Domnall’s Passing
Archived: 3 November 2026
Abstract
In 642 CE, the most consequential Irish event securely attached to the year was the death, at the end of January, of Domnall mac Áedo. The Annals of Ulster calls him rex Hiberniae, ‘king of Ireland’, an unusually emphatic title in an island divided among many kingships. Its notice is brief, yet its language makes Domnall’s death a landmark: a powerful overking had gone, and the political arrangements he had sustained were left to be tested. The same annal also records the killing of Ailill son of Colmán, king of Cenél Loegaire, a Uí Néill people of Brega. Thus the