ABSTRACT
Dynasts alleged by the genealogists to have been members of the Uí Briúin appear in the annals by the early sixth century. The earliest references to Uí Briúin specifically as a dynasty, however, are mid-seventh century, occurring both within a series of annal entries and in Tírechán’s life of Patrick. Tírechán relates that the saint traveled to Duma Selchae in Mag nAí, where the “halls of the sons of Brión” were located. Tírechán neither enumerates nor names these sons, but the equivalent passage in the Vita Tripartita, a possibly ninth-century life of Patrick, names six sons of Brión. A series of later sources dating from the eleventh century onward, meanwhile, enumerates Brión’s progeny as no less than twenty-four. No doubt the increasing power of the Uí Briúin was responsible for this dramatic swelling of the ranks, as tribes and dynasties newly coming under Uí Briúin sway were furnished with ancestries that would link them genealogically to their overlords. Into this category fall the Uí Briúin Umaill and likely also the Uí Briúin Ratha and Uí Briúin Sinna.
