Note 315 — Chapter V · THE FOUR KINGDOMS.

An ancient historical romance called the Battle of Magh Rath was published in the original Irish, with a translation and notes, for the Irish Archæological Society, by Dr. O’Donovan, which may be consulted with advantage, but it contains the anachronism of Congal Claen applying to Eochadh Buidhe as the then reigning king of Dalriada, who had died eight years before. Mr. Burton has strangely misrepresented the Dalriadic history, arising probably from a too superficial examination of the Irish Annals, and a want of acquaintance with Irish names and words, which he rarely gives correctly. In vol. i. p. 289, he states of Aidan that by his descent from Riadha he belonged to the race of the Hy Neill, but this is a mistake. The Dalriads belonged to an entirely different branch of the Scots from the Hy Neill. He says that Aidan justified Saint Columba’s prophetic fears by emancipating his territory from dependence on the monarchs of Ireland, but it was Saint Columba himself who effected this emancipation at the Council of Drumceatt. He says that Domnall Brecc contemplated the subjugation of Ireland, and implies that the Dalriadic kings put forward some pretensions to the Irish throne, of which there is not the least trace. The only successor of Domnall Brecc whom Mr. Burton notices is Eocha, or Auchy as he calls him, son of Aodhfin, in 796, a fictitious king who never existed.