Mag Itha
Archived: 2 November 2026
Abstract
In 664 CE, Ireland entered a year remembered above all for the arrival of a devastating epidemic. The Irish annals place its coming on 1 August, stating with unusual precision that “the plague reached Ireland” and that it first raged at Mag Itha of Fotharta. This is one of the firmest dates attached to an early medieval Irish disease outbreak. Yet the surviving records are terse, copied and rearranged centuries after the events; their year headings do not always coincide exactly with modern chronological conventions. What can responsibly be said is that, during the calendar year 664, mortality reached Ireland,