Rural Hardship
Archived: 2 November 2026
Abstract
In 669 CE, Ireland’s surviving annalistic tradition preserves a brief but unusually revealing cluster of notices: a great snowfall and famine; the deaths of leading churchmen; the passing of Máel Fothartaig, king of Uí Thuirtri; and the killing of Máel Dúin son of Máenach. These are sparse records, not a continuous narrative, and they must be handled carefully. The early Irish annals have notorious chronological offsets between manuscripts and modern calendar years. Yet the severe snow and famine are placed under a heading explicitly equated with AD 669 in the Annals of Ulster, while Cumméne Find’s death is conventionally dated