His hereditary responsibility brings him to the Spanish Netherlands, to Bohemia where he takes part in the Battle of White Mountain as a musketeer in captain Somhairle Mac Domhnaill's company, and from there to the Irish College of St Anthony in Leuven (Louvain), in the company of Brother Mícheál Ó Cléirigh and Father Brian Mac Giolla Coinnigh, and finally back to Ireland during the wars of the Irish Catholic Confederation and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.
His contemporaries included Mícheál Ó Cléirigh and Randal MacDonnell, 1st Marquess of Antrim.
Mícheál Ó Cléirigh | Micheál Martin | Ó Cléirigh | Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin | Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh | Micheal Barrow | Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh | Micheal Ray Richardson | Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh | Micheál Mac Liammóir | Micheal Luck | Micheál Ledwith | Lughaidh Ó Cléirigh |
As a young man, he participated in the compilation of the Annals of the Four Masters, working with Mícheál Ó Cléirigh, Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh, Peregrine Ó Duibhgeannain and other assistants.
In the 1630s both he and Muiris mac Seaán Ulltach Ó Duinnshléibhe were attached to the Franciscan convent at Bundrowes, and became acquainted with Mícheál Ó Cléirigh, who was then compiling the Annals of the Four Masters.
In collaboration with Micheál Ó Cléirigh and his team of scholars in Ireland, the entire effort was supervised by Father Hugh Ward (Aedh Mac an Bháird), rector and guardian of the great Irish College of St. Anthony in Louvain, the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium), and the most important Irish publishing center in Europe for nearly fifty years.