Baile Chuind Chétchathaig ("The Vision of Conn of the Hundred Battles") is an Old Irish list of Kings of Tara

Kings of Tara

The term King of Tara was a title of authority in ancient Ireland. The position was considered an eminent authority in medieval Irish literature and mythology, though national kingship was never a historical reality in early Ireland....

 or High Kings of Ireland which survives in two 16th century manuscripts, 23 N 10

23 N 10

Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, MS. 23 N 10, formerly Betham 145, is a Gaelic-Irish medieval manuscript.-Overview:MS 23 N 10 is a late sixteenth-century Irish manuscript currently housed in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin...

 and Egerton 88

Egerton 88

MS Egerton 88 is a late sixteenth-century Irish manuscript, now housed in the British Library Egerton Collection, London. It is the work of members of the O'Davorens , a distinguished family of lawyers in Corcomroe, Co...

. It is the earliest such king-list known, probably dating from around 700 AD. The later Baile In Scáil is closely related.

Date

Baile Chuind Chétchathaig was first edited by Rudolf Thurneysen

Rudolf Thurneysen

Eduard Rudolf Thurneysen was a Swiss linguist and Celticist.Born in Basel, Thurneysen studied classical philology in Basel, Leipzig, Berlin and Paris. His teachers included Ernst Windisch and Heinrich Zimmer...

, who dated it to about 700 AD and believed it to have been included in the lost Cín Dromma Snechtai

Cín Dromma Snechtai

Cín Dromma Snechtai or Lebor Dromma Snechtai is a now long-lost early Irish manuscript. Old Irish cín, derived from the Latin quinio "five", was a small book made of five folded vellum leaves; lebor, modern Irish leabhar, is the standard word for a book...

manuscript. Thurneysen later revised this opinion on the basis of the content of the poem, supposing that the poem's "Glúnshalach" represented 10th century king Niall Glúndub

Niall Glúndub

Niall Glúndub mac Áedo was a 10th century Irish king of the Cenél nEógain and High King of Ireland. While many Irish kin groups were members of the Uí Néill, tracing their descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages , the O'Neill dynasty took their name from Niall Glúndub rather than the earlier Niall...

. Later editors and writers have generally preferred Thurneysen's first estimate, taking the work to have been begun in the lifetime of Fínsnechta Fledach

Fínsnechta Fledach

Fínsnechta Fledach mac Dúnchada was High King of Ireland. Fínsnechta belonged to the southern Síl nÁedo Sláine sept of the Uí Néill and was King of Brega, in modern County Meath, Ireland. He was a grandson of Áed Sláine. His father Dúnchad had died in 659...

 (died 695).

In recent studies Edel Bhreathnach

Edel Bhreathnach

Edel Bhreathnach is an Irish historian and academic.Bhreathnach was a Tara Research Fellow for the Discovery Programme from 1992 to 2000. As of 2005 she is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Mícheál Ó Cléirigh Institute for the study of Irish History and Civilization, at University College Dublin...

 has suggested that the current form of the poem may be somewhat later. While the kings who follow Fínsnechta were previously interpreted as imagined future kings, Bhreathnach suggests that these are in fact historical figures from the first quarter of the eighth century disguised by kenning

Kenning

A kenning is a type of literary trope, specifically circumlocution, in the form of a compound that employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse and later Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon poetry...

s. If this is correct, the poem as a whole dates from around 720 or was revised at about that time.

External links

• Baile Chuinn Cétchathaigh, a summary