Ulaid

Ulaid, from whom comes the name Ulster, a dynastic group who ruled, from their capital at Emain Macha, a confederation of kingdoms once stretching as far south as the Boyne, and whose conflicts with the Connachta form the background to Táin Bó Cuailnge. About the mid‐5th century they were ousted from Emain by the Uí Néill or the Airgialla, being confined thereafter roughly to the area east of the Bann. Within the overkingdom were several distinct groupings: the Dál Riata (in the Glens of Antrim), who, by the 6th century, had extended into western Scotland; Dál nAraide (in the area around Belfast Lough); Uí Echach Coba (in what became the diocese of Dromore); and Dál Fiatach (in the diocese of Down). The latter, by the 10th century, had come to monopolize the overkingship, which was ruled at the time of the Anglo‐Norman invasion by a branch of the Dál Fiatach bearing the surname Mac Duinn Sléibe (MacDonlevy). However, the capture in 1177 of their capital, Down, by the Anglo‐Norman adventurer John de Courcy led to the demise of the Mac Duinn Sléibe family, the eventual extinction of their kingdom, and its replacement by the earldom of Ulster.

Seán Duffy