The Four Masters Myth of Donegal Abbey: the modern inaccuracy

Recent posts were swirling around social media about the “Free Guided Tours of Olde Abbey Donegal Town,” which took place from August 21 to 23 as part of National Heritage Week.

The promotional poster of the tour stated that Donegal Abbey was founded in 1474 and that the “remarkable Franciscan friary occupies a central place in the history of County Donegal and the O’Donnell dynasty, which ruled the kingdom of Tir Chonaill for almost 400 years.”

While this history of the Abbey is accurate, there was also a major historical inaccuracy on the poster and on the National Heritage Week website. The post falsely claimed that the Abbey is “where the renowned Four Masters later compiled one of Ireland’s greatest historical works, the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland.”

The National Heritage Week website also falsely claimed that the Abbey is where “the Four Masters wrote the first history of Ireland.” Unfortunately, the claim that the Annals were compiled at the Abbey is one of the greatest myths in Irish history.

At first glance, the myth of the Four Masters in Donegal Town appears true, given that the Abbey, the Four Masters memorial monument in the Diamond, the Church of the Four Masters, Four Masters Bookshop, and the Four Masters GAA club all carry the Four Masters name–but none reflects the Four Masters' true history.

As highlighted by historians and historical authorities, Donegal Town has every right to honour the history of the Four Masters, since the Annals belong to all of Ireland, but it does not have the right to dishonour that history by falsely claiming, without historical evidence, that the Annals were compiled at Donegal Abbey.

Ireland’s leading Four Masters historian, Dr Bernadette Cunningham said in her book, The Annals of The Four Masters (2010): “Following the destruction of the original monastery buildings in 1601, the Donegal Franciscan community, based at Bundrowes in the extreme south of the county, provided Ó Cléirigh’s base for most of the eleven years he spent in Ireland as a Franciscan friar between 1626 and 1637.”

The late, great Bundoran historian and past President of the Donegal Historical Society, Fr Paddy Gallagher said in his book, Where Erne and Drowes meet the sea (1961): “The House of Bundrowes – This refuge of theirs they called The Convent of (The Friars) of Donegal at Drowes. At least thirty times altogether, Brother Michael used in his writings (from 1627 to 1636) the address “Ag Drobhaois: At Drowes.”

Every Irish historical authority specialising in the history of the Four Masters makes it unequivocally clear that the Annals were created on the Donegal side of the Drowes at Bundrowes, in present-day Magheracar, Bundoran.

The Royal Irish Academy said the Annals were “Written in Irish (in a Franciscan friary at Bundrowes on the Drowes River, Co. Donegal).”

The Irish Franciscans said: “Bundrowes Friary transformed into a historically significant centre of Gaelic scholarship during the years 1626-1637. Most notably, Bundrowes Friary (in Magheracar, Bundoran) served as the literary base of the Franciscan friar, Mícheál Ó Cléirigh and his scribes while compiling The Annals of the Four Masters (1632-1636) – Ireland’s greatest history book of Gaelic scholarship.”

Both University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin state that the Annals began and ended “in the Franciscan Friary of Bundrowes in Donegal.”

As the true home of the Annals of the Four Masters, the historical facts about Ó Cléirigh in the Convent of Donegal at Bundrowes are clear. From 1627 to 1637, Ó Cléirigh did not say that he wrote “at Eske;” he said that he wrote, “at Drowes.” Likewise, the official Franciscan document of the Louvain Papers did not record the Donegal friars at the destroyed Donegal Abbey, but instead recorded them in the friary at “Bundrowis.”

Responding to the inaccuracies, well-known Bundoran fisherman and local historian Seanie Carty said: “To be honest, at this point with all of the clear evidence and scholarship available, there is no excuse for any historian to not get this right. It is as clear as day that the Annals of the Four Masters were written at Bundrowes (in Magheracar, Bundoran). Yes, the original abbey was in Donegal but it was in ruins when the Annals were written.”

Niece of the legendary Brennan sisters of Brennan’s Criterion Bar in Bundoran, and Professor of History at Kean University, Dr C. Brid Nicholson said: “Finding primary sources and establishing that Ó Cléirigh wrote at Bundrowes (in modern-day Bundoran) is important for Bundoran and Irish History. It is also a reminder for all historians that history is not static, that there are discoveries to be made and that these discoveries will mean changes to what we previously knew.”

Understanding that Bundoran proudly stands on the right side of the Four Masters’ history, the mighty words of her most famous historian, Fr Paddy Gallagher, still hold true today: “Truth can be ignored but it cannot be denied.”

On the 400-year commemoration of Ó Cléirigh’s return to south Donegal to begin his scribal work at Bundrowes, any Donegal historian who ignores or denies the historical truth that the Annals were created at Drowes, in Bundrowes friary–lies on the wrong side of history.