Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Macgradoigh, Augustin

1448185Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 35 — Macgradoigh, Augustin1893Norman Moore

MACGRADOIGH, AUGUSTIN (1349–1405), also called Magraidin (O'Donovan), Magradian, and MacCraith (O'Reilly), Irish chronicler, probably a native of Heath, was born in 1349. He entered the convent on Oilen-na-naomh in Loch Ree of the Shannon, and became a canon-regular of St. Austin. He became famous as a scribe, and was versed in secular as well as religious learning. He continued the annals of Tighearnach O'Brian [q. v.] to the year 1405, and his death is recorded in those annals by a subsequent hand. The O'Clerys (Annala Rioghachta Eireann, ii. 754) give'a long extract from a bookwritten in part by him and called 'Liubhar an Oilen,' but it is not certain that this, which is not now extant separately or in full, is a different work from his continuation of 'Tighearnach,' Some lives of saints which he is said to have written, have not been identified in modern times, but are probably in existence. He died in the last week of October 1405 at Oilen-na-naomh.

[O'Curry's Lectures, i. 73, and Appendix xxxix., where his obituary notice is given in Irish; Annala Rioghachta Eireann, ed. O'Donovan, ii. 755; Colgan's Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ, p. 5; Ware's Writers of Ireland, ed. Harris, p. 87; Transactions of the Iberno-Celtic Society, 1820, i. 21; O'Conor's Rerum Hibernicarum Scriptores.]

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