Orpkn — Dun Galion and the i Dunum ' of Ptolemy. 47 



for, according to one account, he is said to have been descended from the son 

 of the King of Lochlann, who aided Labraid in recovering his kingdom. 1 

 After the recovery of domination by the free peoples under Tuathal 

 Techtmar, we find the Galians of Leinster described as consisting of three 

 Tuaths, namely, Tuath Fidga, " forest-tuath," in the Fortuatha of Leinster and 

 in Ui Cennselaigh, Tuath Fochmainn in Offaly, &c, and Tuath Aithecda, 

 " vassal tuath," in the east of the Liffey valley as far as the sea. 2 The first 

 and the last of these tuaths, I take it, were in Dal Messi Corb. And secondly, 

 that kings of the Fortuatha were descended from Messi Corb appears in the 

 following cases : — Under the year 826 we read : " Destruction of the camp of 

 the Leinster-men (Dunadh Laighen, which may very well be an alias for Dun 

 nGalionf by the Gentiles, where Conall, son of Cuchongalt, King of the 

 Fortuatha, and others innumerable were slain." 4 This Cuchongalt was son of 

 Cethernach, who appears in the pedigree of another king of the Fortuatha, 

 namely, Donnell son of Fergal, who was slain fighting for the Danes at Clon- 

 tarf, and whose descent is traced through Garrchu to Messi Corb. 5 He was 

 also probably the Cuchongalt king of Eath-inbir who was slain at the battle 

 of Eighe in 780.° We seem therefore safe in regarding the Fortuatha Laigen 

 as included in the territory of Dal Messi Corb. 



There was, indeed, another (probably a Munster) theory of the origin of 

 the people known as Dal Messi Corb. In the tracts concerning the Corca 

 Laidhe 7 they are traced to Lughaidh, son of Ith, and an eponym is found 

 for them in Lughaidh Corb, one of six brothers, each named Lughaidh, and 

 each the progenitor of an unfree people. This was, I think, merely one of the 

 schemes for linking together the non-Milesian peoples of Ireland, i.e., those 



1 See the text in Rev. Celt., vol. xx, p. 16, and Keating, vol. ii, p. 239. 

 • See the passage edited by Prof. Mac Neill from the Book of Ballymote and other 

 texts in Duanaire Finn, I.T.S., p. lvii. 



3 Dunadh Laighen would seem to mean " the stronghold (par excellence) of Leinster 

 or the Leinstermen " and as Laighin superseded Galidin as the name for Leinster and 

 Leinstermen, so Dunadh Laighen may have superseded Dun nGalion as the name of the 

 fortress. It was presumably in or near the Fortuatha. 



4 Ann. Ulst., 826. 



5 For the pedigree of Donnell son of Fergal see LL. 337 c. ri na fortuatha. Guchon- 

 gelt ocus Dondgcd da, mac Gethernaig are mentioned in the Garrchu genealogy, LL. 313 a 

 (18). From about 1014 the kings of the Fortuatha seem to have taken the surname 

 O'Dungaile. 



6 Ann. Ulst., 780. Rath inbir was in Ui Garrchon, probably at Arklow, Inber mdr, 

 the Inver par excellence : Onom. Goed. It was also the Inver of Eogan Inbir : Four 

 Masters, a.m. 3470. See O'Flaherty's " Ogygia " (1685),. p. 181. 



'See Genealogy of Corca Laidhe, Miscellany, Celtic Society, pp. 8, 30, 70, 76. LL. 

 210 a (45) . Here Dal Meascorb or Dal Moscorb, variants of the name, is stated to be in 

 Crich Cualann. But this does not help much, as Cualu was clearly a name given to a 

 large district extending from the Liffey at Dublin to below Arklow. See Onom. Goed. 



