"Though my letters are wild as the mountains in which they were written"

"Though my letters are wild as the mountains in which they were written"

Lough Derg--Ordnance Survey--Description--John O'Donovan

"Though my letters are wild as the mountains in which they were written, still do I feel myself very sober in thought, and exceedingly (excessive) in love with truth even to the prejudice of all national feelings…"

John O'Donovan, 1806-1861

Letter from John O'Donovan, Pettigoe, October 28th 1835, p. 242, O’Donovan, John, Ordnance Survey Letters, Donegal: Letters Containing Information Relative to the Antiquities of the County of Donegal Collected during the Progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1835, p. 120

Four Masters Press, Dublin

1835 [2000]

Transcribed and edited by Michael Herity, MRIA

Citation for the purposes of criticism

Edited edition of letters

English with Irish text in Celtic script

Ordnance Survey Letters

DD_0171

54.590453,-7.856407

"Though my letters are wild as the mountains in which they were written, still do I feel myself very sober in thought, and exceedingly (excessive) in love with truth even to the prejudice of all national feelings. But when you consider the subject, the difficulty of my task - that of seeking through the dim vista of tradition some faint glimmerings of truth - and the incoherency of the rude tales which I have attempted to digest, you will perhaps feel convinced that I could be not at all times serious or sober in expression."

Hand written letters held in Royal Irish Academy