The Gathering of Botanical Information in Ireland, 1600 to 1800

Botanical exploration in Ireland before 1800 was conducted mainly by individuals, e.g. Richard Heaton (c. 1640), William Sherard(c. 1692), CalebThrelkeld(c. 1726). There was one attempt in the mid-1700s by the Physico-Historical Society to organize a concerted programme of botanical investigation. This paper concentrates on three separate recorders of the Irish flora and their extant manuscripts, Don Philip O'Sullivan Beare (c. 1625), John Rutty (c. 1740) and Patrick Browne (c. 1780). A manuscript account of the Irish flora survives from the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Philip O'Sullivan Beare wrote Zoiloinastix about 1623, as a response to the disparaging writings of such authors as Giraldus Cambrensis. O'Sullivan Beare clearly had first-hand knowledge of some gardens and forests, and seems to have been well-versed in botany. The Physico-Historical Society of Ireland promoted natural history exploration. Dr John Rutty was the person who apparently co-ordinated the programme. Isaac Butler carried out the field work. Butler's records occur in annotations made by Rutty in a copy of Threlkeld's Synopsis Stirpium Hibemicarum. Linnaeus' work did not find a keen disciple in Ireland until the return home from the West Indies of Patrick Browne whose The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica (1756) was one of the first post-Linnaean floristic works. Browne observed and collected plants in Ireland after 1770 and his unpublished manuscript contains valuable information about Irish vernacular names.