EVIDENCE OF TOPOGRAPHY AND GENEALOGY
The ramifications of early Irish literary history and its claims to
antiquity are so multiple, intricate, and inter-connected, that it is
difficult for any one who has not made a close study of it to form
a conception of the extent it covers and the various districts it
embraces. The early literature of Ireland is so bound up with the early
history, and the history so bound up and associated with tribal names,
memorial sites, patronymics, and topographical nomenclature, that
it presents a kind of heterogeneous whole, that which is recognised
history running into and resting upon suspected or often even evident
myth, while tribal patronymics and national genealogies abut upon both,
and the whole is propped and supported by legions of place-names still
there to testify, as it were, to the truth of all.
We have already glanced at some of the marks left by the mysterious De
Danann race upon our nomenclature. Mounds, raths, and tumuli, called
after them, dot all Ireland. It is the same with the early Milesians.
It is the same with the men of the great pseudo-historic cycle of
story-telling, that of Cuchulain and the Red Branch, not to speak of
minor cycles. There is never a camping-ground of Mève's army on their
march a century B.C. from Rathcroghan in Roscommon to the plain of
Mochruime in Louth, and never a skirmish fought by them that has not
given its name to some plain or camping-ground or ford. Passing from
the heroes of the Red Branch to the history of Finn mac Cool and the
Fenians, we find the same thing. Finn's seat, the Hill of the Fenians,
Diarmuid and Gráinne's bed, and many other names derived from them or
incidents connected with them, are equally widely scattered.
The question now arises, does the undoubted existence of these
place-names, many of them mentioned in the very oldest manuscripts
we have--these manuscripts being only copies of still more ancient
ones now lost--mentioned, too, in connection with the celebrated
events which are there said to have given them their names, do these
and the universally received genealogies of historic tribes which
trace themselves back to some ancestor who figured at the time when
these place-names were imposed, form credible witnesses to their
substantial truth? In other words, are such names as Creeveroe[1] (Red
Branch) given to the spot where the Red Branch heroes have been always
represented as residing; or Ardee (Ferdia's Ford) where Cuchulain
fought his great single fight with that champion--are these to be
accepted as collateral evidence of the Red Branch heroes of Ferdia and
of Cuchulain? Are See-finn (Finn's seat) or Rath Coole[2] (Cool's
rath) to be accepted as proving the existence of Finn and his father
Cool?
In my opinion no stress, or very little, can be laid upon the argument
from topography, which weighed so heavily with Keating, O'Donovan, and
O'Curry, for if it is admitted at all it proves too much. If it proves
the objective existence of Finn and of Cuchulain, so does it that of
Dana, "the mother of the gods," and of divinities by the score. Besides
the Gaels brought their topographical nomenclature with them to Alba,
and places named from Finn and the Fenians, are nearly as plentiful
there as in Ireland. Wherever the early Gaels went they took with them
their heroic legends, and wherever they settled place-names relating
to their legends which were so much a part of their intellectual life,
grew up round them too. Something of the same kind may be seen in
Greece--a land which presents so many and so striking analogies to that
of the Gael; for wherever a Grecian colony settled, east or west, it
was full of memorials of the legendary past, and Jasonia, or temples of
Jason, and other memorials of the voyage of the Argonauts, are to be
found from Abdêra to Thrace, eastward along the coast of the Euxine and
in the heart of Armenia and Media, just as memorials of the flight of
Diarmuid and of Gráinne from before Finn mac Cool may be found wherever
the Gael are settled in Ireland, in Scotland, or the Isles.
Having come to the conclusion that Irish topography is useless
for proving the genuineness of past history, let us look at Irish
genealogy. When the Mac Carthys, descendants of Mac Carthy Mór, trace
themselves through Oilioll Olum, king of Ireland in the second century,
to Eber Finn, son of Milesius; when the O'Briens of Thomond trace
themselves to the same through Oilioll Olum's second son; when the
O'Carrolls of Ely trace themselves to the same through Cian, the third
son; when the O'Neills trace themselves back through Niall of the Nine
Hostages, and Conn of the Hundred Battles to Eremon, son of Milesius;
when the O'Driscolls trace themselves to Ith, who was uncle of
Milesius; when the Magennises trace themselves through Conall Cearnach,
the Red Branch hero, back to Ir, the son of Milesius; and when every
sept and name and family and clan in Ireland fit in, and even in our
oldest manuscripts have always fitted in, each in its own place, with
universally mutual acknowledgment and unanimity, each man carefully
counting his ancestors through their hundredfold ramifications, and
tracing them back first to him from whom they get their surname, and
next to him from whom they get their tribe name, and from thence to the
founder of their house, who in his turn grafts on to one of the great
stems (Eremonian, Eberian, Irian, or Ithian)[3]; and when not only
political friendships and alliances, but the very holding of tribal
lands, depended upon the strict registration and observance of these
things--we ask again do such facts throw any light upon the credibility
of early Irish history and early Irish records?
The whole intricate system of Irish genealogy, jealously preserved
from the very first, as all Irish literature goes to show,[4] played
so important a part in Irish national history and in Irish social
life, and is at the same time so intimately bound up with the people's
traditions and literature, and throws so much light upon the past, that
it will be well to try to get a grip of this curious and intricate
subject, so important for all who would attempt to arrive at any
knowledge of the life and feelings of the Irish and Scottish Gael, and
upon which so much formerly depended in the history and alliances of
both races.
All Milesian families trace themselves, as I have said, to one or other
of the three sons of Milesius, who were Eremon, Eber, and Ir, or to
his uncle Ith, who landed in Ireland at any time between 1700 and 800
years before Christ according to Irish computation.[5] But while they
all trace themselves back to this point, it is to be observed that long
before they reach it, in each of the four branches, some place in the
long row of ancestors is arrived at, some name occurs, in which all or
most of the various genealogies meet, and upon which all the branch
lines converge. Thus in the Eberian families it is found that they all
spring from the three sons of Oilioll [Ul-yul] Olum, who according to
all the annals lived in the second century--in this Oilioll all the
Eberian families converge.
Again all, or nearly all, the Irians trace themselves to either Conall
Cearnach or Fergus Mac Roy, the great Red Branch champions who lived in
the North shortly before the birth of Christ.
The tribes of the Ithians, the least numerous and least important of
the four, seem to meet in Mac Con, king of Ireland, who lived in the
second century, and who is the hero of the saga called the Battle of
Moy Mochruime, where Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, was slain.
In the line of Eremon only, the greatest of the four, do we find two
pedigrees which meet at points _considerably antecedent_ to the birth
of Christ, for the Dál Riada of Scotland join the same stem as the
O'Neills as much as 390 years before Christ, and the O'Cavanaghs at
a still more remote period, in the reign of Ugony Mór. But setting
aside these two families we find that all the other great reigning
houses, as the Mac Donnells of Antrim, Maguires of Fermanagh, O'Kellys
of Connacht, and others, either meet in the third century in Cairbré
of the Liffey, son of King Cormac mac Art, and grandson of Conn of
the Hundred Battles; or else like the O'Neills of Tyrone, O'Donnells
of Tirconnell, O'Dogherties of Inishowen, O'Conors of Connacht,
O'Flaherties of Galway, they meet in a still later progenitor--the
father of Niall of the Nine Hostages.
It will be best to examine here some typical Irish pedigree that we may
more readily understand the system in its simplest form, and see how
families branch from clans, and clans from stems. Let us take, then,
the first pedigree of those given at the end of the Forus Feasa, that
of Mac Carthy Mór, and study it as a type.
This pedigree begins with Donal, who was the first of the Mac Carthys
to be created Earl of Clancare, or Clancarthy, in 1565. Starting from
him the names of all his ancestors are traced back to Eber, son of
Milesius. Passing over his five immediate ancestors, we come to the
sixth. It was he who built the monastery of Irriallach on the Lake of
Killarney. The seventh ancestor was Donal, from whose brother Donagh
come the families of Ard Canachta and Croc Ornachta. The tenth was
Donal Roe, from whom come the Clan Donal Roe, and from whose brother,
Dermot of Tralee, come the family of Mac Finneens. The eleventh was
Cormac Finn, from whom come also the Mac Carthys of Duhallow and the
kings of Desmond; while from his brother Donal come the Mac Carthys
Riabhach, or Grey Mac Carthys. The thirteenth was Dermot of Kill
Baghani, from whom come the Clan Teig Roe na Sgarti. The fourteenth was
Cormac of Moy Tamhnaigh, from whose brother Teig come the Mac Auliffes
of Cork. The fifteenth was Muireadach, who was the first of the line
to assume the surname of Mac Carthy, which he did from his father
Carthach, from whom all the Síol Carthaigh [Sheeol Caurhy], or Seed of
Carthach, including the Mac Fineens, Mac Auliffes, etc., are descended.
The seventeenth was Saerbhrethach, from whose brother Murrough spring
the sept of the O'Callaghans. The nineteenth was Callaghan of Cashel,
king of Munster, celebrated in Irish romance for his warfare with
the Danes. The twenty-third was Snedgus, who had a brother named
Fogartach, from whose son Finguini sprang the Muinntir Finguini, or
Finguini's People. The twenty-eighth was Falbi Flann, who was king of
Munster from 622 to 633, from whose brother Finghin sprang the sept
of the O'Sullivans. The thirty-second was Angus, from one son of whom
Eochaidh [Yohy] Finn are descended the O'Keefes; while from another son
Enna, spring the O'Dalys of Munster--he was the first king of Munster
who became a Christian, and he was slain in 484. The thirty-fourth
was Arc, king of Munster, from whose son Cas, spring the following
septs: The O'Donoghue Mór--from whom branched off the O'Donoghue of
the Glen--O'Mahony Finn and O'Mahony Roe, _i.e._, the White and Red
O'Mahonys, and O'Mahony of Ui Floinn Laei, and O'Mahony of Carbery,
also O'Mullane[6] and O'Cronin; while from his other son, "Cairbré
the Pict," sprang the O'Moriarties, and from Cairbré's grandson came
the O'Garvans. The thirty-sixth ancestor was Olild Flann Beg, king of
Munster, who had a son from whom are descended the sept of O'Donovan,
and the O'Coiléains, or Collinses. And a grandson from whom spring the
O'Meehans, O'Hehirs, and the Mac Davids of Thomond. The thirty-seventh,
Fiachaidh, was well known in Irish romance; the thirty-eighth was
Eoghan, or Owen Mór, from whom all the septs of the Eoghanachts, or
Eugenians of Munster come, who embrace every family and sept hitherto
mentioned, and many more. They are carefully to be distinguished from
the Dalcassians, who are descended from Owen's second son Cas. It was
the Dalcassians who, with Brian Boru at their head, preserved Ireland
from the Danes and won Clontarf. For many centuries the history of
Munster is largely composed of the struggles between these two septs
for the kingship. The thirty-ninth is the celebrated Oilioll [Ulyul]
Olum, king of Munster, whose wail of grief over his son Owen is a
stock piece in Irish MSS. He is a son of the great Owen, better known
as Mogh Nuadhat, or Owen the Splendid, who wrested half the kingdom
from Conn of the Hundred Battles, so that to this very day Connacht
and Ulster together are called in Irish Conn's Half, and Munster and
Leinster Owen's Half. The forty-third ancestor is Dergthini, who is
known in Irish history as one of the three heirs of the royal houses
in Ireland, whom I have mentioned before as having been saved from
massacre when the Free Clans or Nobility were cut to pieces by the
Unfree or Rent-paying tribes at Moy Cro--an event which is nearly
contemporaneous with the birth of Christ. Hitherto there have been nine
kings of Munster in this line, but not a single king of Ireland, but
the forty-ninth ancestor, Duach Dalta Degadh, also called Duach Donn,
attains this high honour, and takes his place among the Reges Hiberniæ
about 172 years before Christ, according to the "Four Masters." After
this a rather bald catalogue of thirty-six more ancestors are reckoned,
no fewer than twenty-four being counted among the kings of Ireland, and
at last, at the eighty-sixth ancestor from the Earl of Clancarthy, the
genealogy finds its long-delayed goal in Eber, son of Milesius.
It will be seen from this typical pedigree of the Mac Carthys--any
other great family would have answered our purpose just as well--how
families spring from clans and clans from septs--to use an English
word--and septs from a common stem; and how the nearness or remoteness
of some common ancestor bound a number of clans in nearer or remoter
alliance to one another. Thus all septs of the great Eberian stem had
some slight and faint tie of common ancestry connecting them, which
comes out most strongly in their jealousy of the Eremonian or northern
stem, but was not sufficient to produce a political alliance amongst
themselves. Of a much stronger nature was the tie which bound those
families descended from Eoghan Mór, the thirty-eighth ancestor from
the first earl. These went under the name of the Eoghanachts, and
held fairly together, always opposing the Dalcassians, descended from
Cas. But when it came to the adoption of a surname, as it did in the
eleventh century, those who descended from the ancestor who gave them
their name, were bound to one another by the common ties or a nearer
kinship and a common surname.
It will be seen at a glance from the above pedigree, how, taking the
Mac Carthys as a stem, and starting from the first earl, the Mac
Finneens join that stem at the eleventh ancestor from the earl, the
Mac Auliffes at the fifteenth, the O'Callaghans at the eighteenth, the
O'Sullivans at the twenty-ninth, the O'Keefes at the thirty-second, the
O'Dalys[7] of Munster at the thirty-second, the O'Donoghues, O'Mahonys,
O'Mullanes, O'Cronins, O'Garvans, and Moriartys at the thirty-fourth,
the O'Donovans, Collinses, O'Meehans, O'Hehirs, and Mac Davids at the
thirty-sixth.
Now each of these had his own genealogy equally carefully kept by his
own ancestral bardic historian. If, for instance, the Mac Carthys could
boast of nine kings of Munster amongst them, the O'Keefes could boast
of ten; and an O'Keefe reckoning from Donal Óg, who was slain at the
battle of Aughrim, would say that the Mac Carthys joined _his_ line at
the thirty-sixth ancestor from Donal.
All the Gaels of Ireland of the free tribes trace back their ancestry,
as we have seen, to one or other of the four great stocks of Erimon,
Eber, Ir, and Ith. Of these the EREMONIANS were by far the greatest,
the EBERIANS coming next. The O'Neills, O'Donnells, O'Conors,
O'Cavanaghs, and almost all the leading families of the north, the
west, and the east were Erimonian; the O'Briens, Mac Carthys, and most
of the leading tribes of the south were Eberians.[8] It was nearly
always a member of one or the other of these two stems who held the
high-kingship of Ireland, but so much more powerful were the Eremonians
within historical times, that the Southern Eberians, although well able
to maintain themselves in the south, yet found themselves absolutely
unable to place more than one or two[9] high-kings upon the throne of
All-Ireland, from the coming of Patrick, until the great Brian Boru
once more broke the spell and wrested the monarchy from the Erimonians.
The Irians gave few kings to Ireland, and the Ithians still less--only
three or four, and these in very early, perhaps mythic, times.
If now we trace the O'Neill pedigree back as we did that of the Mac
Carthys, we find the great Shane O'Neill who fought Elizabeth, traced
back step by step to the perfectly historical character Niall of the
Nine Hostages, son of Eochaidh Muigh-mheadhoin [Mwee-va-on], who was
grandson of Fiachaidh Sreabhtine [Sravtinna], son of Cairbré of the
Liffey, son of the great Cormac Mac Art, and grandson or Conn of the
Hundred Battles, all of whom are celebrated in history and endless
romance; and thence through a list containing in all forty-four
High-kings of Ireland back to EREMON, son of Milesius, brother of
that Eber from whom the Mac Carthys spring, and from whom he is
the eighty-eighth in descent. The O'Donnells join his line at the
thirty-sixth ancestor, the O'Gallaghers at the thirty-second, the
O'Conor Don and O'Conor Roe and the O'Flaherty at the thirty-seventh.
We find too, on examining these pedigrees, the most curious
inter-mixtures and crossing of families. Thus, for instance, the two
families of O'Crowley in Munster spring from the Mac Dermot Roe of
Connacht, who, with the Mac Donogh, sprang from Mac Dermot of Moylurg
in Roscommon, ancestor of the prince of Coolavin; while the O'Gara,
former lord of Coolavin in the same county, to whom the "Four Masters"
dedicated their annals, was of southern Eberian stock.
The great warriors of the Red Branch, the men of the original kingdom
of Uladh [Ulla, _i.e._, Ulster], were of the third great stock, the
IRIANS or race of Ir,[10] but they are perhaps better known as the
Clanna Rudhraighe [Rury] or Rudricians, so named from Rudhraighe, a
great monarch of Ireland who lived nearly three hundred years before
Christ, or as Ulidians because they represented the ancient province
of Uladh. But the Three Collas, grandsons of Cairbré of the Liffey,
who was himself great-grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles, and of
course of the Eremonian stock, overthrew the Irians in the year 332,
and burned their capital, Emania. The Irians were thus driven out by
the Eremonians, and forced back into the present counties of Down
and Antrim, where they continued to maintain their independence. So
bitterly, however, did they resent the treatment they had received at
the hands of the Eremonians, and so deeply did the burning of Emania
continue to rankle in their hearts, that after a period of nearly
900 years they are said to have stood sullenly aloof from the other
Irish, and to have refused to make common cause with them against the
Normans at the battle of Downpatrick in 1260, where the prince of the
O'Neills was slain.[11] So powerful, on the other hand, did the idea of
race-connection remain, that we find one of the bards so late as the
sixteenth century urging a political combination and alliance between
the descendants of the Three Collas who had burned Emania over twelve
hundred years before, and who were then represented by the Maguires of
Fermanagh, the Mac Mahons of Oriel[12] and the far-off O'Kellys of Ui
Máine[13] [Ee maana].
As for the fourth great stock, the ITHIANS,[14] they were gradually
pushed aside by the Eberians of the south, as the Irians had been by
the Eremonians of the north, and driven into the islands and coasts
of West Munster. Yet curiously enough the northern Dukes of Argyle
and the Campbells and MacAllans of Scotland spring from them. Their
chief tribes in Ireland were known as the Corca Laidhi [Corka-lee];
these were the pirate O'Driscolls and their correlatives, but they
were pushed so hard by the Mac Carthys, O'Mahonys, and other Eberians,
that in the year 1615 their territory was confined to a few parishes,
and twenty years later even these are found paying tribute to the Mac
Carthy Reagh. There is one very remarkable peculiarity about their
genealogies, which is, that, though they trace themselves with great
apparent, and no doubt real, accuracy back to Mac Con, monarch of
Ireland and contemporary with Oilioll Olum in the end of the second
century, yet from that point back to Milesius a great number of
generations (some twenty or so) are missing, and no genealogist, so far
as I know, in any of the books of pedigrees which I have consulted,
has attempted to supply them by filling them up with a barren list of
names, as has been done in the other three stems.[15]
Let us now consider how far these genealogies tend to establish the
authenticity of our early history, saga, and literature. The first
plain and obvious objection to them is this--that genealogies which
trace themselves back to Adam must be untrue inventions.
We grant it.
But all Gaelic genealogies meet, as we have shown in Milesius or
his uncle, Ith. Strike off all that long tale or pre-Milesian names
connecting him with Adam, and count them as a late excrescence--a
mixture of pagan myth and Christian invention added to the rest for
show. This leaves us only the four stems to deal with.
The next objection is that pedigrees which trace themselves back to
the landing of the Milesians--a date in the computation of which Irish
annalists themselves differ by a few hundred years--must also be
untrue, especially as their own annalist, Tighearnach, has expressly
said that all their history prior to about 300 B.C. is uncertain.
We grant this also.
What, then, remains?
This remains--namely the points in each of the four great race stems,
in which all or the most of the leading tribes and families belonging
to that stem converge, and, as we have seen, all of these with a few
exceptions take place within reach of the historical period. In the
lines of EBER and of ITH, this point is at the close of the second
century; in the race of IR it is about the time of Christ's birth,[16]
and in the fourth and perhaps most important stem, that of EREMON, the
two main points of convergence are in the historical Niall of the Nine
Hostages, who came to the throne in 356, and in Cairbré of the Liffey,
who became High-king in 267.[17]
[1] Craobh-ruadh.
[2] _I.e._, Ath-Fhirdia, Suidhe Fhinn, Rath Chúmhail. There are
See-finns or See-inns, _i.e._, Finn's seats in Cavan, Armagh, Down,
King's County, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Tyrone, and perhaps elsewhere, and
there are many forts, flats, woods, rivers, bushes, and heaps, which
derive their name from the Fenians.
[3] As the various Teutonic races of Germany traced themselves up to
one of the three main stems, Ingævones, Iscævones, and Herminones, who
sprang from the sons of Mannus, whose father was the god Tuisco.
[4] A large part of the Books of Leinster, Ballymote, and Lecan, is
occupied with these genealogies, continued up to date in each book.
The MSS. H. 3. 18 and H. 2. 4 in Trinity College, Dublin, are great
genealogical compilations. Well-known works were the Book of the
genealogies of the Eugenians, the Book of Meath, the Book of the
Connellians (_i.e._, of Tirconnell), the genealogy of Brian, son of
Eochaidh's descendants (see above, p. 33), the Book of Oriel, the
Genealogies of the descendants of the Three Collas (see above, p.
33) in Erin and Scotland, the Book of the Maineach (men of O'Kelly's
country), the Leinster Book of Genealogies, the Ulster Book, the
Munster Book, and others.
[5] See above, ch. II, note 2.
[6] The great Daniel O'Connell's mother belonged to this sept of the
O'Mullanes, and the so-called typical Hibernian physiognomy of the
Liberator was derived from her people, whom he nearly resembled, and
not from the O'Connells.
[7] Not to be confounded with the Síol nDálaigh, who were the
great northern family of the O'Donnells, who had also an ancestor
called Dálach, from whom they derived, not their surname, but their
race-patronymic.
[8] Strange to say Daniel O'Connell was not an Eberian but an
Erimonian. The history of his tribe is very curious. It was descended
from the celebrated Ernaan, or Degadian tribe to which the hero Curigh
Mac Daire slain by Cuchulain belonged, who trace their genealogy back
to Aengus Tuirmeach, High-king of Ireland about 388 B.C. These tribes
were of Erimonian descent, but settled in the south. They were quite
conquered by the descendants of Oilioll Olum--_i.e._, the Eberians, who
owned nearly all the south--yet they continued to exist in the extreme
west of Munster. The O'Connells, from whom came Daniel O'Connell, the
O'Falveys and the O'Sheas were their chief families, but none of them
were powerful.
[9] The Munster annals of Innisfallen themselves claim only five, but
the claims of some of them are untenable. Moore will not admit that any
Eberian was monarch of Ireland from the coming of St. Patrick to the
"usurpation" of Brian Boru.
[10] Their greatest families were in later times the Magennises, now
Guinnesses, O'Mores, O'Farrells, and O'Connor Kerrys, with their
correlatives.
[11] O'Donovan says that Brian O'Neill was not assisted by any of the
Ulidians at this battle, but of course they had more recent wrongs than
the burning of Emania to complain of, for battles between them and the
invading Eremonian tribes continued for long to be recorded in the
annals. _See_ p. 180, "Miscellany of the Celtic Society."
[12] _I.e._ Monaghan.
[13] Parts of the counties Galway and Roscommon.
[14] In later times their chief families were the O'Driscolls, the
Clancys [Mac Fhlanchadhas] of the county Leitrim, the Mac Allans of
Scotland, the Coffeys and the O'Learys of Roscarberry, etc. They were
commonly called the Clanna Breogain, or Irish Brigantes, from Breogan,
father of Ith.
[15] From Mac Con, son of Maicniad, king of Ireland, to the end of the
second century, Mac Firbis's great book of genealogies only reckons
twelve generations of Breogan, but in the smaller handwriting at the
foot of the page twenty-two generations are counted up. See under the
heading, "Do genealach Dairfhine agus shíl Luighdheach mic Iotha Mac
Breoghain," at p. 670 of O'Curry's MS. transcript. Michael O'Clery's
great book of genealogies counts twenty-three generations from Maic
Niad to Ith, both included, see p. 223 of O'Clery's MS. Keating's
pedigree, as given in the body of his history, gives twenty-three
generations also, but only seventeen in the special genealogy attached
to it. There are no such curious discrepancies in the other three
stems. I can only account for it by the impoverished and oppressed
condition of the Ithians, which in later times may have made them lose
their records.
[16] The chief exceptions being, as we have seen, the Scottish Dál
Riada and the Leinster O'Cavanaghs, who do not join the Eremonian line,
one till the fourth and the other till the seventh century before
Christ.
[17] Conall Cearnach, from whom, along with his friend Fergus mac Roigh
or Roy, the Irians claim descent, was first cousin of Cuchulain, and
Tighearnach records Cuchulain's death as occurring in the second year
after the birth of Christ, the "Chronicon Scotorum" having this curious
entry at the year 432, "a morte Concculaind herois usque ad hunc annum
431, a morte Concupair [Conor] mic Nessa 412 anni sunt." It is worth
noting that none of the Gaelic families trace their pedigree, so far
as I know, to either Cuchulain himself, or to his over-lord, King
Conor mac Nessa. Cuchulain was himself not of Ithian but of Eremonian
blood, although so closely connected with Emania, the Red Branch, and
the Clanna Rury. If Irish pedigrees had been like modern ones for
sale, or could in any way have been tampered with, every one would
have preferred Cuchulain for an ancestor. That no one has got him is a
strong presumption in favour of the genuineness of Irish genealogies.