ABSTRACT
Daughter of a southern Uí Néill king of Tara, it is alleged that she was successively queen-consort of Munster, Leinster, and Tara, and also a poetess. Her part as thricemarried queen has prompted much discussion in relation to sovereignty symbolism. Historically, there is perhaps a stronger case, as Ó Cróinín argues, for viewing her as party to dynastic intrigues in early-tenth-century Leinster. The political priorities of her father, Flann Sinna (d. 916) of Clann Cholmáin, make her role in a marriage-alliance with the Uí Fáeláin dynasty of Leinster understandable. More difficult to justify is the assertion of the Middle Irish poem “Éirigh [a] ingen an rígh” that she was previously married to the bishop-king of Cashel, Cormac mac Cuilennáin. The latter, it is stressed, was celibate-making their marriage merely a symbolic union. Record of Cormac’s death in 908-he was killed in the battle of Belach Mugna-implies that her marriage to the victor of that battle, Cerball (d. 909) mac Muireccáin, Uí Fáeláin over king of Leinster, lasted no more than a year. A text in the Book of Leinster, which claims that Cerball spent this year recovering from wounds sustained at Belach Mugna, portrays him as a violent bully who mocked the memory of Cormac and treated Gormlaith so badly that, at least once, she felt the need to return to her father. She subsequently married Niall Glúndubh, the Cenél nÉogain king of Tara, who fell at the battle of Islandbridge in 919.
