Gaelic historiography

Gaelic historiography, a term used to describe the historical writings in Latin or in Irish composed in the 17th cent. to defend the Gaelic order against charges of barbarism and superstition made in the Anglo-Irish chronicles. Such writings were usually compiled at or in relation to the centres of Irish learning on the Continent, which had been established by clerical exiles driven abroad. In the most eminent cases—Geoffrey Keating and Míchéal Ó Cléirigh—the compilations were made in Ireland in an attempt to record information then being scattered. The dedication of the historians ensured the survival of many sources that would otherwise have perished. Besides Louvain, Irish colleges with manuscript libraries of some extent sprang up in Paris, Douai, Rouen, Bordeaux, Salamanca, Lisbon, Seville, and Rome. The chief texts to emerge from the 17th cent. project in Gaelic historiography are Geoffrey Keating, Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (written 1618-34); Philip O'Sullivan Beare, Historiae Catholicae Iberniae Compendium (Lisbon, 1621); Míchéal Ó Cléirigh, with others, Annals of the Four Masters (written 1632-6); John Colgan, Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae (1645); John Lynch, Cambrensis Eversus (1662); and Roderick O'Flaherty, Ogygia (1685). These compilers saw themselves as pitted against the English historians of Ireland including: Giraldus Cambrensis, Spenser, Stanyhurst, and Davies.