Four Masters were four Irish scholars who compiled manuscripts on Irish history in the early 1600’s. These scholars were Michael O’Clery, Peregrine O’Clery, Fearfeasa O’Mulconry, and Peregrine O’Duigenan. Their main work was a chronological history of Ireland called the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland or the Annals of the Four Masters. The work is a chronicle of Irish history from antiquity to 1616. The Annals begins as a list of names, dates, battles, and occasional quotations from ancient writers. The work gradually becomes a kind of literary history as it comes closer to the time of the scholars.
The Four Masters were lay brothers of the Franciscan Order. They spent four years, from 1632 until 1636, compiling the Annals in a Franciscan convent in Donegal, Ireland. Beginning in 1620, the scholars collected and transcribed manuscripts about Ireland. Their work led to The Royal List (1630), a list of kings and the lives of saints, and Book of Invasions (1631), a description of the settlement of Ireland.
Michael O’Clery was the most eminent of the Four Masters and the supervisor of the project. He was a member of a family that had been professional historians to the O’Donnell chieftains for generations. O’Clery became a lay brother in the Franciscan monastery in Leuven, Belgium. His superiors sent him to Ireland to collect and transcribe manuscripts on Irish history, with special reference to Ulster.
