User talk:Max Kaertner/Archive I

Francis Martin O'Donnell
(biographical article)

I am posting this following exchange here as DinDraithou deleted it from his talk page Max Kaertner (talk) 00:02, 30 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm wondering also if I shouldn't alert whatever commission or association that this family is out there. He confessed that a second cousin wants to be a comte and might make some claim in France. Sounds like fraud having seen what we've seen, or not seen. DinDraithou (talk) 22:50, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * To the best of my knowledge, none of the O'Donnells of Ardfert make ANY genealogical claims to any French or other noble titles. What I said, and meant, is that a second cousin of Francis Martin is senior to him in descent, and is the senior O'Donnell from Ardfert, and this on the basis of BMD information for Ardfert parish. I gave you verbatim the extract from the Life of Hugh Roe O'Donnell (LHROD), exactly as translated by Denis Murphy, SJ, MRIA in his 1893 issue of that book by Lughaidh O'Clery. The text differs from the AFM in the following manner: LHROD says O'Donnell (Hugh Roe/Red Hugh) "ordered FitzMaurice to remain with him until he knew the result of sending away the party" (to Lixnaw-Ardfert). It says O'Donnell's people (not just FitzMaurice's) "left some of their people to hold them". The AFM, written about 30 years later, only says "Mac Maurice (FitzMaurice) was permitted by O'Donnell to go with a party fo his army to visit and see Clanmaurice.......in these they placed warders of their own". This contradicts the earlier version, which I would regard as the more authoritative, given its contemporaneity with the events, and by a more directly informed person. Most likely, the AFM confuses a first expedition (without FitzMaurice), and then the fact that after that was successful, Fitzmaurice was allowed to go back with his own people to guard them. FitzMaurice, and his cousin/nephew, Gerald, had been up in Donegal already for a year, in refuge under Hugh Roe. BTW, just because O'Hart, O'Donovan, and others ignored this, and just because all the plethora of publications surrounding the anniversaries of the battle of Kinsale and later Flight of the Earls ignored it (all the maps of the route south to Kinsale by Hugh Roe ignore his stopover in Connelloe - Ui Conaill Gabhra -, and ignore the Ardfert expedition. But LHROD and AFM both describe it (varyingly).  This discussion should remain dignified and objective, and you (and ReidarM) do a great disservice to the community of wikipedia editors by prejudicial comments. I see your pretended cousin JOD also had genealogical pretensions that he could not prove. In the case of the O'Donnells of Ardfert, they don't have any such. They just have a tradition of descent from the soldiers of Hugh Roe (as do the Castlegregory O'Donnells, a fact observed by J. Anthony Gaughan in his biography of Thomas O'Donnell, MP). And that's enough for them. Max Kaertner (talk) 23:39, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Max, I respect your vast and detailed knowlegde about the life of Francis Martin O'Donnell, and the way you vigorously defend this article. Many of the facts you contributed to the deletion debate Articles_for_deletion/Francis_Martin_O'Donnell are hardly common knowledge. Eg, who would know that there are "no more than 100 or so [Resident Coordinators]". Do you have any sources for that statement? I don't doubt it is true, I'm just pointing out that not many wikipedians have your very detailed knowledge about so many aspects of the life of FM O'Donnell. My intentions here are merely to improve wikipedia. I think we share this ambition, so let's work together. ReidarM (talk) 06:58, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * fair enough, and thank you. I was wrong about Resident Coordinator (an idiotic title anyway; could mean hotel manager). I had googled it once, and now again: there seems to be 130 of them, not 100. Here's the top link: http://www.undg.org/index.cfm?P=5. Viz the postgrad stuff, I don't know, I didn't put it there. Perhaps it came out of his bio that used to be posted on . Greetings. Max Kaertner (talk) 08:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

This complaint can now be shelved, and both editors DinDraithou and ReidarM encouraged to continue their normally excellent work. Their assiduity is appreciated, but a lesson learnt for all is that objective thoroughness and civility will gain more for us as a community. in this regard, I owe them both a small apology for not being hitherto better-informed myself. I had given a reference on the AFD page to a book by J. Anthony Gaughan on Thomas O'Donnell, MP, which I remember made a reference to the Tyrconnell origins (as a tradition) of the Castlegregory O'Donnells. I just googled up "Thomas O'Donnell, MP"+"J.Anthony Gaughan" and got this:, a page of a review of that book by Sean O Luing in 1983, where he refers to the Tyrconnell origins of these O'Donnells. Had I known this before it might have simplified our exchange. We live and learn. My apologies to Francis Martin O'Donnell for any awkwardness all this may have caused. Max Kaertner (talk) 16:25, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

You are at liberty, as is anyone else, O'Donnell included, to make reasonable and anonymous edits to improve this or any other article. Your own time would be better and more honorably spent making actual corrections to this article, or deleting whatever you think is unjustified or undocumented. Max Kaertner (talk) 18:02, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Remember, if someone choses to write his own autobiography on wikipedia, this is not at all a crime. I disagree with you on some issues.  My contributions have been very minor, compared to yours. As for my edits to the article, please be patient, they are forthcoming, but at the moment I am still doing research. Since it is a biography of a living person, I want to be particularly careful, and avoid citing unreliable sources such as wikipedia clones (citing a previous version of the article is indeed circuitous and absurd. But this wasn't my logic at all. Quite contrarily, I tried to improve the article by pointing out this problem). Remember, this is just a wikipedia article about a notable person, which needs to be cleaned up; nothing more, and nothing less. T ReidarM (talk) 06:13, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Because of his surname and the O'Donell history in Austria, I was intrigued. I have not seen anything particularly controversial about him, and having trawled the net earlier, came across some initiatives he took that seemed bold for a UN person (whom one would expect to be less-political). Archived media releases on UN websites and independent press coverage of his activities for those events indicates a certain boldness, which probably lies behind his few awards. I find it difficult to make any assessment of his current work for the SMOM in Slovakia, because there's little or no PR surrounding it, except an occasional Austrian newsmedia report, or the SMOM headquarters itself. That would indicate to me a low-profile character, not typical of puffery let alone WP:autobiography. So, I have tried to defend his personal reputation by addressing your concerns, providing additional references since your initial points of scepticism and hoax turned about to be unfounded. If you carry through and actually constructively edit the article yourself then I see know problem,  If you abide by wikipedia's editorial policies, and objectively address the factual merit of the article, then this entire matter can subside. I will monitor this occasionally, but not fanatically. Max Kaertner (talk) 10:48, 4 December 2010 (UTC)