Congal Cáech

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Congal Cáech (also Congal Cláen) was a king of the cruithne of Dál nAraidi, in modern Ulster, from around 626 to 637. He was king of Ulster and, according to some sources, High King of Ireland.

[edit] Sources

The sources for Congal's life and times are limited and generally date from long after his death. The Irish annals are for this period believed to be largely based on an annal kept on the island of Iona, where Saint Columba had founded a monastery in the middle 6th century. These annals survive only in later copies. Of these, the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Tigernach are generally considered to be the most reliable and representative of the original material. Congal does not appear directly in Adomnán's Life of Saint Columba, another early source for Irish history, but a number of his contemporaries do and it supplies some context for events. He is mentioned in the Early Irish Law tract Brecbetha—on beekeeping—written in the later 7th century; this purports to explain Congal's epithets.

He also appears later and less reliable materials such as verse and prose tales, including the Cath Maige Rátha (The Battle of Mag Rath) and Fled Dúin na nGéd (The Feast at the Fort of the Geese), both of which date from the Middle Irish period, perhaps the early 10th century for the Cath Maige Rátha and the 11th or 12th, perhaps later, for Fled Dúin na nGéd. Those genealogies which include Congal are contradictory.

[edit] Background

[edit] Origins

While Irish history in this period is replete with the names of persons, about whom little is usually known save for their ancestry and the date and manner of their death, no early source preserves Congal's ancestry; not even a patronym survives. According to later materials Congal was the son of Scandal Sciathlethan and grandson of Fiachnae mac Báetáin.

The Fled Dúin na nGéd makes Congal a grandson of Eochaid Buide, King of Dál Riata, which is unconfirmed by other sources but chronologically feasible although it contains an anachronism in that Eochaid Buide's death is recorded years before the Battle of Mag Rath. This would make Congal the son of his ally Domnall Brecc's sister.^[1]

[edit] King of Ulaid

Congal is presumed to have become king of the Dál nAraidi following his grandfather Fiachnae, but he is unlikely to have imposed himself as king of the Ulaid until some time after the death of Fiachnae mac Demmáin in 627. He first appears in the record in 628, when he killed Suibne Mend of the Cenél nEógain, supposedly High King of Ireland, at "Taerr Bréni". This killing may have opened Congal's way to becoming king of the Ulaid, but it also brought Domnall mac Áedo of the Cenél Conaill, Congal's nemesis, to the headship of the Northern Uí Néill. In 629, Congal appears to have defeated the Dál Riata at Fid Eóin, killing Connad Cerr, although the victor is named as Maél Caích, perhaps an otherwise unknown brother of Congal. As well as their king, the Dál Riata suffered the loss of two grandsons of Áedán mac Gabráin and the Bernician exile Osric (perhaps a son of Æthelfrith) was also killed. Shortly afterwards Congal was defeated by Domnall mac Áedo at Dún Ceithirn and fled the field of battle.

[edit] King of Tara

Congal's epithets cáech and cláen mean "squinting" or "half blind". An ancient law on bees in the Bechbretha, written within a generation of Congal's death, links these epithets with Congal being blinded in one eye by bees owned by Domnall mac Áedo. This, it says, put Congal out of the kingship of Tara. No later sources make Congal a High King of Ireland, which is largely the same as the kingship of Tara, but the Cath Maige Rath echoes the Bechbretha in claiming that the men of Ulaid demanded that the eye of the beekeeper's son — a son of the High King Domnall mac Áedo — be put out in repayment.

[edit] Mag Rath

Domnall mac Áedo dominated events in the years that followed, until around 637, when Congal, together with Domnall Brecc of Dál Riata challenged him at the battle of Mag Rath (Moira, County Down). Domnall mac Áedo was victorious and Congal was killed in the defeat. This battle appears in the Buile Shuibhne and is recounted in the Cath Maige Rath.

[edit] Reputation and representations

Congal is the protagonist of the Fled Dúin na nGéd. He appears in the Cath Maige Rath.

Irish poet Sir Samuel Ferguson wrote a length heroic poem on Congal, loosely based on the Fled Dúin na nGéd, entitled Congal: A Poem in Five Books (1907).

[edit] Notes

[edit] References