Annals of the Four Masters

Annals of the Four Masters, the (properly Annála Ríoghachta Eireann/Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland), a compilation of annals recording events in Ireland from the earliest times to 1616. They were written by Míchéal Ó Cléirigh at Bundrowse, Co. Donegal, between 1632 and 1636, with the help of Cúchoigríche Ó Cléirigh, Fearfeasa Ó Maoilchonaire, and Cúchoigríche Ó Duibhgeannáin, collectively called the Four Masters following the designation used by John Colgan. The whole project, initially devised in the Franciscan community at Louvain, was made practicable in Ireland by the patronage of Fearghal Ó Gadhra of Coolavin, Co. Sligo.

Bibliography

John O'Donovan, Annála Ríoghachta Éireann: Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters (6 vols., 1848-51).

Usual English title for Annála Ríoghachta Éireann [Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland], a chronicle history of Ireland compiled 1632–6. Purporting to begin ‘forty days after the Flood’, in the year of the world 2242, the Annals are often only a record of names, dates, and battles, many of them fabulous, with occasional quotations from ancient sources; but they become more of a modern literary history as the timetable approaches the present. The Annals contrast with the narrative history of Geoffrey Keating, compiled about the same time. The principal ‘master’ of the Annals was the Franciscan lay brother Micheál Ó Cléirigh (1575–1643), a native of Co. Donegal. The identity of the other three ‘masters’ is somewhat cloudy, as the introduction cites a total of six compilers, most of them Franciscans. The designation of ‘Four Masters’ was made ex post facto by Seán Mac Colgáin in Louvain about 1645. The industrious Ó Cléirigh, who is most often cited as the ‘master’ of the Annals, also compiled a version of the Lebor Gabála [Book of Invasions]. John O'Donovan produced the most recent edition entitled Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland (7 vols., Dublin, 1849–51). See also the study by Paul Walsh, The Four Masters and Their Work (Dublin, 1944); N. Ó Muraíle, ‘The Autographed Manuscript of the Annals of the Four Masters’, Celtica, 19 (1987), 75–95.