Note 249 — Chapter I

I read rex australis Mumoniae, for rex Mumoniae in the printed text, restoring the word australis from two of de Backer's MSS. The king is said in § 18 to have been Cormac, i.e. Cormac Mac Carthy, son of Teague Mac Carthy, who succeeded his father as king of Desmond (South Munster) in 1124. He was never king of the whole of Munster. That he went to Lismore in 1121 is very probable. For the Annals tell us that in that year Turlough O'Conor, king of Connaught, invaded Desmond, and "arrived at the termon of Lismore" (A.I. say that he destroyed Lismore, which can hardly be true). What more likely than that one of the sons of Teague, the reigning monarch of Desmond, should fly before that formidable warrior to the sanctuary of Mochuta? But St. Bernard errs in supposing that he was then king of Desmond. On Cormac, see also p. 43, n. 5.