Cormac Mac Airt - Rise To Power

Rise To Power

At the age of thirty, armed with his father's sword, Cormac came to Tara, where he met a steward consoling a weeping woman. The steward explained that the High King had confiscated her sheep because they had cropped the queen's woad-garden. Cormac declared, "More fitting would be one shearing for another," because both the woad and the sheep's fleeces would grow again. When Lugaid heard this, he conceded that Cormac's judgement was superior to his and abdicated the throne. Other traditions say that Cormac drove Lugaid out by force, or that he left Tara because his druids had prophesied he would not live another six months if he stayed. In all versions he went to his kin in Munster, where the poet Ferches mac Commain killed him with a spear as he stood with his back to a standing stone.

But Cormac was unable to claim the High Kingship, as the king of the Ulaid, Fergus Dubdétach, drove him into Connacht, and took the throne himself. He turned to Tadg mac Céin, a local nobleman whose father had been killed by Fergus, promising him as much land on the plain of Brega as he could drive his chariot round in a day if he would help him claim the throne. Tadg advised him to recruit his grandfather's brother Lugaid Láma. Cormac sought him out, and when he found him lying in a hunting-booth, wounded him in the back with a spear. Lugaid revealed that it had been he who had killed Cormac's father in the Battle of Maigh Mucruimhe, and Cormac demanded, as éraic for Art's life, that Lugaid give him Fergus' head.

Having recruited Tadg and Lugaid, Cormac marched against Fergus, and The Battle of Crinna began. Tadg led the battle, keeping Cormac out of the action at the rear. Lugaid took the head of Fergus' brother, Fergus Foltlebair, and brought it to Cormac's attendant, who told him this was not the head of the king of Ulster. He then took the head of Fergus's other brother, Fergus Caisfhiachlach, but again the attendant told him it was the wrong head. Finally he killed Fergus Dubdétach himself, and when the attendant confirmed he'd got the right man, Lugaid killed him and collapsed from exhaustion and loss of blood.

Tadg routed Fergus's army, and ordered his charioteer to make a circuit of the plain of Brega to include Tara itself. He was severely wounded, and fainted during the circuit. When he came to, he asked the charioteer if he had driven around Tara yet. When the charioteer answered no, Tadg killed him, but before he could complete the circuit himself, Cormac came upon him and ordered physicians to treat his wounds - treatment which took a whole year. Cormac took the throne, and Tadg ruled large tracts of land in the northern half of Ireland.