The Pedigree of D. Felipe/Philip V of Spain (1700-46) in the Ó Cléirigh Book of Genealogies: A Jacobite Statement
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24162/EI2025-13193Keywords:
Felipe V/Philip V, Irish genealogies, Jacobite, Ó Cléirigh Book of Genealogies, War of the Spanish SuccessionAbstract
Medieval and early modern genealogies are rarely simple records of biological descent, but rather are ideological statements used to establish political and cultural connections, create hierarchy, and order society. Ireland possessed one of the most developed aristocratic genealogical traditions in medieval Europe, which reached its culmination in the middle of the seventeenth century in manuscripts like the Ó Cléirigh Book of Genealogies (Royal Irish Academy MS 23 D 17). To that manuscript a later scribe added a patrilinear genealogy of Felipe/Philip V, first Bourbon king of Spain (1700-24 and 1724-46), a unique addition to a vast corpus that does not otherwise concern itself with foreign rulers. That 124 generation genealogy presents Felipe as a son of the Habsburg monarch Felipe IV (1605-65), who was actually his great-grandfather through the female line (Felipe IV’s daughter, Maria Teresa, was the wife of Louis XIV of France). This article argues that this was a deliberate anomaly, with the intention of promoting his claim to the Spanish throne during the War of the Spanish Succession (1700-14), by placing him in direct succession to the most recent Spanish monarch from whom he was descended. The compilation of this unique genealogy in an Irish manuscript, doubtless using a Continental printed exemplar, was motivated by sympathies for the exiled Jacobite claimant to the three crowns of England, Scotland and Ireland, James III (the “Old Pretender”), as Bourbon France and later Bourbon Spain became the Jacobites’ chief supporters in their attempts to reclaim the three kingdoms. As such, the genealogy of Felipe V is also a unique product of an Irish Jacobite literary tradition that is otherwise dominated by poetry and song.
References
Casey, Denis (2013). “Irish Pseudohistory in Conall Mag Eochagáin’s Annals of Clonmacnoise.” Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 32: 74-94.
______ (2020). “‘A Man of no Mean Standing’: The Career and Legacy of Donnchad mac Briain (ob. 1064).” Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland 31: 29-57.
Claydon, Tony (2008 [2004]). “William III and I (1650-1702).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography in Association with the British Academy; From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, 60 vols. Oxford: Oxford Univesity Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/29450
Cohen, Paul (2004). “In Search of the Trojan Origins of French: The Uses of History in the Elevation of the Vernacular in Early Modern France.” Fantasies of Troy: Classical Tales and the Social Imaginary in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, edited by Alan Shepard and Stephen D. Powell. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. 63-80.
Corp, Edward (2001). “The Irish at the Jacobite Court of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.” The Irish in Europe, 1580-1815, edited by Thomas O’Connor. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 143-56.
Cunningham, Bernadette (2004 [2000]). The World of Geoffrey Keating: History, Myth and Religion in Seventeenth-Century Ireland. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
______ (2010). The Annals of the Four Masters: Irish History, Kingship and Society in the Early Seventeenth Century. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
Downey, Declan M. (2014). “Beneath the Harp and Burgundian Cross: Irish Regiments in the Spanish Bourbon Army, 1700-1818.” Presencia Irlandesa en la Milicia Española (The Irish Presence in the Spanish Military – 16th to 20th Centuries), edited by Hugo O’Donnell. Madrid: Imprenta Ministerio de Defensa. 83-105.
Downey, Declan M. and Julio Crespo MacLennan, eds. (2006). Spanish-Irish Relations Through the Ages: New Historical Perspectives. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
Guthrie, Neil (2013). The Material Culture of the Jacobites. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
James, Edward (1988). The Franks. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Kamen, Henry (2001). Philip V of Spain: The King who Reigned Twice. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Kane, Brendan (2010). The Politics and Culture of Honour in Britain and Ireland, 1541-1641. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
______ (2011). “Languages of Legitimacy? An Ghaeilge, the Earl of Thomond and British Politics in the Renaissance Pale, 1600-24.” Dublin and the Pale in the Renaissance, c.1540-1660, edited by Michael Potterton and Thomas Herron. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 267-79.
______ (2018). “A World of Honour: Aristocratic Mentalité.” The Cambridge History of Ireland II: 1550-1730, edited by Jane Ohlmeyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 482-505.
Kiefer, Lauren (2005). “Review of Shepard and Powell (eds) Fantasies of Troy: Classical Tales and the Social Imaginary in Medieval and Early Modern Europe.” ESC: English Studies in Canada 31 (4): 240-43.
Marquis of Ruvigny and Raineval [Massue, Melville Henry], ed. (1904). Jacobite Peerage: Baronetage, Knightage and Grants of Honour. Edinburgh: T.C. and E.C. Jack.
Mac Cárthaigh, Eoin (2009). “Ó Cléirigh, Cú Choigcríche (O’Clery, Peregrine).” Dictionary of Irish Biography From the Earliest Times to the Year 2002, edited by James McGuire and James Quinn, 9 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.006305.v1
Mac Craith, Mícheál (2006). “Literature in Irish, c.1550-1690: From Elizabethan Settlement to the Battle of the Boyne.” The Cambridge History of Irish Literature vol. 1, edited by Margaret Kelleher and Philip O’Leary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 191-231.
McGettigan, Darren (2009). “O’Rourke (Ó Ruairc), Brian Ballach.” Dictionary of Irish Biography From the Earliest Times to the Year 2002, edited by James McGuire and James Quinn, 9 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.007029.v1
Maginn, Christopher (2009). “Whose Island?: Sovereignty in Late Medieval and Early Modern Ireland.” Éire-Ireland 44 (3-4): 229-47.
McGrath, Charles Ivar (2018). “Politics, 1692-1730.” The Cambridge History of Ireland II: 1550-1730, edited by Jane Ohlmeyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 120-43.
MacNeill, Eoin (1932). “The Vita Tripartita of St. Patrick.” Ériu 11: 1-41.
Morley, Vincent (2002). Irish Opinion and the American Revolution, 1760-1783. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
______ (2018). “Irish Jacobitism, 1691-1790.” The Cambridge History of Ireland III: 1730-1880, edited by James Kelly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 23-47.
Morris, John, ed. and trans. (1980). Nennius. British History and the Welsh Annals. London: Phillimore.
Nicholls, K. W. (1975). “The Irish Genealogies: Their Value and Defects.” Irish Genealogist 5 (2): 256-61.
Ó Buachalla, Breandán (1993). “James Our True King: The Ideology of Irish Royalism in the Seventeenth Century.” Political Thought in Ireland Since the Seventeenth Century, edited by D. George Boyce, Robert Eccleshall and Vincent Geoghegan. London and New York: Routledge. 7-35.
______ (1996). Aisling Ghéar: Na Stíobhartaigh agus an t-Aos Léinn, 1603-1788. Dublin: An Clóchomhar.
O’Byrne, Emmett (2009). “O’Rourke (Ó Ruairc), Brian Óg.” Dictionary of Irish Biography From the Earliest Times to the Year 2002, edited by James McGuire and James Quinn, 9 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.007028.v1
Ó Ciardha, Éamonn (2002). Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, 1685-1766: A Fatal Attachment. Dublin: Four Courts Press.
______ (2009). “Fitzjames, James.” Dictionary of Irish Biography From the Earliest Times to the Year 2002, edited by James McGuire and James Quinn, 9 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.003220.v1
Ó Corráin, Donnchadh (1997). “Creating the Past: The Early Irish Genealogical Tradition.” Chronicon 1: 1-32. http://www.ucc.ie/chronicon/ocorrfra.htm. Reprinted as: Ó Corráin, Donnchadh (1998). “Creating the Past: The Early Irish Genealogical Tradition.” Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland 12: 177-208.
______ (1998). “Viking Ireland: Afterthoughts.” Ireland and Scandinavia in the Early Viking Age, edited by Howard B. Clarke, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh and Raghnall Ó Floinn. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 421-52.
Ó Cuív, Brian (1979). “Borrowed Elements in the Corpus of Irish Personal Names From Medieval Times.” Nomina 3: 40-51.
O’Donovan, John, ed. and trans. (1856). Annala Rioghachta Eireann: Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters; From the Earliest Period to the Year 1616, 2nd edition, 7 vols. Dublin: Hodges, Smith and Co.
O’Hart, John, ed. (1892). Irish Pedigrees or the Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation, 5th edition, 2 vols. Dublin: James Duffy and Co.
Ó hUiginn, Ruairí (2015). “Éireannaigh, Fir Éireann, Gaeil agus Gaill.” Aon don Éigse: Essays Marking Osborn Bergin’s Centenary Lecture on Bardic Poetry (1912), edited by Caoimhín Breatnach and Meidhbhín Ní Úrdail. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. 17-49.
Ó Muraíle, Nollaig (1996). The Celebrated Antiquary: Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (c. 1600-1671): His Lineage, Life and Learning. Maynooth: An Sagart.
______ ed. and trans. (2003). Leabhar Mór na nGenealach (The Great Book of Irish Genealogies) Compiled (1645-66) by Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh, 5 vols. Dublin: De Búrca.
Ó Riain, Pádraig, ed. (1985). Corpus Genealogiarum Sanctorum Hiberniae. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
O’Scea, Ciaran (2015). Surviving Kinsale: Irish Emigration and Identity Formation in Early Modern Spain, 1601-1640. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Pender, Séamus, ed. (1951). “The O Clery Book of Genealogies: 23 D 17 (R.I.A.).” Analecta Hibernica 18: x-xxxiii and 1-198.
Putman, Angela L. and Kristen L. Cole. (2020). “All Hail DNA: The Constitutive Rhetoric of AncestryDNA™ Advertising.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 37 (3): 207-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2020.1767796
Recio Morales, Óscar (2006). “Irish Émigré Group Strategies of Survival, Adaptation and Integration in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Spain.” Irish Communities in Early-Modern Europe, edited by Thomas O’Connor and Mary Ann Lyons. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 240-66.
______ (2014). “La Élite de Poder Extrapeninsular en España y la América Española del XVIII: Cultura de Servicio y Oposición Política.” Represión, tolerancia e integración en España y América: extranjeros, esclavos, indígenas y mestizos durante el siglo XVIII, edited by David González Cruz. Madrid: Doce Calles. 17-42.
Sharpe, Richard (2015). “Seán Ó Cléirigh and His Manuscripts.” Early Medieval Ireland and Europe: Chronology, Contacts, Scholarship. A Festschrift for Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, edited by Pádraic Moran and Immo Warntjes. Turnhout: Brepols. 645-70.
Simms, Katharine (1987). From Kings to Warlords: The Changing Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle Ages. Woodbridge: Boydell Press.
Ua Cadhla, Cormac, ed. (1931). “Geinealaighe Fearmanach.” Analecta Hibernica 3: 62-150.
Villar García, María Begoña (2006). “Irish Migration and Exiles in Spain: Refugees, Soldiers, Traders and Statesmen.” Irish Communities in Early-Modern Europe, edited by Thomas O’Connor and Mary Ann Lyons. Dublin: Four Courts Press. 172-99.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Denis Casey
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
