User:Angusmclellan/Cathal mac Finguine
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Cathal mac Finguine (died 742) was an Irish King of Munster from around 721 until his death. He was a grandson of Cathal Cú-cen-máthair (died 665 or 666) and belonged to the Glendamnach sept of the Eóganachta dynasty.
In histories written after Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig of the Dál gCais of Munster had become High King of Ireland, Cathal too was portrayed as High King, one of only three historical Munster kings to be so presented in southern sources. Cathal's conflict with the Uí Néill kings, Fergal mac Máele Dúin, Flaithbertach mac Loingsig, and Áed Allán, son of Fergal mac Máele Dúin, left a sizable record. Cathal appears as a character, not always portrayed sympathetically, in a number of prose and verse tales in the Old Irish and Middle Irish languages.
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[edit] Cathal and Fergal mac Máele Dúin
When Cathal became of Leinster, the High King of Ireland was Fergal mac Máele Dúin. War between these two began almost at once. The battle poem Cath Almaine (The Battle of Allen) says:
For a long time there was great warfare between Cathal son of Findguine, king of Leth Mogha [the south half of Ireland, dominated by Kings of Cashel], and Fergal son of Máel Duin, king of Leth Cuinn [the north half of Ireland, dominated by the Kings of Tara]. Fergal son of Mael duin raided Leinster in order to injure Cathal son of Findguine; so Cathal son of Findguine wasted the whole of Magh Bregh [the plain of Brega], until they made peace and truce.[1]
The Annals of Ulster for 721 record "[t]he wasting of Mag Breg by Cathal son of Finnguine, and by Murchad son of Bran."[2] Murchad mac Brain, who joined Cathal in his expedition to Brega, was the King of Leinster and of the Uí Dúnlainge kindred. The Annals of Innisfallen, as partisan southern record as the Annals of Ulster are biased towards the Uí Néill, whose chief Fergal mac Máele Dúin was, give a different report of the events:
The harrying of Brega by Cathal son of Finnguine, king of Mumu, and after that he and Ferga son of Mael Dúin, king of Temuir, made peace; and Ferga submitted to Cathal. For these were the five kings of the Munstermen who ruled Ireland after the [introduction of the] Faith, viz. Aengus son of Nad Fraích, and his son, i.e. Eochaid who ruled Ireland for seventeen years, and Cathal, son of Finnguine, and Feidlimid, son of Crimthann, and Brian, son of Cennétig.[3]
Although this entry was written in the 11th century, and reflect the ambitions of the Dál gCais High King Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig and his descendants, Fergal's authority appears to have been shaken by whatever agreement was made with Cathal.
[edit] The Battle of Allen
Donn Bó; Máel mac Faílbe; Cú Brettan mac Congusa (d. 740), king of Fir Rois (?); Dúnchad mac Murchada; Murchad mac Brain; Mo-Ling; Fáelchar, k. of Osraige; Fáelán mac Murchado; Áed Laigen mac Fithchellaig, king of Uí Maine; Ua Maigleine the fool; bóraime remitted by Finsnechta
http://www.hastings.edu/academic/english/Kings/Cath_Almaine.html (Dan Wiley)
In 722 the Leinstermen refused to pay the cattle tribute to the High King, who led an army south to extract it by force. This expedition led to the battle of Allen, which ended with Fergal's death, on 11 December 722, the feast of Finnian of Clonard. Cathal was not present at the action, and the Cath Almaine says:
The Leinstermen had delivered this battle of Allen in the absence of Cathal mac Finguini, and Cathal was grieved that the battle was fought while he himself was away. They heard of Cathal's grudge against them, so this was the counsel they framed, to carry to Cathal Fergal's head as a trophy of the action.[4]
[edit] Cathal and Flaithbertach mac Loingsig
On the death of Fergal, the Uí Néill kingship of Tara passed to Fogartach mac Néill of the Síl nÁedo Sláine of South Brega, whose nominal High Kingship was ended in 724 when he was killed fighting against his Síl nÁedo Sláine kinsman Cináed mac Írgalaid of North Brega, who became the new overking of the Uí Néill.[5] Cináed retained the overlordship of the Uí Néill for less than four years, being killed in battle at Druim Corcain against the Cenél Conaill king Flaithbertach mac Loingsig, who took the overlordship of the Uí Néill.[6] Flaithbertach himself reigned for only a few years before Áed Allán of the Cenél nEógain, son of Fergal mac Máele Dúin, fought him for the leadership of the Uí Néill, beginning in 732 and continuing through several battles until Flaithbertach abdicated and entered a monastery in 734.[7]
With the Uí Néill kings no great threat during the reigns of Fogartach, Cináed and Flaithbertach, Cathal sought to extend his authority over Leinster. The Cath Almaine claims that the dispute arose because Fergal mac Máele Dúin had been killed in defiance of the truce he had made with Cathal.
Cathal was defeated by Áed mac Colggen of the Uí Cheinnselaig, then King of Leinster, in 731,[8] and a second battle in 735 was an even greater defeat:
A battle between Mumu and Laigin, in which many of the Laigin and well nigh countless Munstermen perished; Cellach son of Faelchar, king of Osraige, fell therein, but Cathal son of Finnguine, king of Mumu, escaped.[9]
In 733 Cathal raided the lands of the Southern Uí Néill, but was defeated and driven off by Domnall Midi of Clann Cholmáin. In 734 Cathal inflicted a defeat on the Leinstermen at Bealach Ele.[10]
[edit] Cathal and Áed Allán
In 737, Áed Allán met with Cathal at Terryglass, probably neutral ground outwith the control of either king. Byrne says that it is unlikely that Cathal acknowledged Áed Allán's authority — the Uí Néill had little enough influence in the south — but if Cathal had expected some benefit from the meeting, where he perhaps acknowledged the ecclesiastical supremacy of Armagh, he was to be disappointed. However, the clerics of Armagh may have been well satisfied as the Annals of Ulster, in the entry following that which reports the meeting of Cathal and Áed Allán, say that the law of Patrick was in force in Ireland. The presumably means that they agreed to the special treatment of the church, its lands and its tenants, as prescribed by the law of Patrick.
[edit] Legend of Cathal and Mór Muman
Of Mór Muman a legend survives which compares her to the goddess of sovereignity. Mór was placed under an enchantment and lost her senses. She wandered Ireland for two years before she came to Cashel and the court of Fingen. Fingen eventually slept with her, and her memory returned. In the morning, Fingen gave her the Queen's robe and brooch, and put aside his current Queen, daughter of the king of the Deisi, and put Mór in her place as she was of better blood. The Metrical Dindshenchas say of Fingen mac Áedo and Mór:
Best of the women of Inis Fail
is Mór daughter of Áed Bennan.
Better is Fingen than any hero
that drives about Femen.[11]
When Fingen died, the story says, Mór Muman married Cathal mac Finguine. Unfortunately, the collector of this tale mistook this Cathal for the 7th century King Cathal mac Áedo Flaind, who may well have married Mór Muman, but Cathal mac Finguine certainly did not.[12]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Stokes trans. from the Yellow Book of Lecan.
- ^ Annals of Ulster, AU 721.6.
- ^ Annals of Innisfallen, AI 721.2.
- ^ Stokes trans. from the Yellow Book of Lecan.
- ^ AU 724.3.
- ^ AU 728.1.
- ^ AU 732.10; AU 733.3; AU 734.8; AU 734.10; Byrne, p. 114.
- ^ AU 731.12.
- ^ Thus AU 735.3, but the Annals of Innisfallen, AI 735.1, make Cathal the victor.
- ^ Annals of the Four Masters, AM 730.5 (for 734).
- ^ Metrical Dindshenchas, volume 3, p. 203, available at CELT, see external links.
- ^ Byrne, pp.204–207.
[edit] Reference
- Byrne, Francis John, Irish Kings and High-Kings. Batsford, London, 1973. ISBN 0-7134-5882-8
[edit] External links
- CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts at University College Cork The Corpus of Electronic Texts includes the Annals of Ulster and the Four Masters, the Chronicon Scotorum and the Book of Leinster as well as Genealogies, the Metrical Dindshenchas and various Saints' Lives. Most are translated into English, or translations are in progress.
- The Battle of Allen trans. Whitley Stokes (Irish texts at CELT)
- The Vision of Mac Con Glinne trans. Kuno Meyer (Irish text at CELT)
