[1] The Ó Cléirighs had a long tradition as one of Gaelic Ireland's foremost learned families, and the Tír Conaill branch had served the O'Donnells for over two hundred years.
[1] The vagueness of the description led many early scholars to conclude that Cucoigriche Ó Cléirigh had authored the work.
In his 1851 edition of the Annals O'Donovan cited Cucoigriche as the author of the Beatha, believing it to be a different text to the work attributed to Lughaidh by the annalists.
[1] Beatha Aodha Ruaidh Uí Dhomhnaill is composed in Classical Gaelic, the literary language once taught in the bardic schools and widely understood in both Ireland and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
The text survives in one contemporary manuscript, Dublin, Royal Irish Academy MS 23 P 24, written in the hand of Cucoigriche Ó Cléirigh.