Patrick Wadden speaks at Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Summer School

The 12th annual Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Summer School ran from Friday the 8th to Sunday the 10th of May. Named after the great seventeenth-century Gaelic scholar and Franciscan friar, the event was hosted at the Franciscan friary at Rossnowlagh, Co. Donegal, close to both Ó Cléirigh’s birthplace and the location where he and his collaborators wrote the Annals of the Four Masters. The weekend featured a variety of events, from a children’s art competition to traditional story- telling to a tour of the historic sites of the Cavan Burren.

The academic programme on Saturday 9th of May featured lectures on a topics related to Ó Cléirigh’s life and career, the Gaelic learned tradition to which he belonged, and Donegal history. Dr. Angela Byrne (Royal Irish Academy) opened the day with an enthralling discussion of the murder of Mary Doherty on the Inishowen peninsula in 1844 before Patrick Wadden (DCU) explored the expression of Irish identity in Leabhar Gabhála Érenn, a copy of which survives in Ó Cléirigh’s own hand. John McCafferty (UCD) examined the history of the Franciscans in medieval and early modern Ireland, and Bernadette Cunningham (Maynooth University) investigated the memory of the Annals of the Four Masters and their compilers in nineteenth- century Ireland.

The organisers are to be congratulated for putting together a wonderful weekend and for the smooth running of events.