Editing Annals of the Four Masters (section)

==Importance==
As a historical source, the ''Annals'' are largely limited to the accounts of the births, deaths and activities of the [[Gaelic nobility of Ireland]] and the wider social trends or events are up for contemporary historians to establish.

On the other hand, the ''Annals'', as one of the few prose sources in Irish from this period, also provide a valuable insight into events such as the [[Desmond Rebellions]] and the [[Nine Years War (Ireland)|Nine Years War]] from a Gaelic Irish perspective.

The early part of this work is based upon the ''[[Lebor Gabála Érenn|Lebor Gabála]]''. Today, most scholars regard the ''Lebor Gabála'' as primarily a myth rather than history. It appears to be mostly based on medieval Christian pseudo-histories, but it also incorporates some of Ireland's native pagan mythology. Scholars believe the goal of its writers was to provide an epic history for Ireland that could compare to that of the Israelites or the Romans, and which reconciled native myth with the Christian view of history. It is suggested, for example, that there are six 'takings' to match the [[Six Ages of the World]].<ref name="Williams2016"/> Medievalist academic Mark Williams  writes of ''Lebor Gabála Érenn'' that it is a "highly influential Middle Irish prose-and-verse treatise [...] written in order to bridge the chasm between Christian world-chronology and the prehistory of Ireland".<ref name="Williams2016">{{Cite book|last1=Williams|first1=Mark|title=Ireland's Immortals: A History of the Gods of Irish Myth|date=2016|chapter=New Mythologies: Pseudohistories and the lore of poets|pages=128–193|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9780691157313|location=Princeton, NJ}}</ref>{{rp|130}}