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Irish chronicles and their
chronology |
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Welcome to this website which
is dedicated to the synchronisation of the chronology and the entries of the
Irish Annals. This has been done by tabulating the chronological elements and
the entries of the principal annals in parallel as was initially proposed in
my paper 'The Chronology of the Irish annals' published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy,
98C(1998) pp. 203-255. This paper remains the best published introduction to
the ideas behind this synchronisation, and a copy of the paper is available
online at the URL: www.ria.ie/publications/journals/ProcCI/1998/PC98/PC98.html However in the intervening seven years these ideas have been very considerably developed and these developments are described in the two ancillary articles attached to this web page below. |
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Kalend
and regnal canon chronological traditions Comprehensive examination of Irish chronicles reveals the existence
of two distinct and contrasting chronological traditions. The earlier of
these used a 'Kł' or 'K' standing for the kalends of January, i.e. 1
January, to mark the commencement of each chronicle year, and hence I term
this the 'kalend tradition'. This kalend tradition is known to have been used
for a Paschal table compiled in the Eastern Mediterranean in the third
century, so it long predates the arrival of Christianity in Ireland. A
Christian annalistic chronicle employing this tradition was introduced into
Ireland in the fifth century and these annals were maintained and continued
in Ireland up until AD 1590. This is the important chronological tradition
for Irish historical chronology, that is for the accurate dating by AD year
of historical events. Annals belonging to the kalend tradition include Chronicum
Scottorum and the Annals of Tigernach, Roscrea, Ulster,
Inishfallen, Boyle, Loch Cé and Connacht. The second tradition used a standardised list of the reigns of
supposed 'kings of Ireland' as its chronological basis, and hence I term this
the 'regnal canon tradition'. This tradition was initiated circa AD 1014 and
continued in use up until AD 1685, and it is found in a remarkably wide range
of literary forms, e.g. synchronisms, chronological poems, Lebor Gabála,
prose histories and two annals. As will be shown in the ancillary articles
this tradition was deeply flawed chronologically from its very inception and
always remained so, consequently it cannot be used for historical chronology.
However, because two annalistic compilations employed this regnal canon, in
order to comprehensively examine annalistic chronology it is necessary to
establish the salient features of this regnal canon tradition. |
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Presentation of the tables and ancillary articles For these two chronological traditions separate sets of tables have
been constructed which tabulate in parallel the key chronological and entry
data from their most important representatives. For each tradition these
tables are accompanied by an ancillary article explaining the methods of
construction, the conventions employed, and a summary of the conclusions.
Online editions of all of the annals and some of the chronicles discussed in
these articles may be accessed via this Edition_directory. These tables and ancillary articles have been made available in two
formats, one for reading online and the other for downloading and printing.
The tables have been divided into sub-tables of approximately 70 Kbytes in
order to give efficient access across the Internet, and also to facilitate
their ongoing maintenance. The online version employs conservative HTML and
so it should be accessible to all popular Web browsers. The version for
downloading has been made available in Word 6.0 since this file format is
readily accessible and known to most readers. Should it happen that you do
not currently have access to Word then this page Word access lists possible alternatives
and sources for you. These Word 6.0 tables have all been set up to print
double-sided on A4 paper in landscape orientation in order to provide the
maximum page width for parallel tabulation, and together with their ancillary
article they may then be conveniently filed and read in an A4 ring binder. |
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ONLINE ACCESS Kalend tradition article
and tables - online Ancillary article: 'Chronological synchronisation of the
Irish annals'. This article provides a detailed
account of the construction and use of the following tables synchronising the
annals of the kalend tradition which are accessed by their AD ranges: |
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Regnal canon tradition article
and tables - online Ancillary article: 'Collation of the Irish regnal canon'. This article provides a
detailed account of the regnal canon sources, their collation, their salient
features and inter-relationships. These sources include two annalistic
compilations, namely Conell Mageoghagan's 1627 English translation of an 'old
Irish booke', and Micheál Ó Cléirigh's 1632-6 compilation known as the Annals
of the Four Masters. This collation is divided into three sub-intervals
and is available in the following three tables: |
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DOWNLOAD ACCESS TO WORD 6.0 VERSIONS Kalend tradition article
and tables - Word 6.0 Ancillary article: 'Chronological synchronisation of the
Irish annals'. Tables synchronising the annals of the kalend tradition by their AD
ranges: |
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Regnal canon tradition
article and tables - Word 6.0 Ancillary article: 'Collation of the Irish regnal canon'. Tables collating chronicles of the regnal canon tradition by the
intervals: |
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Editions,
copyright, citation, and contact This is the fourth edition of this work and information regarding the earlier editions is available at Edition history. These articles and tables are © D.P. Mc Carthy, and if you wish to quote them in a publication please cite my name, the title 'Chronological Synchronisation of the Irish Annals' or 'Collation of the Irish regnal canon' as appropriate, this URL and the date and edition from which you took a copy of the material you are citing. If you have any queries or comments, please direct them to me at mccarthy@cs.tcd.ie |
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Computer Science, Trinity College
Dan
McCarthy, <Dan.McCarthy@cs.tcd.ie >
Last modified: 2:58 PM 14
December 2011