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IEHN member, Daniel McCarthy

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Daniel McCarthy, Trinity College, Dublin.

Biography

Dr. Dan Mc Carthy is Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College Dublin, and a former Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science, there. He has published numerous articles on the subjects of chronology, chronicles, Paschal tables, and astronomy. In 2003 he published with Dr Aidan Breen an edition of De ratione paschali, the Paschal tract of Anatolius, late third-century bishop of Laodicea in modern Syria. In 2008 he published the first book to systematically and comprehensively survey the Irish Annals, the unique mediaeval Christian chronicles which were maintained in Ireland from around the arrival of Christianity in the fifth century up to the late sixteenth century . He maintains the Irish Annals website www.irish-annals.cs.tcd.ie

Contact

mccarthy@cs.tcd.ie

University Homepage

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Research Interests

History of numbers and computation - computistics - lunar and solar cycles - calendrical science - chronology - paschal controversy - the Irish annals - chronicles of Eusebius, Jerome, Sulpicius Severus, Isidore, and Bede - computer arithmetic - parallel architectures and processing.

Collaborative Interests

Dan has at various times and in various degrees collaborated with historians, textual scholars, astronomers, and geographers.

Themes

Earth, Air, Fire.

Selected Publications

McCarthy, D. P. (2008) The Irish Annals - Their genesis, evolution and history. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

McCarthy, D. P. (2008) Of Arabic Numbers, Roman time and Irish Chronicles, In: O’Neill, E. P. (ed.), What did you do today, Professor? - Fifteen illuminating responses from Trinity College Dublin. Vienna: Pöllauberg, 99-106.

McCarthy, D. P. (2004) The original compilation of the Annals of Ulster, Studia Celtica, 38, 69-96.

McCarthy, D. P. (2003) Annals, In: Lalor, B. (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Ireland. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 33.

McCarthy, D. P. (2003) Chronology of Irish history, In: Lalor, B. (ed.) The Encyclopaedia of Ireland. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 193.

McCarthy, D. P. (2003) On the shape of the Insular tonsure, Celtica, 24, 140-67.

McCarthy, D. P. (2003) The chronological apparatus of the Annals of Ulster AD 82-1019, Peritia, 16, 256-83.

McCarthy, D. P. (2003) Al-Khwārizmī’s Sine Tables and a Western Table with the Hindu Norm of R=150, Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 57, 243-66.

McCarthy, D. P. (2003) The Emergence of the Annus Domini Era, In: Moreno-Riano, G. and Jaritz, G. (eds.), Time and Eternity - Proceedings, Leeds International Medieval Conference 2000. Brepols: Turnhout, 31-53.

McCarthy, D. P. and Breen, A. (2002) The ante-Nicene Christian Pasch. De ratione paschali - the Paschal tract of Anatolius, bishop of Laodicea. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

McCarthy, D. P. (2001) Topographical characteristics of the Vita Prima and Vita Cogitosii Sanctae Brigitae, Studia Celtica, 35, 245-70.

McCarthy, D. P. (2001) The chronology and sources of the early Irish annals, Early Medieval Europe, 10 (3), 323-41.

McCarthy, D. P. (2000) The Chronology of St Brigit of Kildare, Peritia, 14, 255-81.

McCarthy, D. P. (2000) À propos du synode de Whitby. Étude des observations astronomiques dans les Annales irlandaises, Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest, 107 (3), 25-56.

McCarthy, D. P. (1998) The Status of the pre-Patrician Irish Annals, Peritia, 12, 98-152.

McCarthy, D. P. (1998) The Chronology of the Irish Annals, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 98C, 203-255.

McCarthy, D. P. and Breen, A. (1997) Astronomical Observations in the Irish Annals and their Motivation, Peritia, 11, 1-43.

McCarthy, D. P. and Breen, A. (1997) An Evaluation of Astronomical Observations in the Irish Annals, Vistas in Astronomy, 41, 117-138.

McCarthy, D. P. (1997) The Biblical Chronology of James Ussher, Irish Astronomical Journal, 24 (1), 73-82.

McCarthy, D. P. (1996) The Lunar and Paschal tables of De ratione paschali Attributed to Anatolius of Laodicea, Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 49, 285-320.

Breen, A. and McCarthy, D. P. (1995) A Re-evaluation of the Eastern and Western Records of the Supernova of 1054, Vistas in Astronomy, 39, 363-379.

McCarthy, D. P. (1994) The Chronological Apparatus of the Annals of Ulster AD 431-1131, Peritia, 8, 46-79.

McCarthy, D. P. (1994) The Origin of the Latercus Paschal Cycle of the Insular Celtic Churches, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, 28, 25-49.

McCarthy, D. P. (1993) Easter Principles and a Fifth-Century Lunar Cycle used in the British Isles, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 24, 204-224.

McCarthy, D. P. and Ó Cróinín, D. (1988) The “lost” Irish 84-year Easter table rediscovered, Peritia, 6-7, 227-242.

McCarthy, D. P. (1987) Stonehenge and Pi, The Mathematical Gazette, Dec. 1987.