Fr Patrick Meany and the Dr Keating Society, 1860–1865

Abstract

The history of Irish-language publication in the nineteenth century is marked by the varying successes of learned societies and religious bodies, and of enterprising individuals throughout the country. The latter is typified by the efforts of people such as Padraig Denn, James Scurry, Thomas Swanton, Richard D'Alton and Conchubhar Mac Suibhne, while others such as Robert MacAdam, Philip Barron and John O'Daly were enabled, through personal resources and business acumen, to operate on somewhat larger scales. Both organisations and individuals fed off the Irish manuscript tradition and off some of its remaining exponents, and, in their publications, largely reflected the continuity of emphasis, from script to print, on productions in the literary language. One of the more enigmatic of the societies was the Dr Keating Society, founded in Co. Waterford in 1861. Though planned on an ambitious scale, and modelled in its organisation on the Ossianic Society, it was to prove a disappointment to those involved. Lack of editorial clarity and methodology was compounded by health problems that afflicted the prime mover of the Society, Fr Patrick Meany (1816-89). At the time of its foundation Fr Meany was a curate in the parish of Clonea (Power) and Rathgormack, Co. Waterford. The origins of the Society are revealed in a letter written from the priests' residence at Baliyknock1 by Fr Meany to William Smith O'Brien, 4 September 1860.