M

MAC AODHAGÁIN (Mac EGAIN)
Although members of the Clann Aodhagáin are on
record as poets, clerics, and other professionals—note,
for example, the Mac Aodhagáin contribution to the
early seventeenth-century poetic contention Iomarbhágh
na bhFileadh—the family is best known as the most
influential of all the hereditary legal families of late
medieval Ireland. The family produced both academic
and practicing lawyers, in the latter case acting for
the most prominent of the ruling families of Connacht
and the adjacent midlands between the fourteenth and
sixteenth centuries, as well as the Meic Carthaig
(MacCarthys) of Desmond. Clann Aodhagáin was
widely dispersed with important seats at Baile Mhic
Aodhagáin, “Mac Egan’s homestead” (anglicized
Ballymacegan), at the northern end of Lough Derg in
Ormond (north Tipperary); Dún Daighre(Duniry),
between Loughrea and Portumna in southeast Galway;
andPáirc(Park) near Dunmore in northeast Galway.
The most famous manuscript associated with Clann
Aodhagáin is the fifteenth-century Leabhar Breac, a
great collection of primarily religious material tran-
scribed by Murchad Riabhach Ua Cuinnlis while
employed in various Mac Aodhagáin scriptoria in
Ormond in or around 1398. It is also known as Leabhar
Mór Dúna Daighreon account of its being held at
Duniry in the sixteenth century. The fourteenth-century
Book of Ballymote may also be connected with Clann
Aodhagáin, as sections of the manuscript were tran-
scribed in Munster in the home of Domnall Mac
Aodhagáin (sl. 1413), who appears to have served as
tutor to the scribes Magnus Ua Duibhgeannáin,
Solamh Ua Droma, and Robeartus Mac Síthigh. The
majority of manuscripts with which members of the
family can be connected are primarily legal compila-
tions; indeed, it has been noted that most of our extant
legal manuscripts have some connection with Clann

Aodhagáin. The oldest surviving manuscript contain-

ing mostly legal material, the early fourteenth-century

manuscript H.2.15A now held in Trinity College,

Dublin, includes some commentary by Áed Mac

Aodhagáin (sl. 1359) who worked on the manuscript

in 1350 and who notes that it was formerly in the

possession of his father, Conchobar. Another member

of the family, Gilla na Náem mac Duinn Sléibe (sl.

1309), is likely to have been the author of a fourteenth-

century legal manual (a copy of which is found in TCD

H.3.18)—which has been described as “basically a

précis of Old Irish law-texts”—as well as two items

of verse: one a summary of the law text Di Chethars

[h]licht Athgabála, the other offering advice to a stu-

dent of law. An important legal manuscript with Mac

Aodhagáin associations is the sixteenth-century Egerton

88 in the British Library, much of which is thought to

have been written at the family law-schools in Galway.

The influence of the Clann Aodhagáin law-schools per-

sisted into the seventeenth century. Brother Mícheál Ua

Cléirigh is thought to have visited the Ballymacegan

school conducted by Flann (sl. c.1643) and his elder

brother Baothghalach Ruadh Mac Aodhagáin (fl. c.

1628), on three occasions. The other great antiquary of

the time, Dubhaltach Óg Mac Fhirbhisigh is known to

have visited Ballymacegan in 1643.

MÍCHEÁLÓ MAINNÍN

References and Further Reading

Blake, Martin J. “Two Irish Brehon Scripts: With Notes on the

MacEgan Family.” Journal of the Galway Archaeological

and Historical Society6 (1909): 1–8.

Costello, T. B. “The Ancient Law School of Park.” Journal of

the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society 19

(1940): 89–100.

Egan, Joseph J. and Mary Joan Egan. The Birds of the Forest

of Wisdom: History of Clan Egan. Ann Arbor, Mich. Irish

American Caltural Institute, 1979.