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Imthechta Rícinde ingine Crimthainn ⁊ Cairche Dergáin ‘The adventures of Rícenn ingen Chrimthainn and Caírech Dergáin’

  • Middle Irish
  • prose
  • Cycles of the Kings, Irish hagiography, minor Irish prose tales
Short narrative about two pious women, Rícenn, daughter of the king of Uí Maine, and her tutoress Caírech Dergáin, nun at Clúain Bairenn.
Title
Imthechta Rícinde ingine Crimthainn ⁊ Cairche Dergáin
‘The adventures of Rícenn ingen Chrimthainn and Caírech Dergáin’
This is the title adopted by Dan Wiley.(1)n. 1 Dan M. Wiley, ‘An introduction to the early Irish king tales’ in Essays on the early Irish king tales... (2008): 35–36, 61. The text in the manuscript occurs without title.
First words (prose)
  • Crimthann mac Lughdhach diatā Crimthann la Hū Maine is ē cētfher di Chonnachtaib romarb mnāi iar creidem hé.
Summary
When Tipraite, the king of Thomond, intends to marry Caírech, she asks Rícenn to go in her stead. While in this way Caírech is able to keep her vow of chastity, Rícenn agrees to marry the king in her place (when Rícenn shows herself to the king's men waiting outside, she is apparently believed to be the nun wanted by the king). She succeeds in eliciting from him a number of pious acts, including the construction of two churches, and becomes a devout widow after his death. The text ends on the note that on this account, the trícha(i)t in tredual is given to Ciarán (of Clonmacnoise), God and Caírech.
Manuscripts
Language
Form
prose (primary)

Classification

Cycles of the Kings
Cycles of the Kings
id. 80
Irish hagiographyIrish hagiography
...
minor Irish prose tales (foscéla)Irish narrative literature
minor Irish prose tales (foscéla)
id. 33994

Relatively short prose tales in Irish. In learned discourse from the Middle Irish period and later, a distinction is sometimes made between the longer prím-scél and the shorter fo-scél. See eDIL s.v. ‘foscél’ for some references. In the first two volumes of BILL (1913 and 1942), Best included separate headings for ‘Minor tales’.

Subjects

Rícenn ingen Crimthainn
Rícenn ingen Crimthainn
(supp. fl. 5th/6th century)
Daughter of Crimthann, king of Connacht, in a medieval Irish tale according to which she married the king of Thomond, taking the place of Caírech Dergáin so that the latter could keep her vow of chastity.
See more Crimthann mac Lugdach
Crimthann mac Lugdach
(supp. fl. 5th/6th century)
(time-frame ass. with Ciarán of Clonmacnoise)
A king of Connacht from the Uí Maine in the hagiographical dossier associated with Ciarán of Clonmacnoise. He is said to have ruled around the time of the saint’s birth. His father is identified as Lugaid mac Dalláin, which according to some pedigrees would make him a great-great-grandson of Maine Mór, eponymous ancestor of the Uí Maine.
See more Mac Reithe of Kilmacrehy
Mac Reithe of Kilmacrehy
(6th century? (unknown))
patron saint of Cell Mac Reithe (Kilmacreehy, Co. Clare) and Cell mac nAingin (Ballynakill, Co. Galway)
See more Caírech Dergáin
Caírech Dergáin
No short description available
See more
Contents
Under-construction.png
Work in progress

Conclusion

» Comments: The term trícha(i)t in tredual is translated as ‘threefold territory’ by Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha, ‘Mary, Eve and the Church (c. 600-1800)’ in The Field Day anthology of Irish writing, vol. IV... (2002).

Sources

Notes

1.
Dan M. Wiley, ‘An introduction to the early Irish king tales’ in Essays on the early Irish king tales... (2008): 35–36, 61.
2.
Máirín Ní Dhonnchadha, ‘Mary, Eve and the Church (c. 600-1800)’ in The Field Day anthology of Irish writing, vol. IV... (2002): 129.

Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.

[ed.] Meyer, Kuno, “A medley of Irish texts: VI. The adventures of Ricinn, daughter of Crimthann mac Lugdach”, Archiv für celtische Lexikographie 3 (1907): 308–309.  
Stowe B iv 2, f. 145a. Crimthann mac Lughdach diatā Crimthann la Hū Maine is ē cētḟer di Chonnachtaib romarb mnāi iar creidem hé <The adventures of Ricinn, daughter of Crimthann mac Lugdach>
CELT – edition: <link> Celtic Digital Initiative – PDF: <link>
[tr.] Ní Dhonnchadha, Máirín [ed.], “Mary, Eve and the Church (c. 600-1800)”, in: Angela Bourke, Siobhán Kilfeather, and Maria Luddy [et al.] (eds), The Field Day anthology of Irish writing, vol. IV: Irish women's writing and traditions, Cork: Cork University Press, 2002. 45–165.
129–130. Translation, with introduction.

Secondary sources (select)

Wiley, Dan M., “An introduction to the early Irish king tales”, in: Dan M. Wiley (ed.), Essays on the early Irish king tales, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008. 13–67.
34–36, 61.
Ó Riain, Pádraig, A dictionary of Irish saints, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011.  
Scarcely a parish in Ireland is without one or more dedications to saints, in the form of churches in ruins, holy wells or other ecclesiastical monuments. This book is a guide to the (mainly documentary) sources of information on the saints named in these dedications, for those who have an interest in them, scholarly or otherwise. The need for a summary biographical dictionary of Irish saints, containing information on such matters as feastdays, localisations, chronology, and genealogies, although stressed over sixty years ago by the eminent Jesuit and Bollandist scholar, Paul Grosjean, has never before been satisfied. Professor Ó Riain has been working in the field of Irish hagiography for upwards of forty years, and the material for the over 1,000 entries in his Dictionary has come from a variety of sources, including Lives of the saints, martyrologies, genealogies of the saints, shorter tracts on the saints (some of them accessible only in manuscripts), annals, annates, collections of folklore, Ordnance Survey letters, and other documents. Running to almost 700 pages, the body of the Dictionary is preceded by a preface, list of sources and introduction, and is followed by comprehensive indices of parishes, other places (mainly townlands), alternate (mainly anglicised) names, subjects, and feastdays.
535–536 ‘Ríceann’
web page identifiers
Contributors
Dennis Groenewegen
Page created
October 2010, last updated: January 2024
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