4. Dermot of the three schools.
5. Teige Cam (or the stooped) O’Clery.
6. Dermot O’Clery.
7. Cucogry (or Peregrine) O’Clery.
8. Mac Con O’Clery; his brother, Cosnamach, died in 1584.
9. Lughaidh (or Lewis) Giolla Brighde, Mac Con Meirgeach, Cucogry, and Duigen O’Clery.
Of these sons, the eldest, Lughaidh, was the most distinguished of the Irish literati of the northern half of Ireland in his time, and the principal poetical combatant on the part of the northern bards in the contest with those of the southern division, which took place about the commencement of the seventeenth century, respecting the claims of the rival dynasties of the northern and southern divisions of Ireland to supremacy and renown. The poems written on this occasion are usually collected into a volume, entitled “Iomarbadh,” or, Contention of the Bards, and were long popular among the Irish people. He was also the compiler of Annals of his Own Times, which the Four Masters used in their great compilations. As chief of his sept, this Lughaidh, or Lewis O’Clery, held the entire of the lands bestowed on his ancestors, as well as the herenach lands of the parish of Kilbarron, as hereditary herenach, till the flight of the northern earls in 1607, when they were lost to him and his family in the general confiscation which followed, and became the property of the Lord Folliott and the Bishop of Raphoe. He held those lands, however, till the close of the year 1609, and was selected as one of the “good and lawful men” of the county, appointed in obedience to a commission to inquire into the king’s title to the several escheated and forfeited lands in Ulster, and which held an inquisition for this purpose at Lifford, on the 12th of September 1609. In this inquisition, which furnishes the most valuable information upon the nature of ancient Irish tenures, it is stated that “the parish of Kilbarron contains five quarters in all, whereof one quarter is herenach land possessed by the sept of the Cleries as herenaches, paying thereout yearlie to the lord busshopp of Raphoe thirteen shillings four pence Irish per annum, six meathers of butter, and thirty-four meathers of meale; and that there is one quarter named Kildoned, in the tenure of the said sept of the Cleries, free from any tithes to the busshopp,” &c. And again, “That there are in the said parishe three quarters of Collumbkillies land, everie quarter conteyninge sixe balliboes in the tenure of Lewe O’Cleerie, to whom the said lands were sithence mortgaged for fortie pounds, by the said late Earle of Tirconnell unto the said Lewe, who hath paid thereout yearly unto his Majestie, since the late earl’s departure, four poundes, two muttons, and a pair of gloves, but nothing to the said busshopp.”
Cucogry, or Peregrine O’Clery, the son of Lughaidh or Lewy, and chief of the name, held the half quarter of the lands of Coobeg and Dowghill, in the proportion of Monargane, in the barony of Boylagh and Bannagh, from hollandtide 1631 until May 1632, for which he paid eight pounds sterling per annum to William Farrell, Esq., assignee to the Earl of Annandale, as appears from an inquisition taken at Lifford on the 25th of May 1632, but “being a mere Irishman, and not of English or British descent or surname,” he was dispossessed, and the lands became forfeited to the king.
The O’Clerys were thus wholly reduced to poverty, but not to idleness, in the service of their country’s literature. It was in this year 1632 that they commenced that series of works devoted to the preservation of Irish history, which has made their names so illustrious, and of which the celebrated annals, called the Annals of the Four Masters, are now the most popularly known. A full account of this great work, written by the author of this article, will be found in the Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, and reprinted in the first volume of the Dublin Penny Journal. The persons concerned in its compilation were, first, Teige of the Mountain O’Clery, who, after becoming a Franciscan friar, adopted the name of Michael, 2 Maurice O’Mulconary; 3 Fergus O’Mulconary; 4 Cucogry, the son of Lewy O’Clery; 5 Cucogry O’Duigen; 6 Conary O’Clery, the brother of Michael. The work was commenced in the monastery of Donegal, of which Father Bernardin O’Clery was guardian, on the 22d of January 1632, and finished in the same convent on the 10th of August 1636, the brotherhood supplying the transcribers with the necessary support.
The motives which actuated the O’Clerys to enter on a work of such labour as this, are very feelingly and prophetically expressed in the dedication to it by Michael, the superintendant of the work. “Judging that should such a compilation be neglected at present, or consigned to a future time, a risk might be run that the materials for it should never again be brought together,”—and such indeed would have been their fate. In the same spirit the O’Clerys compiled their Leabhar Gabhala, or book of the conquests of Ireland, containing the most valuable ancient historical poems preserved in the language; their book of Genealogies; their Reim riograidhe, or catalogue of kings; and their calendar and genealogies of the Saints or distinguished ecclesiastics of Ireland. In addition to these, Cucogry, the son of Lewy, wrote the Life of Red Hugh O’Donnell, a work of the greatest value and interest. Copies of all these works are now preserved in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, and with the exception of two of them, are in the autograph of Cucogry O’Clery, the best scribe of the family, or of the Four Masters conjointly.