THE ROLE of a Donegal man in collating much of our medieval and ancient history will be celebrated next week.
Brother Mícheál Ó Cléirigh from Creevy, Ballyshannon, Co, Donegal, and his colleagues, began their great history of Ireland The Annals of the Four Masters – in 1616, exactly 400 years ago.
The Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Summer School in nearby Rossnowlagh from Friday May 27 to Sunday May 29 will mark the event.
The theme this year will focus on Europe’s mass migration crisis, and compare events in recent months with Ireland’s emigration long before the Famine years.
The Micheal O’Cleirigh School title this year is Refugees and Strangers: Being Irish in Europe 1500 – 1800. The school will discuss the people who left Ireland in those three centuries and what happened to them.
In addition, migration to Ireland today will be the subject of a History Ireland Hedge School during the weekend.
Professors from University College, Dublin, and Maynooth University will give talks on the work of the Donegal friars in ‘saving civilisation’ and how many Irish people left Ireland to become strangers in Europe and eventually citizens.
There will be a discussion how Irish emigrants became European nobles and were influential in the courts of Europe.
The many Irish people who left the Northwest during the period will be the subject of a presentation from Dr. Patrick Fitzgerald of the Centre for Migration Studies at the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh.
Full details of the school are available on www.mocleirigh.ie
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