Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must for students of Gaelic History, August 5, 1997
By A Customer
'The Annals of the Four Masters' is one of the most important documents for students of Irish, British, European and ancient history. You will not find much of this history in your high school or even college text books. John O'Donovan, a 19th century antiquarian undertook the enormous task of interpreting this account of Irish history as written in gaelic by the Four Masters, legendary scribes from a Donegal monastery. On the left hand page you get the original gaelic text, on the right the english translation, some anecdotes are in Latin. The anecdotes are as rich in reading as the text and include some by the late 19th century historian Charles O'Conor of Belengare, Ireland. REPRINT THESE VOLUMES....for here lie the dormant pages of Irish, British, Norman, Saxon, Scotish, Iberian, Hiberian, Milesian, Pictish and Gaelic history and perhaps the key to unraveling are current problems.
Stephen Vincent O`Rourke
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent source of genealogical history of Ireland., February 3, 1998
This text is a crucial element in the genealogical history of many old Irish and Scotish families (who can trace their roots to Ireland). This text includes the Latin, Gaelic and English translations of the original books. Although the beginning volumes were written about 500 to 1000 years after the events occurred, the stories that one finds included there are fascinating, and add to any family history (provided you can trace back that far!) a depth that is difficult to find elsewhere. I post a web site that traces the roots of the Buchanan clan, and have used a copy of the text available from the NY Public Library as one of my sources. Numerous individuals have e-mailed me asking for sources to purchase this text, and it would be helpful if it would be reprinted. For now, ask your local library to get the book for you on interlibrary loan from the NY Public Library (or others). Needless to say, I highly recommend this text and would be the first to purchase it if it were reprinted.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of a kind, April 29, 2005
The Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters is a treasured find for any researcher. O'Donovans translation was excellent for the day. He was actually the second to publish the annals for the 12th to the 17th centuries. A few years before O'Donovan, in 1846, Owen Connellan published the first ever translation of the annals into English, plus the family name location map. There had been quite a competition between the two to come out with the first edition of the annals. I have both translations in hardbound editions. They sit side by side on our shelves. It is quite interesting to compare the two.
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