Eochaidh Muigh-mheadhoin was succeeded in 366[25] by Crimhthan [Crivhan], who was one of those militant Scots at whose hands the unhappy Britons suffered so sorely. He "gained victories," say the annals, "and extended his sway over Alba, Britain, and Gaul," which probably means that he raided all three, and possibly made settlements in South-west Britain. He was poisoned by his sister in the hope that the sovereignty would fall to her favourite son Brian. In this, however, she was disappointed, and it is a noticeable fact in Irish history that none of the Ui Briain, or great Connacht families, ever sat upon the throne of Ireland, with the exception of Turlough O'Conor, third last king of Ireland, ancestor of the present O'Conor Don, and Roderick O'Conor, the last of all the High-kings of the island.
Brian being set aside, Niall of the Nine Hostages ascended the throne in 379. It was he who first assisted the Dál Riada clans to gain supremacy over the Picts of Scotland. These Dál Riada were descended from a grandson, on the mother's side, of Conn of the Hundred Battles. There were two septs of these Dál Riada, one settled in Ulster and the other in Alba [Scotland]. It was from the conquests[26] achieved by the Scots [i.e. Milesians] of Ireland that Alba was called Lesser Scotia. In course of ages the inconvenient distinction of the countries into Lesser and Greater Scotia died away, but the name Scotia, or Scotland, without any qualifying adjective, clung to the lesser country to the frightful confusion of historians, while the greater remained known to foreigners as Erin, or Hibernia.[27] This Niall was surnamed "of the Nine Hostages," from his having extorted hostages from nine minor kings. He mercilessly plundered Britain and Gaul. The Picts and Irish Gaels combined had at one time penetrated as far as London and Kent, when Theodosius drove them back.[28] It was probably against Niall that Stilicho gained those successes so magniloquently eulogised by Claudian, "when the Scot moved all Ierne against us and the sea foamed under his hostile oars." Niall had eight sons, from whom the famous Ui [Ee] Neill are all descended. One branch of these, the branch descended from his son Owen, took the name of O'Neill in the eleventh century, not from him of the Nine Hostages, but from King Niall of the Black Knee, a less remote ancestor, of whom more later on. This was the great family of the Tyrone O'Neills. So solidly did the posterity of Niall establish itself, and upon so firm a basis was his power perpetuated, that almost all the following kings of Ireland were descended from him, besides multitudes of illustrious families, "nearly three hundred of his descendants, eminent for their learning and the sanctity of their lives," says O'Flaherty, "have been enrolled in the catalogue of the saints."[29] He it was who, while plundering in Britain or Armorica, led back amongst other captives the youth, then sixteen years old, who was destined, under the title of the Holy Patrick, to revolutionise Ireland.
St. Patrick's own "Confession" and his Epistle to Coroticus have come down to us—the former preserved in the Book or Armagh, a manuscript copied by a scribe named Ferdomnach in 807 (or 812 according to a truer chronology), apparently from St. Patrick's own copy, for at the end of the Confession the scribe adds this note: "Thus far the volume which Patrick wrote with his own hand."[30] In this ancient manuscript (itself only a copy of older ones so damaged as to be almost illegible[31] to the scribe who copied them in 807, a little more than three hundred years after St. Patrick's death), we find nearly a dozen mentions of Niall of the Nine Hostages, of his son Laeghaire [Leary], and several more who lived before St. Patrick's arrival, and so find ourselves for the first time upon tolerably solid historical ground, which from this out never deserts us. St. Columcille, the evangeliser of the Picts and the founder of Iona, was the great-great-grandson of this Niall, and the great-grandson of Conall Gulban, so celebrated even to this day in Irish romance and history.[32]
Ascertainable authenticated Irish history, then, begins with Niall and with Patrick, but in this chapter we have gone behind it to see what may be learned from native sources—rather traditional than historical—of Irish life and history, from the founding of Emania three hundred years before Christ down to the coming of St. Patrick. But for all the things which we have recounted we have no independent external testimony, nor have we now any manuscripts remaining of which we could say, "We have here documentary evidence fifteen or twenty centuries old attesting the truth of these things." No; we are entirely dependent for all that pre-Patrician history upon native evidence alone, and that evidence has come down to us chiefly but not entirely in manuscripts copied in the twelfth and in later centuries.
[1] In Irish, Iugoine.
[2] In Irish, Laoghaire.
[3] In Irish, Labhraidh Loingseach.
[4] Pronounced "Yo-hy Faylach."
[5] Less than 100 years before, according to Keating.
[6] In Irish, Méadhbh, pronounced Mève or Maev. In Connacht it is often strangely pronounced "Mow," rhyming with "cow." This name dropped out of use about 150 years ago, being Anglicised into Maud.
[7] In Irish, Concobar, or Conchubhair, a name of which the English have made Conor, almost in accordance with the pronunciation.
[8] Pronounced "Breean Da Darga," i.e., the Mansion Da Derga.
[9] Pronounced "Crivhan" or "Criffan Neeanār." Keating assigns the birth of Christ to the twelfth year of his reign.
[10] The Athach (otherwise Aitheach) Tuatha Dr. O'Conor translates "giant-race," but it has probably no connection with the word [f]athach, "a giant." O'Curry and most authorities translate it "plebeian," or "rent-paying," and Keating expressly equates it with daor-chlanna, or "unfree clans." These were probably largely if not entirely composed of Firbolgs and other pre-Milesians or pre-Celtic tribes. See ch. XII, note 12.
[11] These were Fearadach, from whom sprang all the race of Conn of the Hundred Battles, i.e., most of the royal houses in Ulster and Connacht, Tibride Tireach, from whom the Dal Araide, the true Ulster princes, Magennises, etc., spring, and Corb Olum, from whom the kings of the Eoghanachts, that is, the royal families of Munster, come. O'Mahony, however, points out that this massacre could not have been anything like as universal as is here stated, for the ancestors of the Leinster royal families, of the Dál Fiatach of Ulster, the race of Conairé, that of the Ernaans of Munster, and several tribes throughout Ireland