1,240bc Gaelic Milesian xxx 30th monarch eire Fiftyseventh ard ri na eireann gedhollghothach
36th thirtysixth generation***********208] 46v 30 gedhollghothach gidhe gede oll gothach geide ollghothach ollgothach the strong voiced 1240bc son of 27 ollamh ollom fodhla that is great was the voice of every one in his kingdom and the strings in a harp seemed to all no sweeter than the voice and song of every one in erin during his reign took the kingship of eire sweet as the strings of a zither was the voice and singing of every man in his reign
4 finnachta slanoll with grace and geide oilgothach fiachu ailill expert in arms with grace and the war warrior berngal
56 twelve years brilliant their favour was geide ollgothach king geide of the shouting fell at the hands of fiachu son of finnachta fiachus son fiadchu slew him The 3rd reigning son had a reign of great peace and tranquillity observers of antiquity affirm of him that the conversation of his subjects in general in his time was as sweet a harmony to one another as any musick because they lived together in such accord amity and atonement among themselves that there was no discord or strife heard to grow between them for any cause whatsoever
the nature and use of the roman alphabet written down on waxed tablets in the archaic language and after a time translated under christian influence not always satisfactory into the colloquial tongue which we know as old gaelic the work of the succession of historians who hammered the official history into shape consisted in selecting synchronising and arranging on principles not always easy to discover the orphic fragments which the change of religion had permitted to survive in the discrepancy as to the matrimonial relations of tea we have a welcome peep behind the scenes we see at once that tea is no mere etymological figment for otherwise there would be no such discrepancy our historians must often have come across the contradictions and inconsistencies familiar to all folk lorists who study popular legends told of ancient historical characters when the synthesis of scraps which we have here called the official history was finally evolved and became a regular subject of instruction in the schools fragments not consistent with it had but a small chance of surviving it is only by good luck that now and then one of the three pariahs of gaelic tradition succeeds in worming its way into literature one of these happy chances is now before us some historian found two narratives which made tea wife the one of eremon the other of odide he might have deduced two teas as a brother historian had deduced two scotas out of a similar discrepancy but he preferred to reject one of them and as a date had somehow been fixed for geide which was later than the time of the first appearance of temair on the stage he had to reject the geide version hence in the official history tea appears as the wife of eremon and geide is ignored true on one of the lines of development of this history the difficulty is surmounted by identifying geide with eremon but the keating fourmasters tradition takes no notice of this way out of the difficulty we cannot congratulate ourselves too heartily on the chance that the geide version of the marriage of tea was known to and was simmering in the muddled brain of the author of vi ii when he was writing his poem for it is nothing less than the open sesame to an understanding of the early history of temair -------but maybe it is because geide is none other than gathelus of the line of mil and hence father of heremon who married first wife odba and second wife tea ---
let us look first at the place which geide holds in the official history long list of the gaelic ard ri kings of all eire beginning with slainge first king of the fir bolg in anno mundi 3266 = 1933bc
3267 slainge son of dela leader of the fir bolg expedition to eire this slainge can hardly be dissociated from the river slainge anglicised slaney another way if saying that the god slainge of that river was responsible for their first settlement in eire meaning a tradition that the first settlement had been made at or near the mouth of the river in question the slaney and that the colonists had penetrated up its valley into the interior of eire
3268 rudraige son of dela
3270 gann and genami sons of dela in joint rule
3274 sen gann son of dela
3279 fiachu cend findan son of starn son of rudraige cows in his reign white headed
3284 binnal son of genann
3290 foidbgen son of sen gann
3284 eochu mac eire son of fiacha cend findan eocliu mac eire divine horseman or horseman son of heaven
and in the course of the roll of kings depicted as an eternal blood feud
now the Milesians were said to have been led to the settlement of eire by a certain bonn = donn though his untimely death prevented him from actually enjoying sovereignty in eire a very ancient way of referring respectively to bonn or mo donn
geography of ptolemy slaney under name modonnos
and so in one place in the course of the roll of kings it is interrupted by a short intrusive dynasty which runs as follows the ulidian dynasty province of ulster
am 3883 i eochu surnamed ollom fodla son of fiachu findscothach ollom fodla ou fliath big prince eochu ollom fodla nickname oll I liath chosen for his wisdom and he built mur nolloman at tara book of lecan ollamh reigned 30 years a round number for a generation
am 3923 ii elim surnamed finnachta son of i wine snow fin sneachta from the snow that fell with the taste of wine lecan heilim ullfinsnechta 30 years
am 3943 iii slanoll son of i slanoll healthy great lecan slanoll 30 years
am 3960 iv gelde ollgothach son of i big voiced lecan geithe ollgothach 30 years
am 3972 v fiachu findoilcbes son of ii every calf born in his reign had a white head he findoll cisirne invented cistern digging
maybe bagag ollfiacha lecan bagag inbadacb inbadach olltiacha 30 years
am3992 vi berngal son of iv lecan bearngal 30 years
am 4004 vii oilill son of iii lecan eliiu ailill
let us now turn to the pictisk chronicle
cing eponymous of the picts
cruidne son of cing reigned 100 years
succeeded by his seven sons in turn who between them held the throne for 224 years = 32 years each x 7 = 224 but as rulers of the Scottish provinces as matrilinear Milesian wives of those Milesians who perished at the sandhills succession played a role in selecting a king as well as patrilinear sucession of the cruithin picts
after them came gede olgudach geide ollgothach reigned eighty years the head and founder of the pictish monarchy of the Milesian line of the house of ir a patrilinear blood line g?ide oll gothach their 2nd or 9th king of scone his mother the sister of king cruithne had a relationship with eochu ollom fodla and she bore gede olgudach
followed by dunbecan denbacan or oenbecan
followed by olfinechta eighty years
krenum gaelic celtic monarchy head ref skenes clirunides of the picts and scots
a later gede 150 years head of dynasty gilgidi in the pictish chronicle after the thirty brades
Eire house of ir
old gaelic Cruthin early gaelic writers used the name cruthin to refer to both the north eastern gaelic group and to the picts of Scotland likewise the Scottish gaelic word for a pict is cruithen or cruithneach and for Pictland is cruithentuath it has this been suggested that the cruthin and picts were the same people or were in some way linked
middle gaelic cruithnig or cruithni
modern gaelic Cruithne
also cruithin cruthini cruthni cruithini it is thought to relate to the gaelic word cruth meaning form figure shape the name is believed to derive from qritani a Goidelic q gaelic version of the Brittonic p celtic pritani from this came britanni the roman name for the celtic Britons the pictish chronicle names the first king of the picts as the eponymous cruidne filius cing
professor t f orahilly wrote that the qritani/pritani were the earliest inhabitants of these islands to whom a name can be assigned it has also been suggested that cruthin was a name used to refer to all the Britons who were not conquered by the romans those who lived outside roman Britain north of hadrians wall other scholars disagree pointing out that although cruthin was used to translate picti into gaelic picti was never used to translate cruthin into latin professor daibhi o croinin says the notion that the cruthin were gaelic picts and were closely connected with the picts of Scotland is quite mistaken while professor Kenneth h Jackson has said that the cruthin were not picts had no connection with the picts linguistic or otherwise and are never called picti by gaelic writers there is no archaeological evidence of a pictish link and in archaeology the cruthin are indistinguishable from their neighbours in eire the records show that the cruthin bore gaelic names spoke gaelic and followed the gaelic derbfine system of inheritance rather than the matrilineal system sometimes attributed to the picts
kings of ulaid ulster kings of tara ard ri eire their name is the gaelic equivalent of priteni an ancient name for the Spanish Milesian celtic Britons and was sometimes
used to refer to the picts however most scholars do not regard the cruthin as Britons or picts and a distinction was maintained by medieval gaelic authors that they were a people of eire their heartland was in ulster and early sources distinguish between the cruthin and the ulaid who gave their name to the over kingdom and these cruthin comprised a number of Tuatha territories which included parts of the present day
the dal naraidi of county antrim kings of dal naraidi who would later claim in their genealogies to be na fir ulaid the true ulaid
and
cadet branches
the ui echach cobo around crown mound ath cruithean ford of the cruthin of in county down
magennis lords of iveagh
maccartan of kinelarty
and also in county derry they are also said to have lived as the
ua loingsig of moylinny and in parts of leinster the loigis who gave their name to county laois in leinster
and the sogain of leinster
and the sogain of Connacht and
dal riata was a gaelic kingdom that included parts of western Scotland and northeastern eire the eire part of the kingdom lay in the middle of cruthin territory historian alex woolf has suggested that the dal raita were a part of the cruthin and that they descended from the epidii epos horse ekwos ech maybe a horse lord or horse god epidion has been identified as the island of islay in modern Argyll
all claimed as cruthin in early gaelic genealogies
the name cruthin survives in the placenames
duncrun dun cruithean fort of the cruthin parish magilligan tamlaghtard county derry
Drumcroon droim cruithean ridge of the cruthin in county derry
parish of kilcronaghan drumcrow droim crua the hard ridge
parish of macosquin drumcroon and
ballycrune bealach cruithean pass of the cruthin ballycrune annahilt civil parish ballycrune county down and
crown mound ath cruithean ford of the cruthin in county down crown mound motte and bailey castle with the largest bailey in county down is sited on a drumlin at a bend in the clanrye river there is a school of thought that this was a gaelic settlement rather than a norman one county down lordship of newry newry down portion civil parish sheeptown
these placenames are believed to mark the edges of cruthin territory
by the 6th century period in eire the over kingdom of ulaid was largely confined to east of the river bann in north eastern eire the cruthin however still held territory west of the bann in county derry and their emergence may have concealed the dominance of the earlier tribal groupings
555ad 558ad a certain dubsloit of the cruthin is said to have killed the son of the high king diarmait mac cerbaill
563ad annals of ulaid ulster an apparent internal struggle amongst the cruthin resulted in baetan mac cinn making a deal with the northern ui neill promising them the territories of ard eolairg magilligan peninsula and the lee both west of the river bann in county derry as a result the battle of moin daure lothair modern day moneymore county derry took place between them and an alliance of cruthin kings in which the cruthin suffered a devastating defeat afterwards the northern ui neill settled their airgialla allies in the cruthin territory of eilne which lay between the river bann and the river bush the defeated cruthin alliance consolidated itself witin the dal naraidi dynasty
565ad diarmait himself killed by a cruthin over king of ulad ulster aed dub mac suibni
the cruthin their most powerful historical king was fiachnae mac baetain king of ulaid ulster and effective high king ard ri of eire
629ad under their king congal claen they were routed by the ui neill at dun cethirnn between Limavady and Coleraine congal survived in the same year the cruthin king mael caich defeated connad cerr of the dal riata at fid eoin
637ad an alliance between congal claen and domnall brecc of the dal riata was defeated and congal was killed by domnall mac aedo of the northern ui neill at mag roth moira county down establishing the supremacy of the ui neill in the north ian adamson cruthin the ancient kindred settled in eire before the gaels that the two groups were at war for centuries many of the cruthin were driven to Scotland after their defeat in the battle of moira 637ad and hoping to unite back to their homeland in eire any day soon our Scottish brethren scotae gaels
668ad the annals record a battle between the cruthin and the ulaid at Belfast
681ad another dal naraide king dungal eilni and his allies were killed by the ui neill in what the annals call the burning of the kings at dun cethirnn the ethnic term cruthin was by this stage giving way to the dynastic name of the dal naraide
773ad the last use of the term rex Cruithne records the death of flathruae mac fiachrach the annals stopped using the term Cruithne in favour of the term dal naraidi who had secured their over kingship of the cruthin it is suggested that cruthin was not what the people called themselves but was what their neighbours called them
12th century cruthin had fallen into disuse as an ethnonym and was remembered only as an alternative name for the dal naraide
the name cruthin survives in the placenames
duncrun dun cruithean fort of the cruthin parish magilligan tamlaghtard county derry
Drumcroon droim cruithean ridge of the cruthin in county derry parish of macosquin drumcroon and
ballycrune bealach cruithean pass of the cruthin ballycrune annahilt civil parish ballycrune county down and
crown mound ath cruithean ford of the cruthin in county down crown mound motte and bailey castle with the largest bailey in county down is sited on a drumlin at a bend in the clanrye river there is a school of thought that this was a gaelic settlement rather than a norman one county down lordship of newry newry down portion civil parish sheeptown
these placenames are believed to mark the edges of cruthin territory
also cruthin asteroid 3753 cruithne mag
