Michael O’Clery

Michael O’Clery (born 1590, Kilbarron, County Donegal, Ire.—died 1643, Leuven, Brabant [now in Belgium]) was an Irish chronicler who directed the compilation of the Annála Ríoghachta Éireann (1636; Annals of the Four Masters), a chronicle of Irish history from antiquity to 1616 and a work of incalculable importance to Irish scholarship.

O’Clery was baptized Tadhg but took the name Michael when he entered the Franciscan convent at Leuven. Since he was learned in Irish history and literature, Hugh Ward, the warden of the college, sent him back to Ireland in 1626 to collect manuscripts. Assembling a team that consisted of himself and three lay scholars—they became known as the “four masters”—he began to collect and transcribe everything of importance he could find. The results were the Réim Rioghroidhe (1630; The Royal List), a list of kings, their successions, and their pedigrees, with lives and genealogies of saints; the Leabhar Gabhála Éireann (1631; Book of Invasions), an account of the successive settlements of Ireland; and the famous Annals. At first a mere record of names, dates, and battles, with occasional quotations from ancient sources, the Annals begin to take on the character of modern literary history as they approach the author’s own time. O’Clery also produced a martyrology of Irish saints, an Irish glossary, and other works.