Volume 1

Tracts relating to Ireland.

Date:
1841-1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tracts relating to Ireland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Blacar, the son of Godfrey, King of the Danes at Glassliathan, near Clualn cain,*' in the territory of Ferross,’ on the first day of the week, the fourth of the Ka- lends of March.”j These extracts contain all that is known of Muircheartach, except that he was first married to Flanna, the daughter of Donnchadh, King of Ireland, and after her death, which happened, according to l^he Annals of the Four Masters, in the year 938 [recti A.D. 940] to Dubhdara, the daughter of Kellach, Chief of Ossory, who was the Queen mentioned in the following poem. His exploits are also briefly recoimted in a poem on the Triumphs of the Kinel-Owen, or Descendants of Eoghan, the son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, composed by Flann of the Monastery, who flourished shortly after the time of Muircheartach. A copy of this poem is preserved in the Book of Glendalough, or, as it should perhaps be more correctly called, the Book of Leinster, (fob 147, b. a.) a MS. of the twelfth century, now preserved in the MS. Library of Trinity College, Dublin. Fifteen stanzas or quatrains of this poem relate to the exploits of Muircheartach, but they are not recounted in the same order in which they occur in the Annals of Ulster or of the Four Masters. The first exploit mentioned in the poem is his interruption to the fair of Tall- teann; the second, his making the circuit of Ireland, to which Cormacan’s poem relates, when he took all their hostages, among whom was Callaghan Cashel; the third, his conquest of the Danes of Snamh Aighneach; the fourth, his defeat of the Danes of Loch Cuan; the fifth, his victory over Matadhan and Amlaff, who had plundered the province as far as Sliabh Beatha; the sixth, the kilhng of the Lord Torolbh who had a fleet on Lough Neagh; the seventh, his devas- tation of the Insi Gall, or Hebrides; the eighth, his subjugation of the rebelhous inhabitants of Cianachta Glinne Gemhin, and his killing of their chieftain Goach, the son of Dubh-Roa; the ninth, his slaughter of two hundred of the Danes, the day ■ A famou.s territory in Oriel, comprising the parish of Clonkeen, in the county of Louth, and extending thence westwards, so as to embrace the present town of Carrick- macross, [i. e. the rock in the plain of the Ferross], in the county of Monaghan, j Annal. Ulton. ad ann. 942 [943]. mistake for neae Ardee. h Glassliathan was the name of a place near the Church of Cluaincain, now Clonkeen, situated a few miles to the north of the town of Ardee, in the county of Louth. The tes- timony of the Annals of Ulster must be here preferred to that of the Annals of the Four Masters, in which at Ardee is no doubt a
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