Wkstkopp — Fortified Headlands and Castles in Western Co. Cork. 261 



The seventeenth-century deaneries corresponded to sub-divisions of the 

 race — " Kinelea citra " to Kinelmeaky ; " Kinelea ultra " to Kinelea ; 

 " Kilmughan " to Ui Flainluadh (Ifflanloe in 1615) ; " Fonn Iartharach " to the 

 Ivagha peninsula ; besides Kerricurrihy, Cork City, and other Deaneries. Their 

 chief (" Ard Eigh ") Cathal Ua Donnchadha (0 Donoghue) was slain in 1083. 

 Mathganihain's son, Brodchon (not Brodchu), was still chief in a.d. 1072, and 

 led a raid against the Desi. The tribe was better employed in their great 

 victory over the Danes of Dublin, Wexford, and "Waterford, when the latter 

 made their attack on Cork in a.d. 1088. They pillaged Bossailither in revenge 

 for a cleric. They quarrelled again with the Dalgeais, a.d. 1089, under Curaara, 

 son of Brodchon, and again in a.d. 1178, when they attacked the O'Brians, 

 being piteously defeated, and (with various expelled Eoghanachts) were driven 

 southward, and had to hide in the woods of Ivagha. 1 The succession of chiefs 

 includes Cumara, slain A.D. 1091 (not 1107) ; Donchadh Donn, grandson of 

 Brodchon ; Cian, a.d. 1118-35, " O Mathgamhain, Donchad son of Cian," 

 who was their chief at the time of the Xorman invasion. 2 



Like most coast tribes, they lay but little within the ken of annalists ; and 

 as the King's writ did not run among them, they are equally absent from the 

 most helpful records of judicial and fiscal history — the Plea, Pipe, and other 

 Bolls. In our studies all round the coast we see how broken is the history 

 of such tribes — the Ui Mhaille, the Clan Taidgh of Aran, the Ui mbreacain, 

 the Ui Thorna, the Ui Fearbha, the Aes Ioruis, and now even the important 

 tribes of Ui Mathgamhna and Ui hEidersceoil — all of whose Annals are nearly 

 blank from the thirteenth to the close of the fifteenth century. The Ui 

 Echach, apparently by voluntary arrangement, about a.d. 1260, split into 

 two ; Dermot Mor Omathgamhna (Omahony) chose the peninsula of Fonn 

 Iartharach, leaving the apparently richer lands of Kinelmeaky to his brother 

 Chonchobar. 2 It was no such foolish choice, as some have thought ; if the hills 

 were barren there was doubtless fine hunting, and he secured the seaboard with 

 its numerous bays and creeks, its fisheries and the foreign trade in wine 3 and 



1 The frequent occurrence of names compounded with Derry in the Ivagha peninsula 

 tells its own tale. 



- See lis. Pedigree in Irish H. 23, R.I. Acad. 



3 See Proc. R.I. Acad., vol. xxx. p. 417. In 1234 Amlaibh O H Eidersceoil, called 

 Gaskunagh, chief of the O'Driscolls, was slain, ibid., p. £84, Corca laidhe, p. 15. He 

 derived his nickname from the Gascon wine trade. See also English Historical Review, 

 1914, " A Tract of 1580 " : "The places of the West of Ireland for seckes and gasconi 

 wines," " and andolozia and Gaskone wines, a little vvoade, some Allem . . . some 

 raire silk of divers colleurs, and some Brasill ; but of wynes you shall dispatche greate 

 store. And they will complye their bargaines very well, and ar men of more sivilitie than 

 those of the northe partes." 



