The main aim of this study was to accomplish some of the basic source work which would allow scholars to evaluate the annalistic evidence more effectively and would provide a springboard for future research on the Irish chronicles. The analysis has not been comprehensive; the later history of the Irish annals after 1100, as well as sections of the chronicles covering the ancient and medieval periods before 912 all deserve to be the foci of studies, and to receive more attention than was possible here. However, the foregoing chapters have helped to answer some of the main questions regarding the development of the chronicles (see appendix 3, figure 7). In particular, their results have strongly supported the view that the common source of AU and the Clonmacnoise group, the ‘Chronicle of Ireland’, continued to 911. After this date AU became or remained a ‘Conaille/Brega Chronicle’ before becoming an ‘Armagh Chronicle’ by the late tenth century, and the ancestor of the Clonmacnoise group was a ‘Clonard-Clonmacnoise Chronicle’ before being combined with another chronicle in Clonmacnoise by the late eleventh century at the latest.

These conclusions support the views of Kelleher and Hughes among others on the importance of 911 as the end of the ‘Chronicle of Ireland’, but contradict the theories of Mc Carthy and Mac Niocaill. They disagree with Mc Carthy's proposal that the common source continued as late as ca 1019 in Clonmacnoise, and that Dub dá Léithe combined this text with an Armagh chronicle in the mid-eleventh century.