190 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Tara ; Corniac abdicated, retired to Skreen, and appealed against the Deisi. 

 Sentence was passed, and Aenghus and his tribe ordered to submit and pay 

 tribute ; they refused indignantly, left their lands, and fled southwards, driven 

 before their overwhelming adversaries; this is dated about ad. 278. ' The 

 Nan Desi fled to the great Ailill Olam, King of Munster, and he took them 

 in. 2 Aenghus married (or had already married) one of the Minister king's 

 relatives, and he and his clansmen were settled south of the great mountains 

 and the River Suir, 3 where we find them when their history begins. Readers 

 of our antiquary-poet, Sir Samuel Ferguson, will recall his lines in " The 

 Burial of King Cormac " — 



" . . . . Through angrier floods than these 

 On linked shields once our king we bore 

 From Dread Spear and the host of Deise." 



The baronies of " Deece " in Meath and " Decies within and without Drum " 

 in Co. "Waterford recall the migration. 



Professor MacXeill throws doubt on tbe whole tale, arguing that if the 

 Deis had been of the royal race, they never could have been tributary ; he 

 regards them as Iberian chiefs for whom a Milesian pedigree was confeeted, 

 perhaps as late as the twelfth century. 4 There are many openings for 

 confusion, as the Deis of Bregh in Meath continue to appear in the Annals 

 down at least to ad. 757 ; the Dalcais of Thomond were called the " Northern 

 Deis," 5 which, if Dr. Joyce be right, and the word only means "south," is a 

 hard saying. Then there were the Deisbeg of eastern Co. Limerick, and last, 



1 For ancient texts bearing on this, see Professor Kuno Meyer's edition of Laud, 610, 

 and Rawlinson, b 502-512 ; also "Ogygia," p. 339; O'Curry's "Manuscript Materials," 

 Lecture II, p. 326; Keating, "History of Ireland," Book I, sec. xliv (ed. Irish Texts 

 Soc), vol. ii, p. 313 ; and article by Professor MacXeill in "New Leland Review." 



- Keating notes that Sadbh, daughter of Conn (uncle of Aongus), had married Ailill 

 Olam. 



3 The northern border of the Desi, 852, was Magh Tamhean, near Clonmel, in Co. 

 Tipperary (Ann. F. M.). 



4 He regards Deis as meaning a vassal community under Milesian Lords — Beuius being 

 " rent," AirelJesa, " chief of vassals." He gives a paper on the genealogy of the Deisi 

 in the Book of Ballymote, Waterford and S. E. Ir. Journal, vol. xiii, p. 46. He regards 

 the " Northern Deis" as having been with Aran and Corcomroe at one time subject to 

 the Eoghanachts, the Killaloe princes rising to independence and importance after 700. 



5 " Book of Leinster," 319, c. 5, " Cormac Cass a quo Dal Cais, i.e. In Deis." " Book 

 of Lecan," f. 455, adds: "From him descended the Eoghanacht of Munster and the 

 Northern Deis " ; and p. 174, b 10 : " This is the covenant of the Dal Cais among them- 

 selves, i.e. the Northern Deis, and the Southern Deis." 



°Dr. P. W. Joyce, "Irish Names of Places," Ser. ii, chap, xxv, following Dr. Todd, 

 MS. Ser., R. I. A., vol. ii, p. 25, andZeuss, " Gram. Celt," 57, note. 



