Patrick C. Griffin

December 9, 2001

M. Phil. Seminar

Dr. Katharine Simms

A Theory on the Dating and Location of

There are several major Irish mythological voyages, and of them, MD is one of the longest and most detailed. Máel Dúin’s father rapes a nun, impregnating her, and is killed soon after by marauders. Máel Dúin is brought up in fosterage by the local king and queen, and he does not know any of this until a local boy spitefully tells him he has no parents. After pressing his foster-parents to tell him who they are, his foster-mother takes him to meet his mother, who then tells him of his father and his father’s people. He goes, and is again spitefully told of his father’s dishonorable death, after which he visits a druid who tells him to build a boat, take seventeen companions, and hunt down his father’s killer.

Because of the actions of his foster-brothers, who swim out to his boat and increase the number past seventeen, Máel Dúin is blown away from his objective and forced to row around in the sea from island to island, hoping somehow to find his way home. After seeing dozens of islands and wonders, he finally reaches the island he was blown away from, and instead of murdering his father’s killer, he makes peace with him, and the tale ends.

MD is, in itself, a paradox. It is a tale full of discrete and contrasting locations, yet the number of named places is close to nil. In a survey of place-names alone existing in MD, I obtained only a few: Ninuss, Kildare, Dubcluain, Leix, Corcomroe (and the Boirenn Nuca), Birr, Tory Island, and Armagh. Of them, the final three are of little to no importance regarding the actual location of the text: there are minor characters from Birr and Tory met by the sailing party, and Diurán Leccerd visits Armagh after the end of the voyage.

This leaves us with four major (and one minor) place names to go on, after the potential scribal error has been taken into account. Fortunately, Ninuss is tied to the Eoganacht, placing it somewhere in Munster. Unfortunately, neither a survey of known branches of the Eoganacht nor a search for "Ninuss" in Hogan’s Onomasticon Goedelicum reveals anything mentioning a family or place by that name. O’Donovan does not note any location that is either named or derived from "Ninuss" in his Antiquities of the Country of Kerry. Therefore, Ninuss is unhelpful to the present inquiry, and leaves us with three locations. Skipping ahead somewhat, Dubcluain is also unhelpful for the same reasons, bringing us down to two major place names, and giving us only a vague location somewhere in Munster.

The next name, Kildare, is somewhat more helpful for reasons that will be discussed later on. To the location of the story, it simply adds a probable place where Máel Dúin lived out his childhood, and it fixes a part of the story in the east of Ireland. He leaves Kildare to return to his fatherland, the community of Dubcluain. (Oskamp, 103) Incidentally, if the marauders were actually from Leix (Laois), he would have been closer to them before he returned to his people than after.

Finally, the name that gives us the most tangible aid in placing the tale is Corcomroe, the land of the druid. Máel Dúin visits him specifically for omens about his voyage, and after obtaining them, immediately builds a ship and launches it. (Oskamp, 107) The tale does not have any specific reference to him returning home before he builds his ship, therefore, if one assumes that the lack of reference implies immediacy, he launched his voyage from Corcomroe, or somewhere quite nearby. As can be seen on the included map of Ireland, Corcomroe has a long stretch of coastline that faces the Aran Islands. This, along with the suggestion that the so-called "marauders from Leix" (Oskamp, 105) might actually be díbergaigh loingse from an island only accessible by sea, could give us a direction in which Máel Dúin is headed when he leaves. They must only row an evening and a day to reach the enemies’ fortress (Oskamp, 107), meaning that it might be on a minor island near the Aran Islands, or it might, in fact, be one of them.

The location of the composition of the tale, sadly, is something that cannot be derived from any of these place-names. Because of the content, some of which will be treated later, one can assume that the person who wrote it had a good working knowledge of Irish myth and contemporary history. The only possible inquiry might be, because of the apparent acquaintance with materials pertaining to Munster and, in particular, Clare, whether or not there is a bias towards Munster and whether, in fact, the author might indeed have been a Munsterman. Unfortunately, the fact that there are no original versions of the text, and that the earliest version we have is in Lebor na hUidre (compiled at the very earliest in the eleventh century), potentially leaves centuries between the original scribe and the LU scribe, and possibly caused several important clues to vanish over the years.

Somewhat easier to nail down is the date in which the tale takes place. In mentioning that a king of the Eoganacht raided Kildare, that narrows it down to two specific possibilities. The first is that this is merely a literary device, whether fact or fiction, used as a way to bring the two parents together. The second is that this is, to some degree, a political-moral commentary, again, whether fact or fiction. Judging by the tone of the rest of the tale, the latter explanation seems more valid. The tale is described as transitional by Thomas Owen Clancy, who suggests that there are two systems aligned against each other: a Christian, peaceful system, and a pagan, violent system. (Clancy in Wooding, 204-5) These two systems clash in Máel Dúin, who is a descendant of both traditions. When he is younger, he follows on his father’s path, but after being thwarted in his quest for revenge, he trusts in God and Providence to lead him back to Ireland. This is only one interpretation of the tale, but a thoroughly cogent one. If one accepts this interpretation, then it is probable that the use of the king raiding Kildare had some deeper meaning than just to get his two characters together.

In 820§5, according to the Annals of Ulster, "Feidlimidh son of Crimthann took the kingship of Caisel." (Mac Airt and Mac Niocaill, 277) In 836§3, again, according to the Annals of Ulster, "the oratory of Cell Dara was seized by Feidlimid by force of arms from Forannán, abbot of Ard Macha, and the congregation of Patrick; and they were disrespectfully blockaded." (Mac Airt and Mac Niocaill, 293) The historical record of a king of Munster (and, therefore, the Eoganacht) raiding the oratory of Kildare and the king of the Eoganacht in MD raiding Kildare is simply too close a coincidence to be accidental. Though the annals are not always entirely reliable historically, there are several points that support the possibility of mac Crimthann ruling at this time. First, he is mentioned in the Annals of Inisfallen in 820§2 as taking the kingship of Cashel (Mac Airt , 125), though this may merely have been copied from the Annals of Ulster. Second, the Annals of Ulster derive directly from the Armagh Chronicle, which was kept from c. 740 AD. Because of Fedlimidh mac Crimthann’s substantial dealings (and conflicts) with the Uí Néill and Armagh, it is likely that the chroniclers would have been able to obtain, and therefore record, accurate data regarding him. He also had a penchant for raiding church communities, having attacked Durrow and Clonmacnoise in previous years. (Ó Cróinín, 236-7) It is therefore highly possible that the king in MD is Fedlimidh mac Crimthann, and that the tale begins in 836 AD.

If we take this as true, then we may extrapolate several other dates, as well: after nine months of pregnancy, the character of Máel Dúin was born about 837 AD, and he went on his voyage sometime when he was a young adult, probably somewhere between 852 and 860 AD. Máel Dúin’s time at sea is not accurately tabulated, but one may assume that, in his voyaging from island to island, he spent at least a year away from Ireland. This means that the tale could not have been composed before 850, and probably not before 860, a fact that makes a good deal of sense when one recalls that Fedlimidh mac Crimthann, the aforementioned king of the Eoganacht, died in 847. If a tale involving him, and with such a pointed message about the morality of warrior-bands, was released during his time in power, it would probably have been poorly received.

Because of the date of LU, we are restricted, therefore, to a date between about 860 AD and the late eleventh or early twelfth century, depending on whose analysis of LU is taken. It is, as Oskamp says, accepted by most scholars that the LU manuscript does not contain the original version of the tale, largely because there are older linguistic forms present in it that do not fit with eleventh-century Irish. (Oskamp, 4-5) Because of this, we can safely consider a date rather earlier than the composition of LU, leaving us with a span of late ninth to early eleventh-century. It seems reasonable to theorize that the textual material would suggest an earlier date, as the significance of the reference to a king of the Eoganacht as a moral lesson would be greatest immediately after his reign. A date of the late ninth century is, therefore, quite easy to accept, though a date of the early tenth century is reasonable, as well.

There are other important data that we can draw from the central portion of the text, that which deals with the islands. Two characters, specifically, require further examination. The first is the "fifteenth man of the community of Brendan of Birr." In the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, St. Brendan of Clonfert takes fourteen men with him as the original crew, but was forced to take on three others (in a parallel to MD, who was forced to take on an additional three to his seventeen). Two of them died, but one was taken onto an island with a church and a religious community, and he remained there. (McCone, 9) The man in MD says that his fellow pilgrims all died except himself (Oskamp, 161), but the original pilgrims of Brendan of Clonfert returned safely to Ireland. The interesting thing is that the old cleric discusses an ocean pilgrimage by his community, and offers them a relic of the saint to kiss. Because of this, it is probable that the author of MD had some knowledge of other voyage literature, specifically the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (and the Immram Brain, as indicated by the presence of inis subai and tir inna mban in MD). It is also probable that he confused the contemporaries, Brendan of Birr and Brendan of Clonfert, with each other in his reference to their voyage. Because of this, therefore, the Navigatio Brendani must predate MD, as must the Immram Brain. (Wooding, xiii) This is consistent with the present dating of MD in the ninth-to-tenth century shown above, as it is generally accepted that they were composed somewhat earlier than the ninth century. This use of Brendan’s voyage also supports the theory that this is a tale about the struggle between Christian peace and devilish wickedness. The man is the only one of the extra three brothers to receive the gift of life because he does not consort with devils and lives his life peaceably in a monastic community. The lesson is striking in that it mirrors the larger lesson in MD: the concept of the warrior-band is anathema to the ideal Christian lifestyle of peace and good works.

The second important character to investigate is Diurán Leccerd, who cuts a silver net in the ocean and returns to Ireland with two-and-a-half ounces of otherworld silver. Instead of keeping the wealth for himself, or even splitting it amongst the crew, he "took the five half-ounces which he had brought from the net, and laid them on the altar of Armagh." (Oskamp, 179) Here, again, we have an instance in the tale of this transitional theme. Diurán is a part of the warrior-band who plans to attack the díbergaigh loingse in their fortress, and the piece of the net that he cuts is representative of the warrior-band’s foray into the ocean, but as soon as he returns, he journeys to the center of Irish Christianity and offers the net, the evidence of his journey, to God. Again, this supports the suggestion that the tale focuses on morality and the necessity of choosing the peaceful lifestyle over that of the warrior-band. The lessons learned from these two characters, combined with the fact that the tale makes use of Fedlimidh mac Crimthann’s raid on Kildare (and the abbot of Armagh, who was staying there at the time), merely lend credence to the idea that this was a tale written not long after the raid itself.

When the final survey of the tale is complete, we have extrapolated the following data regarding Immram Curaig Máele Dúin. Firstly, it is set largely in Munster, possibly Clare, and in the ocean to the west and north-west of the Aran Islands, and the bulk of the tale probably takes place between the years 852 and 860 AD. The location of the composition of the tale cannot be narrowed down to any one place, but it is probable that the original composer had an acquaintance with Munster, and may in fact have been a native of that province. The date of composition can quite comfortably be set in the late ninth century (after 860), or possibly the tenth, depending on the interpretation of the use of Fedlimidh mac Crimthann’s raid on Kildare. Needless to say, these are open to much discussion and question, especially if one suggests that the tale was derived from an earlier, pre-Christian version. There is a firm historical basis for the present version of the tale to fit within these parameters, however, and there is no direct evidence of any voyage of Máel Dúin existing prior to this one, and any speculation without a source must unfortunately remain just that: speculation.

Despite the obvious problems with the dating and locating of any tale, it is possible to use both textual data and a certain amount of literary interpretation to derive clues, and eventually facts, about these characteristics. Though Immram Curaig Máele Dúin is noticeably lacking much in the way of factual data, it does provide us with enough information to search historical and geographic record. This, in turn, allows us to establish some parameters for the tale, and brings us to a greater understanding of its place in the body of medieval Irish literature.

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Hogan, E. Onomasticon Goedelicum. Dublin: 1910.

Mac Airt, Seán, ed. The Annals of Inisfallen. Dublin: Dublin Institute for

Advanced Studies, 1988.

Mac Airt, Seán and Gearóid Mac Niocaill, eds. The Annals of Ulster (to A.D.

1131). Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1983.

McCone, Kim. "Navigatio Sancti Brendani, Immram Curaig Maíle Dúin, and the

Early Development of Irish Voyage Literature," notes. Lecture at Trinity

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