Muirecán mac Diarmata (died 863) was a King of Leinster of the Uí Fáeláin sept of the Uí Dúnlainge branch of the Laigin. This sept had their royal seat at Naas in the eastern part of the Liffey plain, Airthir Liphi. He was the son of Diarmait mac Ruadrach (died 832), King of Airthir Liphi. His uncle Muiredach mac Ruadrach (died 829) and grandfather

Ruaidrí mac Fáeláin Ruaidrí mac Fáeláin (died 785) was a King of Leinster of the Uí Fáeláin sept of the Uí Dúnlainge branch of the Laigin. He was the son of Fáelán mac Murchado (died 738), a previous king. This sept had their royal seat at Naas in the east ...

(died 785) were Kings of Leinster. The succession of kings in Leinster is difficult to follow in his time. The king lists in the '' Book of Leinster'' have him listed after two kings who died later than he (869 and 885) and the next king is

Túathal mac Máele-Brigte Tuathal mac Máele-Brigte (died 854) was a King of Leinster of the Uí Muiredaig sept of the Uí Dúnlainge branch of the Laigin. This sept had their royal seat at Maistiu (Mullaghmast) in South Kildare. He was possibly the son of Muiredach mac B ...

who died in 854. Another previous king was Ruarc mac Brain who died in 862. The king list gives Muirecán a reign of one year which would coincide to 862-863.

Francis John Byrne Francis John Byrne (1934 – 30 December 2017) was an Irish historian. Born in Shanghai where his father, a Dundalk man, captained a ship on the Yellow River, Byrne was evacuated with his mother to Australia on the outbreak of World War II. Af ...

suggests that the root of this apparent confusion lay in the fact that the Uí Dúnlainge kings exercised little real authority due to the aggressions of their western neighbour Cerball mac Dúnlainge (died 888),

King of Osraige The kings of Osraige (alternately spelled ''Osraighe'' and Anglicised as ''Ossory'') reigned over the medieval Irish kingdom of Osraige from the first or second century AD until the late twelfth century. Osraige was a semi-provincial kingdom in s ...

. Cerball, while unable to install himself as king of Leinster, was able to prevent any rival king exercising real power there. In his obit in the annals in 863 it states that he was killed by the

Norsemen The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the pre ...

. He is only accorded the title of King of Naas and Airthir Liphi.''Annals of Ulster'', AU 863.3 His sons

Domnall mac Muirecáin Domnall mac Muirecáin (died 884) was a King of Leinster of the Uí Fáeláin sept of the Uí Dúnlainge branch of the Laigin. This sept had their royal seat at Naas in the eastern part of the Liffey plain, Airthir Liphi. He was the son of Muirecá ...

(died 884) and

Cerball mac Muirecáin Cerball mac Muirecáin (died 909) was Kings of Leinster, king of Leinster. He was the son of Muirecán mac Diarmata and a member of the Uí Fáeláin, the descendants of Fáelán mac Murchado (died 738), of one of three septs of the Uí Dúnlainge ...

(died 904) were also kings of Leinster, while his son Máel Mórda mac Muirecáin (died 917) was king of Airthir Liphi.

Notes

References

* ''Annals of Ulster'' a
CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts
a
University College Cork
* ''Book of Leinster'',''Rig Laigin'' a

a
University College Cork
* Byrne, Francis John (2001), Irish Kings and High-Kings, Dublin: Four Courts Press,

External links

a
University College Cork
Kings of Leinster Kings of Uí Dúnlainge 863 deaths 9th-century Irish monarchs People from County Kildare Year of birth unknown {{Ireland-royal-stub