44. THE IRISH CLAIM EARLIEST CHRISTIAN ADHERENCE: THE DEATH OF CONCHOBHAR (EARLY NINTH CENTURY)
INTRODUCTION
The collection of stories known as the “Ulster Cycle,” which has at its core the stories comprising the Táin Bó Cúailgne (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), might owe its origins to the early ninth century, a time when the Irish were experiencing invasion from the Danes and the Norse for the first time, but they are identified with a much earlier time shrouded for the Irish in myth: the first century CE. These tales introduce one of the great heroes of Irish legend, the king CÚ CHULAINN (pronounced “Koo-koollin”). Conchobhar (pronounced “Conover”) was another great mythic hero, an associate of Cú Chulainn and other Ulstermen. His death—like the death of most mythic heroes such as those of ancient Greece and the Anglo-Saxon legendary warrior Beowulf the Geat—comes about because of fate.
The tales created about Ireland’s heroic past mix the fantastical with elements of the historical. In particular, the Irish—especially in the twelfth century, the time when many of these texts were written down for the first time—staked a claim to being the first nation to convert to Christianity, thereby giving them precedence over Rome and its pope.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
Irish heroes were larger than life in every way: blonder, taller, stronger, and capable of prodigious consumption of food and drink. The tales seem extreme, even bizarre, to modern ears, but they were known by heart by every man, woman, and child of medieval Ireland. Moreover, the resonance of these tales and their nationalistic overtones have continued in the Irish imagination to the present day.
Document 1: The Death of Conchobhar
The Ulstermen were very drunk, once, in Emhain Macha. Great disputes and contentions arose between them—Conall, Cú Chulainn, and Leoghaire. “Bring me,” said Conall, “the brain of Meis-Geghra, so that I can talk to the warriors who are contending.” It was the custom among the Ulstermen in those days to take out the brains of any warrior whom they killed in single combat, out of his head, and to mix them with lime, so that they became hard balls. And when they used to be disputing or contending, these would be brought to them so that they had them in their hands. “Well now, Conchobhar,” said Conall, “until the warriors who are contending do a deed like this one in single combat, they are not worthy to contend with me.” “That is true,” said Conchobhar.
The brain was put then on the shelf on which it used always to be. … Now Cet son of Madu came on a tour of adventures in Ulster. This Cet was the most troublesome monster in Ireland. … While the buffoons were playing with the brain of Meis-Geghra, … Cet heard that [it was identified as Meis-Geghra’s brain]. He snatched the brain from the hand of one of them and carried it off with him, for Cet knew that it was foretold that Meis-Geghra would avenge himself after his death. … One day this Cet came east and drove a [herd of stolen] cattle from Fir Ros. The Ulstermen pursued and caught up with him, but the men of Connaught arrived from the other side to rescue him. A battle was fought between them; Conchobhar himself came into the battle. Then the women of Connaught begged Conchobhar to come aside so that they might look at his figure, for there was not on earth the figure of a man like the figure of Conchobhar in form and shape and dress, in size and straightness and symmetry, in eye and hair and whiteness, in wisdom and good manners and speech, in garments and splendor and array, in weapons and amplitude and dignity, in habits and feats of arms and lineage. … Now it was through the prompting of Cet that the women made this appeal to Conchobhar. He went on one side by himself, to be looked at by the women.
Cet came, then, so that he was in the midst of women. Cet fitted Meis-Geghra’s brain into the sling, and slung it so that it struck Conchobhar on the top of his skull, so that two-thirds of it were in his head, and he fell headlong on the ground. The men of Ulster leaped towards him and carried him off from Cet. … The fight was kept up till the same hour the next day, after what happened to the king; and then the Ulstermen were routed. Conchobhar’s doctor, Fínghin, was brought to him. … “Well,” said Fínghin “if the stone is taken out of your head you will die immediately. If it is not taken out, however, I could heal you; but it will be a disfigurement to you.” “We would rather have a disfigurement than death,” said the Ulstermen.
His head was healed then, and was sewn up with a golden thread, for the color of Conchobhar’s hair was like the color of gold. And the doctor told Conchobhar he should take care that anger should not seize him, and that he should not mount on horseback, and should not have to do with a woman, and should not eat food gluttonously, and should not run. So he remained in a dangerous state, as long as he lived, for seven years, and he was not able to be active but to stay in his seat only; until he heard that Christ was crucified by the Jews. A great trembling came on the elements at that time … “What is this?” said Conchobhar to his druid, “what great evil is being done today?” “It is true,” said the druid, “it is a great deed that is done there, Christ the Son of the Living God crucified by the Jews.” “That is a great deed,” said Conchobhar. “That man,” said the druid, “was born the same night that you were born, that is, on the eighth day before the calends of January, though the year was not the same.”
Then Conchobhar believed; and he was one of the two men in Ireland who believed in God before the coming of the Faith, and the other was Morann. “Well now,” said Conchobhar, “a thousand armed men shall fall at my hand in rescuing Christ.” He leaped for his two spears then, and brandished them violently so that they broke in his fist; and he took his sword in his hand next and attacked the forest around him, so that he made an open field of the forest … And he said, “Thus would I avenge Christ on the Jews and those who crucified Him, if I could get at them.” With that fury, Meis-Geghra’s brain sprang out of his head, so that his own brains came out, and he died of it …
Source: A Celtic Miscellany: Translations from the Celtic Literatures. Translated by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1976. Pp. 53–56. Modified by editor.
AFTERMATH
The Irish claims to being the first true Christians, along with the legend of St. Patrick, compelled them into breaking out of their island sanctuary and engaging in missionary activity throughout the British Isles. The stories of Cú Chulainn and Conchobhar, as well as of the heroes of the “Fenian Cycle,” also made their way to Wales and Scotland to form part of those regions’ legendary histories. When the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland and settled there as conquerors, they came to adopt the Irish origin tales as their own just as they came to adopt Irish cultural attributes that would eventually separate them to some extent from their English neighbors and kin.
One of the most pervasive themes in ancient Irish stories, especially concerning the great heroes such as Cú Chulainn, was the cultural importance of “cattle raiding”—the stealing of cattle, which was both the main form of currency and the visible sign of wealth in the era before minted coins in Ireland. Cattle raiding was not only a pastime, of sorts; it was also a rite of passage into manhood and a symbol of heroic activity, much as tournaments and jousts were for later medieval knights.
ASK YOURSELF
Why would the Irish creators and consumers of this literature consider it important to identify themselves as the first Christians?
How does this story fit very uncomfortably into a Christian context?
What does this tale tell you about notions of heroism in early medieval Ireland?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
Compare notions of the hero and heroism in this excerpt and the one following.
Compare notions of the hero in this excerpt with other cultural notions of the hero—Greek and Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and others.
Consider the process of oral transmission of such stories and how their Christianization could have been inserted and when.
Further Information
Carney, James. “Language and Literature to 1169.” In A New History of Ireland, edited by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, 451–510. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Cormier, Raymond J. “Cú Chulainn and Yvain: The Love Hero in Early Irish and Old French Literature.” Studies in Philology 72, no. 2 (1975): 115–139.
McManus, Damian. “Goodlooking and Irresistible: The Hero in Early Irish Saga to Classical Poetry.” Ériu 59 (2009): 57–109.