuckingham.org.uk/people/staff/oconor.htm "Charles O’Conor:Librarian at Stowe" Dukes of Buckingham]
• [http://www.ricorso.net/terms.htm RICORSO: see O’Conor, Charles in Authors A-Z]
• {{cite IrishBio|O'Conor, Charles, Rev.|page=387}}

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Category:1764 births

Category:1828 deaths

Category:18th-century Irish Roman Catholic priests

Category:Irish Roman Catholic writers

Category:18th-century Irish historians

Category:19th-century Irish historians

Charles

Category:Place of birth missing