Echmarcach Mac Ragnaill - Downfall in Dublin and Mann

Downfall in Dublin and Mann

In 1052, Diarmait drove Echmarcach from Dublin. The event is recorded within the Annals of the Four Masters, the Annals of Tigernach, the Chronicon Scotorum, and the Dublin Annals of Inisfallen. These annalistic accounts indicate that, although Diarmait's conquest began with a mere raid upon Fine Gall, this action further escalated into the seizure of Dublin itself. Following several skirmishes fought around the town's central fortress, the aforementioned accounts record that Echmarcach fled "overseas", whereupon Diarmait assumed the kingship. With Diarmait's conquest, Norse-Gaelic Dublin ceased to be an independent power in Ireland; and when Diarmait and his son, Murchad, died about twenty years later, Irish rule had been exercised over Fine Gall and Dublin in a degree unheard of before. About a decade later, in 1061, Murchad (then ruler of Dublin) launched a successful seaborne invasion of Mann. The Annals of the Four Masters, the Annals of Tigernach, and the Dublin Annals of Inisfallen record that, in consequence of this intrusion, a tax was collected from Mann, and a man called "Ragnall's son" was driven from the island. The defeated son of Ragnall likely refers to Echmarcach; and his flight from Mann appears to show that, after fleeing from Dublin in 1052, Echmarcach had been seated on the island.