Westeopp — Earthworks and Ring-watts in County Limerick. 453 



souna, and Brughrigh. The apparently earlier legends are possibly misplaced, 

 for the makers of our prehistoric chronology are beyond measure unreliable, 

 sticking together contemporary pedigrees to form a ladder, like Milton's 

 bridge over chaos, to " over-lay the dark abyss " back to an intangible past. 

 One tells of a battle at Bealgadan (the fine mote of Eathbaun, at Bulgadine) 

 where a " Milesian " king Fiach Labraind, fell a.m. 3751 (about B.C. 449), and 

 names a battle at Clin (probably Aine Cliach or Knockainey) where his 

 slayer, Eochaidh MumhO; " from whom Mumhan or Munster was named," fell 

 fighting twenty-one years later,' but these have no place in the main cycle of 

 legend. 



EOGHAif " MOGH NUADAT." 



As we "traverse the gray dawn's path" along what purports to be the 

 history of these princes we meet among the descendants of Corb Olum the 

 first legitimatist King of Munster,^ an outstanding mythological personage 

 " A.D. 177," Eoghan Taidleach, or Mogh Nuadat. He was probably called as a 

 " slave of Nuada," the silver-handed god, whom Christian writers changed to 

 a foster-father, from whom Maynooth, Magh l^uadat, is named. ^ The great 

 king looms large in early legend as more than a match for Conn, of the 

 Hundred Fights, the formidable King of Tara. The rivals for a short period 

 divided Erin between them, into " Conn's half " and " Mogh's half "* along the 

 gravel ridge of Escar riadha, between the bays of Galway and Dublin. 

 Omitting Eoghan's legendary achievements, we pass to his more famous son. 



AiLiLL Olam akd His Eace. 



Ailill or, as he was more usually named, " OilioU," was surnamed " Olom," 

 the earless (we shall study the cause of the sobriquet in describing Knock- 

 ainey), for his victim, the fairy princess Aine, bit it off. From him sprang the 

 Eoghanacht," the Dal Cais, and many other tribes. He may be the shadow of 

 a real prince,* but the late and perhaps Bowdlerized form of his legend leaves 

 all doubtful. 



■ Annals Four Masters. Todd Lecture Ser. iii, R.I.A., p. 187, in poem on the High 

 Kings. 



- Restored after the rebellion of Cairbre Cinn Cait, perhaps a duplicate of OilioU Olom. 



2 Cf . "Cambrensis Eversus," vol. i, p. 473, note. 



^ These have been rendered "Freeman's half" and "Slave's half" (New Ireland 

 Review, vol. xxvi, p. 144). No one (save Israel) insisted on former slavery, and the 

 " Mogh " in Eoghan's name is an honourable dedicatory particle, like Cell de, Mael Isu, 

 and Paul's " Slave of Christ." For the division see Rev. Celt., vol. xxx, p. 392. 



" In this paper we hardly touch the Eoghanacht of Cashel. The Eoghanacht of Loch 

 Leine (Killarney), of Ninuis and Aran, and that of Gleann Omnach, south ofthe Ballyhoura 

 Mountains, do not concern us. 



'' Book of Leinster (Silva Gadelica, vol. ii, p. 347). J- MacNeill regards Conn of Tara, 



