Tírechán's Motives in Compiling the "Collectanea": An Alternative Interpretation
Author(s): Catherine Swift
Source: Ériu, Vol. 45 (1994), pp. 53-82
Published by: Royal Irish Academy
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TIRECHAN'S MOTIVES IN COMPILING THE
COLLECTANEA: AN ALTERNATIVE
INTERPRETATION'
CATHERINE SWIFT
Departmentsof Medievaland Early Irish History,
UniversityCollege, Dublin
The interpretation of Tirechan's text is not an easy task. Only one copy
has survived: that found in the early ninth-century Book of Armagh, a
manuscript which is roughly 150 years later than TirechAn's own day. It
seems likely that the text has undergone an unknown degree of editing in
the interim: it has been questioned, for example, whether the division of
the work into two books is that of TirechAn.2The text may be unfinished;
this, at any rate, has been the majority opinion amongst those who have
studied it.3 Furthermore, as the modern title, Collectanea, indicates, the
text is apparently a compilation of a number of earlier sources, and a
scholar who wishes to identify Tirechain's own motives must first distinguish these from those of his predecessors, to whose work Tirechan
was indebted. Finally, Tirechan's Latin, and in particular his syntax,
1 A version of this paper was presented at the Eighth Irish Conference of Medievalists in
St Patrick's College, Maynooth, June 1994, and I would like to thank all those who
commented on that occasion. I would also like to thank Rolf Baumgarten, Liam Breatnach
and Colman Etchingham for having read and commented on earlier drafts of the present
version. Errors that remain are, of course, my own.
2 The evidence is discussed
by J. B. Bury, 'Tirechin's memoir of St Patrick', English
Historical Review 17 (1902), 235-67, 261; L. Bieler (ed.), The Patrician texts in the Book of
Armagh, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 10 (Dublin 1979), 39; F. Kelly in id., 244-5. There
appears to be at least one mediator between the manuscript and Tirechan's original: see
Bieler, Patrician texts, 55.
3 Bury, 'Tirechhin's memoir', 268; J. Gwynn (ed.), Liber Ardmachanus: the Book of
Armagh (Dublin 1913), Iviii; J. F. Kenney, The sources for the early history of Ireland: an
introduction and guide, I: ecclesiastical (New York 1929), 331; E. MacNeill, 'The earliest
lives of St Patrick', Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 58 (1928), 1-21,
18; id., 'Dates of texts in the Book of Armagh relating to St Patrick', Journal of the Royal
Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 58 (1928), 85-101, 94-5; T. F. O'Rahilly, The two
Patricks - a lecture on the history of Christianity in fifth century Ireland (Dublin 1942), 28,
49; D. A. Binchy, 'Patrick and his biographers - ancient and modern', Studia Hibernica 2
(1962), 7-173, 64; R. Sharpe, 'Palaeographical considerations in the study of the Patrician
documents in the Book of Armagh', Scriptorium 36 (1982), 3-28, 17; J.-M. Picard,
'Structural patterns in early Hiberno - Latin hagiography', Peritia 4 (1985), 67-82, 80.
4The work is introduced by a lemma (Tirechan episcopus haec scripsit) written by a
redactor in the third person. The term Collectanea was used by Ussher in the seventeenth
century and was taken up by two subsequent editors of the work: C. R. Elringham and J. H.
Todd (eds), Ussher: the whole works (17 vols, Dublin 1844-64), vol. 6, 370, 375; E. Hogan
(ed.), 'Documenta de S. Patricio ex Libro Armachano', Analecta Bollandiana 1 (1882),
531-85, 2 (1883), 35-68, 213-38, 543, 35; Bieler, Patrician texts, 39. The title Breviarium,
which was used by MacNeill and others, included material which did not necessarily belong
Eriu XLV(1994) 53-82
( Royal Irish Academy
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54
CATHERINE SWIFT
often represents Irish rather than Latin norms; in James Carney's
entertaining phrase, 'Tirechain, writing Latin, wrote and thought like an
Irishman'.5
All of these difficulties - unquantifiable degree of corruption in single
copy of text, variety of apparently ill-digested source material, and poor
command of language - make interpreting Tirechan's motives somewhat
akin to jumping from tussock to tussock across a bog: one is never quite
certain how much weight each point will bear before disappearing entirely
and leaving the unfortunate enquirer in mud up to the knee. This paper
traces my own path across an unexplored corner of the quagmire; it is not
and cannot be (given the nature of the evidence) a dogmatic assertion of
Tirechan's aims.
1. TiRECHAN'S
AIMS IN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA:
THEESTABLISHED
POSITION
Despite the importance of this text for our understanding of Patrick's
community in the seventh century and, on a broader level, its role as a
witness to the relationship between subordinate churches and their
ecclesiastical overlords in the early Irish church,6 there have been few
studies of Tirechan's Collectanea as a unit in its own right. Apart from an
article by Ludwig Bieler and a brief introduction by the same author in
his edition of Patrician texts from the Book of Armagh, little has been
published on the topic since the days of J. B. Bury, John Gwynn, E6in
MacNeill and James Kenney in the early part of this century. It is,
therefore, their conclusions which at present dominate our perspective.
In 1902 Bury identified Tirechan's Collectanea as 'virtually an enumeration of the ecclesiastical foundations of Patrick with a description of the
circumstances in which each was founded'.8 In his view, Tirechdin was a
churchman writing a historical work rather than a hagiographer, and his
book was intended to be of practical service to the cause of the claims of
to Tirechan's work; see Bury, 'Tirechan's memoir', 237-8; Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus,
lxiv-lxvi; Bieler, Patrician texts, 215. For a summary history of the use of the two titles see
Sharpe, 'Palaeographical considerations', 16 n. 45. For discussion of Tirechan's sources see
Bury, 'Tirechun's memoir', 238-52; Gywnn, Liber Ardmachanus, xlv-xlvi, li-lii; P.
Grosjean, 'Notes sur les documents anciens concernant S. Patrice', Analecta Bollandiana 42
(1944), 42-73, 61-5; Binchy, 'Biographers', 66-8; Bibler, 'Tirechain als Erziihler: Ein
Beitrag zum literarischen Verstdindnisder Patrickslegende', Sitzungsberichte der bayerischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 6 (1974), 20-1; id.,
Patrician texts, 39-41.
'J. Carney, The problem of St Patrick (Dublin 1961), 136; Bieler, 'Tirechan als
Erzdihler', 5.
6 See R. Sharpe, 'Churches and communities in early medieval Ireland: towards a pastoral
model', in J. Blair and R. Sharpe (eds), Pastoral care before the parish (Leicester 1972),
81-109, 86-95; C. Etchingham, 'The implications of paruchia', Ariu 44 (1993), 139-62,
147-50.
7 See n. 3 above, and Bieler, Patrician texts, 35-43.
8 'Tirechdin's memoir', 251-2.
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
55
Armagh. If completed, it would have exhibited the full extent of Patrick's
paruchia.9 Gwynn, who was writing contemporaneously with Bury and
was clearly in communication with him prior to publication,1o had very
similar views. According to Gwynn, Tirechain's avowed aim was to set
forth the dignity and rights of Armagh, and in order to outline the full
extent of Patrick's paruchia it was necessary to collect the records of all
Patrician foundations." Some twenty years later, this belief that the text
was an unfinished attempt to record every Patrician site provided the
basis for MacNeill's interpretation. For MacNeill, Tirechain's Collectanea
was the earliest piece of surviving evidence for an immense collaborative
effort on behalf of Armagh.2 Ireland was to be divided into areas in
which individual collectors of local traditions were to draw up their
material and forward it to the Patrician headquarters at Armagh, where a
unfortunately now lost - Book of Armagh was being
second--and
Since
Tirechan's initial effort was, in MacNeill's words, 'plainly
compiled.
defective',13 the abbreviated notes found in the Notulae, the collection of
similar material found in the Additamenta and the ancestral text behind
the Vita Tripartitawere later put together as a second attempt at the same
task by either Tirechain or his collaborators.
Elements of MacNeill's model are visible in the work of the scholars of
his own generation and that immediately following, such as Kenney and
Bieler.14 In more recent times, MacNeill's view that the majority of
vernacular Patrician sources belonged ultimately to a single effort of
compilation has been superseded by further studies." This has removed
the basis on which his interpretation was built and consequently its
influence has waned. (It did, however, give rise to an endearing picture of
Tirechan as a seventh-century John O'Donovan, writing up his notes by
candlelight in the evenings after a long day in the field, as presented by
Liam de Paor.)16
9 Ibid., 258-9.
10
See, for example, Bury, 'Tirechin's memoir', n. 14, n. 16, etc.
Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, xlvi, lii, lix-lx.
t"
12
MacNeill, 'Earliest lives', 14-19; 'Date of texts', 90, 94-5; 'The origin of the Tripartite
Life of Patrick', Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 59 (1929), 1-15,
13-15; 'The Vita Tripartita of St Patrick', Eriu 11 (1930-2), 1-41, 9.
13 'Date of texts', 92.
" Kenney, The sources, 330; L. Bieler, The life and legend of St Patrick: problems of
modern scholarship (Dublin 1949), 43-5.
15
For MacNeill's discussion of the linguistic evidence see 'Date of texts', 85-9; 'The
origin', 1-2; 'The Vita Tripartita', 1-5. For later studies on this question see T. F.
O'Rahilly, Early Irish history and mythology (Dublin 1946), 409-10; K. Mulchrone, 'Die
Abfassungszeit und Uberlieferung der Vita Tripartita', Zeitschrift fiir celtische Philologie 16
(1927), 1-94, esp. 84-94; G. Mac Eoin, 'The dating of Middle Irish texts', Proceedings of
the British Academy 68 (1982), 109-38, 127-34; K. H. Jackson, 'The date of the Tripartite
Life of St Patrick', Zeitschrift fiir celtische Philologie 41 (1986), 5-45, 6-15; F. Kelly in
Bieler, Patrician texts, 242-8.
16L. de Paor, 'The aggrandisement of Armagh', Historical Studies 8 (Dublin 1971),
95-110, 105.
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56
CATHERINE SWIFT
In T. F. O'Rahilly's work of 1942 on the two Patricks, the older
Bury/Gwynn view prevailed. In 1962, D. A. Binchy tacked on to this
thesis the slight modification that the claim to the whole of Ireland was a
new departure by Armagh and that it was the very novelty of the idea
which prompted Tirechan's compilation.'7 At the same time, Binchy
would appear to have been the first twentieth-century scholar to propose
that elements in the Collectanea may reflect a seventh-century political
order. He suggested, for example, that the whole Tara incident was a
legendary outcrop of the seventh-century Paschal controversy,'8 he
pointed out that Tifrechan makes Tara by implication the centre of
Patrick's work,'9 and he put forward a proposition that all seventhcentury Armagh propaganda was linked to the spread of the Uf Neill
legends about the high kingship of Ireland.20 Such propaganda, Richard
Sharpe later argued, was based on the claim in the Liber Angeli that
Patrick was to be honoured as first missionary of Ireland; he believes that
Tirechan supported this claim by demonstrating the rich fruits of Patrick's
missionary work as visible in the great number of churches which the
saint had founded.21 Elsewhere Sharpe identifies the Collectanea as being
concerned with the direct relationship between Armagh and its subordinate churches.22 For Charles Doherty, in contrast, Tirechan is describing
field surveys of old missionary and diocesan churches, not necessarily
Patrician, which were in decay or aligned to politically irrelevant communities in Tirechdin's own day.23
In broad outline, these are the most important contributions to the
discussion of Tirechain's possible motivations and his purpose in compiling the Collectanea. Running through them and other, more general
studies of the Patrician material is a tendency to categorize all texts
produced by followers of the saint as Patrician or Armagh propaganda.24
This approach would seem to imply a common purpose uniting all the
Patrician writers, from the author of the Liber Angeli in the mid-seventh
century down to the compilers of the Vita Tripartita at some time before
7 O'Rahilly, Two Patricks, 49 n. 8; Binchy, 'Biographers', 60-1.
IS
Binchy, 'Biographers', 67-8.
9 Ibid., 60. See, however, J. B. Bury, The life of St Patrick and his place in history
(London 1905), 251, where he suggests that Tirechain viewed Meath as Patrick's original
centre before the foundation of Armagh.
20
"Biographers', 61, 68, 170. Binchy does not discuss his reasons for this view in depth,
but on this point see discussion of rex and related words below.
2' R. Sharpe, 'St Patrick and the see of Armagh', Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 4
(Winter 1982), 33-59, 45.
22
'Armagh and Rome in the seventh century', in P. Ni Chathdin and M. Richter (eds),
Irland und Europa: Die Kirche im Friihmittelalter (Ireland and Europe: the early Church)
(Stuttgart 1984), 58-72, 68.
" C. Doherty, 'Some aspects of hagiography as a source for Irish economic history',
Peritia 1 (1982), 300-28, 303-4.
24 See, for
example, Binchy, 'Biographers', 170-1; Sharpe, 'Palaeographical considerations', 15; K. Hughes, The Church in early Irish society (London 1966), 111-20; as well as
the references to MacNeill, Kenney and Bieler cited in nn 12 and 14 above.
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TIRECHAN'S MOTIVES IN COMPILING THE COLLECTANEA
57
the mid-tenth century. This is true only in the broadest sense. Instead,
under the umbrella of 'Patrician tradition', each author pursued different
aims. From a number of possible examples of this process, I have chosen
three instances where the same episode has been shaped to conform to
different viewpoints.
2.
THE DIVERSE NATURE OF PATRICIAN TRADITION
The first instance is the story of the misplaced cross beside a pagan
grave, which Patrick, after speaking to the occupant, moves to its rightful
position beside a Christian burial.
uirtus maior inde surrexerat, ut mortuus loqueretur et qui sub fide
defunctus erat xpisti scieretur et iuxta illum almae crucis fieret
meritum signo in uero termino possito25
Miraculous power was thus magnified in that a dead man spoke and
that he who had died in the faith of Christ was made known and
that the due of the dear cross was brought about by the sign having
been positioned on the proper boundary beside him.
Cum dixisset 'libera nos a malo', dixit illi auriga illius: 'Quid', auriga
illius inquit, 'cur appellasti gentilem non babtitzatum uirum? Quia
ingemesco uirum sine babtismo. Melior erat apud Deum illum
benedicere uice babtismatis et effundere aquam babtismi super
sepulcrum mortui' et non respondit illi. Puto enim ideo eum reliquit
quia Deus eum saluare noluit26
When he had said 'deliver us from evil', his charioteer said to him.
'How is it?' said his charioteer, 'why did you [merely] address the
pagan, an un-baptised man? For I groan for a man without baptism.
It would have been better in the eyes of God to bless him as in
baptism and to pour the water of baptism over the dead man's
grave'. And (Patrick) did not answer him. I think, therefore, that he
left him because God did not wish to save him
As both Carney and Bieler have pointed out, Muirchi's version of this
story (represented here by the first extract) is told as an example of
Patrick's veneration for the holy cross.27The background to the incident
21
Muirchu's Vita Patricii in Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 7vb 27-31; Bieler, Patrician
texts, 114:20-2. In this and subsequent quotations I follow Gwynn's text, but since Bieler's
work is more widely available I give references to both. While indebted to Bieler's
translation, I do not always adhere to it; in the present instance, Bieler's 'his miraculous
power' seems unjustified and he omits 'Christ'. I am indebted to Liam Breatnach and Rolf
Baumgarten for the translation of the phrase almae crucis fieret meritum.
26 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 14rb 33-14va
5; Bieler, Patrician texts, 156:6-11. Here I
follow Bieler in omitting the line redeamus ad historiam nostram, which occurs after non
babtitzatum uirum in the manuscript (14rb 36-7) and which would appear to be misplaced.
27 Carney, The problem, 149;
Bieler, 'Tirechain als Erziihler', 13-14.
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58
CATHERINE SWIFT
is provided by the statement that Patrick stopped to say a prayer at every
cross he came to, and the conclusion, as indicated above, is that the dead
Christian was rewarded when the cross was moved to his grave. In
Tirechan's version, in contrast, emphasis is laid on the fact that the pagan
was not baptized after Patrick spoke to him. Taken in conjunction with
Tirechan's statement that the graves involved were new (sepulcra noua)28
and with Tirechan's general habit of praising or condemning the local
families whom the saint meets, the Collectanea version of the story may
be an implicit condemnation of the nepotes maini of albus campus in
whose lands the graves were situated.29
Similarly, in the second instance of diverging interpretations of the
same motif, Patrick illustrates the enthusiasm of the newly converted with
a comment on the generosity of Irish women: 'I have also tried to guard
myself against... the religious women who used to give me small
presents of their own accord and who threw some of their jewellery onto
the altar'.30 This remark appears to be the basis for the later story of
Senmeda in the Collectanea, although in the latter it appears as testimony
to the holiness of a member of the leading local family.
Et uenit per diserta filiorum Endi in [..]aian in quo [.....]tommanus
turrescus. Post multa tempora, uenit [.......] Senmeda filia Endi filii
Br[.......] et accipit pallium de [...]u Patricii et dedit illi munilia sua
et manuales et pediales et brachiola sua [......]catur aros in scotica31
And he came through the waste lands of the sons of Inde into
[...]aian where [was?] Tommanus Turrescus. After a long time,
2"
Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 14rb 20; Bieler, Patrician texts, 154:35. I would like to
thank Elizabeth O'Brien, who drew my attention to this phrase.
29Pace
E. Hogan, Onomasticon Goedelicum, locorum et tribuum Hiberniae et Scotiae: An
index with identifications to the Gaelic names of places and tribes (Dublin 1910), 675, and
MacNeill, 'Vita Tripartita', 20, I do not believe that these were the Ui Maine of south
Connacht. I suggest instead that they were a branch of the Fir Cherai, located in the area to
the east of Castlebar in County Mayo. See M. A. O'Brien (ed.), Corpus genealogiarum
Hiberniae, I (Dublin 1963), 173 (145 f 30), and W. Stokes (ed.), Bethu Mochuae, in Lives of
saints from the Book of Lismore, Anecdota Oxoniensa, Medieval and Modern Series v
(Oxford 1890), 141:4751-142:4757. Albus campus is the only occasion in the Collectanea
where the qualifier precedes campus; I take it, therefore, that this is a direct translation of
the Irish Findmag where Tirechan mentions a well: 'fons Findmaige qui dicitur Slan'
(Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 13vb 20-1; Bieler, Patrician texts, 152:26). The church site
associated with this well is named as 'Slanpatrick' in the thirteenth century and has been
plausibly identified by Kenneth Nicholls with a church in the townland of Ballynew, in the
parish of Aglish, Co. Mayo. See K. W. Nicholls, 'Tobar Finnmhuighe --Slin Pidraig',
Dinnseanchas 2 (1966-7), 97-8.
30 Nam 'etsi imperitus sum in omnibus', tamen conatus sum quippiam seruare me etiam et
fratribus Christianis et uirginibus Christi et mulieribus religiosis quae mihi ultronea munuscula donabant et super altare iactabant ex ornamentis suis, in R. B. Hanson (ed.), St Patrick:
Confession et Lettre a Coroticus (Paris 1978), 122 (§49).
Liber Ardmachanus, 13rb 21-8; Bieler, Patrician texts, 150:13-17. Bieler gives
3' Gwynn,
Lommanus in place of Tommanus against the evidence of the manuscript.
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
59
Senmeda daughter of Ende son of Br... came and received a veil
from the hand [?] of Patrick and she gave to him her jewellery of
the kind intended for hands and feet and arms, which is called [?]
aros in Irish32
The third tale refers to the well-known contradiction in the two main
accounts of the conversion of Loiguire, king of the Uif N6ill. In Muirchti's
tale Loiguire is converted to Christianity, while in Tirechdin's work
Loiguire refuses to accept the new faith on the orders of his father Niall.
Congregatis igitur senioribus et omni senatu suo dixit eis rex
Loiguire: 'Melius est credere me quam mori', initoque consilio ex
suorum praecepto credidit in illa die et conuertit ad Dominum
Deum aeternum33
The senior men, together with his entire council, having assembled,
King Loiguire said to them: 'it is better for me to believe than to
die' and having held counsel, at their direction, he believed on that
day and converted to the Lord, the eternal God
Perrexitque ad ciuitatem Temro ad Loigairium filium Neill iterum,
quia apud illum foedus pepigit ut non occideretur in regno illius, sed
non potuit credere34
And he proceeded again to the 'city' of Tara, to Loiguire son of
Niall, because he had made a pact with him that he should not be
killed in his kingdom but [Loiguire] was not able to believe
As is well known, Muirchuiportrays Loiguire as a central figure in an
epic account of Patrick's arrival in Ireland. He was an 'emperor of
barbarians' who ruled in Tara with authority comparable to that of
Nebuchadnezzar, emperor of the Babylonians.35 In his text, Loiguire is of
the stirps regia huius pene insolae, and as such he personifies the entire
32 The word aros is not found elsewhere --see
Royal Irish Academy, Dictionary of the
Irish language (DIL) (Dublin 1983), A407:31-2; J. Vendryes, Lexique etymologique de
l'irlandais ancien: A (Paris 1959), 90. My translation of this passage depends on Bieler's
suggested explanations of the missing portions of the text and I have indicated these with
question marks.
3 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 5vb 1-6; Bieler, Patrician texts, 96:21-98:1.
34 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 10rb 32-5; Bieler, Patrician texts, 132:23-5. (Bieler gives
the form 'Logairium' against the evidence of the manuscript, which has 'Loigairium'.)
35 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 2rb 30-3, 3vb 31; Bieler, Patrician texts, 74:14-16, 84:20.
For a discussion of the distinct tradition embodied in Muirchui's account, see K. McCone,
'Dubthach maccu Lugair and a matter of life and death in the pseudo-historical prologue to
the Senchas Mdr', Peritia 5 (1986), 1-35, 24-6; 'Dan agus tallann', Leachtai Cholm Cille 16
(1986), 9-53, 27-32.
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60
CATHERINE
SWIFT
kingdom of the Ui Neill.36 Once Loiguire had been converted, but only
then, Patrick was free to set forth from Tara to baptize all peoples.37 I will
provide evidence below as to why Tirechain may have had an interest in
portraying this particular Ui N6ill figure as an obstinate pagan; for the
moment my purpose is merely to underline the fact that Patrician
tradition was a kaleidoscope which yielded a variety of different patterns.
To purloin a phrase from a recent biblical commentary, 'these texts were
creating new scripture by constructive abuse of the old'.38
3. TIRECHA"N'S
AITITUDETO ARMAGH
The consensus of twentieth-century scholarship on the importance of
Armagh's claims for understanding Tirechan's work and the prevailing
assumption that he was writing propaganda for that church are based on
TirechAn's own words:
Cor autem meum cogitat in me de Patricii dilectione quia uideo
dissertores et archiclocos et milites Hiberniae quod odio habent
paruchiam Patricii quia substraxerunt ab eo quod ipsius erat
timentque quoniam si quaereret heres Patricii paruchiam illius
potest pene totam insolam sibi reddere in paruchiam39
My heart within me is anxious about the love of Patrick for I see
that renegades and arch-robbers [?] and soldiers of Ireland have
hatred for Patrick's paruchia for they have taken from him what was
his, and they are afraid since, if a successor of Patrick were to seek
his paruchia, he would be able to restore almost the whole island to
him as a paruchia
This is followed by the statements that an angel gave Patrick the island of
Ireland as a paruchia and that no one can overswear Patrick's community. Both of these, as Binchy and Sharpe have noted, are claims by the
36 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 2rb 32-3; Bieler, Patrician
texts, 74:16. The full phrase is
Loiguire nomine filius neill, origo stirpis regiae huius pene insolae 'by name Loiguire son of
Niall, progenitor of the royal lineage [which has control] of almost the whole island'. Bieler
translates this literally, seeing Loiguire as the origo, but Thomas Charles-Edwards points
out to me that there are two cases where there is absence of concord relating to personal
names in the Book of Armagh (Bieler, Patrician texts, 84:4, 150:35) and suggests that this
may be a third example. Origo would then refer to Niall, a suggestion which seems much
more sensible in historical terms.
37 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 5vb 13-18; Bieler, Patrician texts, 98:5-8.
38 R. Lane Fox, The unauthorized version: truth and fiction in the Bible (Harmondsworth
1991), 24.
39Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, llrb 25-32; Bieler, Patrician texts, 138:9-14. I translate
cogitare as 'to be anxious' on the authority of A. Souter, A glossary of later Latin (to AD
600) (Oxford 1949), 57; A. Blaise, Dictionnaire Latin-Franqais des auteurs chretiens
(Strasbourg 1954), 164a:25-32. In the light of the present debate on the nature of an Irish
paruchia, I have chosen to leave it untranslated here; see Etchingham, 'The implications',
passim.
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
61
Liber Angeli, a mid-seventh-century tract in favour of Armagh.40 Allied
to Tirechfin's stated concern for Patrick's paruchia, this has been enough
to convince commentators that the Collectanea was written for the same
purpose.
In support of this view, one might note that Tirechan explicitly
identifies Benignus both as Patrick's successor in Armagh and as the heir
to Patrick's entire kingdom:
Dixit Patricius 'babtitzate eum et eleuate eum in currum quia heres
regni mei est'. Ipse est Benignus episcopus, successor Patricii in
aeclessia Machae41
Patrick said: 'Baptize him and lift him into the chariot for he is the
heir to my kingdom'. This is Benignus the bishop, Patrick's
successor in the church of Machae
On the other hand, the subsequent occasions on which Tirechan mentions
Armagh do not support the idea that he is writing propaganda in favour
of that site. The references are cursory, with no attempt to emphasize the
role of Armagh as head of the Patrician federation. In the account of the
patens made for Patrick by Assicus, for example, Armagh is merely one
of three churches which received the patens and is described simply as
'the church of Patrick in Armagh'. No reference is made to the status of
Armagh or to its importance within Ireland.42
Armagh is also mentioned in relation to the career of Medb of the
Ciarraige Airne. Medb is said to have come with Patrick from Irl6chir,
and he was later trained and ordained in Armagh. Tirechan also seems to
identify him as a monk of Armagh who founded a church amongst the
Ciarraige, although the text is corrupted at this point and difficult to
interpret.
Post haec uenit cum Patricio ab Irlochir et legit in Ardd Machae et
ordinatus est in eodem loco [.......]us fuit Patricio de genere m[..]hi
epis. prespiter bonus et fundauit aeclessiam in Imgoe Mair Cerrigi
liberam mon[.... ]us in Ardd Machae43
4 Binchy, 'Biographers', 60, 64; Sharpe. 'Armagh and Rome'. 61-3.
"' Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 9va 29-33; Bieler, Patrician texts. 126:28-30. See also
Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, xlvii.
2
iii patinos quadratos uidi, id est patinum in aeclessia patricii in Ardd Machae-et alterum
in aeclessia Alofind et tertium in aeclessia magna Saeoli super altare Felarti, sancti episcopi 'I
have seen three square patens, that is the paten in the church of Patrick in Armagh, and a
second in the church of Ail Find and a third in the great church of S6ola on the altar of
Felartus, the holy bishop', Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, I Ilvb 6-10; Bieler, Patrician texts,
140:15-8.
43 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 13rb 10-16; Bieler, Patrician texts, 150:5-9. Medb is the
subject of uenit as indicated by the preceding sentence: et fuit quidam spiritu sancto plenus
ab australi Medbu nomine. Bieler's interpolation of the phrase ab australi medbu nomine
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62
CATHERINE SWIFT
After these things, he [Medbu] came with Patrick from Irl6chir and
he studied in Armagh and he was ordained in that place. He was
a ... to Patrick from the race of M...hi the bishop [?], a good priest,
and he founded a free church in Imgoe Mar C6rrigi, a monk [?] in
Armagh
A third allusion, which Bury, MacNeill and O'Rahilly all believed to be
to Armagh, is equally abrupt.44
Uenit uero sanctus per Doim in regiones Tuirtri ad Collunt Patricii
et babtitzauit filios Tuirtri. Relicta Machia, uenit in Maugdornu et
ordinauit Uictoricum Machinensem episcopum et aeclessiam ibi
magnam fundauit45
The holy man came through Doim into the districts of Tuirtre to
Collunt Patricii and he baptized the sons of Tuirtre. Since Machia
was deserted, he came into Maugdornai and he appointed Uictoricus as bishop of Machia and he founded a great church there
None of the above scholars have answered the objections of Gwynn, who
pointed out that the normal form of Armagh was 'Machae' or 'Ardd
Machae' and that 'Machia' was probably the site which gave rise to the
adjective machinensis. Gwynn suggests instead that Tirechan is here
describing the site of Domnach Maigen or Donaghmoyne, associated with
Uictor in the Vita Tripartita.46If, however, TirechAinwas indeed referring
to the site of Armagh in this particular instance, he shows what is literally
no more than a passing interest in the foundation.
Apart from these extracts from the body of the Collectanea, there is
also the citation from an isolated paragraph in the Book of Armagh:
after Irlochir is at variance with the evidence of the manuscript. Apparently influenced by
the abbreviated account in the Vita Tripartita, Bieler assumed this to be a case of cenn fo
eite, but there is no trace of the parallel slashes which indicate such in the Book of Armagh.
See, however, K. Mulchrone, Bethu Phdtraic: The Tripartite Life of Patrick (1. Text and
sources) (Dublin 1939), 69:1247. Bieler also omits the contracted form epis. from his text.
"
See Bury, 'Tirechan's memoir', 262; MacNeill, 'Earliest lives', 12; O'Rahilly, Two
Patricks, 64 n. 39. These scholars interpret relicta Machia as 'having left Armagh'.
Liber Ardmachanus, 15va 29-34; Bieler, Patrician texts, 162:17-20. I would
45 Gwynn,
like to thank Rolf Baumgarten for suggesting the translation of relicta Machia which is
supplied here.
46 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, liv n. 2; Mulchrone, Bethu Phdtraic, 111:2137-8; see also
comments by Bieler, Patrician texts, 232-3 (50). The suggestion that Domnach Maigen is
the modern site of Donaghmoyne, Co. Monaghan, coincides with Reeves's identification of
crich Mugdorna with the neighbouring area of Cremorne: see W. Reeves, The life of Saint
Columba, founder of Hy, written by Adamnan, ninth abbot of that monastery (Dublin
1857), 81-2 n. d.
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TIRECHAN'S MOTIVES IN COMPILING THE COLLECTANEA
63
Caetiacus itaque et Sachellus ordinabant episcopos, prespiteros,
diaconos, clericos sine consilio Patricii in Campo Aii et accussauit
illos Patricius et mittens aepistolas illis exierunt ad poenitentiam
ducti ad Ardd Mache ad Patricium et fecerunt poenitentiam
monachorum .ii. pueri Patricii prumpti et dixit eis 'non magnae
erunt aeclessiae uestrae'47
Caetiacus and Sachellus then appointed bishops, priests, deacons,
and clerics in Mag nAi without taking counsel of Patrick and Patrick
accused them and when he sent them a letter, being moved to
penance, they went to Patrick at Armagh, and they did the penance
of monks, [as] two willing servants of Patrick. And he said to them,
'Your churches will not be great'
This extract is much the most specific in terms of the role of Armagh.
Two figures, charged with ordination of the clergy in the area of Mag nAi
(northern County Roscommon), were chastised by Patrick and subsequently travelled to Armagh to perform penance there under the saint's
aegis. Armagh is here given explicit control over the actions of distant
and powerful subordinates.
The problem arises in determining whether or not this particular
incident belongs to the Collectanea. It is found in the Book of Armagh as
an isolated paragraph, preceding the lemma Tirechan episcopus haec
scripsit 'Tirechan the bishop wrote these things'. It is introduced by one
of the two ornate initials which mark the divisions in the Patrician
documentation written by Scribe A, as discussed by Sharpe.48The second
such initial opens the account of Iserninus in Leinster at the top of folio
18ra. Between the two initials lie (to use the titles given by Bieler) this
isolated paragraph, the Dicta Patricii, Tirechan's Collectanea, the Notae
Suppletoriae, and the first two sections of the Additamenta, dealing with
Meath and Connacht respectively.
Gwynn identified this isolated account as a misplaced part of the
Collectanea on two grounds. Firstly, the ornamented initial with which it
begins is more ornate than that introducing the Collectanea proper;49 this
point is negated by the fact that there are only two such initials in Scribe
A's work and their distribution does not correspond with the individual
units as identified by modern scholarship. Secondly, he pointed out that it
was similar in 'style, manner and character' to the types of story found in
Tirechan's work and that it, like the Collectanea, includes verbal forms
written in the first person singular.5"His argument appears to have been
47 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 9ra 23-31; Bieler,
4X'Palaeographical considerations', 8-14, 16.
Patrician texts, 122:30-124:4.
4 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, xlii, xliv-xlv. He supports his arguments with reference
to various placenames, the identification of many of which remains dubious. See discussion
in C. J. Swift, 'The social and ecclesiastical background to the treatment of the Connachta
in Tirechtin's seventh-century Collectanea' (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, Oxford 1993),
164-222.
"'
Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, xliv.
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64
CATHERINE SWIFT
accepted by Kenney, O'Rahilly, Carney and Doherty, all of whom state
without discussion that this paragraph is part of the Collectanea."5In his
analysis of the Book of Armagh, Paul Grosjean lists the paragraph as a
separate section but then suggests that it is a composite text of which half
is Tirechin's work, while the quotation above represents one of the
sources upon which Tirechin drew.52
For myself, I do not find Gwynn's arguments convincing: the Additamenta and the stories referred to in the Notulae are also similar to
material in the Collectanea, indicating that this type of foundation legend
was current amongst early Patrician communities. Bieler assumes that
Sachellus is the figure identified as episcopus Bassilicae elsewhere in the
Collectanea," but this is an inference based on the Vita Tripartita and
(assuming that there is only one Bassilica in Tirechin's work) ignores
Tirechin's association of that site with foreign bishops whose cult had not
survived.4 Sachellus is mentioned in the two lists of ecclesiastical figures
incorporated into Tirechan's text, where he is given in second and third
place respectively." No details of his career are given and there is no
information as to the location of his cult. A short text in the Additamenta
associates Sachellus with the Ciarraige, but it is only in the Vita Tripartita
that he is identified with the site of Baslicc.56This relative lack of material
on Sachellus in the earlier texts contrasts markedly with the standpoint of
the isolated paragraph, in which the native Irish genealogical background
of Sachellus is given and in which it is stated that he trained in Rome.57
Moreover, Bishop Cethiacus, who is mentioned in conjunction with
5, Kenney, Sources, 331; O'Rahilly, Two Patricks, 52 n. 14; Carney, The problem, 4, 161;
C. Doherty, 'The basilica in early Ireland', Peritia 3 (1984), 303-15, 304. David Dumville
appears undecided; see D. Dumville, 'Auxilius, Iserninus, Secundinus and Benignus', in D.
Dumville (ed.), St Patrick AD 493-1993 (Woodbridge 1993), 89-105, 102. Gwynn's son,
Edward Gwynn, had reservations, stating merely that the paragraph 'seems' to belong to
Tirechan; see E. Gwynn (ed.), Book of Armagh: the Patrician documents (Dublin 1937), iii.
2 P.
Grosjean, 'Analyse du livre d'Armagh', Analecta Bollandiana 62 (1944), 33-41, 36
(11.3); 'Notes sur les documents anciens', 58 n. 2, 64.
5' Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 13ra 39; Bieler, Patrician texts, 148:42.
54 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 12vb 13-18; Bieler, Patrician texts, 146:18-21.
55Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 12vb 33, 9vb 4; Bieler, Patrician texts, 146:32, 128:5.
56 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 17ra 22-5; Bieler, Patrician texts, 170:37-9; Mulchrone,
Bethu Phdtraic, 67:1212-13. For a discussion of the early history of Baslicecsee E. MacNeill,
St Patrick, ed. J. Ryan (Dublin 1964), 102; Doherty, 'The basilica', 308-10; and, for a
contrasting view, Swift, 'The social and ecclesiastical background', 179-86.
57 fuit uir missericors apud illos Hercaith nomine de genere Nothi pater Feradachi. Credidit
Deo Patricii et babtitzauit illum Patricius et Feradachum filium eius et immolauit filium
Patricio et exiuit cum Patricio ad legendum xxx annos et ordinauit filium in urbe Roma et
dedit illi nomen nouum Sachellum 'There was a compassionate man amongst them, Hercaith
by name, of the race of Nothi [and] father of Feradach. He believed in the God of Patrick
and Patrick baptized him and his son Feradach and he dedicated his son to Patrick and he
[Feradach] went with Patrick to study for thirty years and [Patrick] ordained him in the city
of Rome and gave him a new name, Sachellus'. Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 9ra 12-19;
Bieler, Patrician texts, 122:22-7. (Bieler's text omits illi, contrary to the evidence of the
manuscript, and he neglects to translate nouum.)
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
65
Sachellus in the isolated paragraph, is cursed in that text but is praised in
the Collectanea.58
This distinction between the information in Tirechin's text and the
material in the isolated 'Sachellus' paragraph is also reflected in the
references to some of the most precious relics associated with Armagh. In
the Liber Angeli, possession of the relics of Peter, Paul, Laurence and
Stephen, together with a cloth stained with Christ's blood and the bodies
of some of the first members of Patrick's household, is listed as one of the
reasons for Armagh's primatial position within Ireland.
Nihilhominus uenerari debet honore summorum martyrum Petri et
Pauli, Stefani, Laurendi et caeterorum59
Furthermore, [Armagh] must be venerated in honour of the
principal martyrs, Peter and Paul, Stephen, Laurence and the others
In the Collectanea, however, part of these same relics were given by
Patrick to his fosterling, Bishop Olcanus of Dunseverick in County
Antrim. No reference is made to their association with Armagh and the
gift is not identified by Tirechain as a mark of the subordination of the
recipient.60
ordinauit ibi Olcanum sanctum episcopum quem nutriuit Patricius et
dedit illi partem de reliquiis Petri et Pauli et aliorum et uelum quod
custodiuit reliquias61
There he consecrated holy Olcan as bishop, whom Patrick had
fostered, and he gave him a portion of the relics of Peter and Paul
and others and a veil which protected the relics
This is not to say that the gift could not have originally carried such
implications, merely that Tirechan provides us with no statement to that
effect. (It seems likely, in fact, that the distribution of these treasures
does reflect one method by which Armagh was linked to its subordinate
churches. Daibhi 0 Cr6inin has drawn attention to another Patrician
church with relics of SS Peter and Paul, probably located at Drumlease,
58Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 9ra 23-31, 10vb 7-17, 12va 30-40, 14va 34; Bieler,
Patrician texts, 122:30-124:4, 134:22-8, 146:1-8, 156:28.
59 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 21rb 12-14; Bieler, Patrician texts, 186:32-3. Similar
relics were deemed suitable as a gift from Pope Gregory to the ruler of Burgundy at the
beginning of the seventh century and from Pope Vitalian to the king of Northumbria in the
660s: see Sharpe, 'Armagh and Rome', 70; T. M. Charles-Edwards, 'Palladius, Prosper and
Leo the Great: mission and primatial authority', in D. Dumville (ed.), St Patrick AD
493-1993 (Woodbridge 1993), 1-12, 11.
60 Technical terms for ceremonial gifts which indicate a political relationship between the
giver and the receiver are rath and turchrecc; see DIL, R16:37-63, T387:49-86; D. A.
Binchy, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon kingship (Oxford 1970), 31, 51; F. Kelly, A guide to early
Irish law (Dublin 1988), 27, 145.
6' Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 15rb 36-9; Bieler, Patrician texts, 160:32-4.
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66
CATHERINE SWIFT
Co. Leitrim, which is mentioned in the Calendar of Willibrord.)62 The
fact that Tirechan avoids making any claims in relation to the remains of
Peter and Paul is hard to reconcile with an interpretation of the
Collectanea as an account of 'the direct relationship between Armagh and
its subordinate churches'.63 This omission is all the more striking when
one considers the evidence of the isolated 'Sachellus' paragraph, which
does appear to attach significance to the donation of similar relics.
ordinauit illum in urbe Roma et dedit illi nomen nouum Sachellum
et scripsit illi librum psalmorum quem uidi et portauit ab illo partem
de reliquis Petri et Pauli, Laurentii et Stefani, quae sunt in Machi64
He [Patrick] ordained him in the city of Rome and he gave him a
new name, Sachellus, and he wrote for him a book of the Psalms
which I have seen and he [Sachellus] received from him a portion of
the relics of Peter and Paul, Laurence and Stephen, which are in
Armagh
Like Olcan in Tirechan's description, Sachellus is said to have been a
pupil of Patrick's and to have received the relics as a gift from the saint.
In contrast to the case of Olcan, however, the isolated paragraph goes on
to state that Sachellus needed Patrick's permission to ordain others and
was liable to be summoned to Armagh to perform penance when he
failed to consult the saint in appointing clergy. The tale of the gift is
embedded in a longer account of Sachellus's subordination to Armagh.
No such information is given with respect to Olcain.
To sum up, Tirechain does not associate Baslicc with Sachellus but with
Frankish bishops; he says nothing about a condemnation of either
Sachellus or Cethiacus but praises the latter and places the former close
to the top of his two lists of ecclesiastical figures; and he makes no explicit
reference to relics of Peter and Paul at Baslicc.65 The information in the
isolated 'Sachellus' paragraph not only gives details which one does not
find in the Collectanea but would also seem to contradict information in
Tirechdin's text. These discrepancies lead one to conclude that the
resemblances in 'style, manner and character' noted by Gwynn are not
sufficient to imply common authorship of both texts. The unique nature
of the reference in the 'Sachellus' paragraph, which gives Armagh the
62
See Doherty, 'The basilica', 311.
See Sharpe as summarized above, p. 56.
Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 9ra 18-23; Bieler, Patrician texts, 122:26-9.
65
The placename Bassilica would suggest that the church had important relics in its
possession, for in north-western Europe in the sixth and seventh centuries the word basilica
is commonly used to describe churches with important relic cults. See A. Grabar,
Martyrium: recherche sur le culte des reliques et I'art chrttien antique, I: Architecture (Paris
1946), 427-36; W. Arndt and B. Krusch (eds), Gregorii Turonensis Opera, Monumenta
Germaniae Historica: Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum, 1 (Hannover 1885), 57, 189,
288, 358, 484, 485, 486, 553, 562, 571, 745.
63
64
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
67
power and authority to enforce obedience and penance from Roscommon
bishops, does not, therefore, appear to be relevant in discussing
Tirechan's own attitude.
A sceptic might interject a caveat at this point - why should we expect
the relationship between Armagh and its subordinate churches to be
spelled out in the Collectanea? Could it not be, as many scholars have
argued in relation to the relative lack of Patrician material from the area
around Armagh, that Tirechan did not need to make this point since it
was already accepted by his audience?66 This argument arises out of the
conviction that Tirechan must have been writing in praise of Armagh and
represents an attempt to overcome the real difficulties inherent in this
proposition. Tirechan's motivations have to be teased out from the
indications which he has left us in his text. He explicitly laid out the
claims of one particular church as uniquely important, and he drew
parallels between this church and one other; he entitled these twin
churches 'great churches of Patrick', as opposed to the simple 'church of
Patrick' at Armagh, and he associated these great churches with the first
Easter in Ireland in the case of one, and with the call pleading with the
saint to come to Ireland in the case of the other. If Tirechdn's aim was
not to promote these two churches but rather the primatial see of
Armagh, then, in my view, one would expect equally explicit and detailed
claims on Armagh's behalf. Since the only significant statement which
Tirechan incontrovertibly makes on this topic is that Benignus of Armagh
was heir to Patrick's kingdom, I conclude that the primacy of Armagh
over subordinate churches was not the most important element behind
Tirechan's decision to draw up the Collectanea. Tirechan was worried
about Patrick's paruchia and the attacks which it had suffered; it does not
follow that his intention was to promote the leading centre within that
paruchia. Instead, I would argue that the most important churches in
Tirechan's political perspective were the two 'great churches of Patrick',
and in particular the 'great church of Patrick' whose legal dues are
detailed in his text. The specific purpose behind the compilation of the
Collectanea, in short, does not appear to have been the promotion of
Armagh per se, despite the fact that Tirechan recognized the ruler of that
:hurch as heir to Patrick's kingdom.
4. THE 'GREATCHURCHOF PATRICK'ASSOCIATED
WITHCONALLM. NEILL
Of these two great churches of Patrick, the second, and for our
purposes the less important of the two, was located in the wood of
66
MacNeill, 'Earliest lives', 12, 17-19; 'Date of texts', 94-5, but see also 'The origin'.,
14-15; J. F. Kenney, 'St Patrick and the St Patrick legend', Thought 8 (1933), 1-34 and
212-29, 226-7; O'Rahilly, Two Patricks, 64 n. 39; Bieler, Patrician texts, 42; Sharpe, 'See of
Armagh', 45.
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68
CATHERINE SWIFT
Fochluth to the south-west of Killala Bay in County Mayo."/ Its most
important possessions were the body of a bishop in the graveyard, a cross
associated with the name of Patrick, and the seven books of law donated
by Patrick to the church. In Tirechan's description, this church appears as
an episcopal settlement with apparent jurisdiction over a number of local
churches.
The first 'great church of Patrick' is the location for the final celebrations of the first Easter in Ireland. After an encounter with Loiguire at
Fertae Fer Ftic, where a contest with Loiguire's druids takes place, and a
second with Loiguire's brother Coirpre at Tailtiu, where Patrick's
servants are whipped, Patrick travels to the home of a third brother,
Conall, where he is received, so Tirechan informs us, with great joy. In a
text which is difficult to translate precisely, Tirechain states:
Deinde autem uenit ad Conallum filium Neill ad domum illius quam
fundauit in loco in quo est hodie aeclessia Patricii magna et suscepit
eum cum gaudio magno et babtitzauit ilium et firmauit solium eius
in aeternum et dixit illi: 'Semen fratrum tuorum tuo semini seruiet
in aeternum. Et tu missericordiam debes facere heredibus meis post
me in saeculum et filii tui et filiorum tuorum filiis meis credulis
legitimum sempiternum' pensabatque aeclessiam Deo Patricii
pedibus eius lx pedum et dixit Patricius: 'si diminuatur aeclessia ista
non erit longum regnum tibi et firmum'68
Then, however, he came to Conall, son of Niall, to his house which
he had established in the place where the Great Church of Patrick is
today and he received him with great joy and he baptized him and
confirmed his rule for eternity and he said to him: 'The seed of your
brothers will serve your seed for eternity. Moreover you must be
merciful after me to my heirs for ever and your sons and [the sons]
of your sons as a perpetual due to my sons in the faith'. And he
marked out a church of sixty feet for Patrick's God with his own
67 The suggestion by MacNeill, recently reiterated by Doherty, that Silua Fochluth should
be located near the modern village of Foghill to the north-west of Killala Bay is based on
the modern Irish placename (F6choill) and on the location of this within an area known as
Caill Conaill in Dubhaltach mac Firbishigh's seventeenth-century genealogies. See MacNeill, 'The origin', 6; C. Doherty, 'The cult of Saint Patrick and the politics of Armagh in
the seventh century', in J.-M. Picard (ed.), Ireland and northern France, A.D. 600-850
(Dublin 1991), 53-94, 55; J. O'Donovan, The genealogies, tribes and customs of Hy
Fiachrach, commonly called O'Dowda's country (Dublin 1844), 8-9. MacNeill's argument
appears to be that this name commemorates the Conall son of Ende mentioned by
Tirechan, whereas the genealogical tract states explicitly that the area belongs to the
descendants of Pnde's brother, Fergus. O'Rahilly's identification, based on the placenames
Domnach M6r, Cros Phdtraic and Forrach, which the Vita Tripartita and (by implication)
Tirechain both associate with the wood, locates Silva Fochluth to the south-west of the bay
and is based on much more secure foundations; see O'Rahilly, Two Patricks, 60-1 n. 35.
68
Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 10rb 13-25; Bieler. Patrician texts, 132:9-17. (I follow
Bieler in giving quam for qui in the first line.)
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
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feet, and Patrick said 'if this church is reduced, your kingdom will
be neither long-lived nor stable'
There is a problem in translating the Latin phrase saeculum ... legitimum
sempiternum, for in the structure of Tirechin's sentence it has no obvious
meaning. My tentative translation 'as a perpetual due' draws on the
evidence of the Vita Tripartita, which gives a close paraphrase of this
speech in Irish.69The phrase missericordiam facere, which Bieler translates as 'to render alms', is most easily understood as 'to be merciful'; it is
in this sense that it is used in the Latin Vulgate.70In the Latin penitentials
from Ireland, missericordia is used to describe God's mercy, but an
example of the word as applied to royalty is found in the eighth-century
Collectio Canonum Hibernensis.71
In this extract, therefore, Tirechan states that in his day a church
belonging to the community of Patrick was located at the ancestral home
of Conall, the son of Niall. He tells us that the saint ordered Conall to be
merciful to Patrick's heirs, and moreover that the saint had identified this
as an important duty which was to descend to Conall's progeny. If
Patrick's church was attacked or diminished in any way, the kingdom of
Conall would suffer. This is the only statement in the whole of the
Collectanea where Patrick is said to have laid down explicit orders about
the relationship between his 'sons' and a secular power. Tirechan credits
him with performing this act during the period of the first Easter
ceremonies ever celebrated in Ireland.72I conclude that this relationship
is of primary importance in identifying Tirechan's aims in compiling the
Collectanea.
Tirechan's text makes it quite clear who Conall was. Not only is he
given his patronymic (son of Niall) but three of his brothers are also
identified in the Collectanea.73Of these, the most important is Loiguire
son of Niall, in whose reign Patrick came to Ireland. Loiguire is identified
with the royal Ui N6ill ceremonial centre of Tara, where it is implied that
69 technaige co nderna tr6cairi domm 6rbaib im degaid 7 do meic 7 meic do macc corop
dligthidi suthain dom maccaib-s6 creitmechaib (in Mulchrone, Bethu Phdtraic, 46:747-9), 'It
is proper that you should be merciful to my heirs after me and your sons and the sons of
your sons, so that it be due in perpetuity to my sons in the faith'. My thanks are due to
Colmin Etchingham, who helped me with the translation of this passage.
70 For examples of missericordiam facere in the Vulgate see R. Weber (ed.), Biblia sacra
iuxta Vulgatam versionem (2 vols, Stuttgart 1969), Gn. 19:19, Idc. 8:35, Ps. 108:16.
7 L. Bieler (ed.), The Irish penitentials, Scriptores Latini Hiberniae 5 (Dublin 1963),
76:12-13, 80:16, 84:5, 110:7; H. Wasserschleben (ed.), Die irische Kanonensammlung
(Leipzig 1885; repr. Aalen 1966), 82 (xxv:18).
72For an interesting discussion of the significance of Easter in Patrician hagiography see
S. Czarnowski, Le culte des heros et ses conditions sociales: St Patrick, hero national de
l'Irlande (Paris 1919), 90-4, 141.
73 Tirechjin lists Conall's brothers as Coirpriticusfilius Neill, Loiguire filius Neill, Loiguire
macc Neill and (filius) Fechach filii Neill; Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, O1rb6-7, 10rb 33,
15va 34-5, 9rb 32-3, 11ra 22; Bieler, Patrician texts, 132:3-4, 23, 162:21. 126:2, 136:17.
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70
CATHERINE SWIFT
he lives in the royal house - domus regia74- and, as we shall see, he is
implicitly credited with lordship over the Connachta. An important detail
is that Loiguire is said to have refused to convert to Christianity and no
heirs of his are mentioned. On the instructions of his father Niall, the
founder of the Ui N6ill dynasty, Loiguire was to be buried in an upright
position in the heights of Tara, an inveterate pagan to the last.75
In contrast to the important figure of Loiguire, Tirechan depicts both
Coirpre and his nephew, the son of Fiachu, in negative terms. Both are
said to have attacked members of Patrick's household, and in both cases
the saint retaliates with a curse: 'There will not be a king of your seed'.76
The importance of these statements lies in Tirechain's use of the word rex
and related words. The incidence of rex is limited both in number and in
application: on seven of the ten occasions on which this word appears in
the Collectanea it refers to Loiguire, Coirpre or the son of Fiachu - in
other words, to leaders of Ui Neill dynasties.77
Two of the remaining three instances of rex refer to the figures of
Fergus and Fothud, whom Tirechan identifies as the reges who granted
the site of Raith Chungi in Mag Sereth to St Assicus of Ail Find.78 This
foundation was identified by Reeves with the modern placename of
Racoon in modern County Donegal.79 Tirechn appears to locate Mag
Sereth in the vicinity of bernas filiorum Conill, 'the mountain pass of the
sons of Conall'. The later Vita Tripartita situates Raith Chungi in crich
Conaill or the land of Conall's descendants.8s This location, added to
Tirecha`n'salmost exclusive use of rex to denote members of the Ui N6ill,
would suggest that Fergus and/or Fothud were members of the Cen61
Conaill, descendants of Niall through his son Conall Gulban (not to be
confused with the Conall son of Niall who gave his home to Patrick; the
latter is known in Irish genealogical tradition as Conall Cremthainne or
Conall Err Breg).81 In the genealogies of the Cen61 Conaill, a likely
candidate for Fergus can be found in the figure of Fergus Cennfota, son
of Conall Gulban macc Neill, and consequently nephew to Loiguire.82
74Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 10va 5; Bieler, Patrician texts, 132:33. See also the
comparable tale in Muirchui'sVita Patricii: Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 4vb 17-24; Bieler,
Patrician texts, 92:3-7.
75 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 10rb 36-10v 2; Bieler, Patrician texts, 132:25-30.
76Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 10rb 11-12, 11ra 23; Bieler, Patrician texts, 132:6-7,
136:17-18.
77 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 10ra 19, 10ra 28, 12ra 13, 12rc 4 (Loiguire), 10rb 11-12
(Coirpre), 11ra 23 (filius Fechach); Bieler, Patrician texts, 130:21, 26, 142:10, 36, 132:7,
136:18.
78 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, llvb 20, 15rb 11-12; Bieler, Patrician texts, 140:23,
160:15-16.
79Reeves, Life of Columba, 38 n.e.
Patrician texts, 160:18; Mulchrone,
8o Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 15rb 15-16; Bieler,
Bethu Phatraic, 91:1730-1.
"'
O'Brien, Corpus genealogiarum, 133 (139 b 49), 159 (143 bc 55), 165 (144 g 5), 425
(335 d 48).
82 O'Brien, Corpus genealogiarum, 163 (144 d 20).
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
71
Unlike the branches of the Uf N6ill so far discussed, however, the Cen61
Conaill of Donegal appear to stand outside Tirechan's immediate concerns. They are neither blessed, as in the case of Conall Cremthainne,
nor acknowledged as supreme ruler, as in the case of Loiguire, nor
condemned, as in the cases of Coirpre and Fiachu's descendants.
Tirechin's view, in short, is focused not on the Uf Ndill as an entity but
on certain specific Ui Neill groups.
The tenth reference to a rex in the Collectanea is to the name of a well
thought to be associated with supernatural powers and entitled rex
aquarum or 'king of the waters'. There is also a single instance of the
Irish equivalent, ri, describing a prehistoric king whose swineherd was a
giant.83
The suggestion that rex in Tirechin's text relates to a member of the
Ui Neill, when used of historical figures, is supported by the distribution
of derivatives in the Collectanea. The assembly of the southern Uf Neill at
Tailtiu is identified as agon regale or royal games. (Regale is also used of
the supernatural well referred to above.) Tara, which -whatever
its
origins - was a ceremonial centre under Uf Neill control in the second
half of the seventh century, is the location for the domus regia or royal
house. The only man in the entire Collectanea who is said to rule
(regnare) is Loiguire macc Neill.84 Most interesting of all, there are only
four references to a regnum or kingdom, associated with Loiguire, Conall
Cremthainne, Coirpre Nioth Fer and Benignus of Armagh respectively.
Coirpre Nioth Fer is identified in the First Recension of the Tain with
Tara, and in Leinster genealogies he is named as an ancestral ruler of the
Laigin, from the period when they had controlled Tara.85Tirechan states
that Coirpre Nioth Fer ruled a hundred years before Patrick and
Loiguire, and that a giant, woken up by the saint, described himself as a
swineherd who had lived in Coirpre's kingdom.8" In other words, of the
four historical characters whom Tirechain identifies with regnum, two
were reputed to be kings of Tara and one of these, Coirpre Nioth Fer,
was associated with a supernatural figure. Only Conall, whose home
became Patrick's church and whose heirs owed mercy to Patrick's
community for ever, and Benignus, heir to Patrick's kingdom, are said to
have successors in Tirechan's Collectanea; only Conall and Benignus,
therefore, appear to be archetypal rulers of important contemporary
regna or kingdoms in Tirechan's description.
At this point it is worth summarizing the conclusions to date, for they
83 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 13vb 34, 36, 14rb 12; Bieler, Patrician texts, 152:34-5,
154:30.
84 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 10rb 6, 13vb 26-7, 10va 5, 9rb 35-6; Bieler, Patrician
texts, 132:3, 152:30, 132:33, 126:4.
85 See C. O'Rahilly (ed.), Thin B6 Ciailnge: Recension I (Dublin 1976), 107:3506-9;
O'Brien, Corpus genealogiarum, 22 (118b 6, 18); L. Gwynn (ed.), 'Do maccaib Conaire',
Eriu 6 (1912), 147:16-17.
86 Gwynn, Liber Ardmnachanus,14ra 23-b17; Bieler, Patrician texts, 154:15-34.
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72
CATHERINE SWIFT
differ radically from those found in the secondary literature at present
available.87There seems to be little emphasis on the rights of Armagh as
pre-eminent among the Patrician churches, although Tirechan does state
that the heir to Patrick's kingdom is Benignus of Armagh. The most
important secular family in the Collectanea is the Ui Neill. The king of
the Uf Neill in Patrick's time was Loiguire son of Niall, whose father was
said to have given him instructions concerning the proper response to the
Christian message. Loiguire, however, is not credited with heirs, and the
inference from Tirechan's text is that the kingdom of the Ui Neill passed
to Conall and his descendants. Patrick is said to declare that Conall's
kingdom will be served by the other families descended from Niall's sons.
Two of these are singled out for disparagement: neither the heirs of
Coirpre nor the heirs of the son of Fiachu will ever be kings. In
Tirechan's wording, the lordship associated with the Ui N6ill kingdom
and the lordship associated with the community of Patrick appear as
comparable institutions, for both are described by the word regnum or
kingdom. The rulers of Conall's kingdom, however, owe a perpetual due
to Patrick's kingdom: they must always be merciful to the saint's cult. The
context in which Tirechan wrote 'My heart within me is anxious about the
love of Patrick ..
is one, I contend, where the family of Conall
..88
as
inheritors
of the kingdom of Ireland, are said to have a
Cremthainne,
towards
the followers of St Patrick.
special responsibility
5.
LoiGUIRE'S CONTROLOVER CONNACHT AS PORTRAYED
IN THE COLLECTANEA
In the Collectanea Loiguire, as king of the Ui N6ill, is credited with
jurisdiction over the Connachta, a federation of families west of the
Shannon who controlled much of modern Connacht.89 Tirechan indicates
the nature of this Ui Neill jurisdiction in a number of different incidents.
The first of these is the arrival of the sons of Amolngaid at Tara, where
a judgement on the inheritance of Amolngaid's patrimony is handed
down by Loiguire and Patrick acting in concert:
'Vita
17 Some of the incidents discussed in this section are mentioned in MacNeill,
Tripartita', 10-13; F. J. Byrne, Irish kings and high-kings (London 1973), 90-1; D.
Dumville, 'St Patrick and fifth-century Irish chronology: the kings', in Dumville (ed.), St
Patrick, 45-50, 49; but in none of these is the explanation the same as that given above.
See, however, Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, lii, where he remarks that the gift of Conall's
house represents a contemporary claim for protection by Armagh.
s8 See above, p. 60.
89 The definition of the Connachta in this early period has been a matter of some dispute.
See T. F. O'Rahilly, History and mythology, 173-81, 395-6; F. J. Byrne, Irish kings and
high-kings, 230-7; F. Kelly, 'Tiughraind Bh6cain', triu 26 (1975), 66-98, 88; R. 0
hUiginn, 'Criachu, Connachta and the Ulster cycle', Emania 5 (1988), 20; T. CharlesEdwards, Early Irish and Welsh kinship (Oxford 1993), 159-60, 162-4; Swift, 'The social
and ecclesiastical background', 55-85.
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
73
Uenierunt autem filii Amolngid .ui. ad iudicandum ante faciem
Loiguiri et Endeus contra eos unus et filius eius tener et Patricius
ante illos et inuestigauerunt causam hereditatis illorum et iudicauit
illis Loiguire et Patricius ut diuiderent inter se hereditatem in .uii.
partes et dixit Endeus 'Filium meum et partem hereditatis meae ego
immolo Deo Patricii et Patricio'90
Six sons of Amolngaid came before Loiguire for judgement and
Ende was alone against them and his young son and Patrick on their
behalf j?] and they examined the case of their inheritance and
Loiguire and Patrick passed judgement that they should divide their
inheritance into seven parts and EJndesaid 'I give my son and a part
of my inheritance to the God of Patrick and to Patrick'
In an Old Irish poem we find evidence that land-law and inheritance
could be considered the particular concern of a king. 'If thou be a king',
as Binchy's translation has it, 'thou shouldst know. . . valuation of lands,
measurement by poles, augmentation of a penalty, larceny of tree-fruit,
the great substance of land-law, marking out [fresh] boundaries, planting
of stakes, the law as to points [of stakes], partition among co-heirs.'91 In
her discussion of the Irish king as judge, Marilyn Gerriets supplements
this poem with a canon quoted in the eighth-century Collectio Canonum
Hibernensis stating that one of the seven things which a king should judge
was hereditas or inheritance. Similarly, there is a statement in Audacht
Moraind that 'it is through the justice of the ruler that every heir plants
his house-post in his fair inheritance'.92 All of these quotations are from
seventh- or eighth-century sources, and they give a plausible context for
Tirechain's portrayal of Loiguire as a person with authority to judge
Amolngaid's inheritance - provided, and this is the important point, that
Loiguire is identified as king over the sons of Amolngaid. Since Amolngaid's lands were located in the west of County Mayo, between the Moy
and the Atlantic, Tirechtin credits the Uf Ndill kingdom with legal
jurisdiction over the entire width of Ireland.93
Tirechan's conclusion to the story of the sons of Amolngaid corroborates this interpretation. After Loiguire and Patrick had passed judgement on the entire patrimony, Ende immediately proceeded to donate
part of his inheritance to Patrick and to Patrick's God. In one of the texts
"
Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 10vb 17-27; Bieler, Patrician texts, 134:29-34.
D. A. Bincl-,y, 'An archaic legal poem', Celtica 9 (1971), 152-68, 156-7.
9" M. Gerriets, 'The king as judge in early Ireland', Celtica 20 (1988), 29-52, 48-9;
Wasserschleben, Kanonensammlung, 81 (xxv:15); F. Kelly (ed.), Audacht Moraind (Dublin
1976), 7 (§16).
~ The normal identification of the Ui Amolngaid kingdom, or campus domnon as
Tirechan calls it, is that found in Hogan, Onomasticon, 517, and MacNeill, 'Vita Tripartita',
20-1, where it is limited to the modern barony of Tirawley. This ignores two Old Irish
references to Irrus Domnon or the modern barony of Erris between Tirawley and the
Atlantic coast. See C. Swift, 'A square earthen church of clay in seventh-century Mayo',
Trowel 4 (1993), 32-7, 32-3.
*
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74
CATHERINE SWIFT
which make up the Additamenta there is an indication that any such gifts
to the Church must be ratified by the king.94This fact supports the view
that Tirechan was portraying the sons of Amolngaid as subjects of an Ui
N6ill king.
Following the division of the inheritance and Pnde's donation to
Patrick, there is a ceremony which is described as follows:
Foedus pepigerunt per manus Loiguiri filii Neill Patricius et filii
Amolngid cum exercitu laicorum episcoporum sanctorum et inierunt
iter facere ad montem egli95
Patrick and the sons of Amolngaid with an army of lay people [and]
holy bishops confirmed their agreement through the hands of
Loiguire son of Niall, and they began to make the journey to Mons
Egli96
Where the word foedus or pact occurs elsewhere in the Collectanea it is
translated in the Vita Tripartita by the Irish term cairdes, a word which
can denote friendship, kinship or sexual love and which therefore
suggests some form of close alliance.97 Cairdes does not, however, seem
to be the most suitable translation of the ceremony which took place per
manus Loiguire, an episode in the Collectanea which is not reproduced in
the Vita Tripartita. The phrase per manus is found in the Collectio
Canonum Hibernensis, where it is most plausibly rendered as 'with the
assistance of', and this usage is found in other early medieval Latin
texts.98 On the other hand, given the large number of Hibernicisms found
See E.
94 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 17rb 11-16; Bieler, Patrician texts, 172:11-14.
MacNeill, Celtic Ireland, reissued by D. 0 Corrfiin with introduction and notes (Dublin
1981), 149-50.
95Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 10vb 29-33; Bieler, Patrician texts, 134:35-8.
96 Mons Egli would appear to be the modern Croaghpatrick. The name is given as
Cruachdn Aigle in the Vita Tripartita and in the Annals of Ulster: Mulchrone, Bethu
Phdttraic,71:1289, 75:1377-8; S. Mac Airt and G. Mac Niocaill (eds), The Annals of Ulster
to AD 1131 (Dublin 1983), sub anno 1113. It is known as Aigle in an undated poem edited
by K. Meyer, Bruchstiicke der iilteren Lyrik Irlands (Berlin 1919), 9 (12). It is called Cruach
Patricc in J. O'Donovan (ed.), Annala Rioghachta Eireann - Annals of the kingdom of
Ireland by the Four Masters (7 vols, Dublin 1851), sub anno 1351, and it is depicted as Croa
Patrick, a conical hill with a church on the summit, on Petty's baronial maps in Hiberniae
Delineatio by Sir William Petty and Geographical description of ye Kingdom of Ireland by
Sir William Petty and F. R. Lamb, reprinted with introduction by J. H. Andrews (Shannon
1969).
32-5; Bieler, Patrician texts, 132:23-5, quoted
97Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, O10rb
above, p. 59. This is translated into Irish in the Vita Tripartita as Dochoid Patraic iar sin do
Temraig co Loegairi aair do gniset cairdes etorru connaro oircthi Patraic ina flaithius 'After
that, Patrick went to Tara, to Loiguire, because they had made a compact between them
that Patrick would not be killed in his lordship', Mulchrone, Bethu Phdtraic, 48:798-9. For
definition of cairdes see DIL, C46:9-68.
98Wasserschleben, Kanonensammlung, 135 (xxxvii:14); see Etchingham, 'The implications', 145. For usage of this expression in non-Irish sources see A. Blaise, Dictionnaire
Latin-Frangais, 515b:13-19.
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
75
in Tirechin's text, the phrase may be a reflection of the ceremony behind
the Irish sentence gaib it laim or 'take into your hand', a formula which is
used in the legal tract Berrad Airechta to denote formal agreement to a
contract.99
There are two explanations which come to mind as possible interpretations of the ceremony per manus. On the one hand, Loiguire may, as
Bieler's translation suggests, have been acting as a guarantor or naidm,
the literal translation of which is 'act of binding or pledging' but which is
also used to denote a particular type of surety.'00 The law tract Berrad
Airechta describes the phenomenon of a naidm whose responsibilities
derived from his position of authority.10' One such naidm was a lord
acting for his client: this would suggest that Tirechain was, once again,
portraying Loiguire as holding some form of authority over the sons of
Amolngaid. The pact to which Tirechan refers would then be the
donation of land by Ende to the church as ratified by his king,
Loiguire. 102
An alternative possibility is that the ceremony per manus Loiguiri
should be related not to Ende's donation of land but to the journey to
Mons Egli which follows directly on from it. Old Irish has a number of
words describing the protection which a person of high status could
bestow on his inferiors. Two of these, snadud and f6esam, are used
synonymously in the Old Irish hymn attributed to Colman Moccu
Cluasaig.103 More precisely, snadud refers to a form of safe conduct
offered to a stranger by one prepared to accompany him on his travels.
F6esam, on the other hand, is a guarantee of protection to a stranger, to
enable him to travel safely on his own.104
A passage in Uraicecht Becc and an associated Middle Irish commentary suggest that f6esam was measured in terms of time rather than
distance covered. According to the commentary, the king of a single ttiath
99D. A. Binchy (ed.), Corpus iuris Hibernici (6 vols, Dublin 1978), 595:5, 13. For
translation see R. Stacey, 'Berrad Airechta: an Old Irish tract on suretyship', in T. M.
Charles-Edwards et al. (eds), Lawyers and laymen: studies in the history of law presented to
Professor Dafydd Jenkins on his seventy-fifth birthday (Cardiff 1986), 210-33, 218 (§51b-c).
See also K. Simms, From kings to warlords - the changing political structure of Gaelic
Ireland in the later middle ages (Woodbridge 1987), 99-100; N. McLeod, Early Irish contract
law, Sydney Series in Celtic Studies, 1 (Sydney, n.d.), 23-4, 142-3, 162-3.
""oDIL, N9:25-55; Kelly, A guide, 167-73.
"0 Binchy, Corpus, 592:34-6; Stacey, 'Berrad Airechta', 213 (§24). See also Bieler,
Patrician texts, 219 (15.3), where he suggests an Irish equivalent for ldim on the basis of
DIL, L37:41-2.
102 This is the explanation put forward by R. Sharpe, 'Dispute settlement in medieval
Ireland: a preliminary enquiry', in W. Davies and P. Fouracre (eds), The settlement of
disputes in early medieval Europe (Cambridge 1986), 169-89, 175.
103 W. Stokes and J. Strachan (eds), Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: a collection of Old Irish
glosses, scholia, prose and verse (2 vols, Cambridge 1903; repr. Dublin 1987), vol. 2,
298-306.
"' According to Binchy, Corpus, 716:31-2. I am indebted to Liam Breatnach for this
information.
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76
CATHERINE SWIFT
had the power to impose protection for a month, while the king of
Ireland could provide protection for a year.
A foesma .i. mi do rig tuaithe 7 mortuaithe, tri coicthigdhis do rig
tuath, raithe do rig coiced, bliadain do rig Erend'os
Their f6esams, that is a month for the king of a tuiathor great tflath,
three fortnights for the king of more than one tuiath, three months
for the king of a province, a year for the king of Ireland
The relevance of this commentary to the earlier period is indicated by
Uraicecht Becc, which states that the king of Munster was also entitled to
grant a year's protection.'06 The journey made by Patrick and the sons of
Amolngaid across Ireland is said to have taken a full year, from the first
Easter at the 'great church of Patrick' in Meath to the second Easter at
the 'great church of Patrick' west of the Moy. It seems possible,
therefore, that Tirechan may have been referring to Loiguire's guarantee
of protection for the saint and the sons of Amolngaid before their
departure. This would provide a neat explanation for the journey of one
year which follows directly on from the ceremony which took place per
manus Loiguiri. Against this, however, the compact would appear to be
between Patrick and the sons of Amolngaid, and Loiguire would seem to
have been acting merely in an ancillary role.
In any event, whether the ceremony per manus represented the
conferring of a king's protection or was merely portraying the king acting
in the role of a naidm surety, the conclusion is surely the same: Loiguire
was being described in the Collectanea as king of the Uf Neill with legal
powers which extended over peoples living on the opposite side of Ireland
from Tara.
The third occasion on which Tirechain indicates the authority of
Loiguire over the Connachta is the well-known incident when Patrick
converted Loiguire's daughters at Crtiachu. Crtiachu was the ceremonial
district associated with the dwelling place of the kings of the Connachta in
the saga literature.107In 1919 MacNeill suggested that the association of
Loiguire's daughters with this site implied that the Ui N6ill were kings of
Crtiachu at this period, but this was rejected by Carney, who pointed out
that the girls were in fosterage at the time and that there was nothing
implausible about the idea that the daughters of the king of Tara could be
2269:26-7. My thanks are due to Colman Etchingham for showing me
xo Binchy,
this passage. Corpus,
"06 Ollam uas rigaib ri Muman . . . turrthugud bliadna do 'A master over kings is the king
of Munster... A year's protection for him'. Binchy, Corpus, 2282:12-16; trans. in E.
MacNeill, 'Ancient Irish law: the law of status or franchise', Proceedings of the Royal Irish
Academy 36C (1921-4), 261-316, 281 (§56).
107See J. Waddell, 'Rathcroghan - a royal site in Connacht', Journal of Irish Archaeology 1 (1983), 21-46; 6 hUiginn, 'Cruiachu', 19-23.
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
77
fostered outside his own domain.10s Following the conversion, the girls
were then united to Christ as God's son; the words used are coniungere
(to join) and sponsus (a promised man or bridegroom). The same words
are found in the eighth-century Collectio Canonum Hibernensis referring
to marriage alliances.109
The rationale behind this union, if not the reason for its location at
Cruachu, is given explicit recognition by Tirechhin. In the Collectanea,
Patrick is said to have remarked to the two girls: 'As daughters of an
earthly king, I wish to join [coniungere] you to the heavenly king'.
In
addition to reiterating the importance of Loiguire as the pre-eminent
royal figure of the Collectanea, the phrase reinforces the point made in
relation to the kingdom of Patrick which Benignus inherited: it is a
second indication that secular and ecclesiastical political units are directly
comparable and that both can be described as kingdoms ruled by a
king."' According to the account, the union between the two dynastic
groups, God and his son Christ with Loiguire and his daughters, did
indeed take place, for Patrick is said to have told the girls that unless they
were baptized, took the Eucharist and died, they would not see their
bridegroom.
Et postulauerunt uidere faciem xpisti et dixit eis sanctus 'nissi
mortem gustaueritis non potestis uidere faciem xpisti et nissi
sacrificium accipietis' et responderunt 'da nobis sacrificium ut
possimus filium nostrum sponsum uidere"'12
And they asked to see the face of Christ and the holy man said to
them 'Unless you taste death and unless you receive the Eucharist,
you cannot see the face of Christ' and they answered 'Give us the
Eucharist so that we can see the son, our promised bridegroom'
This condition the girls promptly fulfilled. If the image of marital union
"" E.
MacNeill, Phases of Irish history (New York 1919). 191-2; 'The origin', 4; 'Vita
Tripartita', 25; Carney, The problem, 129.
"' Wasserschleben, Kanonensammlung, 185 (xlvi:2), 186 (xlvi:7), 187 (xlvi:11), 189
(xlvi:16), 190 (xlvi:19). For discussions on early Irish marriage practices see R. Thurneysen,
'Heirat', in R. Thurneysen (ed.), Studies in early Irish law (Dublin 1936), 109-28; D. 0
Corrain, 'Marriage in early Ireland', in A. Cosgrove (ed.), Marriage in Ireland (Dublin
1985), 5-24; Kelly, A guide, 70-5; T. M. Charles-Edwards, Early Irish and Welsh kinship
(Oxford 1993), 461-9. I would like to thank Thomas Charles-Edwards for discussion of this
episode in the Collectanea.
Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 12rc 1-4; Bieler, Patrician texts, 142:35-6.
1""
"' The kingdom of Patrick was a common phrase in Patrician sources. See
Liber
Gwynn,
Ardmachanus, 3vb 28-34; Bieler, Patrician texts, 86:10-14; 'Fiacc's Hymn' in Stokes and
Strachan, Thesaurus, 2, 314:19-20, 315:28, 317:43; A. Orchard (ed.), Audite omnes (where
Patrick is the greatest inhabitant of the kingdom of heaven), in Dumville, St Patrick,
166-73. For a general overview of this theme see W. Davies, 'Clerics as rulers: some
implications of the terminology of ecclesiastical authority in early medieval Ireland', in N.
Brooks (ed.), Latin and the vernacular languages in early medieval Britain (Leicester 1982),
81-97, esp. 89-93.
"'2Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 12rc 31-41; Bieler, Patrician texts, 144:9-12.
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78
CATHERINE SWIFT
was carried through the entire account, it may be that this consummation
on the slopes of Cruiachu was meant to parallel the banais or wedding
ceremonies which normally took place at the home of the bride. In
Aislinge Oengusso, for example, the father of the groom went to the ruler
of the kingdom in which the bride was to be found, then spoke with the
girl's father, and finally an alliance of cairdes type was agreed upon by the
fathers of the young couple.113In Tochmarc Emire, Forgall Manach went
to Tara to betroth his daughter to Coirpre Nia Fer (in the ceremony
known as airnaidm),"14but the king then visited Forgall for the banais.1'5
It is possible, therefore, that in locating the union of Loiguire's daughters
with Christ within the ceremonial district of Crtiachu, Tirechan is
indicating that Loiguire was ruler of the area: at the very least, such an
explanation parallels similar indications elsewhere in the Collectanea.
6. THE POLITICALCONTEXTWITHIN WHICH THE COLLECTANEA WAS WRITTEN
I stress the significance of Tirechin's portrayal of Loiguire as king of
the Ui Neill with regnal authority over the Connachta because this is an
important element in determining Tirechin's viewpoint: after all, of the
1033 lines of prose text which go to make up the Collectanea, 680 or
roughly two-thirds deal with material relating to lands west of the
Shannon."6 At the time Tirechdin was writing, in the second half of the
seventh century, the annals indicate that the Ui Bridtin under Ragallach
m. Uatach and his descendants were establishing an independent power
base in northern Galway and Roscommon."7 Similarly, there is evidence
that the Ui Fiachrach Aidne in south Galway and, at a slightly later date,
the Ui Fiachrach Muirsce in northern Mayo were making claims to an
over-kingship of the Connachta."' The Uf Neill and their supporters may
have aspired to effective jurisdiction over the Connachta in the later
"7F. Shaw (ed.), The Dream of Oengus - Aislinge Oenguso (Dublin 1934), 56-63
(§§9-13).
114
On airnaidmsee DIL, A231:75-232:8.CoirpreNia Fer is the later form of the name
CoirpreNiothFerdiscussedon p. 71 above.
115
K. Meyer, 'The oldest versionof TochmarcEmire', Revue Celtique11 (1890), 424-57,
448:87-90.
1
Thelistof Patrick's
clericson folio9v is omittedfromthiscalculation.
The680lines
consistof that portionof the text from Patrick'sfirstcrossingof the Shannonto his blessing
of the riverDrowes, togetherwith the descriptionof the visit of Amolngaid'ssons to Tara.
117 Annals of Ulster, sub annis 649, 654,
703, 705; W. Stokes (ed.), The Annals of
680,
Tigernach, reprinted from Revue Celtique (1895-6) (Felinfach 1993), sub anno 621 (recte
622); M. Ni Dhonnchadha,'The guarantorlist of Ciin Adomniin, 697', Peritia 1 (1982),
178-215, 181 (9§61). See discussion in Byrne, Irish kings, 246-50.
"" On the Ui Fiachrach Aidne see Annals of Ulster, sub annis 622, 649, 663, 666, 675,
696, 697; Annals of Tigernach, sub anno 655 (recte 656); W. Hennessey (ed.), Chronicon
Scotorum: A chronicle of Irish affairs (London 1866), sub anno 664; Byrne, Irish kings,
239-43. On the Uf Fiachrach Muirsce see Annals of Ulster, sub annis 683, 707, 732, 735; Nf
Dhonnchadha, 'Guarantor list', 181 (§63); Byrne, Irish k,'ngs, 237-9.
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TIRECHAN'SMOTIVESIN COMPILINGTHE COLLECTANEA
79
seventh century but there is little evidence that they were successful in the
longer term.
According to the records which survive in the annals, there was one
southern Ui Neill branch which appears to have attempted to implement
its claims to jurisdiction over the Connachta. This was the family of
Diarmait and Blathmac, descendants of Conall Cremthainne through his
great-grandson, Aed Slaine. In 649 Diarmait attacked and defeated the
king of the Ui Fiachrach Aidne at Carn Conaill, within the Ui Fiachrach
kingdom."9 In 665, both Diarmait and his brother Blathmac died as joint
kings of Tara. In 671 Blathmac's son Sechnusach, who had been chosen
as king of Tara in his father's place, was murdered by the king of the
Cenel Coirpri, descendants of that Coirpre whose family was condemned
in Tirechain's text. In 683 Sechnusach's brother was killed in the battle of
Corann, possibly in south Sligo, and a king of the Cen61 Coirpri died in
the same incident.'20
lugulatio Sechnusaigh filii Blaimic regis Temoirie initio hiemis. Dub
Duin rex geniris Coirpri iugulauit illum
The murdering of Sechnusach, son of Blathmac, king of Tara at the
beginning of winter. Dub DWiin,king of the kindred of Coirpre,
murdered him
Bellum Coraind in quo ceciderunt Colgu filius Blaimic 7 Fergus m.
Maele Duin rex generis Coirpri
The battle of Corann in which fell Colgu, son of Blathmac, and
Fergus, son of Mael Dtiin, king of the kindred of Coirpre
It is roughly this period to which the compilation of Tirechan's
Collectanea has traditionally been dated. Within the text of the Collectanea, Tirechan identifies himself as a follower of Ultan, episcopus
Conchuburnensis.121This is normally assumed to have been the Ultin
moccu Conchobair whose obit is recorded sub anno 657 in the Annals of
Ulster, and also the Ultcin m.h. Conchobair i nArd Brecain whose name
occurs in the late eighth-century Martyrology of Tallaght under 4
September.'22 If this assumption is correct, it follows that Tirechan was
probably writing the Collectanea in the generation after Ultfin's death.
119 Hogan, Onomasticon, 159-60; Cath Cairnd Chonaill in R. I. Best and
0. Bergin (eds),
Lebor na hUidre (Dublin 1929), 288-92, 289:9601-6.
12oAnnals of Ulster, sub annis 649, 665, 671, 683. Hogan, Onomasticon,
suggests
291,
that this battle took place in the barony of Corran in County Sligo, but this identification
is
far from certain.
2"'Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, llrb 22-5; Bieler, Patrician texts, 138:7-90.
122R. I. Best and -H. J. Lawlor (eds), The martyrology of Tallaght, Henry Bradshaw
Society 68 (London 1931), 68. For contrasting discussions of the date of this text see J.
Hennig, 'Studies in the Latin texts of the Martyrology of Tallaght, of Felire Oengusso and of
Flire Hui Gormain', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 69C (1970), 45-112; P. 0
Riain, 'The Tallaght martyrologies re-dated', Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 20 (Winter
1990), 21-38.
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80
CATHERINE SWIFT
A second chronological indicator was noted by Bury. In his discussion
of the church at Tamnach, Tirechan mentioned the household of Cliain
moccu N6is (or Clonmacnoise), who 'hold through force many of the
places of Patrick after the recent plagues'.123 Bury took it that these
plagues were those recorded in the annals under the years 664 to 668, but
MacNeill in subsequent articles pointed out that they could also be the
plagues of 683, or even the plague of cattle of 701.124A post-701 date
seems difficult to accept in the light of the identification of kings of
Ireland with descendants of Conall Cremthainne in the Collectanea as
noted in this article: the long sequence of kings of Ireland who were also
descendants of Conall Cremthainne came to an end after the reign of
Finsnechta Fledach, who died in 695.125Furthermore, if we continue to
hold to Ultan's obit of 657, one is left with the conclusion that Tirechan
survived his mentor for some 44 years before. he began to compile the
Collectanea. There is, admittedly, little concrete evidence with which to
refute this suggestion, but it seems an implausible hypothesis.126 A date
sometime after the plagues of 664-8 requires no such longevity on
Tirechain's part and coincides with the period 671-83, when we can
identify an Ui Neill family whose history appears to accord with the
indications of Tirechan's political perspective as it can be traced in the
Collectanea. In both cases a king of Ireland descended from Conall
Cremthainne, antagonism towards the Cenel Coirpre, and possible Ui
Neill claims to Connachta territory appear to be involved.
7. CONCLUSIONS
As I have pointed out above, my interpretation of Tirechan's aims in
23 Gwynn, Liber Ardmachanus, 12ra 8-10; Bieler, Patrician texts, 142:6-7; Bury,
'Tirechdn's memoir', 236.
124
MacNeill, 'Earliest lives', 12; 'Date of texts', 85.
129See Byrne, Irish kings, 275-84.
126
The limited number of excavations of early medieval cemeteries within Ireland would
suggest that the majority of the population died before the age of fifty. Of sixteen adult
burials thought to date to the early medieval period at Boolies Little, one was an adult male
of more than 45 years: D. Sweetman, 'Souterrain and burials at Boolies Little, Co. Meath',
Riocht na Midhe 7 (1982-3), 42-57. Of the fourteen adults buried in an early medieval
cemetery at Millockstown whose age could be identified, two were forty or over, and of
eighteen adults buried at Lough Gur, two were over fifty: C. Manning, 'Archaeological
excavation of a succession of enclosures at Millockstown, Co. Louth', Proceedings of the
Royal Irish Academy 86C (1986), 135-81, 171-9; E. Grogan and G. Eogan, 'Lough Gur
excavations by Sean P. 6 Riordain: further Neolithic and Beaker habitations on Knockadoon', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 87C (1987), 299-506, 335. Excavation of
what is thought to be the graveyard of a female ecclesiastical house at Port nam Mairtir,
Iona, produced approximately forty female burials whose average age was also forty: Royal
Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Argyll: an inventory of the
monuments: IV Iona (Edinburgh 1982), 244. As opposed to this archaeological evidence,
however, we know of one Patrician cleric whose career stretched over a minimum of 39
years: Ferdomnach, the scriba of Armagh, wrote the Book of Armagh in 807 and only died
in 846; see Sharpe, 'Palaeographical considerations', 4.
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TIRECHAN'S MOTIVES IN COMPILING THE COLLECTANEA
81
compiling the Collectanea differs from those previously published. I do
not accept the present consensus, based on the early work of Bury,
Gwynn and MacNeill, which argues that Tirechan was writing with the
specific intention of promoting Armagh. Tirechin undoubtedly acknowledged Armagh as the leading church of the Patrician community and its
ruler as the heir to Patrick's kingdom but, although his heart was troubled
at the thought of attacks on Patrick's paruchia, he does not emphasize
Armagh's rights in his text. Instead, viewing the Collectanea as a whole,
the two churches which are given the most attention are the two 'great
churches of Patrick'.
The family which is given the most elevated status, as denoted by
Tirechan's use of the word rex and related words, is that of the Ui N6ill.
According to Tirechan, the king of the Ui Neill at the time of Patrick's
arrival, and Niall's direct heir, was Loiguire, who is credited with
authority over the Connachta. Loiguire, however, refused to be baptized
and the kingdom passed to his brother Conall and to Conall's descendants, to whom other families descended from Niall's sons paid
homage. In Tirechin's description, Conall gave his ancestral home to
Patrick on the occasion of the first Easter in Ireland, and this later
became known as the 'great church of Patrick'. On the occasion of this
gift, Patrick told Conall that he and his sons owed mercy to Patrick and to
Patrick's successors for ever, and that if Patrick's church, whose dimensions had been measured out by Conall himself, were ever diminished,
Conall's family would lose their kingdom. After giving this account,
Tirechan explained that he was writing his text because soldiers and
renegades and others were stealing from Patrick's original paruchia,
which had originally been almost coextensive with the entire island of
Ireland.
My alternative interpretation is based on these facts and runs as
follows. Tirechan was writing the Collectanea as a loyal member of the
Patrician regnum or kingdom which was headed by the heir of Patrick in
Armagh. He was addressing it to a king of Tara who was also a
descendant of Conall Cremthainne, and his aim was to claim favour from
a dynasty that (so Tirechain informs us) had traditionally supported
Patrick's church. He sought such aid because his own kingdom, that of
Patrick, was under threat at the time and, in particular, was shrinking in
territorial extent. Although he did not specify from where these attacks
came, he did indicate that some of the attackers were soldiers, while
others (whom he calls renegades) appear to have been ex-members of
Patrick's kingdom. Tirechin also reported that St Patrick condemned the
dynasties of the Cenel Coirpri and the Cendl Fiachach: either or both of
these may have formed part of the anti-Patrician alliance which provoked
Tirechan into compiling the Collectanea. (The animus which Tirechan
occasionally displays against other ecclesiastical communities may also be
relevant here, but that is too large a question to be dealt with in this
paper and must be discussed on another occasion.)
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82
CATHERINESWIFT
Perhaps with the aim of making his request for aid more palatable,
Tirechan recounted a number of stories which indicated to the king that
his Ui N6ill ancestors had held regnal authority over the Connachta. He
also pointed out that Patrick's kingdom had a large number of associated
settlements within Connachta lands, perhaps because this was where the
attacks were occurring or perhaps because he wanted to offer the Uif N6ill
king the support of the Patrician clients in the land the king was trying to
conquer. The validity of this interpretation, it seems to me, is strongly
supported by the existence of an Ui?Neill family who were descendants of
Conall Cremthainne, kings of Tara, opponents of Coirpre's descendants,
and involved in battles in the lands of the Connachta at the time when
Tirechdin was probably writing. Patrician propagandist Tirechain may
have been, but I would argue that the contention that he wrote the
Collectanea as an Armagh chronicler, with the specific aim of promoting
that church, may be out-dated and deserves to be reassessed.
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