Page 37 - Demo

Chapter One 37
bre of the Hard Head’ or ‘Cat Head,’ was a notable ruler over Ireland in or about the irst years of the Christian era. Notable for that, rising from slavery, he had assumed leadership of the serfs and oppressed peoples in Ireland-the Daer-Clanna, or base tribes, the descendants of the Firbolgs and other conquered races, now called the Aiteach Tuatha, the Attacotti, which means rent-paying peoples.
Provoked by the oppression of the dominant Milesians, the Attacotti who were excluded from every profession, art, and craft that carried honour, and who were ground down by rents and compulsory toil, rose in revolt and massacred a large number of the ruling fami- lies, many in treacherous circumstances, on a plain in county Galway, since known as Magh Cro –‘the Bloody Plain.’ They then set up a dynasty of their own with Cairbre as King, but after only ive years’ reign Cairbre died. The Four Masters say of Cairbre’s reign “Evil then was the state of Ireland: fruitless her corn, for there used to be only one grain on the stalk; fruitless her rivers; milkless her cattle; plentiless her fruit, for there used to be but one acorn on the spray”. Following Cairbre’s death, his son, Morann the Just, was ofered the throne, but refused it as not being rightly his, and advised the recall of the former dynasty.
The second, or as some say the third monarch of the restored dynasty was Tuathal Teacht- mhar, ‘Tuathal the Legitimate’, or ‘Tuathal the Desired’, a very strong man of the old royal line and King of Connacht from about 150-175 A.D. Tuathal succeeded in invading and conquering part of the Northern ifth of Leinster, around Uisneach, now Loughanavally, county Westmeath, the hill of which is supposed to be the exact geographical centre of Ireland. The conquered portion adjoined his own Kingdom of Connacht, to which he added it, and would later form the new province of Midhe or Meath. During his reign, and for many years afterwards, Ulster and Connacht were frequently at war, yet despite this, Tuathal fostered trade and made new salutary laws.
The most important happenings of this King’s reign was his creation of the ive great roads of Ireland which all lead to Tara, and the laying upon Leinster of the famous Bóirmhe/ Borumha or cow-tribute, an imposition on that province which, for long ages after, was to be the cause of many dreadful wars. It is told that a King of Leinster married one of Tuathal’s two daughters; later under pretence that she had died, he asked and wedded the second daughter-with the result that when, a short time after the second marriage, the two sisters met, the terrible truth so grieved them that they both died broken-hearted.
Tuathal in revenge, led an army into the northern Fifth of Leinster, the aforementioned invasion, where he crushed the Lagenian forces, humbled the erring King and bound his