t) ALTON — Cromm Cniaich of Magh Sleacht. 27 



reduced to servitude, by the Ui-Biiuiu, wlio had theu extended their 

 supremacy over the Conmaiene Magh Eeiii. The Book of St. Caillin, or of 

 Feuagh, in its existing form, was evidently compiled before Ui-Briuin 

 dominance had been shaken in Magh Eein,' for its rhapsodies are every- 

 where charged with glorification of the O'Piuaircs. The writer, or writers, 

 based their fiction, that the Conmaiene were first brought to Magh Eein as 

 feudatories of the Ui-Briuin, on a forged unification of Aedh Finn, 

 son of Fergua or Brian,^ with Aedh Dubh of the Attacotie Glasraighe,^from 

 whom the Conmaiene had wrested Cairbre Gabhra. Incredible, indeed, is the 

 story that the Ui-Briuin would have vacated the vast plain that stretches 

 from Lough Allen east to Loiigh Sheelin to make room for a migrant colony 

 of the Conmaiene Dunmor.'' 



But if the versifiers of St. Caillin's book cannot be relied on for history, 

 they may be trusted for an exhaustive inventory of the dues, tributes, and 

 immunities of their patron's richly endowed foundation at Fenagh.' These 

 they enumerate for Magh Eein in minutest detail ; yet, though the Masraighe 

 were admittedly in possession of Magh Sleacht in St. Caillin's time,'' and had 

 then received the rudiments of Christianity, nowhere is tribute or contribu- 

 tion claimed from their territory. The Conmaiene tradition recalled the 

 Masraighe only as a hostile and hated race, distinct by blood and location 

 from the proud breed of Magh Eein : and, according to the same record, the 

 Ui-Briuin had attained supremacy over the Conmaiene before they subjugated 

 the Masraighe. But when the Masraighe were reduced they disappeared, as 

 a separate people, from the soil. The Conmaiene, on the other hand, always 

 preserved their tribal existence, never sinking lower than the tributary 

 status. 



At what date the Masraighe were actually extirpated I need not here 

 inquire. Their tuath was appropriated by the Teallach Eachdhaich sept of 

 Ui-Briuin, and thenceforward Magh Sleacht invariably appears as part of 

 the Teallach-Eachdhaieh patrimony. Before the break up of the old tribal 

 regime by the settlement of Ulster, in 1610, all Breifni, " from Kells to 



' The editors assign its compilation to a date "about or previous to a.d. 1300" 

 (Introduction, p. vi). 



- This Fei-gna stands five generations in direct descent below Brian, son of Eochaidh 

 Muighmeadhoin {op. cit., p. 113). 



2 Op. cU., pp. 82, 118, 130, 136. The miraculous "whitening" of Aedh Dubh is 

 said to have been effected at his baptism by St. Caillin. 



^ Op. cit., pp. 175 et seq^. 



° See Introduction to volume, p. 9. 



^ Op. cit., pp. 140, 141. 



