The article’s most intriguing implication is that political and ecclesiastical power depended upon rural households whose labour, livestock and provisions sustained hosts and religious communities, although the annals chiefly preserve elite actions. Indrechtach’s killing demonstrates how far-reaching alliances could destabilise provincial authority without amounting to conquest, while Congal’s undocumented expedition similarly leaves its effects uncertain. This contrast encourages us to consider the relationship between recorded leadership and unrecorded experience. How might archaeology, landscape evidence, and comparisons with other annalistic years help us assess how warfare, monastic networks, and royal mobilisation affected ordinary farming communities in Ireland during 707 and beyond?