John Clyn

Clyn, John, an annalist, a Franciscan friar of Kilkenny, first custodian of the Monastery of Carrick-on-Suir, founded by one of the Earls of Ormond in 1336. His Annals are written in Latin; they extend from the birth of Christ to 1349. He thus concludes his entry for 1348: "But I, brother John Clyn, a Franciscan friar, of the Convent of Kilkenny, have in this book written the memorable things happening in my time, of which I was either an eye-witness, or learned them from the relation of such as were worthy of credit. . . Expecting death among the dead, . . I leave behind me parchment for continuing it if any man should have the good fortune to survive this calamity, or anyone of the race of Adam should escape this pestilence, and live to continue what I have begun." He probably died next year in the plague to which he refers. Besides his Annals, he wrote some other works of small importance. The friary in which he lived in Kilkenny was lately a racket-court. "Clyn lived ninety years after Matthew Paris, and was not many years older than Froissart, but . . instead of the striking details of the monk of St. Alban's, instead of Froissart's pictured pages, . . we have here, for the most part, only mere entries of names and of facts — the ashes of history in which there is no fire." His Annals, edited by the Rev. Richard Butler, were published by the Archaeological Society in 1849.

Sources

83. Clyn and Dowling's Annals of Ireland: Edited by the Very Rev. Richard Butler. (I. A. S.) Dublin, 1849.