2. THE TUATHAL TEACHTMAR OF HISTORY

   To the list of the pre-Christian kings of Ireland, found in Lebor Gabala and elsewhere, is for the most part a work of pure fiction, and many of the names in it are obviously mythical. Thus the non historical character of Cairbre Cattchenn, Conn, and Lugaid mac Con, will be obvious to anyone who has taken pains to equip himself with a knowledge of Irish mythology. With Tuathal Techtmar, on the other hand,], once the accretions to his story have been removed, we no longer find ourselves in the cloudy altitudes of myth, but rather on the comparatively solid ground of legendary history.¹ Tuathal is portrayed as a warrior who, landing in Ireland, subdued the aithechthuatha (non goidelic bribes), became king of Tara, imposed permanent tribute on the Lagin, and carved out a kingdom for himself in the midlands. These achievements are all historical events which we know must have resulted from the Goidelic invasion of the eastern Midlands.

   The ' learned ' authors of that elaborate fiction, the invasion of the Sons of Mil, and the genealogy-makers who collaborated with them, were animated by the desire to invest the Goidelic occupation of Ireland with an antiquity to which it was entitled neither in fact nor in tradition ; for only in this way would it be feasible to provide a Goidelic descent for tribes of non-Goidelic origin, and to unify the divergent ethnic elements in the country by tracing them back to a common ancestor. Hence popular traditions concerning the Goidelic invaders had, before being admitted into the literature, to undergo some modification in order to make them harmonize with the newfangled theory that the Goidels had come to Ireland at a very remote period under the leadership of the Sons of Mil. The genuine tradition concerning Tuathal told how he had led the ancestors of the Midland Goidels to Ireland, and how he had overcome the non-Goidelic tribes who had hitherto ruled the country, and who henceforth were to be vassals (aithechthuatha) of the Goidels. But the pseudo-historians and genealogists, who would give no countenance to a late date for the Goidelic invasion, insisted that Tuathal was an Irishman and was descended from a long line of Irish ancestors ; and so in its accepted literary form the legend no longer represents Tuathal as a foreigner invading Ireland for the first time, but treats him as the rightful heir to the Irish throne who comes to Ireland to recover his patrimony, of which hehas been deprived by the aithechthuatha. Thus, in the form in which the legend has come down to us, the fact that the aithechthuatha (i.e. non-Goidelic tribes) had been rulers of Ireland

1. W.K. Sullivan wrote, as far back as 1873, that Tuathal Techtmar has all the characteristics of reality about him ', whereas 'it is more probable that Cairpre, Morand, and Feradach are all mythical personages ' (O'Curry's Manners and Customs i, p. xxxiii),

before Tuathal's invasion is retained ; but the post-invasion enmity between the Goidels and the aithechthuatha is projected back (like Tuathal's pedigree) into the pre-Goidelic past in order to provide a motive for the invasion. The usual account suggests that the ascendancy of the non-Goidels had not been of long duration, for only thus could it be reconciled with the fact that Tuathal's alleged ancestors, one and all, appear as kings of Ireland in the regnal lists. Nevertheless an approximation to the genuine tradition appears in the statement, found in some versions of L.G., that from the time of Enna Aignech to that of Eochu Fedlech (that is to say, during eight generations the aithechthuatha oppressed the descendants of Ugaine, whom they finally expelled by force, until Tuathal Techtmar came and curbed them.¹ Especially notable in this connexion is the tradition that the Cruithni [recte Ulaid] ruled Ireland (i.e. the northern half of the country) before the coming of the race of Conn to Ireland.² This has its counterpart in the tradition that the Erainn ruled Munster before the coming of the Eoganacht (p, 188). From what has just been said it will be apparent that the accounts of Tuathal's early years, which some of the versions profess to give, are necessarily fabulous. Originally Tuathal was a foreigner whose connexion with Ireland began when he invaded it. When he was turned into an Irishman and some account had to be given of his childhood, the motif of the youthful hero brought up by his mother in a foreign land in order to guard him from his enemies was ready to hand in the myth of the Birth of the Hero.³ (On the other hand, his

1. D iv I fo. 7 b I ; D v 2 fo. 31 a 2 ; Lec. fo. 8b 1.8 ff. Cf. Is c roscar rigi ra hat[h]echt[h]uathaib Herenn, ' it was he (Tuathal) who put all end to the rule of the aithechthuatha ', in the Laud Synchronisms, ZCP ix, 477.

2 ZCP viii, 313. Otherwise the Cruithni and the race of Conn ruled Ireland alternately ' until Conn Cetchathach came ', ib. 314 a. Cf. RC xvii, 8 : 0 fheraib Muman righe cach la fecht co tanic Conn Cetcathaon, where fheraib Muman is a scribal error for Cruithnib, as the context suggests,

3 See above, p. 159. Ethne, the name of Tuathal's mother, is a borrowing from myth. Besides being known as a river (i.e, goddess) name, Ethne is found elsewhere as the name of the mother of (I ) Lug, (2) Lugaid Laga, and (3) Conaire rnac Moga Lama, as the narne of the wife of (1) Conn, (2) Cormac ua Cuinn, (3) Morann, (4) Cuchulainn, and (5) Conchobar, and as the name of a daughter of (1) 0engus Musc, and (2) Eochu Fedlech. Ethne is also said to have been another name for Boand, the wife of Elcmar and mother of In Macc Oc Eriu xii, 142).

enemies are not mythological personages but the historical Aithechthuatha.) In LL, 51, Tuathal is brought up secretly in Ireland, and afterwards goes abroad to collect an army ; but in a better known, and probably older, account, that in L.G., he is still in his mother's womb when she flees to Alba for refuge. This latter version is notable for the skilful way in which it manages to retain part of the original tradition, while conforming fully to the doctrine of the genealogists; for it lets us know that Tuathal was born outside Ireland, and that he never saw Ireland until he invaded it. Regarding the rest of Tuathal's story we can say with confidence that it rests on a solid foundation of historical fact, however much it may have been embroidered in the telling. He comes with a fleet of foreigners to the eastern coast, wins over to his side warrior-bands belonging to the king of Tara and the king of the Lagin, gains possession of Tara, and defeats the Fir Bolg, the Domnainn, the Galioin and the Ligmuini.¹ Mael Mura, it should be remembered, makes Tuathal not only king of Tara but also king of Ireland ;² and so he credits him with defeating the aithechthuatha, not merely in the Midlands, but throughout the country. Another of Tuathal's achievements was the imposition on the Lagin of the heavy tribute known as the borama.³ The payment of such a tribute implies that the Lagin were vassals of the kings of Tara. They were, as other evidence shows, of

1. The Domnainn and the Galioin were branches of the Lagin ; see p. 92. Of the Ligmuini next to nothing is known. In one of the few other references to them we are told that (like the Domnainn and the Galioin) they were not Fir Bolg (Gen. Tracts 80). Tuath Ligmuine, one of the aithechthuatha, was in Gailenga (ib. 72, 116, 121), otherwise (ib. 118) in Gailenga. Breg.

2 In Mael Mura s time the titles ' king of Tara ' (ri Temro, ri Temrack) and 'king of Ireland ' (ri Erenn) meant the same thing.

3. On the borama and its history see LL 23 b 30-52 (L.G.), and the long prose tract, interspersed with poems, in LL 295 b (= RC xiii, 40, = SG i, 359) ; also the poems in LL 35 b 39, 375 a 17. Cf. Is do I = do Thuathall ceta-ronasced 7 fris roiccad boroma Lagen, RC xvi, 419 (Irish World-Chronicle).

 pre-Goidelic descent, and so they are to be numbered among the tribes which Tuatbal reduced to the position of being aithechthuatha or tributary states. It is obvious that the borama must have been imposed in the first instance as the result of a decisive overthrow inflicted on the Lagin by some early Goidelic king ; but by the eighth or ninth century, when the Lagin had been provided by the genealogists with a Goidelic pedigree, the origin of the tribute had been forgotten, or perhaps was deliberately ignored, and so a story was invented that the tribute had been originally imposed on the Lagin in punishment for a wrong which their king, Eochu Anchenn, had done to Tuathal's daughters. The claim of the king of Tara to exact this tribute from the Lagin persisted through many centuries. We know that in historical times the Lagin not seldom resisted it by force. King Loegaire met his death, ca. 463, in attempting to enforce the tribute, and so did a successor of his, Aed mac Ainmirech, in 598. All our authorities,¹ agree that the tribute was at last remitted by Finnachta, who was king of Ireland from 675 to 695.² Yet this was not quite the end of it, for in 721 we find King Fergal mac Maile Duin re-imposing the tribute,³ though the Lagin had their revenge in the following year, when they defeated and slew Fergal.⁴ After this we hear no more of the borama. Thus it was not until the eighth century that the Lagin ceased to pay the penalty of their pre-Goidelic

1. The oldest of them is probably the anonvmous poem Tuathal Techtmar ba ri Temrach, LL 35 b 39, which was written in the reign of Donnchad (36 b 35), i.e. either the king of that name who died in 797 or his descendant and namesake who died in 944.

2. Finnachta is usually said to have remitted the borama at the request of St. Mo-ling (+ 697), According to a well-known version of the story the saint gained his point by means of a verbal trick, not by persuasion (SG i, 384 ff., 404 ff. ; Three Frags. 76-78). The event is not recorded in the ordinary Annals, but is mentioned in the LL Chronicle (mathim na Borama, LL 25 a, = Trip. Life, ed. Stokes, 518) and in Three Frags., 92. Cf. also the account (in part illegible) inserted in a list of kings of Ireland in AT, 9 b 6-17.

3 AU.

4. In his turn, Aed Aldan, Fergal's son, avenged his father's death in 738, when he routed the Lagin at Ath Senaig with terrible slaughter.

origin, and rid themselves of the shackles imposed on them by the Goidelic invader. Still another achievement for which Tuathal is celebrated in legend is that he formed a special kingdom for himself in North Leinster by cutting off portions of the adjoining provinces.¹ The historical fact which this represents is that the Goidelic invaders of the Midlands won by force of arms a territory for themselves at the expense of the pre-Goidelic tribes (the Lagin and the Erainn). In the later texts the territory which Tuathal carved out for himself is called Mide, and it is said to have got its name from the fact that Tuathal, in forming it, cut off the neck (mede) of each province.² But if anything is certain, it is that Mide was not the name of Tuatbal's kingdom, for Mide, Celt. *Medion, ' the middle Spot '³ was originally the name of a small district surrounding the hill of Uisnech in Co. Westmeath, reputed to be the centre of Ireland. From the seventh century onwards the Midland territory was divided into two main kingdoms, a western kingdom called Mide, and an eastern known as Brega. The kingdom of Mide covered approximately Westmeath, Longford, and most of King's Co., while that of Brega comprised most of Meath, the southern part of Co. Louth, and the north of Co. Dublin. With Domnall Mide, who ruled as king of Ireland from 743 to 763, the western kingdom began to acquire a dominating position, which became still more marked at the beginning of the eleventh century, when the Brega dynasty, descended from Aed Slaine appears to have come to an end.⁴ In consequence of these political developments the name Mide gradually came to be used in a wider sense so as to include

I I se Tuathal tall a cinnu dona coicedaib, LL 295 b 33 (~_SG i, 361) ; iss 0 in Tuathal sin do ben a cind do choic coicedaib Eirenn, Ac. Sen. 4128-9.

I Is la Tuathal tra do dithcheannad cach coiced i nErind, conid de aderar Mide via i. Meidc cacha coicid, Lec. 300 a I (L.G.). Do theasg Tuathal . . . meidhe chinn gacha cuigidh, day lean Midhe don Mhiugh-sin, Seaan 0 Clumhain (ca. 1300), Dioghluim Dana 272, § 36. Cf. further 23 K 32 p. 137 : FF i, 110, 112 ; Ann. Clon. p. 51. The suggested etymology (Mide from mede) is, of course, absurd.

' Cf. Mide ynedon Gaedel, Met. 1). iii, 440.

'Cf. Mac Neill in Arch, Hib., ii, 99.

Brega as well as Mide proper ; it already has this extended meaning in a couple of poems in Leabbar na gCeart (pp. 184, 266).¹ Eventually the wider sense of Mide gained the day, and the name was applied to the whole territory from Athlone westward to Dublin and Drogheda,² the earlier district of the name being henceforth known as Iarthar Mide,³ ' the west of Mide' (whence Engl. 'Westmeath'). Hence we see that Mide as a name (in late documents) for the territory won by Tuathal from the natives is grossly anachronistic. The earliest conquests of the Goidelic invaders of the Midlands must have been in Brega, which adjoined the coast, and which included Tara. Finally, if only because it appears to have misled some modern investigators, a word must be said concerning Keating's account⁴ of the origin of Mide. Tuathal, we are told, cut off a portion of each of the adjoining provinces, and thus formed a special territory for himself which thereafter was called Midhe, a name which had previously been confined to a single tuath of land around Uisnech. He built four residences, one in

1. This is one of several pieces of evidence which tell against the view put forward by Mac Neill (Celtic Ireland 86), following O'Donovan, that Leabhar na gCeart, apart from some interpolations, was compiled ' about A.i). 900 '. That the old distinction between Mide and Brega was still remembered in the early twelfth century Bregh, AU 1125. may be inferred from co Feraibh Midhe 7 co Feraibh

2. See AU s.aa. 1175, 1368 ; and cf. ardmaeraigecht na Mide uile 6 Shionainn co fairrce, SG i, 403. Compare also the late document, used by Keating, setting forth the bounds of Mide ' as Tuathal Techtmar ordained it in the beginning ' (FF i, 114 ; see the edition by Rev. P. Walsh in Arch. Bib., i, 3) ; this gives Mide an unwarranted extension towards the north, making it include a small part of Leitrim, most of Cavan, the southern half of Monaghan, and the whole of Louth. The annalists record that Aed Oirdnide, king of Ireland, ' divided Mide between the two sons of Donnchad' in 802, a division which was terminated by the death of one of the brothers in 803. Keating, owing to his belief that Mide in its widest sense is as old as the time of' Tuathal Techtmar, misunderstands this entry, and supposes that the division was into West Meath and East Meath (the latter including Tara), and that ' that division has continued ever since ' (FF i, 116).

3 Cf. AU 1105.

4 FF i, 112 ; ii, 244-250.

each of the portions lie had appropriated from the provinces,1 viz. at Tlachtga (near Athboy, Co. Meath), Uisnech, Tailtiu (Teltown, Co. Meath), and Tara, which four places had previously belonged to the provinces of Muma, Connachta, Ulaid and Lagin, respectively. The absurdity of the statement concerning Tuathal's four residences is evident, as is also its lateness. The legendary association of Tlachtga with the daughter of Mug Ruith2 was, no doubt, deemed sufficient basis for the assertion that it had once belonged to Munster. The view that Tailtiu once formed part of Ulster may have been inspired by the statement, found elsewhere,3 that it was the burial-place of the Ulaid. The view that Tara once belonged to the Lagin must have as its only basis the association of Cairbre Nia Fer with Tara in some of the Ulidian tales.4 Finally the inventor of the anecdote had to cast about for some place in Mide which might be regarded as having formed part of Connacht, but he could think of nothing better than Uisnech, undeterred by the knowledge that Uisnech was reputedly the meeting-place of the provinces, and did not belong to any one of them. Apart from this late concoction which Keating reproduces, there is, so far as I am aware, nothing whatever in Irish literature which would connect Tuathal with Uisnech.5 Naturally, therefore, I am a convinced disbeliever in the theory of ' the occupation of Uisneach by Tuathal Teachtmhar ', which Mac Neill has put forward.6 'Ale need not wonder

   In other words, only four of the provinces met at Uisnech, though Keating elsewhere (FF i, 110) says that the five provinces met there. No doubt he would have tried to explain the contradiction by claiming that Munster, which met the other provinces at Uisnech, was equivalent to two provinces.

1. Met. D. iv, 186.

2. LU 4103.

3. The writer of the prose preface to one of the poems in Lcabhar na gCeart (p. 52) commits the absurdity of assuming that Tara was -situated in Mag mide and was won from the Lagin as a result of the battle of Druim Deargaidhe [A.D. 516],

4.Mae Neill writes: 'Tuathal, we are told, set up a new kingdom for himself around Uisneach ' (Phases of Ir. History 118). This is merelv a distorted inference from Keating's fabulous account.

5. Phases of Irish History I IS f. Mac Neill's idea is that Tuathal was a king of Connacht who established himself in Uisnech Ca. A.D. 150 and that Uisnech continued to be the residence of his successors until the time of Cormac, four generations later. The same scholar, writing in 1932, says : ' In the second century of the Christian Era the kings of Connacht pushed their power eastward across the Shannon and occupied Uisnech in Westmeath. In the following century they occupied Tara ' (Saorstat Eireann Official Handbook, p. 43). In 1934 he writes : 'The Connacht kings extended their power eastward in generation after generation, occupying Uisneach, where Professor Macalister has recently explored their royal house, and afterwards Tara ' (St Patrick p. 56). Macalister, whose habit is to adopt Mae Neill's theories as his own, writes to the same effect (Ancient Ireland 103), Pokorny likewise echoes Mac Neill's views (Hist. of Ireland 24), and so, inevitably, does Rev. John Ryan (Ireland to A.D. -800, pp. 33 f., 177). Thus is newly-invented myth transmuted into history. 1

that, when Uisnech was excavated some years ago with a view to unearthing relics of the occupation, little was found to support the identification of the site as a royal residence'.' That Uisnech was ever ' a royal residence has as its only basis the gratuitous assumption that it was ' occupied' by Tuathal. 2

   To sum up. Legend represents Tuathal as the leader of a band of invaders who conquered a kingdom for himself in what is now the north of Leinster and who reduced the pre-Goidelic tribes of that region, and in particular the Lagin, to a state of vassalage. In all this we have the tradition of an historical fact - the Goidelic invasion of the Midlands, and the events resulting therefrom. It is not, of course, necessary to suppose that the invaders met with immediate and complete success; it is more than likely that in the popular memory Tuathal has been credited with achievement which it took several generations to complete. But to say this is not to impugn his historicity; and I see no reason why we should not accept the tradition which tells us in effect that Tuathal was the name of the warrior who led the Goidels across the sea to North Leinster. As it happens, both his name and his epithet are remarkably appropriate for such a leader, Tuathal Celt. *Teuto-valos, means ' ruler of the people', and is a name

1. Proc, R.I.A. xxxviii C, 116.

2. Macalister has identified to his own satisfaction ('as near to certainty as the conditions permit ') the actual house at Uisnech in which King Tuathal lived, from which lie infers that Tuathal's ' mode of life cannot have been much above the level of an Eskimo in his igloo ' (Ancient Ireland, 104 f.). Comment is superfluous.

devoid of mythical associations. The epithet Techtmar is unique in Irish tradition; its meaning was forgotten,¹ but the simplest and most natural explanation of it is to refer it to Techt, 'going' (=W. Faith, 'journey, voyage'), and to interpret it as meaning 'of the great journeing', i.e., voyaging from afar', or the like.

1. See the various unsatisfactory guesses in Coir Anmann, 109. A peom in the "Borama' suggests that Tuathal gothis epithet because 'the envoys (techta) of the earth used to come to his house', LL 295 b 29. In Ac. Sen. 4130-2 he is said to have been called techtmar because he got possession (techtad) of Ireland and parts of the provinces. Mac Carthy speaks of 'Tuathal the Acceptable' (Todd Lect. iii. 309,5). Mac Neill of 'Tuathal the Rightful ' (Celtic Ireland 72); but these explanations of techtmar, extracted from O'Reilly's dictionary, are devoid of authority.