Note 17 — Chapter III

It was O'Beirne Crowe, I think, who first translated this name by "Conn the Hundred-Fighter," "égal-à-cent-guerriers," as Jubainville has it, a translation which, since him, every one seems to have adopted. This translation makes the Irish adjective céadcathach exactly equivalent to the Greek ἑκατοντάμαχος, but it is certainly not correct, for Keating says distinctly that Conn was called céadcathach, or of the hundred battles, "from the hundreds of battles which he fought against the pentarchs or provincial kings of Ireland," quoting a verse from a bard by way of illustration.