Cormac Mac Airt - Reign

Reign

Cormac's reign is recorded in some detail in the Irish annals. He fought many battles, subduing the Ulaid and Connacht and leading a lengthy campaign against Munster. In the fourteenth year of his reign he is said to have sailed to Great Britain and made conquests there. In the fifteenth, thirty maidens were slaughtered in Tara by Dúnlaing, king of Leinster, for which Cormac had twelve Leinster princes put to death. In other texts he is said to have been temporarily deposed twice by the Ulaid, and to have once gone missing for four months. He is also said to have compiled the Psalter of Tara, a book containing the chronicles of Irish history, the laws concerning the rents and dues kings were to receive from their subjects, and records of the boundaries of Ireland.

Although he is usually remembered as a wise and just ruler, one story presents him in a less flattering light. Having distributed all the cattle he had received as tribute from the provinces, Cormac found himself without any cattle to provision his own household after a plague struck his herds. A steward persuaded him to treat Munster as two provinces, the southern of which had never paid tax. He sent messengers to demand payment, but Fiachu Muillethan, the king of southern Munster, refused, and Cormac prepared for war. His own druids, who had never advised him badly, foresaw disaster, but he ignored them, preferring to listen to five druids from the sidhe supplied by his fairy lover, Báirinn.

Cormac marched to Munster and made camp on the hill of Druim Dámhgaire (Knocklong, County Limerick). His new druids' magic made the camp impregnable and his warriors unbeatable, dried up all sources of water used by the Munstermen, and nearly drove Fiacha to submission. But Fiacha in desperation turned to the powerful Munster druid Mug Ruith for aid, and his magic was too strong even for Cormac's fairy druids. He restored the water and conjured up magical hounds who destroyed the fairy druids. His breath created storms and turned men to stone. Cormac was driven out of Munster and compelled to seek terms.

Cormac owned the wonderful gold cup given to him by the sea-god Manannan mac Lir in the Land of the Living. If three lies were spoken over it, it would break in three; three truths made it whole again. Cormac used this cup during his kingship to distinguish falsehood from truth. When Cormac died, the cup vanished, just as Manannan had predicted it would.

The 8th-century text The Expulsion of the Déisi describes enmity between Cormac and the group known as the Déisi, descendants of Cormac's great grandfather Fedlimid Rechtmar who had been his retainers. Cormac's son Cellach (or Conn) abducts Forach, the daughter of a Déisi leader. Her uncle Óengus Gaíbúaibthech comes to rescue her, but Cellach refuses to release her. Óengus runs Cellach through with his "dread spear", which has three chains attached to it; these chains wound one of Cormac's advisers and blind Cormac in one eye. Cormac fights seven battles against the Déisi, and expels them from their lands. After a period of wandering, they settled in Munster. Cormac, having lost an eye, moves into the Tech Cletig on the hill of Achall, as it was against the law for a disfigured king to sit in Tara. His duties as king are taken on by his son Cairbre Lifechair.