Cú Choigríche Ó Duibhgeannáin

Cú Choigríche Ó Duibhgeannáin
Monument to the Four Masters, located at the bridge over the Drowes River near Kinlough, near Ó Duibhgeannáin's homeland
Born	Cú Coigriche mac Tuathal Ó Duibhgeannáin
Nationality	Irish
Occupation	Historian
Known for	Annals of the Four Masters

Cú Choigríche Ó Duibhgeannáin (fl. 1627–1636), anglicised Peregrine O'Duignan, was an Irish historian and chronicler.

He is best known for being one of the "Four Masters" - the authors of the historical chronicle Annals of the Four Masters.

Name

Cú Coigriche (also Cuchogry) means "hound [or hero] of the neighbouring [or foreign] land." Upon taking holy orders in the Franciscan Order of Leuven, his name was latinised to Pereginus.^{[citation needed]}

Early life

Ó Duibhgeannáin was born about or after 1590.^{[citation needed]} His father was Tuathal Buidhe Ó Duibhgeannáin, of Castlefore, County Leitrim.

His family, the clan Uí Dhuibhgeannáin, were professional historians from Annaly, many of whom had crossed the Shannon and practised their art in Connacht. Here the Ó Duibhgeannains set up a bardic college at Kilronan, near Lough Key in northern County Roscommon.^{[citation needed]}

The "Four Masters"

Around 1627, he began working with Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh and Fearfeasa Ó Maol Chonaire under the direction of Brother Mícheál Ó Cléirigh. In that year Ó Cléirigh was sent from his mother house at Leuven to Ireland to collect Irish literary, historical and chronological material in danger of being lost. These materials were assembled into a number of compilations, the most famous being the Annals of the Four Masters.

In 1636, the year Annals was completed, it is likely Ó Duibhgeannáin returned to Leuven with Mícheál Ó Cléirigh. It is possible that he remained in Ireland, as a copy of the annals was being used in the town of Galway by Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh in the late 1640s. It may not be coincidental that a kinsman of Ó Duibhgeannáin, Daibhidh Ó Duibhgheannáin ("lame David") was living and working in Connemara at least as early as 1651.

See also

• Tadhg Og Ó Cianáin
• Lughaidh Ó Cléirigh
• Mícheál Ó Cléirigh
• James Ussher
• Sir James Ware
• Mary Bonaventure Browne
• Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh
• Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh
• Uilliam Ó Duinnín
• Charles O'Conor (historian)
• Eugene O'Curry
• John O'Donovan (scholar)
• Ó Duibhgeannáin

Sources

• "The Learned Family of O Duigenan", Fr. Paul Walsh, Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 1921
• "The Four Masters" (I & II, 1932 & 1934), Fr. Paul Walsh, Irish Leaders & Learning Through the Ages, Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2004, ISBN 1-85182-543-6
• O Duibhgeannain, Cu Choigcriche (O'Duigenan, Peregrine), pp. 435–36, Dictionary of Irish Biography from the Earliest Times to the Year 2002, Cambridge, 2010.