Cath Maige Mucrama

The Cath Maige Mucrama (in English the Battle of Mag Mucrama) is an early Middle Irish language tale which forms part of the Cycles of the Kings.

Content

The cast includes several major figures from Irish pseudo-history, Ailill Aulom, his son Éogan Mór and his step- and foster-son Mac Con, along with the King of Tara Art mac Cuinn. Mag Mucrama, the plain of the counting of the pigs, was in Connacht, in the region of Athenry, County Galway. A tradition or folk etymology, in Irish dindshenchas, has it that the plain was named for the magical pigs which infested it until banished by Queen Medb of Connacht.

Mac Con, exiled from Ireland, returns with the aid of the king of Britain, along with an army of Britons and Saxons, and conquers Ireland as far as Connacht where Éogan, with the help of Art mac Cuinn, plans to fight. The night before the battle Éogan and Art sleep with their hosts' daughters, conceiving the sons who will succeed them, Fiachu Muillethan in Éogan's case and Cormac mac Airt in Art's. Both Éogan and Art, as is foreseen, die in the battle at Mag Mucrama, and Mac Con becomes king of Tara.