‘The Four Masters’—what does that name bring to mind? A GAA club from Donegal, perhaps, but more likely the compilers of the seventeenth-century Gaelic history of Ireland. I’ve often felt that the somewhat eulogistic title of that band of authors in itself ensured for them a place in the canon of Gaelic literature, evoking, as … Read more
Michael O’Clery led a team who compiled the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland (more commonly known as the Annals of the Four Masters), a comprehensive history of Ireland. The team included his cousin Cucogry O’Clery, Fearfasa O’Mulconry and Cucogry O’Dugan (historians), his older brother Conary and Morris O’Mulconry (both copyists). They made two handwritten … Read more
Louis O’Clery’s Life of Red Hugh O’Donnell was generally unknown until Revd Denis Murphy’s 1895 English translation. Its style combined history, praise and reverence. He probably wrote the biography after 1616, perhaps as late as 1627. Louis, chief of his sept, lost his family’s Kilbarron patrimony in the Ulster Plantation. The English granted him 960 … Read more
A history of the media in Ireland Christopher Morash (Cambridge University Press, £45) ISBN 9780521843928 The Revd Alexander R. C. Dallas was convinced that the second coming of Christ was due in 1872. Unconvinced that the Catholics of Ireland would appreciate this, in January 1846 he arranged for a simultaneous letter-drop across the country. … Read more
In his 1911 Labour in Irish history, James Connolly dismissed King James II as ‘the most worthless representative of the most worthless race ever to sit on a throne’. Many Stuart candidates could claim this unflattering accolade during their 500-year stewardship of Scotland and 85-year reign over the three kingdoms. Their bloodied history comprises a … Read more