October 23, 4004 BC

James Ussher (January 4, 1581 to March 21, 1656) was an Irish scholar and clergyman. He was a professor at Trinity College, Dublin, and for decadrs, the Primate of all Ireland. The Irish church then was Protestant and coordinated with the English Anglican establishment. He was so well regarded as a theologian and a scholar that though he remained loyal to Charles I, until the latter's beheading (1649), Oliver Cromwell later insisted on giving Ussher a state funeral.

James Ussher was Irish. He was born in Dublin, and one of his noted works was 
is "Discourse on the Religion Anciently Professed by the Irish". He relied on his own impressive collection of Irish manuscripts to compose this book, which sought to prove that the Celtic church had always been closer to the original religion Jesus represented, closer than the medieval theology the Roman Catholics assumed.

By those with no ability to imagine earlier eras and world views, (people like William Manchester as just an example) Ussher has sometimes been ridiculed for his dating of the creation of the world to, according to some accounts, October 23, 4004 BC. In fact, according to some sources, this brilliant scholar donated to TCD, the manuscript we know as the Book of Kells. Such taste and generosity bespeaks a rare nobility of intellect.

And one thing we owe to the Book of Kells, to Ussher's role in preserving this manuscript, is the depiction of a cat from about 800 AD.



A cat with a big mouse.