VI.

VI.-THE LAGINIAN INVASION

1.-LAGIN. DOMNAINN. GALIOIN.

THE Lagin, who have left their name on the province of Leinster, preserved the tradition that Lagin, Domnainn and Galioin were three names for the one people¹. We may interpret the tradition as meaning that these were the names of closely related tribes. So we find coiced nGalion or the like used in exactly the same sense as coiced Lagen, 'the province of the Lagin'.² An unidentified place in the territory of Dal Mesi Corb (in Co. Wicklow) was known as Dun nGalion.³ Similarly the name Domnainn⁴ is some times applied to the early Lagin in fabulous history, as when Crimthann Sciathbel, who is said to have been made king of the Lagin⁵ by Eremon, is described as 'of the Domnainn'.⁶ So Inber Domnann, the Irish name of Malahide

1. Compare Galion Ira 7 Domna[i]nd anmand sin do Lagnib, LL 311 a 20 (genealogies of the Lagin), and do gairtis dano 45 Iri hanmannoib, Domna[i]nd, Galeoin, Lagin, O'Mulconry § 781 (and cf. § 779). Similarly,RC xv, 299. Note the use of Domnand (properly genitive) for Domnaind in these texts, owing to the influence of the synonymous Fir Dommann (-nd).

2. e.g. coiced nGaleoin, LU 4079; coiced Galion, LL 116 b 5; cuiged Gailian_ Eriu viii, 12.

3 LL 311 a 27, = Dun nGaileoin, ib, 377 a 45.

4. A later form is Domnannaig (compare Cruthin Cruithnig, Brettain Bretnaig). When Mac Neill asserts that, according to 'Irish tradition' (i.e. Lebor Gabala), 'the Dumnones (Fir Domnonn) were aborigines ' (York~ shire Celtic Studies ii, 41), he distorts the facts, as the reader of Chapter iv and the present chapter will readily perceive. In support of this assertion he invents a purely fanciful explanation of their name : ' I interpret Dumnones to mean the dim or deep folk," and this to mean remote and primitive in origin (ibid.).

5. He is ri os gasraid Galian, Met. D. iii, 164; ri Laighen, Todd's Ir. Nennius, 122.

6. Dorat [sc. Eremon] rige coicid Galian do Chrimthan Sciathbel de Domnannchaib LL 15 a 16-17. Another fabulous king of Lagin, Eochu Aincherm, is similarly described as do Dommandchaib, Gen. Tracts 148. A,

LAGIN. DOMNAINN. GALIOIN 93

Bay, Co. Dublin, would appear to preserve the memory of the Donmainn.¹
The persistence of the view that Galioin and Domnainn were but other names for the Lagin is especially remarkable because it was in direct conflict with the teaching of the pseudo-historians and the genealogists. According to these, the Galioin and the Domnainn were among the pre-Goidelic invaders of Ireland,² whereas the Lagin were Goidels, descended from Eremon, son of Mil.³ In the course of time the names Galioin and Domnainn dropped out of use, for names which connoted inferiority of social status could not be expected to retain their popularity, and only the honourable name of Lagin continued in use. In order to account for the obsolescence of the two former names, a convenient legend was invented that the peoples themselves were exterminated.⁴
The Domnainn of Ireland were, it is hardly open to

third such king, Mes Delmonn, is called Mes Delmonn Domnann, Meyer's Hail Brigit, p. 6. An early historical king, Crimthann, son of Enna Censelach, is spoken of as the protector of the Domnainn : in doss ditnes drungu Domnann do chlar Cathbad, RC xxxvii, 335.

1.. Inber, 'estuary', is usually followed by a river-name (in the genitive) and so one must not overlook the possibility that Domnann, in rnber Domnann, is genitive of an unattested river-name *Dumun (i.e. the Ward River and the Meadow Water, which after uniting flow into Malahide Bay). Compare Indech mac Di Domnand, the name of a king of the Fom- oire (RC xii, 74, § 50). Nouns originally ending in -nd tend to pass to the -n-declension in Irish, so that *Dumun (gen. Domnann), instead of going back to *Dubnu (gen. *Dubnonos), might actually represent an earlier *Dubnona, a goddess-name. The Irish literati, however, assert that the Inber Domnann, of the Fir Bolg invasion (see p. 99, infra) got its name from the Fir Domnann who landed there (Lec. fo. 277 a 2. 35).

2. So Mael Mura reckons the Galioin of the Lagin (Galeoin Lagen) among the non-Goidelic septs (Todd's Ir. Nennius, 268). The statement is repeated in L. G. (ZCP x, 189) and elsewhere (ib. ix, 177).

3. Compare the similar artificial distinction between the Fir Bolg and the Erainn (p. 80).

4. RC xv, 300 (Rennes Dsh.), where we read that the druids chanted spells against the Galioin, so that most of them perished, and where we are further told that the remnants of the Galioin, and also the Domnainn, were exterminated by Tuathal Techtmar.

94 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

doubt, a branch of the Dumnonii of Devon and Cornwall.¹ There were also Dumnonii in Scotland, where their territory, as we infer from Ptolemy, lay around Dumbarton and extended southwards into Renfrew, Lanark and Ayr. If, as is quite probable, these are another branch of the same tribe, they must have reached Scotland by sea; and in that case it is perhaps more likely that they set out from the coast of Leinster than from South-West Britain. Possibly we may see a dim memory of this Scottish settlement in the raids on North Britain attributed to Labraid, ancestor of the Lagin.²

In early historical times the province of the Lagin (coiced Lagen) was separated from the territory of the Midland Goidels by the River Liffey, from its mouth to Leix - thence the boundary ran westward along the Rye Water, after which it followed approximately the northern boundary of the present Co. Kildare. Before the Goidelic invasion part at least of the territory lying between Dublin and Drogheda was in the hands of the Lagin, as traditions suggest. Rumal, son of Donn Desa, is said to have been the 'first king of Lagin to occupy the land between the Boyne and the Buaignech (probably the River Tolka, which flows into Dublin Bay).³ According to Orthanach (ninth cent.), the Lagin lost the territory between Dublin and the Boyne (ota Boind co Ath Cliath) after the killing of Lugaid Riab nDerg.⁴ Nevertheless, so strong are the associations of the Erainn with pre-historic Tara that we must infer

1.. Dumnonii stands for an early *Dubnonii, evidently connected with *dubno- ( > *dumno-), adj. ' deep ', sb. ' world '. Domnainn goes back to *Dubnoni or possibly to *Dubnones. (Compare the variants Caledonii : Caledones, Santoni : Santones.) The tribal name is doubtless derived from a deity-name, *Dubnonos or *Dubnona.

2.. Lamair insi hili Orc, AID i, 41 § 25. So gablais Galeoin, 'he (Labraid) made the G. branch out', ibid., may possibly reflect the memory of a colony sent overseas from Ireland. It may be added that in the same poem Labraid, or one of his immediate successors, is said to have plundered Tiree and Skye (ib. 40, § 21).

3.. LL 378 a 47; Coir Anmann § 211.

4.. ZCP Xi, 108, § 6. Compare also the legend of Cairbre Nia Fer's gift of territory to Conchobar mac Nesa, ib. xiii, 318.

LAGIN. DOMNAINN. GALIOIN 95

that, if the Lagin ever conquered Tara, their conquest was but a temporary one, and that, if in pre-Goidelic times they possessed the land from Dublin to the Boyne, this land consisted of a narrow strip of territory along the coast.

Many of the Lagin of North Leinster appear to have entered the service of the Goidelic invaders, who assigned them 'sword-land' in return for military service and tribute. In particular the Galioin of this area were employed as fighting-men by the Goidelic kings of Tara; these became known as Gailing, and their Laginian origin was forgotten after the genealogists had invented a pedigree for them which made them descend from Eber. The Cianacht, who helped the Goidels of Tara to defeat the Ulaid in the battle of Crinna, may similarly have been of Laginian descent.¹ Indeed it would appear that the fighting-qualities of the Laginian tribes were widely appreciated, for the district (or tribal) names Gailin(n)e and Gaille (p. 22, n. 3), if I am right in connecting them with Gailing and Galioin, would suggest that bodies of the Galioin took service as fighting-men in regions as far apart as Antrim and Kerry. Significant in this connexion is the fact that the Gailine, or Gailinne, who constituted a tuath in Dal mBuinne, in the south of Co. Antrim, are said to have been of Laginian origin.²

In Connacht the Laginian tribes were well established. Of the Lagin as such there is no trace ; but the Galioin are represented by the place-name Dun Gailian.³

1.. Forces of the Gailing aided the Goidels in their conquest of Connacht, and were rewarded with a grant of territory in Co. Mayo, where the barony of Gallen preserves their name. Similarly the Cianacht took part in the conquest of Ulster by the sons of Niall, and were rewarded with the barony of 'Keenaght' (Cianacht Glinne Gemin) in Co. Derry. According to the genealogists, this Ulster branch was founded by Findchan, who is made fourth in descent from Tadg mac Cein, the founder of the Cianacht of Brega (R 145 c 50, 153 b 53).

2. Gailine imorro do Laignib a mbunadas, ZCP xiv, 76 ; di Gailinne di Ultaib do, LL 364 h. Fergus Gailine (RC xvii, 13 ; ZCP xiv, 68), who appears in the genealogies as grandfather of Fiachu Araide, eponym of the Dal nAraidi, was perhaps borrowed from the traditions of this sept at any rate his epithet connects him with them.

3.. O'Donovan's Hy-Fiachrach, 290. The place is unidentified, but was ,probably in the north of Connacht.

96 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

The Domnainn are commemorated in several place-names. Tirechan applies the name 'campus Domnon' (i.e. Mag Domnann) to the district on the west of Killala Bay, which later formed part of Tir Amalgada, 'Tirawley'. Irrus Dommann, ' Erris ', in the west of Co. Mayo, is well attested. We also have Dan Domnann,¹ later, by popular etymology, Dun Domhnaill,² 'Dundonnell', in Erris; and Tulcha Domnann,³ later Tulcha Domhnaill,⁴ situated probably in the north of Co. Galway.

In early historical times the Domnainn are settled especially in north-west Mayo. But we may take it that their association with this wild district was due mainly to the Goidelic conquest of Connacht. Tradition has it that in prehistoric times Cruachain, in the north of Co. Roscommon, was their capital.⁵ The Gamanrad of Irrus Domnann were celebrated in legend for their martial qualities. In 'Tain Bo Flidais' these Gamanrad are said to have been one of the three warrior-races (laech-aicmi) of Ireland, the other two being the Clann Dedad (i.e. the Erainn) and the Clanna Rudraige (i.e. the Ulaid)⁶. The

1.I Cf. AU iii, 16. 8.

2 There is an intermediate form, Duin (gen.) Domhnainn, in FM, S. 4. 1386.

3 O'Donovan's Hy-Fiachrach, 94 ; Gen. Tracts 161.

4 RC xxiv, 182 ; O'Donovan's Hy-Fiachrach, 95 n.

5 According to 'Cath Boinne', Eochaid Fedlech, king of Tara, banished Tinne mac Conrach, the Domnonian king of Connacht, from Cruachain into the wilds of the province before bestowing the kingdom on his own daughter, Medb (Eriu ii, 178), This is apparently based on a popular memory of the Goidelic conquest of Connacht. The Domnainn, driven into the wilds of Connacht, suffered the same fate as they themselves had meted out to the Fir Bolg a few centuries earlier.

6 IT ii, pt. 2, 215, = LU 1620 (hand of interpolator). The Ulaid are said to have destroyed the other two races (ibid.; and cf. Eriu viii, 179). MacFirbis quotes a statement to the effect that Cormac Ulfhota, king of Ireland, was the first to deprive the Gamanrad, Clanna. Umoir ( = Fir Bolg), and the descendants of Cett mac Magach, of the kingship of Connacht (Gen. Tracts 91, 93, 94) ; here we have another allusion to the Goidelic conquest of Connacht. The fighting qualities of the Domnainn of Connacht suggested making Cuchulainn's opponent, Fer Diad, one of them (he is a hIrrus Domnann, TIC S.-O'K. 2205; d'fheraib Domnann,

LAGIN. DOMNAINN. GALIOIN 97

list of aithechthuatha in BB and Lec. represents the Fir Domnann as inhabiting the districts of Cera, Ui Amalgada and Ui Fhiachrach, i.e. the baronies of Carra, Erris and Tirawley in Co. Mayo, and Tireragh in Co. Sligo.¹ The tradition of the one-time dominance of the Donmainn in Connacht led O'Flaherty to include all the early non-Goidelic tribes of Connacht under this name.² In a late poem³ the Tuatha Taiden, the Gamanrad, the Gabraige of the Suck, and the Cattraige,⁴ are included among the Domnainn, as also are the Tuatha Eolairg of Ulster⁵ and the Mairtine of Munster.

The Ui Maine, an important tribe whose territory comprised approximately the eastern half of Co. Galway and the southern half of Co. Roscommon, would appear to have been of Laginian descent. At any rate they were non-Goidelic in origin. and the Goidelic pedigree which was invented for them by the genealogists is fictitious.⁶ Not

ed. Wind. 3004), whereas in reality, as, could be shown, lie belongs, like Cu Roi, to the tradition of the Erainn. In 'Tochmarc TrebIainne', a late tale, Fraech mac Fidaig is of the Domnannaig and of the Gamanrad of Irrus Domnann (ZCP xiii, 166, 171).

1.. Gen. Tracts pp. 115, 118, 121. The territories Occupied by them are said to have stretched 6 Rodba co Codnaig (sic leg.), ' from the River Robe to the river of Drumcliff' ; these are actually the traditional limits of the territories of the Ui Fhiachrach (cf. O'Donovan's Hy-Fiachrach, pp. 142, 278, 300, 302). The shorter list in Edinburgh MS. xxviii has T. Domnall -for Umall 7 T. Rois for feraib A malgadha 7 feraib Fiachrach, RC xx, 32 8. Read, probably, Tuath Domnann for Umall 7 Irros 7 for feraib etc.

2.. Damnonii fuere vetustissimi Connactiae reges ad Cormaci regis Hiberniae tempora', he writes (Ogygia, 175). Among the Damnonii he includes the Gamanrad of Irrus, Tuatha Taiden, Clanna Morna, Clanna Umoir, Fir Chraibe, Gabraige Succa and Partraige (ibid.).

3.. Gen. Tracts 80 f.

4.. The Cattraige were in Ui Maine, on either side of the Suck. Cf. O'Donovan's Hy-Many, 82-84.

5.. Cf. Tuath Eolairg for Tir Eoghain, RC xx, 138.

6.. The genealogists agree in making them descend from Maine for Maine Mor), son of Eochu (otherwise Eochu Fer Da GiaIl), son of Domnall; but the ancestry of this Domnall is variously given. The older account makes Domnall son of Fiachu Sraibtinne son of Cairbre Lifechair (R 139 b 43, 145 f. ; LL 338 g; ZCP viii, 292) but others make him son of Imchad,

98 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

withstanding their importance, and the fact that they came to be reckoned as one of the three Connachta', they were vassals,¹ and paid tribute to the king of Connacht.² Despite the genealogical theory, the Ui Maine were believed to have been settled in Connacht from very early times, as when the author of 'Longes Mac nDuil Dermait' makes Eochu Rond, king of the Ui Maine, contemporary with Cuchulainn.³ Among the. Ui Maine dwelt the Sogain, who were Cruthin, and the Dal nDruithne.⁴ The latter are given a descent from Celtchar mac Uithechair,⁵ of the Ulaid, which suggests that they may have been Erainn.

The Conmaicne, who in historical times are dispersed in various parts of Connacht and in the northwest of Leinster, appear likewise to have been of Laginian origin (see p. 119 f.).

In Connacht, as in most of Leinster, the pre-Goidelic population was unusually mixed, owing to the successive waves of invaders ; and it is often difficult, or impossible. to segregate with certainty the different pre-Goidelic elements (Cruthnian, Bolgic, Laginian). Nevertheless one can assert with some confidence that the politically dominant

son of Colla Fo Chrith (FF iv, 35 ; O'Donovan, Tribes and Customs of Hy-Many 24). The Lite of St. Grellan (quoted by O'Donovan, op. cit. 8 ff.) tells how Maine Mor went with a host from Airgialla to Connacht in order to seize the land of Cian, a ruler of the Fir Bolg, who dwelt in Magh Seincheineoil. Through the power of the saint, Cian and his people were, we are told, swallowed up in the earth, and Maine and his host took possession of their territory. Actuaily, we need not doubt, what was swallowed up was, not the 'old race' (scincheinel), but their non-Goidelic origin

1. In the year 338 we find Maine mac Cerbaill, king of Uisncch (Trip. Life, ed. Stokes, 552), claiming the -,assalage (gelsine) of the Ui Maine against the king of Ui Fbiachrach Aidne; but the latter defeated and slew. Maine in battle (RC xvii, 136)_

2 L.r. na. gCeart 106.

3 IT ii, pt. 1, 175.

4. Cf. Dail nDruithni Moenmuighi, i.e. of Moenmag, the district around Loughrea. Co, Galway (Flower, Cat. 274). They were in the territory of the Ui Maine (O'Donovan's Hy-Many, pp. 13, 84).

R 157 ; ZCP xiv, pp. 52, 163.

THE LAGINIAN INVASION IN L. G. 99

element in the western province at the time of the Goidelic invasion was Laginian.

2.---THE LAGINIAN INVASION ACCORDING To LEBOR GABALA

In Lebor Gabala, Nemed's people (i.e. the Builg) are, as we have seen, represented as abandoning Ireland and going to Greece. There they multiplied ; but, being oppressed by the Greeks, they returned to Ireland 230 years after Nemed. They came in three sections, known as Fir Bolg, Galioin and Fir Domnann, respectively; and each section landed at a different place. Their leaders were the five sons of Dela, by name Slaine, Gann, Sengann, Genann and Rudraige. All the accounts agree that the Galioin, led by Slaine (or Slainge), landed at Inber Slaine (or Slainge) i.e. the mouth of the River Slaney. The landing-place of the Domnainn is variously given as Inber Domnann,¹ i.e. Malahide Bay, Co. Dublin,² or Irrus Domnann,³ i.e. Erris, Co. Mayo. The third landing place, that of the Fir Bolg is given by some as Inber Dubglaise, the location of which is uncertain, by others as Tracht Rudraige, i.e. Dundrum Bay, Co. Down. The reason why the leaders of the invasion were five in number becomes apparent when we are told that after their arrival in Ireland they divided the country between them, each taking a fifth part, and thus originated the permanent division of Ireland into five provinces (coiceda).⁴

At first sight it seems odd that the compilers of L. G.

I. So BB 29 b; Lee. fo. 277 a 2. 34-35; O'Clery's L. G. 120, 126; Erin viii, 12 ; Met. D. iii, 170 (poem by Eochaid Eolach ua Cierin).

2 But this Inber Domnann is perhaps rather to be identified with Inber Mor, i.e. Broad Haven in Erris; cf. p. 158, n. 1. O'Flaherty (Ogygia 111, and cf. 15) misidentifies the Inber Domnann where the Domnainn landed with Arklow, but admits that there was another bay of the name. now called Inver-more in Erris.

3. gabsat i -nirrus tiar, LL 4 b 17, = Eriu iv, 132. 8; gabsat i nIrrus Domnann, Gilla Coemain (cf. Todd Lect. iii, 148).

4 It may be noted that, white Slaine is always the sole leader of the Galioin, there is no agreement as to how the four remaining leaders were distributed among the Domnainn and the Fir Bolg. Thus the Fir Domnann are led by Genann and Rudraige according to one account (BB 29 b;

100 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

should have made Nemed's descendants abandon Ireland for a time, in order to return later : but the oddity is susceptible of a simple explanation. The Laginian invaders conquered a considerable part of the present provinces of Leinster and Connacht; but they made little or no impression on Munster and Ulster. Their conquest of Ireland was thus a very partial one, while at the same time their invasion of Ireland was too important and too well remembered to ignore. Now a partial conquest of this kind was not a gabail Erenn, and did not harmonize with the simple framework of Lebor Gabala, which professes to record only conquests of Ireland as a whole.. Accordingly, in order to convert the present invasion into a complete conquest, the compilers adopted the expedient of making the Fir Bolg (whose conquest of Ireland had already been narrated as the invasion of Nemed) joint invaders with the Laginian tribes, and in order to make such a joint invasion possible it was necessary first to make the Fir Bolg leave Ireland for a period.

Like the Builg, the Laginian tribes were linguistically P-Celts, and had kinsmen in Britain; and we may suppose that the Goidelic tradition was that the two rival peoples whom they found in occupation of Ireland differed only in that one of them was known to be a much more recent arrival than the other. Hence we can understand why the authors of L. G. adopted the simple method of making the Galioin and the Domnainn descend from Semion, like the Fir Bolg. To get over the inconvenience of having to refer cumbersomely to the invasion as ' the invasion of the Fir Bolg, Galioin and Fir Domnann', liberty was taken to employ on occasion the first of these names, Fir Bolg, as a collective name for the whole group, so that the invasion could be referred to briefly as gabail Fher mBolg, ' the conquest [of Ireland] by the Fir Bolg.' Hence we sometimes find it emphasized that, although these tribes bore different names, it was permissible to apply the name Fir Bolg to

O'Clery's L. G. 118, 126), by Sengann, Gann, and Genann, according to Gilla Coemain (Todd Lect. iii, 148; and cf. Gen. Tracts 84), while in Eriu, viii, 16, Rudraige and Sengann are the leaders of the Fir Bolg. Compare the confusion of the names in Lec. fo. 277 a 2. 28-34.

LABRAID LOINGSECH 101

them all, for the reason that they had all sailed to Ireland 'in bags' (i mbolgaibh).¹ So it is not surprising to find the pre-Goidelic tribes of Connacht occasionally referred to as Fir Bolg, irrespective of their ethnic origins. Thus in 'Cath Boinne' the Donmannaig, Dal nDruithne and Fir Chraibe are collectively styled Fir Bolg.² In another text the Cruithentuath of Cruachain, the Bolgthuatha Bagna, the Clann Umoir, and other Connacht tribes,³ are all reckoned as descendants of Genann.⁴ Here Cruthin and Builg are exceptionally classed together, but there is no express mention of the Donmainn.

3.-LABRAID LOINGSECH

Although the Lagin belong to the Southern half of Ireland rather than to the Northern, the genealogists attached them, not to the line of Eber but to that of Eremon. This may have been suggested by the intimate political relations existing between the Lagin and the kings of Tara, who down to the eighth century claimed the Lagin as tributaries of themselves. The following extract from the pedigree of the descendants of Eremon will show the

1. Cf. O'Clery's L.G. 118, 124; Gen. Tracts 54, 85. Cf. p. 46, supra.

2. Eriu ii, 180. The Fir Chraibe appear to have occupied the most southerly part of Connacht, which in ancient times included the present Co. Clare. In BDC there is mention of Eochaid Beg mac Eochach Ronn, ri Fey Craibe i. ri an tres Condacht (RC xxi, 158) ; here Fey Craibe is exceptionally substituted for Ua Maine, doubtless because the redactor adhered to the genealogical doctrine according to which Maine, the founder of Ui Maine, lived at a much later period than Cormac Conn Loinges, the hero of BDC.

3. Including Fir Thaiden, Gabraige Succa, Fir Chraibe, Cattraige, and Dal nDruithne.

4. Gen. Tracts 88 ; Flower, Cat. 274. The mss. corruptly read Cruithnigh tuath (or tuatha) for Cruithentuath. ' Meyer appears to have been misled by the opening words of this passage (Clanna Genainn i. Cruithnigh tuath Cruachan. Gen. Tracts) and to have taken Cruithnighj to refer to Genainn, for he writes, in expressing his approval of Mac Neill's view that the Partraige were ' Picts ', that the Partraige of Cera are said to be descended from Genann mac Dela, who is elsewhere expressly called Cruithnech (ZCP viii, 191).

102 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

precise point at which the Lagin were attached to the stem of the Midland Goidels¹:


         Eremon
         a quo
         Ugaine Mor (22)
    _______|_______________________
   |                               |
  Cobthach. Coel breg (23)        Loegaire Lore (23)
  ancestor of the Midland          | 
  Goidels (kings of Tara)²        Ailill Aine (24)
                                   | 
                                  LABRAID LOINGSECH (25)
                                  ancestor of the Lagin³

The Lagin themselves did not attach overmuch importance to the descent from Eremon with which the genealogists provided them. For them their first ancestor was Loegaire Lorc⁴ or Labraid Loingsech. In the pedigree Labraid is made grandson of Loegaire Lorc⁵; but we need not doubt that both names are ultimately designations of one and the same personage. So Labraid is sometimes called Labraid Lorc⁶; and he is said to have been born at a place called Ath Loegaire.⁷

1.. The number enclosed in parentheses after a name indicates how many generations the name is removed from Eremon.

2. Among the desc endants of Cobthach are Oengus Tuirbech Temrach (29), at whom the pedigrees of the DO Riata. etc., join the main stem Conn Cetchathach (46 or 51) ; Niall Noigiallach (53 or 58).

3. Among the descendants of Labraid are Bresal Brecc (40), at whom the pedigree of the Osraige joins the Laginian stem Cu Chorb (49) Cathaer Mir (53) ; Bresal Belach (55).

4. Loegaire Lorcc is he senathair Laigin (sic), R 115 a 16; is 6 Loigaire la sodain diabol-Lagin, LL 35 b 35-36.

5.. One notes occasional confusion regarding the relationship of Labraid to Loegaire and Ailill. Thus Labraid is son (instead of grandson) of Loegaire Lorc, ZCP xi, 108, and he is grandson (instead of son) of Ailill, R 82 b 6.

6.. R 82 b 26; ZCP iii, 15 ; Ac. Sen. 2552. He is Laibraid (sic) Loingsech Lorc, LU 628. The epithet lorc is glossed balb, 'dumb', in the Lecan and Stowe glossaries (ACL i, 87; iii, 275), which would make it synonymous with Moen, another name for Labraid ; but elsewhere it is glossed angbaid or garg, 'fierce, ruthless' (cf. O'Clery; Trans. Phil. Soc, 1891-3, 81 ; 0'Mulconry 780, = RC xv, 299). Keating exceptionally interprets lorc as fionghal (FF ii, 1,60).

7., Co hAth Loegaire ait i rrucad Labraid Longsech, LL 308 a, = RC xiii,

LABRAID LOINGSECH 103

Despite his euhemerization at the hands of the pseudohistorians and the storytellers, Labraid was no mete human being, but a divine personage, the ancestor-deity of the Lagin¹. Indeed a couple of poems in his praise go far towards acknowledging his divine character.² In 'Serglige Conculainn' Labraid is the name of a ruler of the Otherworld. ; elsewhere it is the name of the father of the god Nechtan.³ We further find Labraid among the mythical names in the pedigrees of the kings of Tara⁴ and of the Dal nAraidi.⁵ Labraid means ' the Speaker'⁶ ; yet the Labraid of the Lagin was also known as Moen, 'the Dumb', -a good illustration of the seemingly contradictory aspects of the Celtic god of the Otherworld. Compare Moen as a name for Cairbre, the father of Morann (Morann mac Moin), and Moen mac Etna, the name of a mythical poet.⁷

The Lagin regarded Labraid as their great tribal founder, the warrior-king with whom their history began. In Rawl. B 502 a collection of verse dealing with the early history of the Lagin (Laids[h]enchas Lagen) begins with a poem devoted to Labraid (p. 82 b). In the same Ms. a similar prose section, entitled Scelshenchas Lagen (p. 130 b), begins with the tale ' Orgain Denda Rig'. of which the hero is Labraid.

114, § 159. The place has not been identified, but was probably in Co. Kildare, on the River Liffey.

1. Meyer is very wide of the mark when he supposes Labraid Loingsech to have been 'ein vielleicht historischer Konig von Irland zur Zeit der Romerherrschaft in Britannien ' (Bruchstucke der Alteren Lyrik Irlands, p, 5 n.).

2. 'He is 'the highest of beings, except the holy King of Heaven ' (arddu doinib acht noibri nime), and a god who subdued both men and gods, AID ii, 10 ; 'a man higher than gods' (arddu deib doen), ib. 23.

3. Met. D. iii, pp. 2 7, 29.

4. R 144 a 25 ; otherwise Labraid Lorcc, IT i, 117,

5. R 156 a 51.

6. Like the Latin Aims Locutius, a by-name of Jupiter or Mars, and like the Greek Geryon, the name of the lord of the isle of Eytheie (the Otherworld).

7. Cormac, s.v. 'Mug eme'. Compare further Scal Balb, 'the dumb phantom ', as another name for Clan, the father of Lug.

104 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

The Laginian pedigrees open with a discussion of the origin of the name of the Lagin, who are said to have beens so called from the laigne¹ or spears with which they were armed when they came to Ireland with Labraid Loingsech Moen². The origin of the name of the Galioin is connected with the same event.³

Labraid's banishment from Ireland and his triumphant return form the subject-matter of several poems, and are alluded to in others. the principal of these may be tabulated as follows.⁴

(A) Moin oin, five stanzas, attributed to Find fili. AID ii, 10.
(B) Labraid Loinsech Ior a lin, 3 stt. met. D. ii, 52.
(C) Ro hort in rigrad 'mon rig, 7 stt. bi. ii, 50.
(D) Augaine Mar mac rig Herenn, 7 stt., LL 35 b 25.
(E) Dind Rig ruad tuaim tenbai, 4 stt., attributed to Ferchertne fili.AID ii, 7. Quoted in 'Orgain Denda Rig'.
(F) Stanzas 2-3 of a poem beginning Masu do chalind Echdach aird, ascribed to Orthanach ((+ 680?). ZCP xi, 108.
(G) Stt. 3-4 of A choicid choim Chairpri chruaidh, ascribed to the same. R 88 b 49 (where only the first four stt. of the poem remain). The two stt. are quoted in 'Orgain Denda Rig', ZCP iii, 8.
(H) St. 5 of the poem Eol dam indairib drechta, by Flann mac Mael Moedoc (+ 979). ZCP ciii, 117.⁵

1. On the word Laigen or Lagan, 'spear', see Eriu xiii, 152 f.

2. R 115 a; LL. 311 a. Similary O'Mulconry, § 779; and cf. Met. D. ii, 52, ZCP iii. 8. Otherwise the Lagin are said to have got their name from the spears with which Labraid equipped his forces after his return to Ireland (RC xx, 431, and, as an alternative, ib. xv., 299). Compare: 'the warriors of the Galioin took laigne in their hands, hence they were called Lagin'. AID ii, 10.

3. The Galioin were a force of Gauls (fianlag do Gallaib) who came to Ireland with Labraid, their name being etymologized Galion quasi Gallion, LL. 311 a 25, Gaileoin quassi Gailleoin .i. clothaigh na nGall (facs. Mgall), LL. 377 a. According to O'Mulconry § 779, the Galioin were a tribe of Gauls (aicme do Gallaib) who fostered Labraid when he was in banishment.

4. Poems in which reference is made to Labraid's association with Muiriath are discussed separately infra.

5. Mention may also be made of a metrical pedigree of the Lagin, AID i, 40, eleven or twelve stanzas of which are devoted to Labraid Loinsech, whose military successes in Gaul, Britain and Ireland are celebrated.

LABRAID LOINGSECH 105

From the above-mentioned verse-references to Labraid we may summarize his legend as follows. Cobthach Coel slew his brother, Loegaire Lore, as well as Loegaire's son, Ailill. The latter's son, Labraid Loingsech Moen, went to Gaul (hi tiri Gall, F)¹; and, returning later with an army of Gauls,² he slew³ Cobthach and thirty other kings⁴ in Dind Rig,⁵ and became king of Ireland.

The prose account given in L. G. (LL 22 a) agrees in general with the above summary. Cobthach, king of Ireland, treacherously slew Loegaire Lorc, and likewise Ailill Aine, and banished Labraid 'beyond the sea'. After Labraid had been thirty years in exile, Cobthach made peace with him and gave him the province of Lagin (co tarat coiced Galidn do i. Lagin.). But Labraid slew Cobthach and thirty other kings one Christmas eve, and himself became king of Ireland. In this account there is no mention of Labraid bringing an army with him on his return; and, as in ' Orgain Denda Rig', a treacherous colour is given to Labraid's slaying of Cobthach,-one act of treachery is repaid with another.

1. Compare Ise in Labraidh sin ro all a tirib Gall 7 tainig tar muir go nGallaib imbe docum nEirenn, LL 377 b 12 (and cf. BB 119 b 17). For tire Gall -_ ' Gaul' compare fin dobretha do-som a tirib Gall, Eriu iii, 140, 1. 173 ; a tuirc oir a tirib Gall, Hail Brigit § 11. Similarly hi tirib Brettan, = 'in Britain', Cormac s. v. 'Mug eme'; otha tire Franc, = 'from France (Gaul)', Lis. Lives 4408; a tirib Grec, 'from Greece', RC vii, 192.6.

2. With 2200 Gaill, B (and cf. ZCP iii, 8) ; with 3000 Dubgaill, C. The latter name, Dubgaill, shows that to the writer who employed it Gaill no longer meant ' Gauls ' but 'Norsemen '. In the prose Dindshenchas of Lagin the same misinterpretation occurs ; Labraid brings back an army of Dubgaill, with their chief Ernoll, son of the king of Denmark (Ernoll m. rig Danmargg, LL 159 a,, and cf. ib. 377 a 10, Bodl. Dindshenchas, and RC xv, 299).

3. burned, C (and cf. E), agreeing -with ' Orgain Denda Rig'. Similarly RC xvi, 378, Gilla Coemain (Todd Lect. iii, 184), and Gilla Mo-dutu (LL 137 b, = RC xlvii, 294).

4. at a feast, D. So ic 61 na fleide, Gilla Coemain (loc. cit.). This agrees with 'Orgain Denda Rig'.

5. in the bruiden of Tuaimm Tenbath', H (and cf. RC xvi, 378). Tuaimm Tenba(th) was understood to be the old name of Dind Rig. See Meyer's note, kID ii, 8, n. 1.

106 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

   This legend of Labraid was the oldest legend that the Lagin possessed concerning themselves^aact the story of their origin, of their arrival in Ireland. It acknowledges that the names Lagin and Galioin did not exist in Ireland until Labraid came from Gaul. In order to adapt it to the genealogical doctrine of the descent of the Lagin from Eremon, the original legend has had to undergo a certain amplification. Accordingly, Labraid coming to Ireland with his army of Gauls is no longer one who arrives in Ireland for the first time ; he is a returning exile (this is the meaning given to his epithet Loingsech),and his exile has been due to the oppression of Cobthach Coel, king of Brega and of Ireland. Here we see the useful purpose served by Ailill and Loegaire, Labraid's father and grandfather according to the pedigree. They are both represented as having been slain by Cobthach, and so Labraid's invasion of Leinster is provided with a vengeancemotive, which justifies the ruthless treatment he metes out to the tyrant.

   Cobthach in the legend represents a king of the Erainn of Leinster who fell in resisting the Laginian invaders. His name re-appears as Cobhthach Cain³, or Cobthach Coel⁴, in the early part of the pedigree of the Eoganacht. Like so much else in the mythical parts of both pedigrees, it was evidently borrowed from Ernean tradition.

   In addition to the simple form of the legend, as summarized above, we have an expanded form in which two new characters play a part, namely Muiriath,⁵ otherwise

1. It is cetna scel Lagen 7 tuus a ngliad, 'the first (i.e. earliest) tale of the Lagin, and the beginning of their fighting', R 130 b 15.

2. Inasmuch as loingsech means both 'seafarer' and 'exile', it is quite possible, probable in fact, that Labraid may have been given the epithet Loingsech in the sense of ' seafarer ', i.e. leader of a force of invaders by sea, before the idea was invented that he had been banished from Ireland. In the metrical pedigree of the Lagin, already referred to, he is described as solam for muir, maith ri imram, 'schnell zur See, ein kuhner Meerbefahrer', AID i, 40, §22.

3. Cobthach cain, AID i, 54, 9 ; m. Cobthaich Cain, R 1.54 a 52.Cf. m,

Cobthaich Chaem, BB 173 a 1.

4 M. Cobthaig Coel, LL 320 b, ad ca1c.

5. Muiriath rimes with buil-iath and fuil-iath, Met. D. ii, 32, 34.

LABRAID LOINGSECH 107

Moriath, a lady who falls in love with the exiled Labraid and eventually marries him, and Craiphtine, a harper who accompanies Labraid and aids him with the magic of his music. Evidently some poet or storyteller sought to embellish the rather prosaic and matter-of-fact legend of Labraid by introducing a little love and magic, two ingredients which are commonly found together in the most popular of our tales.

   From a poem in R, 82 b 6-27, in the form of a dialogue between the exiled Labraid, Muiriath, and her father Scoriath, we deduce a version of the legend as follows. Cobthach slew Labraid's father and grandfather, and banished Labraid from coiced Galian out of Ireland. Labraid went eastwards across the sea to Scoriath. The latter undertook to help him by giving him 150 spears (tri coicait lagan) ; and Labraid promised to marry Muiriath, Scoriath's daughter. Here we have no allusion to Craiphtine and his music ; but the nature of the poem, which does not pretend to give a full narrative, is sufficient to explain the omission. Neither are we told the name of the eastern country where Muiriath lived ; elsewhere this is Morca (gen.)

   Some verses are preserved which allude to Moriath and Craiphtine in connexion with Labraid. In the commentary on ' Amra Coluimb Chille ' three stanzas (beginning Ni ceilt ceis ceol de chruitt Chraiphtini)¹ are quoted which tell us that the music of Craiphtine's harp ' brought a deathsleep on the hosts' and 'spread harmony between Moen and young Moriath of Morca'. In 'Orgain Denda Rig' a quatrain². beginning Feib conattail Moriath muad, and ascribed to Flann mac Lonain (+ 896), speaks of Moriath being sent to sleep by the music [of Craiphtine], while the host of Morca sluag Morcae) sacked Dind Rig.

   We also have three prose versions of the story of Labraid and Muiriath ; these I distinguish by the letters 0, P, and Q, respectively. They are: (0) 'Orgain Denda³ Rig', edited

1. RC xx, 166 (from R), 431 (from YBL) ; LU 620-630. The first two stanzas are quoted in 'Orgain Denda Rig', ZCP iii, 6. 2. Edited from various MSS. in AID, ii, 9.

2. ZCP iii, 7. 1.

3 LT., and YBL read Dind.

108 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

by Stokes, ZCP iii, 2 ff., from LL, 269 a, with variants from R, 130 b, and YBL, 112 a. (P) A version told in the commentary to 'Amra Coluimb Chille' in YBL (75 b) and Eg. 1782 ; edited from the former Ms., with some variants from the latter, by Stokes, RC xx, 429 ff. (Q) Keating's version, FF ii, 160 (and cf. ib. i, 84). I append a brief summary of each of these versions.

0. Cobthach Coel Breg, king of Ireland¹, slays his brother, Loegaire Lorc², and poisons Ailill Aine, Loegaire's son. Labraid, Ailill's son, is banished 'out of Ireland' by Cobthach ; and, accompanied by Craiphtine and Ferchertne, he goes westwards to Scoriath, king of the Fir Morca, in Munster. Moriath, the king's daughter, falls in love with Labraid, who wins her by means of Craiphtine's music, which sends her watchers to sleep. Thereafter Labraid with an army of Munstermen marches to Dinn Rig. Craiphtine's music sends the garrison to sleep, and the fortress is captured and the garrison slaughtered. Labraid is now king of Lagin, and lives in Dinn Rig. There he builds a house of iron. He invites to a feast Cobthach, who came with thirty other kings ; and, confining his guests in the iron house, Labraid burns them all to death.

P. Cobthach Coel Breg, having slain Labraid's father and grandfather in a single night, banishes Labraid out of Ireland. Labraid goes eastwards until he reaches Inis Bretan 7 in breacmacraid thiri Armenia (so YBL; Eg. reads simply in brecmac rig tiri Armenia), where he takes military service with the king (for rig Armenia, YBL; fri ri Fey Menia, Eg.). His fame reaches Ireland, and Moriath, daughter of Scoriath, king of the Fir Morca in Munster, falls in 'absent love' with him, and send her harper Craibtine with a message to him. Then the king gives him an army, and three hundred ships to take them to Ireland, and they land at the mouth of the Boyne (ac Indbir Boindi). Learning that Cobthach is in Dinn Rig, they march there, and slay him ; and Labraid becomes king of Ireland. He and Craibtine go to Moriath's home, and there Labraid weds her.

1. In the LL text Cobthach is merely king of Brega, and Loegaire Lorc is king of Ireland.

2 In O and Q Cobthach slays his brother by means of a stratagem; he feigns to be dead and has himself placed on a chariot (bier, Q), and when Loegaire in his grief threw himself upon him, he stabbed him to death. The chariot (or bier) was intended to bear the corpse to the grave, like the modern hearse . it has nothing to do with the 'chariot-burial ' which Miss M. Dobbs imaginatively reads into it (ZCP viii, 278 ff.).

LABRAID LOINGSECH 109

   Q. Cobhthach Caol mBreagh slays his brother, Laoghaire Lore, at Dionn Riogh, and also Laoghaire's son, Oilill Aine. Maon (Labhraidh), Oilill's son, goes to Scoiriath, king of Corca Dhuibhne, and stays some time with him. Then he goes to France (an Fhraingc) or, as some say, to Armenia. The King of the Franks makes him general of his forces. His fame reaches Ireland; and Moiriath, daughter of Scoiriath, king of Crioch Fhear More in the west of Munster, falls ardently in love with him, and sends Craiftine, the harper, with a love-song to him. With an army of 2200 men provided by the King of the Franks, he lands at Loch Garman (Wexford). Learning that Cobthach was at Dionn Riogh, he marches thither and slays him ; and thereafter becomes king of Ireland. He then goes, accompanied by Craiftine, to Crioch Fhear More, where he marries Moiriath.

   Comparing these three -accounts, we observe that the most distinctive feature of O is that the whole action of the story takes place within Ireland. Although he is banished 'out of Ireland', Labraid does not cross the sea at all¹, and goes instead to Munster, to the Fir Morca, who are described in what appears to be a gloss as 'big men who dwelt around Luachair Dedad in the west'². In all the other accounts Labraid's place of banishment is beyond the sea.

   Another characteristic of O is that the capture of Dinn Rig and the death of Cobthach in Dinn Rig are treated as separate incidents. This is due to the introduction of a mythological motif, the roasting of guests in an iron house, found also in 'Mesca Ulad' (LL version) and in the Welsh tale of Branwen. The earlier and simpler tradition was, apparently, that Cobthach was slain in Dinn Rig when the place was stormed by Labraid's forces.

   P is the result of an attempt to combine Labraid's traditional place of exile with the story (found in O) of his visit to the Fir Morca of Munster. In P the banished Labraid

1. This apparent omission of all reference to Labraid's overseas adventures did not commend itself to the scribe of R, who repairs the omission by adding at the end of his text of 0 a few lines relative to Labraid's exile beyond the seas and to his bringing back with him 'the numerous Gauls' (na Gaullu imda) from whose spears the Lagin have derived their name.

2.i. fir mora batar immon Luachair nDedad thiar, LL 269 a 49. YBL, (112 a 52) is similar; but in R, 131 a 4, the gloss runs i. fir Morcca batar in; Luachair nDedaid.

110 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

crosses the sea to (apparently) 'Armenia'¹; and he does not visit the Fir Morca of Munster until he has returned from his exile. Q resembles P mainly, but has been further influenced by a version akin to O. Labraid, when banished, goes first to the land of the Fir Mhorc, then to France or Armenia, and after his return to Ireland he pays a second visit to the land of the Fir Mhorc.

In 0 the harper Craiphtine is banished at the same time as Labraid, and with his soporific music he helps Labraid first to win Moriath and afterwards to capture Dinn Rig; somewhat inconsequently, Labraid's dumbness is cured as a result of getting a blow of a camman on the shin. In P and Q all this is different, Craiphtine makes his first appearance in the tale as a messenger from Moriath to Labraid, and when he plays his harp, Labraid's dumbness is cured forthwith² ; afterwards he accompanies Labraid when the latter goes to win Moriath. Now Craiphtine, as I have argued elsewhere,³ is merely a later form of Sraiphtine, 'sulphur-fire', a name for the Otherworld-god in his capacity of god of lightning ; consequently Labraid and Craiphtine are ultimately one and the same deity. The introduction of Craiphtine into the story reflects a tradition (best preserved in 0) that wherever Labraid went Craiphtine (his double) accompanied him. Craiphtine, like the Dagda⁴ and Fer I⁵, could play on his harp the three kinds of music, suantraige, goltraige and gentraige⁶. The music was his voice

1. At this point the text has suffered corruption in both mss.

2 This curing of Labraid's dumbness is implied, but not stressed, in Q. A couple of glosses in LU (625, 629) on the verses beginning.Ni ceilt ceis ceol likewise suggest that Labraid's dumbness disappeared when Craiphtine's harp was played.

3. Eriu xiii, 184 ff.

4. RC xii, 108, § 64.

5 RC xiii, 438, § 8.

6. RC xx, 429. So in Ac. Sen., 1654 ff., Aillen mac Midgna, lord of Sid Finnachaid (the Otherworld), plays supernatural music (ceol sidhi) on his timpan and thereby sends the folk of Tara to sleep, and then burns Tara with a 'pillar of fire' (cairthe teined), i.e. a thunderbolt, (In 11. 1665, -78, 1728, -30, cairche or cairce is to be emended to cairthe, 'pillar-stone '.)

LABRAID LOINGSECH 111

hence he was dumb (Moen) at first, but became the 'Speaker' (Labraid) when he played his harp. Labraid was doubtless the thunderer before he was conceived as a divine musician ; hence we may suppose that there was a more primitive view which made the thunder his voice.¹ His connexion with thunder and lightning was not forgotten, for in some old verses which Meyer has edited we find him called Lochet Longsech², where Lochet simply means 'lightning', and is synonymous with Sraiphtine³.

If Craiphtine is a name with good mythological ancestry, Muiriath and Scoriath, on the other hand, are wholly artificial⁴, and were invented presumably by the poet or story-teller who first supplied a 'love-interest ' to the legend of Labraid. If we suppose that Muiriath was the earlier form of the lady's name, and that the Mor- of Moriath is due to the attraction of Morca, it is easy to find a clue as to how the name suggested itself to its inventor⁵. The common noun muir-iath means literally 'sea-land', and

Compare Gilla in Choimded's account of the same episode in Fianaigecht, 46, where in §5, last line, we should probably read do chaindil tind, do thimpan, and where the following lines should be translated : ' lie used to come regularly each samain with a timpan wherewith to send all to sleep.' Here, as in the case of Craiphtine, the thunder-god is likewise the divine musician. Elsewhere we read of Goll (double of Allen; see p. 279) attacking Finn and the fian after he has put them to sleep with his harp-music (LL 204 b 46-52).,

1. So Aillen's thunderbolt, in the shape of a fiery rock, issued from his mouth (Ac. Sen. 1728), like speech. With Labraid, 'the speaker', may be compared the Greek Polyphemos, 'the much-speaking', the Kyklops, or sun-god (p. 58, n. 5), whose thunderbolts are described as huge rocks. In answer to- the prayer of Odysseus, Zeus 'thundered from gleaming Olympos' (Od. xx, 103).

2. AID ii, 10, § 3. Meyer (ib. 11) misinterprets Lochet here as the genitive of an unknown place-name *Loche, which he supposes to have been the name of the place of Labraid's banishment in Gaul.

3. Compare Bolgos and Meldos, other names of the same Celtic deity, supra, p. 52.

4. Both the names are indeclinable ; thus we find Moriath used as non). and dat., Scoriath as nom. and gen.

5. 'From ' Orgain Denda Rig' the name was borrowed by the author of Acallam na Senorach': Moriath, or Muiriath, ingen rig mhara Greg, 1. 21 (and notes on 11. 21, 5316).

112 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

might serve appropriately as a gloss on Armorica,¹ the name of the country where, as we shall see presently, Muiriath dwelt. Moreover this very word occurs in one of the quat rains de ' aling with Labraid's exploits in the old metrical
pedigree of the Lagin : selaig maru muiriathu muada fey Fagraig, 'the great and grand coastal lands of the men of Fagrach (?) he laid waste'². The name of Muiriath's father, Scoriath, was probably invented later, and in any case it was meant to form a rime or jingle to Moriath³.

Whenever they mention Muiriath's home, all our sources agree in making her dwell among the Fir Morca⁴. In the verses ' Ni ceilt ceis ceol' she is called Moriath Morca.⁵ The word is found only in the genitive, except for one example of the dative in the metrical pedigree : fich tri coictea cath i mMuirc macc Maicc Luirc Labraid (AID i, 40, § 22). Here the form Muirc⁶ may have been due to scribal assimilation to the following Luirc (there is no such rime elsewhere in the poem). The context strongly suggests that the district called Muirc is outside Ireland; 'compare § 28 of the poem, where Labraid is represented as conquering Gaul as far as the Alps (domnais giallu Gall co coic assa Elpion). So, as we have seen, the dialogue in verse between Labraid and Muiriath takes place in an eastern land (unnamed) beyond the sea. Elsewhere the traditional place of Labraid's exile is in Gaul (tire Gall). In striking contrast to all this, the author of ' Orgain Denda Rig' places Labraid's exile in Munster, more particularly 'around Luachair Dedad'

1. Cf. Welsh arfor, Old Welsh *armor, 'land by the sea'.

2 AID i, 41, § 24.

3. Scoriath would be regarded as connected -.%-itli scor, 'a paddock, camp, troop'. Compare ingen rig Fer Morca, Moriath, diarb athair Scoriath na scor, LL 137 b 11-12, RC xlvii, 294. Of Labraid it is said, in the metrical pedigree of the Lagin: ort ocht scuru Scithach, 'er zerstorte acht Feldlager der Manner von Skye', AID i, 40, § 21.

4. In Keating shortened to Fear (gen.) Morc. In BB, 119 b 34, Moriath is ingean rig Morc.

5. So all the mss., except BB, which reads Moirce. Compare Mogelni Morca in a poem by Orthanach, ZCP xi, 110. 3.

6 A disyllable such as Armuirc would suit the metre equally well.

LABRAID LOINGSECH 113

(though this may be due to an early glossator). That this is a mere blunder on his part I have no doubt. The author did not know where the Fir Morca dwelt; and as their name looked like an Irish one he chose to locate them in the remote region of West Munster.

Actually, I suggest, tir Fer Morca or crick Fher Morca is an early popular corruption of tir (or crick) *Armorca, a borrowing of Lat. Armorica. When, from the ninth century onwards, the word Gall, 'a native of Gaul', tended to lose its original signification (the Gauls were now being called Frainc, 'Franks'), -and to be applied more and more to the Norse raiders, it would be likely to occur to some one to replace the now ambiguous name tire Gall (meaning 'Gaul') by the Latin name Armor(i)ca¹, which by a kind of folk-etymology became tir Fer Morca.

In the YBL text of the story of Labraid, Armorca has been corrupted to Armenia.² The Egerton scribe writes once Armenia, and once, by a further corruption, Fer Menia.³ D'Arbois de Jubainville mistakenly supposed that Menia was the genuine form, and took it to be a borrowing of Menapia⁴. Some years later E. C. Quiggin suggested that Armenia might be a corruption of Armon, i.e. Arvon, the mainland district facing Anglesey⁵; but this suggestion, too, can be rejected without hesitation.

1 This is elsewhere found borrowed into Irish as Armuirc (nom. *A Armorc
Cf. dat. Armairc Letha, Trip, Life 16, gen. Armuirc [read -ce ?] Letha, ibid.

2. Stokes, RC xxi, 136, rightly suggests that Armenia here 'is probably a scribal error for A rmorica '.

3 Compare Sid ar (< al Femen becoming later Sid Fer Femin. So do righ Fermenia means 'by the king of Armenia', AU 1299; and cf. tir fFear Menia, a country of vague geographical location, ITS vii, 36.10.

4. RC XXViii, M. D'Arbois assumes that the P of Menapia would drop out in Irish, because the Irish were unable to pronounce that consonant ! Orpen quotes this suggestion of d'Arbois's with approval ; but he wisely qualifies his approval by adding in a footnote: 'On the point of textual criticism, however, a better case might, I think, be made out for supposing that the country originally named was Armorica, and that this became changed in the one case into Tir fer Morca and in the other into Tir Armenia

(Proc. R.I.A. xxxii C, 50).

5. RC xxxviii, 16 f. Quiggin refers to the Lleyn peninsula (in Caernarvonshire), which probably got its name from the Lagin; but it is much

114 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

Keating identifies the crioch Fhear Morc of the Labraid legend with Corca Dhuibhne in Co. Kerry (cf. FF i, 84; ii, 162). The list of aithechthuatha found in BB and Lec. includes Tuath F[h]er Morc¹, otherwise called Tuath Morc,² and locates them in Ui Chonaill, i.e..the western part of the present County Limerick. The source of this entry I take to be the reference to the Fir Morca in ' Orgain Denda Rig', where, as we have seen, they are located 'about Luachair Dedad'³.

In later Irish tales, following the example set in 'Acallam na Senorach' and 'Togail Bruidne Da Choca', it became customary for the - storyteller, when he had occasion to mention a place, to set down the former name of the place (often a name of his own invention) in addition to its ordinary name⁴. Some such storyteller, who was acquainted with the reference to Tuath Fher Morc in the list of aithechthuatha, got the idea that crioch(a) Fer Morc would serve a useful purpose as the 'old' name of Ui Chonaill (otherwise called Ui Chonaill Gabra), and his example was followed by later writers. Thus in the Franciscan Ms. text of 'Acallam na Senorach' we read: a crichaib O [sic) Morc, risi n-abar Ua (sic] Conaill Gabra isin tan-sa (ed. Stokes, p. 281). Similarly in ' Bruidhean Chaorthainn' (ed. Pearse), p. 8, we read : fa thriucha cead bhFear Morc ris a raidhtear crioch [sic] Chonaill Ghabhra an tan so ; and in a text of ' An Giolla Deacair' we find : do chriochaibh bhFear Morc re a raidhtear Ui Chonaill Ghabhra an tan so⁵. Lughaidh 0 Cleirigh

safer to see in Lleyn < Lagin a relic of the Irish occupation of this part of Wales in the fourth or fifth century A.D.

1. Gen. Tracts pp. 107, 119, 120.

2. ib. 116, 117.

3 Sliab Luachra included in its area the west of Ui Chonaill. it is significant that in the shorter and more authentic list of aithechthuatha the Tuath (Fher) More are not mentioned (RC xx, 336 ff.).

4 Thus, instead of the simple Caissel na Rig one may find Lis na Laechraide risa railer Caissel na Rig issin tan-so (Ac. Sen. 5387) ; and the simple Leamhain may be expanded to Garbhabha na bhFiann ris a raitear Leamhain an tan so (cf. Oss. Soc. iii, 76).

5 ed. Hogan and Lloyd, p. 18. Similarly ib. p. 2, with Fear Morc corrupted to bhFear Muighe. (On the same page we find Caoille an Druadh

LABRAID LOINGSECH 115

was acquainted with this identification of the land of the Fir Mhorc with Ui Chonaill Gabra, and with characteristic pedantry he cannot refrain from airing his antiquarian knowledge. Accordingly we find him writing that the Fitzgeralds of Co. Limerick lived 'in the territories of Fir Mhorc to the south of the Shannon'¹. So we find R. O'Flaherty writing, in connexion with the reign of Labraid Loingsech (or 'Lauradius Navalis', as he calls him) : 'Moriatha filia Scoriathi de Fearmorc hodie Hyconallia Gaura in Momonia Occidentali fuit Lauradii regina' (Ogygia 262). Compare the statement in O'Brien's Dict., p. 125 b, that Ibh-Conail [sic] Gabhra 'was more anciently called Tir-bfhearmorc, or otherwise Tir-armorc' .

The evolution of Armorica into Fir Morca, and of this into the name of a people who were supposed to have once inhabited the western part of Co. Limerick, affords an interesting example of what corruption joined to guesswork may lead to. It also warns us that the BB-Lec. list of aithechthuatha is an uncritical compilation, which must be used with caution².

Dinn Rig, which is on the Barrow near Leighlinbridge,³ was in the territory of the Ui Drona, who were a branch of the Ui Chenselaig or Southern Lagin⁴. In the account of the invasion of the Fir Bolg and their fellows in Lebor Gabala, Slaine (or Slainge), the leader of the Galioin (p. 99), represents the Southern Lagin; and he is said to have died at Duma Slaine (or Duma Slainge)⁵, which is

ris a raitear crioch Fhear Muighe corrupted to Coill na ndruadh ris a raidhfear crioch Fear-nmhuighe.) In ' Giolla an Fhiugha' we read : fa thorc os loch [read Thorc os Loch], agus fa chrioch bhFearmorc agus fa dha shliabh deag Fheidhlime (ITS i, 10).

1. ro aitreabhsad hi ccriochaibh Fer Morc fri Sionaind indes, Beatha Aodha Ruaidh 178.

2. Concerning this list Mac Neill writes: 'It bears evidence, linguistic and topographical, of having been composed at a very early date, in the eighth century at latest' (Gen. Tracts p. A f.). But he, wisely perhaps, does not enlighten us as to what this 'evidence' is.

3 See p. 13.

4 Cf. LL 337 b.

5. LL 8 a 21 ; Todd Lect. iii, 150.

116 EARLY IRISH HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY

identified with Dinn Rig¹. It is permissible to infer that that part, at least, of the Labraid legend which concerns the capture of Dinn Rig belongs more particularly to the Southern Lagin.

The legend of Labraid leading a force to Ireland from Gaul (or Armorica) is ultimately, as we have said, the story, handed down among themselves, of how the Lagin first arrived in Ireland. As this was the earliest and most important event in their history, it is not surprising to find some of their learned men attempting to assign a date to it. Orthanach ua Caellama, as quoted in ' Orgain Denda Rig', dates the killing of Loegaire by Cobthach 300 B.C.² With this may be compared a poem in L. G. according to which 450 years elapsed from Cimbaeth (the first king of Emain Macha) to the birth of Christ³, and the slaying of Cobthach by Labraid occurred 150 years after Cimbaeth⁴, -in other words, the latter event took place in 300 B.C. In a prose passage in L. G. the death of Cobthach in Dinn Rig is dated 307 B.C.⁵ These dates are, of course, mere guesswork, but it must be conceded that they are very fair guesses, for the Laginian invasion seems actually to have occurred in the third century B.C.

Finally we may. suggest the possibility that the legend of Labraid may have had some influence in bringing about an event of cardinal importance in Irish history. The story of Labraid's expulsion from his Laginian kingdom, of his

1. BB 29 b 46; Lee. fo. 277 b 1. 15; O'Clery's L. G. 134; FF i, 196.

2. tri chet .b., R 131 b 12 ; LL and YBL agree. But in R 88 b 4 the reading is coic bliadna, where coic is doubtless a scribal misreading of xcc. According to the poem 'Ro hort in rigrad mon rig', Cobthach Coel was slain in 500 B.C. : coic cet bliadnae bithglaine, LL 192 a 43, = Met. D. ii, 50. Here, too, the number (coic cet) maybe due to a misreading of an earlier .ccc.

3. LL 21 b 11.

4 ib. 1. 28.

5.uii. mbl- 7 ccc. bl-, LL 22 b 1. An anonymous poem in LL dates the war ' between Labraid and Cobthach 207 B.C. (na uii. bl- [sic] ar dib cetaib, 35 b 37). If we might suppose a misreading of trib as dib, this could be emended to 307 B.C.

TOGAIL BRUIDNE DA DERGA 117,

seeking foreign aid, and of his triumphant return, so that he made himself king of Ireland with the help of his Gail], -all this was thoroughly familiar to the Lagin of the twelfth century, and not least to the notorious Diarmait Mac Murchada, who became king of the province in 1134. When, in 1166, Diarmait, hard pressed by his Irish enemies, fled across the sea to England, and thence to France, to seek the help of Henry II, it must have occurred to him that he was but following in the footsteps of his renowned ancestor, Labraid Loingsech; and no doubt he had high hopes that, like Labraid, he would, with the help of his army of Gaill, not merely recover his kingdom but would become king of the entire country. Fate, however, ordained otherwise; Diarmait's success was both meagre and inglorious, and his own descendants, like the rest of their countrymen, had reason to rue the day when Diarmait na nGall brought the Anglo-Normans to Ireland.

[The Tribes of Leinster]

[The Lagin]

p. 16

   (2) A group of tribes whom we may call the Laginian invaders, and who included Lagin, the Domnainn and the Galioin.³ The two latter tribes were admittedly pre-Goidelic, and, partly for this reason, their names fell into disuse; but under the name Lagin those of the invaders that had held on to their conquests in Mid and South Leinster were provided with a fictitious Goidelic pedigree. According to their own invasion legend they were in origin Gauls, who invaded Ireland from Armorica. their conquest of Ireland was but a partial one, confined for practical purposes to considerable parts of Leinster and Connacht.

3. See Chap. VI.

p. 17

   Of the presence of the Builg or Erainn in Ptolemy's Ireland there is umistakable evidence in such names as Uluti, Darini, Iverni. On the other hand there is not a trace of any Goidelic tribal name. the question remains: is there any evidence that the Laginian invaders had arrived in Ireland at the time when Ptolemy's account was originally compiled? there is certainly no evidence for them in Connacht, where, for instance, the Dumnoni (who have left their name in Irrus Domnann, Dun Domnann, Mag Domnann, Tulcha Domnann) are not menntioned. It remains to see whether any Laginian tribes can be traced in the sotuh-east of Ireland, where the Laginian invasion most permanently left its mark.

   Like other pedigrees, the pedigree of the Lagin begins to be trustworthy only when it reaches the fifth century, and in its early part it is entirely fictitious.² The "Milesian' descent of the Lagin is only one of many such fabrications. The affiliating of the Osraige to the Lagin is no less artificial.

2. Even in the fifth century the pedigree of the Lagin is partly ungenuine. According to the genealogists, the Northern and Southern Lagin have a common ancestor in Bresal Belach, who had two sons, viz., Enna Nia, ancestor of the Ui dunlainge, etc., and Labraid, ancestor of the Ui Chenselaig (cf., R 124b; LL 315 c, 316 b. This Bresal Belach is to be identified with the Bresal, rex Laighen, whose death is recorded in 435 (AU). but there is every reason to treat with scepticusn the view that the two main sections of the Lagin branched off from each other as late as the fifth century A.D.

[The Osraighe]

   The genealogists trace the pedigree of the Osraige back to Loegaire Bern Buadach, from whom it is carried back through nine or ten generations to Connla, at whose father, Bresal Brecc, it joins the Laginian line. This Bresal Brecc is no fewer than thirteen generations earlier than Cathaer Mar; and it is obvious that at heart the genealogists had little belief in their own theory that the Osraige and the Lagin were sprung from the same stock when they thought it necessary to push back to so remote a period the alleged common ancestor of both peoples. They go out of their way to assert that the Osraige had the same right to the name Lagin as had the Lagin themselves;¹ but their very insistence on this point reveals their consciousness that they were propagating a novel doctrine. For about a century and a half the Osraige were in subjection to Ernean allies of the king of Cashel; but in the first half of the seventh century they recovered their independence. Long afterwards their territory was still reckoned as part of the province of Munster, and Gabran (Gowran) in Co. Kilkenny, not far from the Barrow, was regarded as a meeting-place of the two provinces.² It was possibly not until the eleventh century (after Donnchad, king of Osraige, had succeeded in making himself king of Lagin, in 1033) that Osraige was finally regarded as forming part of the province of the Lagin. Early texts always differentiate between the two peoples, as when we read of a battle between the Osraige and the Lagin' fought in 693.³ Their own traditions show them to be Erainn. Thus their mythical ancestor Loegaire Bern, Buadach is the same personage as the Loegaire Buadach of Ulidian tradtion¹ (the Ulaid were Erainn, and Iar, great-grandfather of Loegaire Bern Buadach, bears a typically Ernean name.

1. Ni dilsiu do Laignib in f-ainm as Laigin oldas do Ossairgiu, It 128 b 29. Similarly LL 339 a 7.

2. See entries in AU s. aa. 857, 869, 905. So Urmuma is said to have extended eastwards to Gabran, Eriu ii, 50.

3. AU 692, RC xvii, 213 (and cf. ib. 260.13), Three Frags. 94. See also Trip. Life, 194 ; and cf. eter Laignib 7 Osraigi, Fel. Oeng. p. 152. 30. The distinction between them is recognized much later by O Huidhrin (Top. Poems 92).

1. Hence we understand why Loegaire Buadach, of the Ulaid, is said to have been for some time in exile among the Osraige (Eriu xi. 47).

[Cathaer Mor]

   Cathaer Mar, the ancestor-deity of the Lagin² under one of his several names, naturally gets a prominent place in the Laginian pedigree. At Cathaer the Ui Fhailge (Aui Fhoilgi) and the Ui Bairrche are made to join the main stem. the affiliation of the Ui Bairrche to the Lagin is a fabrication, as we shall see; but the kinship of the Ui Failge³ to the Lagin is beyond reasonable doubt. On the other hand, the descent of the Ui Fhailge from Rus Failgech, son of Catharer Mar, is a genealogical fiction. Actually they take their name from Failbe Berraide, who lived in the early sixth century.⁴ In 510 he won a battle at Fremainn Mide (AU). In the tract on the Borama this battle is credited to Falge Rot mac Cathair (LL 300 a 5, = RC xiii, 54.5); and the same Failge rot, 'son of Cathaer', occupies second place in the list of kings of the Ui Fahailge, LL. 40 c 3. In AI, 10 b 4, he is called Rus Failge.

2. He is senathair lagen uile, 'ancestor of all the Lagin', LL. 313 b 4.

3. In Met. D. iv, 260 they are called in dara cluag Laigen, 'one of the two hosts of the Lagin.'. The sept of Ui Thairsig, whom Mael Mura notes as of non-Goidelic origin, are called Ui Thairsig Ua Failge (Ir. Nennius, 268 and n.). and in a poem quoted by Mac Firbis (Gen. Tracts 81) are reckoned among the Galioin.

   Four generations earlier than Cathaer Mar appears the name of Cu Chorb, whose four sons are credited with being the ancestors of 'the four chief stocks of the Lagin' (cethri primshluinte Lagen).⁵ From one of his sons, Nia Corb, come the Dal Niad corb, who repreent the main stem. From a second son come the Dal Mesi(n) Corb; but the Laginian descent of these is a fiction, as we shall see later. A third son, Cormac, is ancestor of the Dal Cormaic, who appear to have dwelt in the south of Co. Kildare and in the neighbourhood of Carlow town;¹ it is likely enough that the Laginian descent of these, too, is fictitious, but we have no positive evidence one way or the other.

5. See for these R 118 b 33 ff, and LL 312 a.

1. See the ranna Ua Cormaic la Laigniu R 119 b 49 ff, LL 312 c 15 ff, 383 b 44 ff; and cf. the Lecan version quoted in Jrnl. R. Soc. Antiq. ir. 1872-3, 353.

[The Dal Cairbre Arad]

   From Cu Chorb's fourth son, Cairbre (Coirpre) Cluichechair, came, according to the Laginian genealogists, the Dal Cairbre Arad, otherwise known as Dal Cairbre Loingsig Bic, who dwelt in Ara (Araid),² a district in Co. Tipperary, lying to the south of Lough Derg and Nenagh, and extending into Co. Limerick. Cairbre's mother is said to have been Ethne, daughter of Oengus (otherwise Cairbre) Musc, ancestor of the Muscraige, a branch of the Erainn. Cairbre was a poet, and, having migrated to Munster, he was given land by his grandfather in reward for his poetry.³ This suggests that Cairbre Cluichechair is modelled on his grandfather, the mythical Cairbre Musc, who elsewhere is said to have got a very extensive territory from Fiachaid Muillethan as a reward for a poem he had composed.⁴ Indeed it is natural to regard both Cairbres as ultimately identical, so that the Dal Cairbre may well have been Erainn (like the Muscraige), as indeed other (nonLaginian) texts state them to be.⁵ A kindred legend seems to claim Laginian descent for the Araid. It tells how Laider Ara, charioteer (ara) to Cu Corb, went to Munster, where he

2. la hAradu Cliach, R I 18 b 45 (and LL 312 a 15) ; Dal Coirpri Arad Tire, R 128 a 25 (and see LL 381 b 13, 15). Among the families belonging to Dal Cairbre Arad were 6 Donnagain, king of Araid, 0 Duibhidhir, lord of An Seachtmhadh, and Mag Longachain, lord of Ui Chuanach (cf. LL 381 b 20-33, Top. Poems 130; and also Lee. fo. 123 b 2).

3 R 119 a 14-18; LL 312 a 28-32.

4. For his poem Cairbre Musc obtained Cliu, Ir. Texts i, 20, 11. 13-16 ; otherwise the land from Bealach Mor Osraighe to Cnoc Aine, FF ii, 100 ; otherwise Aine Cliach 7 crich Aradh 6 Chlaire Dergdherc 7 Cliu Mhail cona hurrannaibh fo thuaidh go Loch -nDergdheirc, LL 381 a-b (and cf. BB 121 b 10-12).

5. Cf. Lugaid Corp a quo Dal Corpri Cliach, ut alii dicunt, LL 14 a 34-35 (and cf. BB 41 b 30-31). So Cairbre Mor and Cairbre Bee (= C. Loingsech) from Cliu descend from Lugaid mac Meic Con, Misc. Celt. Soc. 40.

married Ethne, daughter of Cairbre Musc who gave him land.¹ But elsewhere Laider Ara is son of Fer Tlachtga,² who is made son of Fergus mac Roich³ or else of Celtchar mac Uithechair.⁴

    It is thus obvious that no reliance can be placed on the claim that the Dal Cairbre Arad were of Laginian descent. Probably, like their neighbours the Uaithni (p. 10), they had at one time dwelt west of the Shannon ; and like them they may have acquired a Laginian admixture as a result of the Laginian conquest of Connacht. It was doubtless the much later Goidelic conquest of Connacht that drove these tribes south-eastwards across the Shannon.

[The Eli]

   On the other hand there probably were Laginian tribes who for one reason or another were provided with non-Laginian pedigrees by the genealogists. The Eli are a likely instance. in historical times the name Eli is restricted to the people who occupied the district lying between Birr and Thurles, which was regarded as forming part of Munster; and the genealogists invented a Munster pedigree for them, making them descend from Tadg mac Cein, grandson of Ailill Aulomm. But the place-names Bri Ele, Moin Ele and Mag Ele⁵ suggest that at one time they must have occupied territory further north, out of which they were driven when the Midland Goidels took possession of the territories of Delbna Bethra and Fir Chell (in the west of King's Co.) and added them to the kingdom of Mide. This was doubtless effected soon after the battle of Druim Derge (or Druim Dergaige), in which Failge Berraide was defeated and as a result of which 'the plain of Mide' (Mae Midi) was permanently lost to the Imaging As Bri Ele is situated in the north of Ui Fhailge, it is quite likely that the Ui Fhailge (whose name is of comparatively late formation) are in origin a division of the Eli.

1. R 119 a; LL 312 a. In R, 119 a 11, Laider Ara is artificially connected with the Dal nAraidi: Laider Ara do Ultaib a quo Dal nAraidi. Compare p. 31, n. 7.

2. R 128 a 37.

3. R 161 b 26 ; LL 331 c 54 ; ZCP viii, 334. 17. The genealogists utilized Fergus mac Roich as a convenient deus ex machina to provide a 'Goidelic' descent for several of the less important pre-Goidelic tribes.

4. R 157, 48; LT, 331 c 3 ; ZCP xiv, 163.

5. Bri Ele is Croghan Hill in the north of King's Go. Moin Ele is the name of that part of the Bog of Allen which is in King's Co, (Ord. Survey Letters, King's Co., i, 107). Mag [leg. Mae-] Eli la Lagnib is mentioned in Lebor Gabala, LL 15 b 15; O'Donovan identifies it with Moyelly (now Moyally) in the north of King's Co., a few miles from Moate, Co. Westmeath.

[The Gailing or Gailenga]

    Another tribe of probable Laginian descent was the Gailing (or Gailenga), whom we find settled, as vassals and fighting-men of the Goidels, in the north of Co. Meath and the north of Co. Dublin.² The genealogists make them descend, like the Eli, from Tadg mac Cein ; but in origin they are very probably a section of the Lagin who submitted to the Goidels of Tara. Their name is probably a variant of that of the Galioin,³ who were a branch of the Lagin. In ' Tain Bo Cualnge ' we read of three thousand Gailioin serving under Ailill and Medb in their -expedition against the Ulaid; Medb bears testimony to their soldierly qualities, but distrusts their loyalty."⁴ Now another version of this must have once existed according to which these soldiers serving in Medb's army [i.e. the army of the men

1. Deinde Campus Midi a Lagenis sublatus est. Cf. AU s. au. 515, 516; RC xvii, 127; LL 24 b 13; Al 10 b 8. A poem by Orthanach says that as a result of the battle of Druim Deirg the Lagin were deprived of the land from Bri Ele to Uisnech (ZCP xi, 110, § 26).

2. Also in North Connacht, where, like the neighbouring Luigni, they were a relic of the Goidelic conquest of that province.

3. Other spellings of the name include Galeoin, Galiuin, gen. Galean (R 118 b 14). A few verse-examples show that the vowel of the first syllable was long (see Met. D. ii, 46 ; iii, 368 ; Skene's Celtic Scotland iii, 444). But in the mss, the a is very rarely so marked ; and it is very probable that both Ga- and Gdwere in use, Compare Gailianach, riming with ainfhiachaibh, D. 6 Bruadair, iii, 42. Worth noting is the fact that the name is not infrequently treated as singular , e.g. nom, Galion, LL 7 a z; gen, Galeoin and Galioin, LU 4079, Galeoin, LL 119 a 18. In 'Cath Ruis na Rig' (LL) the form used for all cases is Galian or Galian,' singular. The name is probably Ivernic in origin; and the io, becoming later ia, suggests that it was originally trisyllabic. (In extant verse it is always disyllabic, except in buaid ngelfini Galioin, LU p. 216, which counts as seven syllables.) A full discussion of the name would have to take into account several other sept or district names, including the probably originally synonymous Gailing, and also Gailinne, 'Gallen', near Ferbane, King's Co., Gailine, near Abbeyleix, Queen's Go_ Gailine or Gailinne, a sept in Co. Antrim, said to have been of Laginian origin, and Gaille (probably for Gailne), the name of two districts, one in North Kerry, the other in Co. Beacommon.

4. TBC S.-O K. 163-194 ; and cf. ed. Windisch 414-430.

of Tara] were known as Gailing, for we find an old authority insisting that it was the Galioin, and not the Gailing, who took part in the Tain, on the very inadequate ground that the Gailing could not have been in existence at that time, inasmuch as they were (according to the genealogical fiction) descended from Cormac Gaileng, great-grandson of Ailill Aulomm.¹ For the purpose of the discussion that follows we are interested only in the tribes that inhabited' the province of the Lagin', i.e. that part of Leinster which lies south of the mouth of the Liffey. In this area we have three Laginian tribes, namely, the Northern Lagin in Co. Kildare and in the south of Co. Dublin, the Ui Fhailge dwelling to the west of these and occupying parts of Queen's Co., King's Co,, and Kildare² and the Southern Lagin in Wexford and Carlow. Of the other tribes of this region some were fictitiously affiliated to the Lagin by the genealogists, e.g. the Osraige and the Ui Bairrche ; while two tribes were admittedly non-Laginian, namely, the Loiges, in part of Queen's Co. and the Fothairt, of whom there were several scattered branches.

This may be a convenient place to remark that the Northern Lagin were known as Lagin Tuath Gabair, the Southern as Lagin Des Gabair.³ As collective names for them we find (in

1. O'Mulconry § 779 ; also in the Rennes dindshenchas of 'Laigin', RC xv, 299 f. Here we have an attempt to dismiss what is obviously an early tradition on the ground that it conflicts with the doctrines of the genealogists. In much the same way we find the genealogists affirming that the Dal nAraidi, and not the Dal Fiatach, were' the genuine Ulaid', and that the Osraige were a branch of the Lagin.

2. Some years ago the names of King's County and Queen's County were unadvisedly altered to Ui Fhailghe (Offaly) and Laoighis (Leix), respectively. The change was unjustified historically (Ui Fhailghe and Laoighis never were county-names), and its effect is to give the younger generation a very misleading idea of the extent and situation of these ancient territorial divisions. In a work, like the present, dealing with history, it is necessary, in order to avoid confusing the reader, to retain the old and unambiguous names of these counties.

3. Inasmuch as the kings of the Lagin during a period of five centuries belonged almost exclusively to the northern branch (cf. Ailill in. Dunlaing dia chlaind atat ind rig Lagen, R 124 b 32), the genealogists occasionally employ the name Lagin in the sense of' the Northern Lagin', in contradistinction to the Ui Chenselaig (cf. R 117 f 30, 140 b 13).

addition to the simple Lagin) Lagin Tuath Gabair 7 Des Gabair¹ and diabol-Lagin, 'double Lagin'.² For practical purposes the Lagin Des Gabair were identical with the Ui Chenselaig, and we find the same kings styled at one time 'king of Lagin Des Gabair', at another time 'king of Ui Chenselaig'.³ The Ui Bairrche, as outposts of the Northern Lagin, were to harass cricha Deasgabhair, i.e. the territory of their enemies the Southern Lagin (Lr. na gCeart 194). In some late texts, composed after the belief had grown that the Osraige were akin to the Lagin, one finds Lagin Des Gabair confusedly used in the sense of Osraige.⁴ Contrast an entry in FM, s.a. 876, where a defeat of the Lagin Des Gabair by the Osraige is recorded.

   South of the Eblani (p. 7) Ptolemy places the Cauci, whose territory probably included South Dublin and North Wicklow. South of these again he places the Manapii, who were probably located in Co. Wicklow.⁵ Next, about North Wexford, come

1. ZCP xi, 171. His attempt to explain why *Cuaich should have degenerated into Ui C[h]uaich is a very lame one.

2 They appear to be known only from a reference to them in the genealogies of the Irish saints: Cuach ingen Caelbad m. Colaim mc. Blait de Huibh Cuaigh Hua Mairce [sic] Muighe hAilbi, BB 219 g 2-6, = Cuach ingen Chaelbaid de Uib Cuaich Hua mBairrche Muigi hAilbe, Lec. fo. 42 b 4. 10.

3. In the corresponding passages in LL, 331 a, and Laud 610 (ZCP viii, 331) the Cuachraige are not mentioned.

4. Celt. *Kavakos ? Possibly cognate with Gaul. Kavapos, Ir. Cuar, W. cawy (cf. ZCP xiii, 105).

5. Orpen, who at first located the Manapii about the present town of Wexford, later came roudn to the much more reasonable view that they were further north, 'at Arklow' (Proc. R.I.A., xxxvii C, 52). Possibly their territory extended inland to the Barrow, and may have included Dind Rig, near Leighlinbridge. See the remarks on Dunon, p. 13.

[The Cauci]

the Coriondi; and then the Brigantes, occupying South Wexford.

   The Cauci have by a number of writers, myself included, been rashly equated with the Chauci (or Cauci), a Germanic seafaring people seated between the Ems and the Elbe. Pokorny, who strongly favours this identification, would take the 'Ui Cuaich' of Hogan's Onomasticon to be a remnant of this Germanic tribe;¹ these were an obscure subdivision of the Ui Bairrche.² M. 6 Briain (ZCP xv, 229) suggests a similar origin for the Cuachraige, a no less obscure sept, who in R, 130 b 8,³ are included among the descendants of Conganchnes mac Dedad, and whose location is quite unknown. The only conclusion that can legitimately be drawn from the occurrence of these somewhat shadowy names (Ui Chuaich; Cuachraige) is that there probably existed an Irish mythical and personal name Cuach;⁴ to assume that such a name could have had anything to do with the Germanic Chauci is purely arbitrary. Of Ptolemy's Cauci we can only say that, if a tribe of that name ever existed, Irish tradition knows nothing of them.

   On the other band we have abundant references to Cualu, gen. Cualann, the name of a territory extending from the mouth of the Liffey to Arklow.⁵ That this was originally a tribal name in the plural is clear from Muirchu's in regiones

1. ZCP xi, 171. His attempt to explain why *Cuaich should have degenerated into Ui C[h}uaich is a very lame one.

2. They appear to be known only from a reference to them in the genealogies of the Irish saints: Cuach ingen Caelbad m. Colaim mc. Blait de Huibh Cuaigh Hua Mairce [sic] Muighe hAilbi, BB 219 g 2-6, = Cuach ingen Chaelbaid de Uib Cuaich Hua mBairrche Muigi hAilbe, Lee. fo. 42 b 4. 10.

3. In the corresponding passages in LL, 331 a, and Laud 610 (ZCP viii, 331) the Cuachraige are not mentioned.

4. Celt. *Kavakos ? Possibly cognate with Gaul. Kavapos, Ir. Cuar, W. cawr (cf. ZCP xiii, 105).

5. Cualu included Ath Cliath (Dublin), Met. D. ii, 54; but this was its northern limit, and Etar (Howth) was tuath Cualainn (sic leg.), 'to the north of Cualu,' ib. iii,. 104. In Uilland dingna fil ina [sic] uachtur Fer Cualand i Tuaiscirt Breag, cocrich do Feraib Cualand ocus do Luignib, Eriu xi, 50, the expression Fer (Feraib) Cualand is obviously corrupt, and is no less obviously to be emended to Fer (Feraib) Cul. Cf. Fir Cul do Luignib Temra, Eriu xii, 190. H. Morris's discussion of ' ancient Cualu ', Jrnl. R. Soc. Antiq. Ir. 1937, 2 80 ff., has no value.

Coolennorum, L. Ardm. 2 b 2; so that the earlier form of the name was *Cualainn (< *Kouleni), gen. Cualann. Although the name was in very common use, it seldom occurs except in the genitive, the district in question being known as tir Cualann, crich Cualann, and fine Cualann.¹ The tribal character of the name was forgotten in the course of time ; and then Cualann was taken to be gen. sing. instead of gen. plur., and a new nom. sing. Cualu (Met. D. i, 38) and dat. sing. Cualainn (ib. ii, 54;, Eriu iv, 163; R 120 b 39) were evolved. In much the same way the plural names Bretain, 'Britons', Saxain, 'Saxons', and Frainc, 'Franks' ' came to be used as names of countries in the singular (' Wales ', 'England ', ' France '). Similarly the Pictish tribal name Verturiones, later *Vorturiones, after being gaelicized as *Fortrinn, gen. Fortrenn, came to be used as a district-name in the singular, with dative Fortrinn.²

   Inasmuch as the name Cualu (crich Cualann, etc.) appears to be applied with special frequency to the south of Co. Dublin and the neighbouring part of Co. Wicklow, it may be that this district was the original territory of the tribe.³ In any event I see in their name the most likely solution of Ptolemy's Kavkoi ; the original reading may have been *kav?evoi, which

1. Cf. fir Cualann usque Glenn Duorum Stagnorum, AU 818: etir Liphi 7 finiu Cualann, R 124 b 47-48; di chlandaib Cualann, Thes. Pal. ii, 295. 11. We have the gen. also in such names as Fir Chualann, Slige Chualann, Bothar Cualann. The death of a king of Cualu (rex Cualann) is recorded in AU s. aa. 477, 777, 831.

2. So Condere, ' Connor ', Co. Antrim, was originaly plural (aeclessias quas Coindiri habent, L. Ardm. 15 a 2 6 Chonderib maraib, Fel. Oeng. Sep. 3), and hence was probably a tribal name but later it is treated as singular. Similarly the Irish name of Rathcroghan, Co. Roscommon, may in origin have been a tribal name in the plural, *Cruachain, as the old dative Cruichnaib suggests. The acc. pl. Cruachna, AU 813, LU 8584, suggests an -n stem (*Kroukones, ace. -onds). From the gen. Cruachan (as in Raith Chruachan) a new nom. sing. Cruachu (e.g. LU 2830) was formed. The gen. Cruachna, occasionally found (e.g. AU 773, LU 2872, -86, -88 ; rig Cruachna caeme, ZCP ix, 462, 1), may be a new formation from nom. *Cruachain treated as singular.

3. If we suppose a later conquest of the south of Co. Dublin by a hostile tribe, the remnant of the original inhabitants would doubtless find refuge in the inhospitable Co. Wicklow. So the Ui Fhaelain and Ui Muiredaig of Co. Kildare took refuge in the Wicklow hills when dispossessed by the Anglo-Norman invaders.

{Dal Mes (or Mis) Corb]
[Ui Garrchon]

in the course of time, possibly before it reached Ptolemy, was misread as Kavkoi under the influence of the much better known Germanic name.

   In Co. Wicklow, in the territory of the Cualainn and the Manapii, we find remnants of the earlier Erainn persisting into historical times, despite the Laginian conquests to the north, south, and west of them. In the genealogical account of the Corcu. Loigde the Dal Mes (or Mis) Corb of Co. Wicklow are represented as Erainn descended from Lugaid Corb, son of Daire.¹ As Erainn they were regarded as of Munster extraction, and so we find them elsewhere placed hesitatingly among the descendants of Eber.² These views are directly opposed to the theory of the Laginian genealogists, who treat the Dal Mesin (or Mesi) Corb as one of ' the four principal stocks of the Lagin' (see p. 19), and attach them to the main Laginian stem by representing Mesi(n) Corb as one of the four sons of Cu Chorb.³ We need not doubt that their Laginian descent is nothing more than a politic fiction, the more so as we find that Dal Mesi(n) Corb was for practical purposes synonymous with Forluatha Lagen, i.e. the alien peoples living among the Lagin, for, although the genealogists sought to mitigate the force of the word,⁴ fortuatha means in effect people belonging to a different stock from that of the rulers of the territory.

1. Lugaid Corp a quo Dal Mis Corp Laigen, R 155 a 11 ; Lughaid Corp dia [id] Dal mes Corp Laighen, Misc. Celt. Soc. 30. Conid uad [i.e. 6 Lugaid Corbb] sluinter in chland I Dal -1fess [Mos LL] Corbb i crich Cualand, -Ket. 1). iv, 138 (= Misc. Celt. Soc. 70).

2. Dal Mess Corb, ut alii putant, It 147 b 26 ; Deil -11os Corb, ut quidem Putant, LL 319 b 49.

3. In R 119 a 8-10 we are told that Ethne, daughter of Musc [otherwise Oengus Musc], bore two sons to Cu Chorb, viz. Mesin Corb and Coirbre Dichmairc [= Cairbre Cluichechair]. Cf. also LL 138 b 26-27. This seems to be an indirect way of acknowledging the Ernean descent of the DU Mesin Corb and the Dal Cairpre Arad. Elsewhere, however, the same Eithne is represented as mother of Cu Chorb's four sons (R 118 b 45-47; LL 312 a 23-25).

4. The fortuatha of the province of the Lagin are defined as septs that do not descend from Cathaer Mar: it fortuatha coicid Cathair cach oen -na beir genelach cu Cathaer, amal atat Laigsi 7 Fothairt, LL 318 c 8-10. (Compare R 140 b 27-30, where the forslointi of the Lagin are similarly defined.) This definition indirectly admits that the Osraige and three of 'the four principal stocks of the Lagin ' are not of Laginian descent.

The principal sept among the Dal Mesi(n) Corb was the Ui Garrchon,¹ whom the eclipse of the Southern Lagin brought into prominence for a brief period towards the end of the fifth century. After the slaying of Crimthann (son of Enna Censelach), king of Lagin, in 483 (or 485), Finnchad, son of Garrchu, seized power in South Leinster; hence in the list of kings of the Ui Chenselaig he appears as, Crimthann's successor, and is assigned a reign of three years.² Finnchad was slain in the first battle of Granairet (or Graine) in 485 (or 487).³ He was succeeded by his son Fraech, who is reckoned king of Lagin⁴ as well as king of Ui Chenselaig.⁵ Fraech was slain in battle in 495 (or 497);⁶ and thereafter the kingship of Lagin remained with the northern branch, and did not revert to the Ui Chenselaig until the eleventh century.⁷ It was doubtless Fraech's rise to power, coupled with the increased importance of his family, that made the Laginian genealogists anxious to confer a Laginian pedigree on them, while admitting, however,

1. Their ancestor, Garrchu, who flourished about the middle of the fifth century, is represented as great-grandson of Mesin Corb (cf. R 120 a 11. 12-16, 49-50; 120 b 20-23).

2. LL 40 a 5, where he is called m. Dega, which is an error (or a deliberate falsification) for m. Garrchon, as in the interpolation in AU 494 (and cf. R 120 a 52, b 19, LL 313 a 16, BB 54 a 33).

3. AU 485, 486, In Al, 10 a IS, he gets the title of ri Laigen ; but Chron. Scot. (484 ) and A. 4 Clon. (p. 73) make him merely king of Ui Chenselaig.

4. LL 39 b 7, where he is assigned a reign of eleven years. So he is ri Laigen, AV 494, and a!.,. Al 10 a 30 (where the scribe has telescoped entries relating to -two distinct battles).

5. LL 40 a 6, where he gets a reign of nine years. In Tig. he is (not ri Laigen, but) ri Laigen Desgabair ( = ri Ua Censelaig) ; similarly Chron. Scot. 492, AU 496 (in an interpolated entry). In a tenth-century poem which enumerates the Christian kings of Lagin, the usurper Fraech is ignored, and Crimthann, the first king, is succeeded by Illann (son of Dunlaing), R 84 b 9-11,

6. Cf. AU 494, 496; LL 39 b 7. At AU 494 a later hand has added the genealogies of Fraech and of the victor in the battle, Eochu son of Coirbre. These interpolations have completely misled Liam Price, when he writes 'The addition of the genealogical particulars ... gives the key to the meaning it is really a record of the final loss of the kingship of Leinster by the DR Messe Corb. We may take it that they were the rulers of Leinster just at the time when our written history begins ' (MacNeill-Essays, 253).

7. Except that Brandub, king of Lagin, slain in 605, belonged to the Ui Chenselaig,

that there were non-Laginian elements among them.¹ The kings of Ui Garrchon had the title of Ri %a Fortuath (LL 337 c).

   Some of the Ui Garrchon were settled in Co. Kildare and in the adjoining part of western Wicklow. By the genealogists these are differentiated from the Ui Garrchon above discussed. They are represented as descending from Conall, son of Eochu Inmite, son of Cairbre Nia Fer;² but we need not doubt that this Laginian descent is quite as ungenuine as the other. In the Tripartite Life we are told that Patrick, after he had arrived at Naas (and before he proceeded to Mag Liphi), was welcomed by Cilline, of the Ui Garrchon, but Dricriu, king of the Ui Garrchon, ' refused to invite Patrick to his feast at Raith Inbir'.³ In a grant of ca. 1173 there is mention of a church called Cell Ugarcon⁴ [i.e. *Cell Ua nGarrchon], situated somewhere in the north-west of Co. Wicklow.⁵ Another reference to the inland branch of the Ui Garrchon occurs in the statement that Cell Ard was' in Ui Garchon in the west of Lagin'.⁶

1. Among the forsluinte (stranger septs) of the Ui Garrchon were a sept who were reputed to be of the Uaithni Tire (Owney, Co, Tipperary), and another who were said to be of the Fir Maige Fene (in the north-east of Co. Cork), R 120 b 11-13. Compare the list of forsluinte of the Ui Theig (a Laginian sept in North Wicklow), which begins: Dal mBirnn di Osairgiu i. Hua Laig, etc. (R 125 a 29).

2. R 118 b 19. Cf. Conall mac Echach Inmite senathair Ua nGarrchon, ib. 1. 24. That these were located (in part, at least) in the north of Co. Kildare is to be infer-red from the place-names ochtur Fine, ib, 1. 25, and Druim Aurchaille, 1. 26.

3. Trip. Life (Stokes) 186. Raith Inbir has not been identified with certainty ; but the word inber suggests that it was on the coast (i.e. of Co. Wicklow), and so it would appear that the writer had in mind the royal seat of the East Wicklow branch of the Ui Garrchon. Cu Congalt, ri Ratho Inbir, was slain in 781 in a battle in which the men of Brega defeated the Lagin, (AU).

4. Credo Mihi, ed. Gilbert, 47.

5. We likewise find a trace of the DO Mesin Corb in this area. The Ui Loippini, who were affiliated to the Dal Mesin Corb, dwelt at Cell Rannairech, i.e. Kilranelagh, near Baltinglass (LL 313 b 7 ; the entry is absent from R 120 b 45).

6. Fel. Oeng. p. 16 . 6. The same Cell Ard was i nUib Ercain according tothe Martyrology of Tallaght, July 3. From Trip. Life, 188, we infer that the Ui Ercain were located in South Kildare.

This settlement of Ui Garrchon in Co. Kildare may well be a relic of the kingship of Fraech ua Garrchon (+ 495).

[The Ui enechglais]

   Another sept associated with both south-eastern Wicklow and Co. Kildare was the Ui Enechglais, who according to the Laginian genealogists were descended from Bresal Enechglas, son of Cathaer Mar.¹ The main body of them was seated about Arklow;² a lesser branch, known as Ui Enechglais Maige.³ was located in Co. Kildare. Like the Dal Mesin Corb, the Ui Enechglais were almost certainly of pre-Laginian origin. Among them we find a sept known as Loiges Ua nEnechglais or Loiges Lagen, whom the genealogy of the Corcu Loigde claims as a branch of the Erainn.⁴ Alternatively, as their name would suggest, we might suppose that these were an isolated section of the much better known Loiges of the Midlands, and consequently a remnant of the still earlier Cruthin.⁵

[the Manapii]

   The name of the Manapii has long been recognized as a variant of that of the Menapii, a Gaulish tribe who were

1. For their pedigree see R 117 b.

2. See the references collected by Liam Price, Proc. R.I.A. xlvi C, 283 f. According to a note in Fel. Oeng., p. 26, the river Dael (which enters the sea at Ennereilly, about four miles north-east of Arklow) was the boundary between the Ui Enechglais and the. Dal Mes Corb. Cell Rignaige in Ui Enechglais (LL 348 a 32) has been identified by Liam Price (op. cit. 264) with Templerainy, a few miles to the north of Arklow. (There was also a Cell Rignaige hi Fothartaib Mara, R 121 a 18; this was identified by the late Rev. Paul Walsh with Kilreiny, Co. Kildare, on the Westmeath border, ZCP x, 76f. Ina document of 1179 Templerainy is called Domnach Rignaigi, Crede Mihi, ed, Gilbert, 7.22. Compare Rignach Domnaig Rignaige and Rignach Cilli Rignaige, LL 369 c 7-8, = Arch. Hib. i, 359.)

3. These are mentioned in a genealogical tract (R 122 b 5 ; LL 314 a 58), where it is said that there was a settlement of the Ui Bairrche among them.

4. Laighis Hua nEnechlais i Cualaind, Misc. Celt. Soc. 8; Lughaidh Laighis, diata Laighis Hua nEnechlais, ib. 30 ; Lugaid Laechfes a quo Laechfes Laigen, R 155 a 10 (Laechfes is an ' etymological ' spelling of Loiges ; cf. R 126 b 39-41). In a thirteenth-century document in Crede Mihi, ed. Gilbert, 144, there is mention of ' Ecclesia de Leys 'in the deanery of Arklow ; and Liam Price, rightly, no doubt, sees in 'Leys ' the Irish Loiges (op. cit. 270).

5. The Loiges of the Midlands descend from Lugaid Loigsech Cennmar, son of ConaIl Cernach (R 126 b 14), otherwise from Lugaid Loigse, son of Loigsech Cendmor, son of Conall Cernach (LL 318 a 15, 17, 25; and cf; Met. D. iii, 16). Their descent from Conall Cernach implies that they were Cruthin.

seated on the Meuse and on the Lower Rhine. Mac Neill was the first to suggest that the people who in Irish documents are called Monaig or Manaig may be the representatives of Ptolemy's Manapii.¹ Monaig, which seems to be the older form in Irish,² would go back to *Monakvi and thence to *Monapi.³ We may compare Mancha, the name of the wife of Eogan Mor,⁴ Which would go back to a non-Goidelic *Monapia;⁵ and further Mochua m, h. I = moccu] Manche, Arch. Hib. i, 314, ' Mochua, member of the tribe descended from Monapios'⁶, which probably means 'Mochua of the Monaig'.

   Early in the historical period we find the Monaig or Manaig surviving in two communities, one situated in Ui Echach Ulad in the west of Co. Down,⁷ and the other in the neighbourhood of Lough Erne.⁸ According to the Tripartite Life, the Manaig

1. Phases of Irish History, 58.

2. The form Manaig may have been to some extent influenced by manaig, pl. of manach, 'a monk' (< Lat. monachus).

3, The tribal name Menapii suggests the existence of *Menapios as a byname of the Otherworld-deity of the Celts, The. root is probably men-, I think ', of which ablaut forms are mon- and mn-. For the ablaut variation seen in Afenapii : *Monapl, compare Belgae : *Bolgi Jr. Builg). For the interchange of -io and -o stems compare Brit. Dumnonii with *Dumnoni (> Ir. Domnainn), 1r. Cruthin (< * Priteni) -with its doublet Cruithni, Bolgios Jr. Bulga) with *Bolgos (Ir. Bolg), and the like.

4. ZCP viii, 309 ; RC xi, 42, xiii, 450, xlvii, 300 z ; Keating, FF ii, 272.

5. Moncha, represented as a lady of the pre-Goidelic sept of the Crecraige, is probably a euhemerized goddess, just as Eogan is a euhemerized god. We have the same name in Pliny's name for the Isle of Man , Monapia ; for goddess-names used as the names of islands see the discussion of the name Eriu in Eriu, xiv, 7 ff Ptolemy's name for the Isle of Man, movopiva, is probably a corruption of Movannia. The related Welsh name Manaw would go back to *Manava. Ir. Manu (gen. Manann) may have borrowed its declension from A Albu, etc.

6. Or Monapia, Monapa.

7. gen. plur. Manach, AU 1056, Monach 1104, 1171. In a text printed in O'Curry's MS. Materials, 472, they are called, exceptionally, Monaigh Aradh, and are affiliated to the Dal nAraidi. Compare Monaich Ulad di Araib doib, ut alii aiunt, ut dicitur maccu Araidi Monach, Lee. fo. 12 9 a 2.16 (also ib, 88 b 1. 45).

8. Later the name of these was altered to Fir Manach, which became a district-name ('Fermanagh') when it was taken over by the new ruling sept of Clann Lugain (the Maguires), descended from Colla Fo Chrith (cf. R 146 f-g).

of Ui Chremthain and of Ulaid are branches of the Ui Bairrche.¹ With this the genealogists are in agreement, for they tell us that both sections of the Monaig descend, like the Ui Bairrche, from Fiacc, son of Daire Barrach, son of Cathaer Mar.² Evidently the tradition of the Monaig was that they had come from South Leinster' the home of the Ui Bairrche, with whom they claimed kinship.³

   A stage in the northward trek of the Monaig seems to be indicated by the tradition which associates them with the north of Co. Dublin. Forgall Monach, whom we may take to be a euhemerization of the ancestor-deity (*Monapos) of the Monaig, had his bruiden or Otherworld-residence near Lusk.⁴ In the parish of Lusk is a townland called Druim Monach,⁵

1. Trip. Life (Stokes) 192. The Manaig of Ui Chremthain are the Manaig of Lough Erne. The Ui Chremthain dwelt to the east of Lough Erne ; cf. iar lochaib Eirne a tirib Connacht hi tir Hua Craumt[hjain, AU 817.

2. Their eponymous ancestor, Monach or Manach, is variously represented as (1) son of Ailill Mor, son of Breccan, son of Fiacc ; cf. Is do chlainn A i1ella Moir m. Breccain Manaich Locha Eirne 7 Manaich Ulad i. Manach m. Ai1ella Moir m. Feicc m. Breccain [the last two names should be transposed] m. ' Daire Barraich m. Cathair, R 128 b 1-3. (2) son of Ailill Mor, son of Fiacc , R 162 c, Gen. Tracts 187, § 180. (3) son of Fiacc, ZCP xiv, 54,11. 8-10 (which are out of place here), ib. 74.4. In Lee, fo. 88 b 2. 3 (and 129 a 2. 23) Fiacc's name is omitted, and Monach is made son of Ailill mar, son of Daire Barrach. The Ui Bairrche descend from Breccan, son of Fiacc (R 117 a-b, 121 a 43).

3. According to R, 12 8 b 5, the Monaig were compelled to leave their original territory owing to the slaying of Enna son of the king of Lagin, by Eochaid Gunnat of the Ulaid (asi tucait rosfuc asa tir orgguin Enna m. rig Lagen la hEochaid Gunnat di Ultaib). This tradition seems to have been modelled on that of the slaying of Crimthann mac Enna by Eochaid Guinech, king of the Ui Bairrche. Another version says that their ancestor Monach, having slain Enna son of the king of Lagin, left Leinster and betook himself to his maternal uncle, Eochaid Gunnat, king of Ulaid, who gave him land (Lec. fo. 88 b 2. 21 ff.).

4. bruiden Forgaill Monach a taebh Luscai, Hibernica Minora (Meyer), 51 similarly RC xxi, 396 y (do thaebh Lusca). From 'Tochmarc Emire 'we infer that Forgall's dun was not far south of the River Delvin (the northern boundary of Co. Dublin). In the same tale (§ 48) Forgall is represented as sister's son to Tethra, king of the Formoire ; but this is merely an instance of the artificial relationships invented for divine personages

5. Lis. Lives 983.

Drumanagh'. A ford on the River Delvin is said to have got its name from a person named Scenmenn Monach (or Manach).¹

   The practical identity of their names authorizes us to believe that the Monaig were ultimately an offshoot of the Menapil, who were one of the group of tribes collectively known as Belgae. Hence we may infer that the Monaig were Builg or Fir Bolg (*Bolgi, variant of Belgae). With this inference agrees the- fact that 'the seven communities of the Monaig ', dwelling 'in the. land of the Ulaid', are classed among the Fir Bolg.² Similarly the descent of the Monaig from Mire Barrach implies that they were Erainn (= Builg). Like the Builg in general, we may assume that the Monaig reached Ireland via Britain, and not direct from the Continent. If the Menapii or Monapi are not attested in Britain, it is a likely conjecture that they had been neighbours of the Brigantes in Britain (much as they were in Ireland), and that they later became merged in them.³

[The Coriondi]

   Ptolemy's CORIONDI, as a South Leinster tribal name, has left no trace in Irish. We may compare Coriono-totae, the name of a people in Britain, known from a Latin inscription at Hexham (in the territory of the Brigantes); this suggests that Coriondi may be a corruption of *Corioni. We may further compare Corin(n)ion, the British name of Cirencester. On the. Irish side we have the mythical name Cuirenn, which might go back to *Corion(n)os or *Corin(n)os. Cuirenn was ancestor of the Cuirennrige⁴ (Cuirenn a quo Cuirenrige, R 139 b 37). and is represented as brother of Conn Cetchathach (R. 143 b 16).⁵

1. Toch. Emire §§ 53, 86.

2. Gen. Tracts 82 (poem quoted by D. Mae Fir Bhisigh).

3. Or at least overshadowed by them. The territory of the Brigantes appears to have been much more extensive than that of any other tribe in Roman Britain; but its great extent may be more apparent than real, for it is likely that the names of some of the lesser tribes in this territory have not been preserved. Compare the Setantii of Lancashire whose name is known only from the place-name ???? ???? recorded by Ptolemy.

4. An obscure sept, whose location is unknown, unless we compare lit is Cuirennrige, which appears to have been the old name of Inishtrahull, off the coast of North ' Donegal (see Hermathena xxiii, 206 ff.).

5. Compare Cuirennrige i. Conall Curann mac Fedelmithe Rechtada, H. 2. 7, 162.

We also find an allusion to Dal Cuirind,¹ - possibly synonymous with Cuirennrige. But these names, although they may well be related to the name of Ptolemy's Coriondi, throw no light on the fate which overtook the latter, who disappear from history the moment that they enter it.²

[The Brigantes]
[Ui Baircche]

   Finally we have the BRIGANTES, in South Wexford, whom it is hardly possible to disassociate from the Brigantes; of Britain. At the time of the Roman conquest the latter were located in what is now the north of England; but it is permissible to suppose that at an earlier period they had dwelt further to the south, and that they had moved northwards as a result of the displacement of population caused by later invasions of the south and south-west of Britain from the Continent. Inasmuch as the British Brigantes belonged beyond question to the Belgic (not to the Pritenic) section of the population of Britain, we are safe in assuming that that section of them which settled in Co. Wexford belonged to the Builg or Erainn.

[The Fothairt]
[The Loiges]

   The Fothairt and the Loiges were faithful vassal-allies of the Lagin; together they were known as cliathaire Lagen, 'battlers of the Lagin' (R 119 a 5).³ The Loiges were Cruthin, as their genealogy implies ; and so too were in all probability the Fothairt, as the legend of the defeat and expulsion of the Tuath Fhidga permits us to infer, though the genealogists turned Eochaid Finn, traditional ancestor of the Fothairt, into a brother of Conn Cetchatach. Branches of the Fothairt

1. Maelduin la Dill Cuirind hi Feic, Anecdota iii, 62.5. Fothad Canann was slain in a battle at Feic (Fianaigecht pp. 9 n., 10), and Gofraidh Fionn locates the same battle at the hill of Clarach, near Millstreet, Co. Cork (Ir, Monthly 1919, 167 L, = Dioghluim Dana 192 f.).

2. Pokorny's argument (ZCP ix, 172) that the Coriondi were Germanic invaders has no basis. When lie claims that their name cannot be Celtic because an -nd- suffix is unknown in Celtic, he assumes, inter alia, that the name has been handed down correctly. Also he asserts, very shortsightedly, that Ir. Cuirenn- must go back to Coriondo-, ignoring the many other possible, forms which -would have given the same result in Irish.

3. There was an old-standing friendship between the Loiges and the Fothairt and we are told that Eochaid Finn, ancestor of the Fothairt, was fosterfather of Lugaid Loigse, ancestor of the Loiges (ZCP ,xvii, 137).

were Widely scattered through Leinster;¹ but their most important settlements appear to have been Fothairt in Chairn, represented by the barony of Forth in the south-east of Co. Wexford, between Wexford Harbour and Carnsore Point, and Fothairt Fhea, represented by the barony of Forth in Co. Carlow.

   An old legend² tells how the Cruithni (Cruthin), fighting on behalf of Crimthann Sciathbel, king of the Lagin, crushed in battle a people known as the Tuath Fhidga,³ and took possession of their land. The defeated were of British origin (do Breatnaib a mbunadh, Mael Mura's poem; Math de Bretnaib, LL 15 a 25), and dwelt in Fothairt (i Fothartaib, ibid., interlined) . We may safely identify the Cruithni of this legend with the Fothairt, and the tribe of ' Britons' with the Ui Bairrche. The story in effect tells us how the Fothairt, fighting as vassal-allies of the Southern Lagin, drove out the Ui Bairrche, and themselves settled in their territory, i.e. either in Fothairt in Chaim (the barony of Forth in Co.

1. e.g. Fothairt Airbrech, near Bri Ele (Croghan Hill), in King's Co., and Fothairt Maige. Itha, in North Wexford or South Wicklow. One branch of them, Fothairt Imchlair, was located near the town of Armagh (cf. R 126 a 8 ; ZCP viii, 301, 26). 1 may add that Stokes's Fothairt Domnann, RC xv, 300.5, is an error; insert a full stop after Fothairl, and read Domnainn. Hogan's Fotharta Dommaind (Onomasticon 430) is to be corrected likewise. Stokes's mistake has misled Rhys, Studies in Early Ir. Hist. 38.

2. LL 15 a 22-30 (= Todd's Ir. Nennius p. lxxiv), Met. D. iii, 164. The earliest version appears to be that in the poem ' Cruthnig cid dos-farclarn ' (cf. Lebor Bretnach, ed. van Hamel, 11 f.), which in one of the two mss. is ascribed to Mael Mura. Compare also FF ii, 110.

3. The name does not occur in Mael Mura's poem on the Cruthin (see last note). The Fidgai were among the tribes defeated by Tuathal Techtmar (Met. D. ii, 46). The Tuath Fhidga were duly taken over into the list of aithechthuatha ; in the Edinb. xxviii version they dwell in Ui Chenselaig (RC xx, 337), in BB and Lec. in Fortuatha Lagen and Ui Chenselaig (Gen. Tracts pp. 114, 116, 120). The name is sometimes made Tuath Fidba (e,g. LL 15 a 30 ; contrast Tuaith Fidga, ib. 1. 25). We are told that the wounds they inflicted were deadly, and that only 'venomous ' weapons could hurt them (LL); in later versions they themselves possess 'venomous ' weapons (Todd's Ir. Nennius, p. lxviii f.). This idea may have favoured the substitution of Fidba for Fidga, for fidba appears to have had as one of its meanings venom ' or ' sorcery ' (see RC xiii, 464, 47 1).

Wexford) or in Fothairt Fhea (the barony of Forth in Co, Carlow).¹

   The Ui Bairrche in early times must have occupied the baronies of Forth and Bargy, in the south of Co. Wexford. Bargy, which takes its name from them, was known as Ui Bairrche Tire, and was reckoned as part of Ui Chenselaig.² Though the Ui Bairrche Tire had rulers of their own,³ they seem to have been shorn of all their power and reduced to a position bordering on insignificance. Actually in historical times we find the main body of the Ui Bairrche settled considerably to the north, chiefly in the barony of Slievemargy in the south-eastern corner of Queen's County and in the adjoining portions of Carlow and Kilkenny. There were isolated settlements of them further north still, in Co. Kildare.⁴ Another section of them appears to have settled down among the Osraige.⁵

   This dispersal of the Ui Bairrche from their earlier home in South Wexford was the result of the hostility of the Southern Lagin (the Ui Chenselaig). According to the 'Expulsion of the Desi', the Ui Bairrche were driven out by Fiachu ba Aiccid, king of the Lagin, who gave their territory to the Desi, who continued to occupy it until the reign of Crimthann (son of Enna Censelach), when Eochu Guinech, a warrior of the Ui Bairrche, expelled them.⁶ According to the Tripartite Life (ed. Stokes, 192), Cremthan (son of Censelach), king of Lagin, oppressed the Ui Bairrche, so that they migrated from

1. The latter is suggested in Mael Mura's poem, which refers to the defeated tribe as sluag Fea.

2. Cf. la H. Bairche Tiri . . . . i. i nH. Cendselaig, LL 313 c 29.

3. A king of Ui Bairrche Tire is mentioned in Three Frags., 150 (A.D. 858) and a tanist of the same in FM,.s. a. 906.

4. See. these ranna Ua MBarrchi la Laigniu enumerated in R 122 b 1-9 LL 314 a , Lee. fo. 88 b I ; and cf. O'Donovan (summarizing Mae Firbis, in Lr. na gCeart, 212 n. The places named include Cluain Conaire (Cloncurry, near Enfield), Cell Auxilli (Killashee, near Naas), in Chell (Kill, near Naas), and Cell Corpnatan (perhaps = Cell Corbain, near Naas).

5. See p. 37, n. 3.

6. Eriu iii, 136 f. ; Y Cymmrodor xiv, 106-108. This account is very artificial, for, as could be shown, the expulsion of the Desi from Tara, and their subsequent wanderings in Leinster, are quite unhistorical.

their territory, and one of them, Oengus mac Maicc Erca, slew King Cremthan in revenge for his banishment. The date of the slaying of Crimthann (or Cremthan) is 484 or 486 (AU). Elsewhere his slaying is attributed, not to Oengus, but to Oengus's son, Eochu Guinech, king of the Ui Bairrche.¹ A few years later, in 490 or 491, we find Eochu Guinech aiding the Northern Lagin in the battle of Cenn Losnada (Kellistown. Co. Carlow), in which Oengus mac Nad Froich, king of Cashel, and son-in-law of Crimthann, was defeated and slain.²

   The Ui Bairrche, whose original home was in South Wexford, may be taken to be the historical representatives of Ptolemy's Brigantes. Their traditional ancestor is Daire Barrach, who is very artificially made one of the sons of Cathaer Mir;³ but their descent from Daire can only mean that, before the genealogists got busy with their inventions, the Ui Bairrche regarded themselves as Erainn. Bairrche in Ui Bairrche might be genitive of Celt. *Barreka,, fem.,⁴ while Barrach

1. Eocho Guinech, ri H. mBarrchi, tn. a ingini fein, rosmarb, LL 39 b 5. Cf. AI 10 a 19; Chron. Scot. 484. For Eochu Guinech's pedigree see R 117 a 51, LL 331 b, 337 f.

2. RC xvii, 120 ; Chron. Scot. 487 ; Ann. Clon. 73. Flann mac Mael Maedoc (+ 979) seems to suggest that the migration of the Ui Bairrche followed the slaying of Laidcenn mac Baircheda, the fili, by Eochaid, son of Enna Censelach : ba de sain soiset fo thuaid o Inis Coirthi, 'it was as a result of that they (the Ui Bairrche ?) turned northwards from Enniscorthy', ZCP viii, 118, § 23. The name of Laidcenn's father, Bairchid, seems to imply that he was of the Ui Bairrche, though in R 116 c 5 and LL 311 a 32 he is said to have been 'of the Dal nAraidi'. For more concerning this Laidcenn, and for compositions fathered on him, see Meyer, AID i, 14 ff., ii, 2.1 f. Brii mac Bairc[h]eda, 'who was with Cathaer Mar afterwards ', was brother of Laidcenn (R 116 c 6). In the story of the expulsion of the Desi Bri mac Bairc[h]eda is a druid in the time of Crimthann mac Enna Chenselaig, king of Lagin (Y Cymmrodor xiv, 108). In the dindshenchas of Loch Garman he is a druid contemporary with Cathaer Mar (Met. D. iii, 178).

3 This was the genealogy provided for the Ui Bairrche who dwelt among the Lagin. A branch of them in Osraige, known as Ui Bairrche meic Niad Coirb, are made to descend from Bairrche, son of Nia Corb, son of Buan, son of Loegaire Bern Buadach, ancestor of the Osraige, R 128 b 52, 130 a 48, LL 339 a 28 (Bairche).

4. Or of a masc. *Barrekios, in case the Old Irish form of the sept-name was *Aui Bairrchi. Bairrche (< *Barrekion) is also found in the sense of 'the territory of the Ui Bairrche dat. Bairrchiu,, R. 127 a 30, = LL 318 b 20.

could represent *Barrekos. With this is to be compared the British deity-name *Barreks, identified with Mars in a Latin dedication M(ARTI) BARREKI found at Carlisle, in the territory of the Brigantes. These names are obviously to be connected with Ir. barr, W. bar, 'summit', and would mean 'the high god', 'the high goddess'. So the Brigantes take their name from *Briganti, 'the high goddess' (whence W. Braint, the name of a river in Anglesey), of which the Irish counterpart is Brigit (goddess and river name), < *Brigenti; in inscriptions found in the territory of the Brigantes her name is latinized Brigantia.¹

[The Benntraige]

   Another non-Laginian tribe in Co. Wexford was the Benntraige, who have given their name to the barony of Bantry, lying between the Barrow and the Slaney. A section of this tribe, or at least a tribe of the same name, was settled in southwest Cork, where they have left their name on another barony of Bantry.² One genealogical account makes the Benntraige descend from Coemgin Conganchnes, son of Ded,³ which implies that they were Erainn.. Another gives them as ancestor Benta, son of MAI, descended from Lug mac Ethnenn;⁴ alternatively this eponymous Benta is made son of Conchobar mac Nessa.⁵ It seems probable that the Benntraige were Erainn rather than Cruthin. Perhaps we might regard the

As -rrch- is often reduced to -rch-, we may equate with it Bairche, later Boirche, the name of a district in the south of Co. Down ; cf. dat. Bairchiu, AU 610, 752, Eriu iv, 163.8 (later fem., as in o Boirche beandaigh, Top. Poems 38).

1. Compare also Ui Brigte, the name of a sept among the Desi (LL 328 a-b called H. Brigten na nDeisse, R 130 b 7) ; and further the tribe of the Brigantii, whose capital was Brigantion, now Bregenz, on the Lake of Constanz.

2. he latter Benntraige are classed among the aithechthuatha (RC xx, 337 z; Gen. Tracts pp. 114, 117, 120). If we may rely on an allusion in 'Maegnimartha Find ', their territory at one time extended northwards to Killarney: co riacht Loch Lein os Luachair, cur athc[h]uir a amsaine ac rig Benntraige and six, RC v, 200, § 13.

3. R 130 b 8; ZCP xiv, 52.

4. R 127 a 38-41 ; Gen. Tracts 139, § 23. The genealogists absurdly treat Ethnenn or Ethlenn (whose name is properly the genitive of the name of Lug's mother) as Lug's father, and make her son of Fergus mac Roich (ZCP viii, 334.21; ; Gen. Tracts pp. 135, 139, 141). Cf. infra, p. 310, n. 5.

5. R 127 a 39; LL 331 c 17 (Benna) ; Gen. Tracts 139, § 24. Cf. Benta in t-eces di Ultaib, de quo Bentraige, Y Cymmrodor, xiv, 124. 9.1

Benntraige of Co. Wexford as a remnant of the tribe that Ptolemy calls the Coriondi.

   In early historical times the Lagin are the dominant power in that Part of Leinster which lies south of the mouth of the Liffey ; but , as we have just seen, numerous remnants of the r e e or earlier population survived, though reduced in status ') expelled from their original territory. In the Ireland described by Ptolemy, on the other hand, there is not a trace of the earlier population survived, even though reduced in status or expelled from their original territory. In the Ireland described by Ptolemy, on the other hand, there is not a trace of the Lagin or their kin, and those peoples whom we find occupying a subordinate position early in the historical period are in an unchallenged occupation of this part of the country, e.g. the *Cauleni (cf. Dal Mes Corb), the Manapii (== Monaig), and the Brigantes (cf. Ui Bairrche). The Coriondi are unknown in the historical period, unless we see a remnant of them in the Benntraige.