Flann Sinna - Assessment

Assessment

The alternating succession of the northern and southern Uí Néill to the kingship of Tara would finally break down in time of Brian Boru. It was already under strain before Flann Sinna's lifetime. Two branches of the Uí Néill—the northern Cenél Conaill and the southern Síl nÁedo Sláine— had already been excluded from the succession by the Cenél nEógain and Clann Cholmáin. Many other branches of the Uí Néill had never shared in the kingship.

When Flann's son Máel Ruanaid was killed in 901, the obituary in the Annals of Ulster states: "Máel Ruanaid son of Flann son of Máel Sechnaill, heir designate of Ireland, was killed by the Luigne". The Annals of Ulster are derived from the Chronicle of Ireland, kept at Clonmacnoise, Flann's own monastery, and perhaps compiled in his lifetime.

The description of Máel Ruanaid as "heir designate of Ireland" suggests to some that Flann planned to keep the kingship in his family, excluding the Cenél nEógain as the Cenél Conaill and Síl nÁedo Sláine had previously been excluded. The evident lack of filial loyalty among Flann's sons, Donnchad Donn being twice in rebellion against his father, may have prevented any such plans from coming to fruition. However, Óengus is called "heir designate of Temair " in the notice of his death in 915.

Benjamin Hudson suggested that it was only the vigorous campaigning by Niall Glúndub in Ulster and Connacht from 913 to 915, along with Óengus's fortuitous death, that led to Niall being named Flann's heir. Alex Woolf suggested that Flann had not only attempted to monopolise the succession within his family, but had come close to instituting a national kingship in Ireland comparable to that created by his contemporaries Alfred the Great and Edward the Elder in England from their Kingdom of Wessex.

Later Clann Cholmáin kings were descended from Flann, as was Congalach Cnogba, whose official pedigree pronounced him to be a member of the Síl nÁedo Sláine, the first of that branch of the Uí Néill to become King of Tara in two centuries, and whose last agnatic ancestor to have ruled from Tara was the eponymous Áed Sláine, ten generations before. Congalach was closely tied to Clann Cholmáin. His mother was Flann's daughter Lígach, and his paternal grandmother Eithne had been Flann's wife.

Flann's son Donnchad Donn, his grandson Congalach Cnogba, and his great grandson Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill, all held the kingship of Tara, Máel Sechnaill being the last of the traditional Uí Néill high kings.