Daniel MacCarthy Glas' historical 'treasure trove' unveiled as park of Cork Heritage week

Archivist Felix Meehan examines documents about Dunmanway from the Daniel MacCarthy Glas archive. Picture: David Creedon

"Daniel's lifelong ambition was to get back to Ireland to live, which never happened. This is the closest we will ever get to fulfilling his wish."

Susan MacCarthy spoke with pride about her great great grandfather — the writer and historian Daniel MacCarthy Glas — whose archive has finally gone on display almost eight years after its donation to the State. 

Daniel MacCarthy Glas was a descendant of one of the great 13th-century Gaelic families of Ireland. His family was directly descended from the princes of Carbery, the MacCarthy Reaghs and the MacCarthy Glas, based at Togher Castle near Dunmanway in Co Cork — the “Glas” differentiating this branch of the MacCarthys from others in the region.

His grandfather emigrated from Cork to England in 1763, and Daniel was born into a wealthy Irish Catholic shipping and coal merchant family in London in 1807.

Susan, who lives in Oregon, USA, said the collection features thousands of items including personal letters, manuscripts, photographs, and drawings from Daniel and other family members. 

It was initially donated by Susan and her husband Don in 2017. However, it has only just been unveiled in the Cork City and County Archives in Blackpool as part of Cork Heritage week 2025.

Donor of the MacCarthy Glas archive, Susan MacCarthy and her husband Don with archivist Brian McGee. Picture: George Maguire

Cork City archivist Brian McGee, who along with other archivists had spent months painstakingly listing, arranging, and cataloguing the collection, said the Daniel MacCarthy Glas Archive and Exhibition will remain on display at other locations around Cork over the next year.

Susan paid tribute to everyone who made the launch possible including Dunmanway historian Michelle O'Mahony, Mervyn O'Driscoll of the school of history at UCC, Nigel McCarthy of the McCarthy DNA Project and the archivists of the Cork City and County Archives Service.

Susan said the collection had previously been divided into trunks which her grandfather forbid her from opening. 

"The collection was in two wooden trunks that were in the house I grew up in," she told the Irish Examiner. 

I was always told to leave them alone because they belonged to my grandfather. For 102 years those things remained unopened. When my grandfather and my father passed away and finally my mother passed away in 2014, I decided it was time to open the trunks. I started looking at the collection and slowly realising what I had. 

"They were all very organised stacks of letters that were carefully bound together. One of his sons had gone to South Africa and there were over 40 letters that he wrote back. It was just a treasure trove."

Susan and her husband are delighted at their decision to donate the collection.

"You don't know if the next generation are going to enjoy it, so I've no doubt that donating it was the right thing to do," she told the Irish Examiner. 

"The reaction has been energising and overwhelming. It makes you realise what you have and just how appreciative people are. I am overwhelmed by the hospitality. To begin with, my husband and I wondered if we should sell it. Then we asked ourselves the question "what would Daniel want us to do?" There was no question after that because we knew he would want us to donate it.

It was very important that it ended up back in Ireland because Daniel had always wanted to return home.

Daniel MacCarthy Glas was also a noted philanthropist, sponsoring the education of students in Dunmanway, helping Catholic institutions, and helping to preserve historic buildings and monuments such as Togher Castle and St Patrick’s Church in his native Dunmanway.

Some of his family were poets and writers, and some held important positions, reflecting the fact that they intermarried with the British elite.

Archivist Felix Meehan examines documents that are on display at the exhibition. Picture: David Creedon

His father-in-law was Rear-Admiral Home Riggs Popham, who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He also invented a flag signal code adopted by the British royal navy in 1803, which was used by British naval hero Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar to keep navy tactics secret.

Daniel was very close to his daughter-in-law, Alice, who kept all his letters, writings, notes, and notebooks.

The archive made its way to Oregon over a century ago, where it was held for safekeeping by later generations, finally ending up with Susan MacCarthy.

Historian Michelle O'Mahony paid tribute to the women who have protected the collection over the years.

"It was all women who were its custodians over the years. They were its saviours overtime."