Clonmacnoise Obituary
Archived: 4 November 2026
Abstract
In 640 CE, the clearest securely reconstructed Irish annalistic notices are not of a decisive battle within Ireland or a change of high kingship, but of deaths in the ecclesiastical world. Crónán moccu Loégde, abbot of Clonmacnoise, died, and the annals also record the death of Mochua of Balla in Connacht. These brief notices are valuable precisely because they reveal what early medieval record-keepers considered worth preserving: the passing of men who led important religious communities. They also place Ireland in a year of wider Gaelic political tension, for a battle and siege involving the following of Domnall Brecc of