Year by Year
Explore Year by Year articles from the most modern historical year back to the oldest.
3,305 Articles Archived
Dark Ireland
Archived: 8 November 2026
The surviving annalistic record for 625 CE is brief and uneven. One annal explicitly labels the year dark and records several deaths and a church repose, while another preserves a similar cluster of notices whose marginal year assignments sometimes diverge. The evidence also includes an eclipse entry attached to 625 and names several figures whose deaths are placed there by one compilation but shifted elsewhere in another. This narrative restricts itself to what the extant entries directly state, and separates year-specific notices from broader chronological context and later editorial alignment.
Year Markers
Archived: 8 November 2026
The annalistic record for 624 CE is brief but not empty. In the Annals of Ulster, the year is marked as AD 624 and described as a dark year, with several deaths recorded under that heading. The Annals of the Four Masters give the Age of Christ, 624 and the first year of Domhnall son of Aedh son of Ainmire in the sovereignty of Ireland. They also place clerical deaths and two battle notices in the year. Comparison with Inisfallen shows that some close material appears under adjacent years there, so the year must be read text by text. No broader narrative is added beyond what the notices directly state.
Annal Year
Archived: 9 November 2026
The surviving annal entries associated with 623 CE are brief and uneven, but they still allow a careful account of what is securely attested. This narrative compares the placement of named deaths, reposes, a monastery notice, and one armed action across the Annals of Ulster, the Annals of Inisfallen, and the Annals of the Four Masters. It distinguishes events securely dated in each text from broader nearby context, and it avoids harmonizing entries beyond what the passages themselves support. Where the annals differ in year headings, that difference is noted as an observable feature of the record only.
Marked Year
Archived: 9 November 2026
The annals for 622 present a compact but uneven record of Ireland in that year. Ulster gives the year heading and records battles, a drowning, and several deaths, while the Four Masters and Inisfallen preserve partly overlapping notices. This narrative distinguishes securely dated entries from broader contextual material and avoids supplying missing detail. It compares the wording, order, and scope of the notices as they stand, and it treats omissions as part of the evidence rather than as gaps to be filled by speculation.
Annal Year
Archived: 9 November 2026
The surviving evidence for AD 621 is sharply limited but still identifiable. The Annals of Ulster preserve a year heading equated with AD 621 and a compact sequence of notices about battles, deaths, one drowning, and one qualified statement of uncertainty. Other annal material in the retrieved evidence helps compare chronology and manuscript description, but it does not add a securely dated 621 event. The result is a narrow historical profile: a dated annal block, not a reconstructed narrative. This article distinguishes the year’s directly attested notices from broader contextual material and from what the record leaves unstated.
Recorded Year
Archived: 9 November 2026
The surviving notices for 620 CE are brief and mostly funerary. In the Annals of the Four Masters, the year is marked by a cluster of deaths, including an abbot of Clonfert, several other named men, Mongan son of Fiachra Lurgan, and Cathal son of Aedh, king of Munster. The Tigernach material available here does not preserve a 620 notice, but it provides nearby years for comparison. Read narrowly, the evidence supports a careful record of named deaths and one killing, not a full narrative of events.
Ireland Observed
Archived: 10 November 2026
The annalistic witnesses for 619 CE preserve a compact and uneven record: deaths of abbots, bishops, and rulers, one destruction notice, and an earthquake in Gaul. The evidence is strongest when each annal is read on its own terms, because the year labels do not align perfectly across the surviving excerpts. This account distinguishes the notices securely attached to 619 from nearby entries in adjacent years, and it avoids extending the record beyond what the passages actually state.
Annal Year
Archived: 10 November 2026
The annals preserve 618 CE as a year of terse notices rather than continuous narrative. In the Annals of Ulster, Tigernach, the Four Masters, and Chronicon Scotorum, the year is marked by deaths of churchmen, a conflict, a kingship notice, and, in one compilation, an earthquake and a burning. The record is uneven: some names recur across compilations, some do not, and several passages add only brief detail. The safest account keeps each notice within its own annal year and avoids inventing events for gaps.
Annal Year
Archived: 10 November 2026
The surviving annalistic notices for 617 CE in these excerpts are sparse but specific. The clearest securely dated item is the burning of Donnán of Eg on 17 April, cross-referenced to AU 617 in the Annals of Inisfallen. The same year also contains notices for the burning of Bennchor of Ulaid, the laying waste of Torach, and several death or repose entries. The evidence does not support a broader narrative. It only permits a cautious comparison of how different annals record the same year. Other details remain unprovided here and therefore uncertain.
Irish Chronicle
Archived: 10 November 2026
This study examines the evidence for Ireland in 616 CE as preserved in a small group of annalistic entries. It separates notices securely placed in that year from nearby material assigned differently in other annals. The year is marked by clerical deaths, a murder, the death of Fergus son of Colmán Mór, a ravaging of Armagh, and an earthquake in Gaul in Tigernach, while Inisfallen and Chronicon Scotorum provide partially overlapping but not identical chronologies. The result is a careful year-by-year account that preserves what is directly stated and leaves gaps unfilled within the limits of the surviving annal entries.
Some records do not yet have a verified historical year and are awaiting chronological placement.