200 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



have had eai'ly predecessors on its site to protect this unpopular task. 

 Whether " Borama " was the ford, or the actual rath above it, depends on the 

 general bearing of the passage and in what connexion the word occurs. It 

 is often absolutely doubtful. The fort is very probably meant, in tlie dirge 

 of King Mahon, in 976, " the fiery king of Boromha,"' and it is nearly 

 certain that Brian took his epithet from it, and not from the mythical re- 

 imposition of the Lemster cattle tribute. This I ventured to suggest in 1892, 

 and it has been confirmed by Professor Kuno Meyer' and others. The ford 

 probably took its name from a cattle tribute imposed by the Dal gCais and 

 their descendants, the O'Briens, down to the reign of Elizabeth. Enforcing 

 the " Boromha " on Corcomroe, cost King Conor O'Brien his life at Siudaine, 

 in 1267; the Corcamodruadh "undertook to deal mutinously with Conor, 

 omitting to send him his royal cess " ; " they withheld it because they had 

 not been raided,"' a very significant light on the precarious nature of these 

 tributes. The "Book of Eights" gives that of the Dalcassians from Corcomroe 

 as "1,000 oxen, 100 sheep, 100 sows, and 1,000 cloaks not white."' So late as 

 1585, Sir John Perrot's composition with the Clare chiefs stipulates that 

 after the death of Donall, the MacNamara Eeagh, all rights, duties, and 

 customs extorted by the clan are to cease ; while on that chieftain's death 

 it was found by an Inquisition' (taken at Galway by Sir Richard Bingham) 

 that the MacNamaras paid a horuma to the O'Briens. " The Earl of Thomond 

 and his ancestors took up yearly rent charges .... also a compulsory rent 

 called a horome on the death of each " MacNamara " (chief) of certain cows, 

 or 13 pence per cow." Also the " O'Brien," " what time he wolde go of a 

 forrey, could claim a footman for each quarter (of land) .... with food for 

 two days, after which the said Earl had to support them." Indeed so late as 

 1712, Henry, the last of the old direct line of the Earls, imposed dues of 

 hogs, sheep, and capons, with the support of soldiers, on the lessees of his 

 estates." 



History from 1014. The Norse caU Kincora, "Kancaraborg," "Kantaraborg," 

 and " Kunniatinborg," Connacht town, in the Sagas, and tell how " Brian, the 

 best-natured of kings, had his court in Connacht."' In its hall took place 



' " 'Wars," from a poem by " Mathgamhan's blind bard." Keating calls it " Ceann Choradh na 

 Bhoraime," History, vol. iii, sect, xxv, p. 2G3. This tribe is called "Dal Cais Borumha" in 

 "Wars," p. 53. 



- " £riu," vol. V, p. 7; cf. Eoy. Soc. Ant. Ir. xxii, p. 403h. The belief rests on a poem 

 doiiltfully attributed to Brian's bard, Mac Liac. 



'"Cathreim Thoirdhealbhaigh," 1267. 



* Ed. O'Donovan, pp. 64, 65. " 



^ Exchequer Inquisition, July 27th, 1585, Public Record Office, Dublin. 



" 1 have even had to redeem portions of this " boroma " in recent sales of lands in Clare. 



' Niala Saga (" Burnt Niul," ed. Sir G. Dasent, 1900), p. 319, chapter cliii, 



