O'CLERY, MICHAEL. - Irish historian, b. at Kilbaron (County Donegal) in 1575, d. at Louvain in 1643. He entered the Franciscan Order at the College of St. Anthony in Louvain, taking the name Michael.
By his Irish superiors, Hugh Boy Macanwad (or Ward) and John Colgan, he was sent home to collect the lives of Irish saints still surviving in old manuscripts. Then, under the patronage of Fergal O'Gara, he conceived the plan of gathering and reducing into a single collection all the annalistic works still to be found in Ireland. He feared that otherwise they would soon be lost; in fact, almost all of them were, probably during the invasions of Cromwell and William. He therefore carried out the work, with his assistants Farfassa O'Mulconry, Peregrine O'Clery, and Peregrine O'Duignan, to whom Colgan gave the name The Four Masters in the preface to his Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae (1645). To these were added Maurice O'Mulconry and Conary O'Clery. In this way he wrote M. Reim Righroidhe ("Royal List," 1630), Leabhar Gabhala ("Book of Invasions," 1631), Annala Righachta Eireann ("Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland," 1636), and Martyrologium Hiberniae (1636). The best edition of the Annals is that of John O'Donovan (Dublin 1851).