Archived: 2 November 2026
Abstract
In 685 CE, Ireland’s surviving record is unusually sparse, but it is not empty. The year is best approached through a small, difficult cluster of annalistic notices: the death of Banbán ‘Os Cach’, described as a learned man and, in the fuller notice of the Annals of Tigernach, lector of Kildare; the repose of Forcrann, abbot of Clonmacnoise; and events in northern Britain recorded by Irish writers, above all the defeat and death of the Northumbrian king Ecgfrith at Dún Nechtain on 20 May. These sources do not preserve a single narrative of Ireland in 685. Their differing chronological systems
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Archived: 2 November 2026
Abstract
In 683 CE, Ireland’s surviving annalistic record places political violence, contested provincial authority and the first reported onset of a grave mortality within the same year. The entries are terse, but their conjunction is striking: Dúnchad Muirisce, king of Connacht, was killed; Colgu, son of the former Tara ruler Blathmac, fell in the battle of Corann alongside Fergus, king of Cenél Cairpri; two strongholds were besieged; and, in October, a disease described as the “mortality of children” began. For a society whose history was usually recorded through the fates of rulers, clerics and religious houses, this last notice points beyond
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Archived: 2 November 2026
Abstract
In 682 CE, the clearest Irish event is the killing of Cenn Fáelad son of Colgú, styled king of Connacht in the annals. The Annals of Ulster preserve the event in a terse entry; the related Annals of Tigernach and Chronicon Scotorum name his killer as Ulcha Derg, grandson of Caillide, of the Conmaicne Cúile. Tigernach adds the vivid but limited detail that Cenn Fáelad was slain after the Conmaicne had stormed his house. It is the year’s central fact: a provincial king died violently in his own residence, not in a named pitched battle. The sources provide neither a
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