Mícheál Ó Cléirigh

Mícheál Ó Cléirigh , sometimes known as Michael O'Clery, was an Irish chronicler, scribe, antiquary and Franciscan friar, and the chief author of the Annals of the Four Masters, assisted by Cú Choigcríche ÓCléirigh, Fearfeasa ÓMaol Chonaire, and Peregrinus ÓDuibhgeannain. He was a member of the ÓCléirigh bardic family.

The Annála Ríoghachta Éireann (Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland) were compiled between 1632 and 1636 under Ó Cléirigh’s direction at the Franciscan convent of Donegal located at Bundrowes (Bun Drobhaoise), in the Ross area of the townland of Magheracar, in Bundoran, County Donegal. Contemporary Franciscan documentary evidence preserved among the Louvain Papers records Bundrowes as Ó Cléirigh’s place of residence and work during the 1630s, as reported in modern historical analysis. These official Franciscan administrative records, together with Ó Cléirigh’s own surviving colophons, identify Bundrowes as his principal base during the compilation of the annals and confirm the role of the local Franciscan community in supporting the work.

Ó Cléirigh also authored the Martyrology of Donegal in the 17th century.

Background and early life Grandson of Tuathal Ó Cléirigh, a chief of the sept of Uí Chléirigh in Donegal, his exact place of birth in south Donegal is not recorded in surviving sources. He was baptised Tadhg Ó Cléirigh, and was known by the nickname Tadhg an tSléibhe (meaning "Tadhg of the mountain"), but took the name of Mícheál when he became a member of the Order of Friars Minor, commonly known as the Franciscan friars. He was the youngest of four sons of Donnchadh Ó Cléirigh, and his mother was Onóra Ultach. Of his older brothers Uilliam, Conaire and Maolmhuire, Conaire is known to have worked on the annals as a scribe, while Maolmhuire also became a Franciscan friar at Louvain. Micheál was a cousin of Lughaidh Ó Cléirigh , also famous as an Irish historian and author of one of the major sources of the annals.

As a member of one of the foremost learned families of Gaelic Ireland, Ó Cléirigh received a wide-ranging and thorough education. He records that he was taught, for instance, by Baothgalach Mac Aodhagáin, a learned cleric active in County Tipperary, who became the Bishop of Elphin.

He was assisted by other Irish scholars, most notably Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh, Fearfeasa Ó Maol Chonaire and Peregrinus Ó Duibhgeannain. The 'four masters' in question are Mícheál Ó Cléirigh, Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh, Fearfeasa Ó Maol Chonaire and Peregrine Ó Duibhgeannain, and the term was devised by John Colgan. These two works are valuable for the etymological and encyclopaedic information contained in them.

Among the other works copied and compiled in this period were: the medieval Irish account of clashes with the Vikings, Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib, twice (in 1629 and again in 1636); the royal genealogy, Réim Ríoghraidhe in 1630;

Mícheál Ó Cléirigh appears as a historical character in Darach Ó Scolaí's novel, An Cléireach. On 30 June 1944, the Irish Department of Posts and Telegraphs issued two stamps valued a half penny and one shilling to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the death of ÓCléirigh. The Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute for the Study of Irish History and Civilisation at University College Dublin is named in his honour.

In 1942, the Creevy National School, in Ballyshannon, County Donegal was reopened as the Brother Mícheál Ó Cleirigh National School. It is a state-funded school for primary school-aged children, lying in the region where Ó Cléirigh was born.

The year 2026 marks the four-hundredth anniversary of Ó Cléirigh’s return to Ireland in 1626 and his residence at the Franciscan house at Bundrowes in Bundoran, an episode associated with the beginnings of the work that led to the compilation of the Annals of the Four Masters.