Cormac Mac Duinnshléibhe

Cormac Mac Duinnshléibhe (Cormac Mac Donlevy) was an Irish physician and scribe, fl. 15th century.

Background

Mac Duinnshléibhe was descended from a 12th century Ulster royal family, based in Tyrconnell, now modern day Donegal. He held a bachelor of physic, although the medical school or university from which he graduated is unknown.

Works

Mac Duinnshléibhe was notable for being a prolific translator, creating and consolidating Irish medical, anatomical, pharmaceutical, and botanical terms.

In 1459, in Cloyne, Co. Cork, he translated De Dosibus Medicarum by Walter de Agilon.

Beginning around 1470, he translated the 1303 text Practica seu Lilium medicinae by Bernard de Gordon into Irish. He completed the translation in 1482. Excerpts were included in the Catalogue of the Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum by Standish Hayes O'Grady and Robin Flower. Mac Duinnshléibhe also translated Gordon's Liber pronosticorum (1295) and De decem ingeniis curandorum morborum (1299).

Mac Duinnshléibhe also translated Chirurgia magna, a major surgical text by the French physician and surgeon Guy de Chauliac.