- Chapter Thirty-Six -
triumph over Irish resistance.^14 In Ireland, however, as late as the beginning of the
ninth century, the name of David of Cell Muine (the Irish form of Mynyw, St
David's) was preserved together with those of the saints of Ireland.ls The Irish Sea
had for long linked churches and peoples: in 836 the Annals of Ulster record 'the first
prey taken by the heathens from southern Brega, that is from Telcha Dromain and
from Durrow of the Britons'.16 Another monastery in Ireland, Mayo 'of the Saxons',
is well known as a link between the English and the Irish in the pre-Viking period;
its bishop subscribed the decrees of the provincial synod of York in 786, held at the
instance of the papal legate, George, bishop of Ostia, and his Frankish assistant,
WigbodY The entry in the annals suggests that there were British counterparts to
Mayo, less well recorded but perhaps no less influential in fostering relations
between Ireland and Britain.ls By the tenth century, however, these relations were no
longer sustained by the presence within Britain of an Irish dynasty and settlers who
spoke Irish.
A celebration of British victory over Irish immigrants is offered by three out of
four versions of the Cunedda legend, each one of which has a different story to tell.
A consideration of the story in its various forms will provide an understanding of
changing Welsh perceptions of the former Irish presence in Britain. The first and
second versions are preserved in the Historia Brittonum, written in 829/3°, within
the reign of Merfyn Frych (king of Gwynedd 825-44), the founder of the Second
Dynasty of Gwynedd.^19 A third version appears in the reign of a great-great-
grandson of Merfyn, Owain ap Hywel Dda, king of Dyfed.^20 Merfyn probably
stemmed from the Isle of Man, a land which had been occupied by both Britons and
Irish at different periods.^21 From the early ninth century Cunedda and his sons were
sometimes perceived as the pre-eminent leaders of a British counter-offensive against
14 An utterly different view is suggested by the tenth-century Armes Prydein Vawr, ed. I.
Williams, Engl. version by R. Bromwich (Dublin, 1972), lines 127-30.
15 The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee, ed. W. Stokes (Henry Bradshaw Society; London,
1905), March I (p. 80).
16 Durrow of the Britons, in South Brega, is not to be confused with the Durrow founded
by St Columba, which lay further west, or Dairmag Ua nDuach in the north of the king-
dom of Ossory (namely the Durrow on the main road from Dublin to Cork).
17 ed. E. Diimmler, MGH Epistulae IV = Epistulae Karolini Aevi II (Berlin, 1895), 19-29,
transl. D. Whitelock, English Historical Documents I (London, 1955), no. 19I.
18 Compare The Annals of Ulster, ed. S. Mac Airt and G. Mac Niocaill (Dublin, 1983), s.a.
823.9: Galinne na mBretan exhaustum est 0 Feidlimtidh cum tota habitatione sua 7 cum
oratorio. A similar example of an English house in Ireland is Tulach Leis na Saxan
(Tullylease on the boundary between Cork and Limerick (grid ref. R 34 18).
19 D.N. Dumville, 'Some aspects of the chronology of the Historia Brittonum', Bulletin of
the Board of Celtic Studies (hereafter BBCS) 25 (197 2 -3): 439-45.
20 N.K. Chadwick, 'Early culture and learning in North Wales', in N.K. Chadwick (ed.)
Studies in the Early British Church (Cambridge, 1958), 32-6; D. Dumville, 'Sub-Roman
Britain: history and legend', History 62(1977): 181-3. R.G. Gruffydd, 'From Gododdin to
Gwynedd: reflections on the story of Cunedda', Studia Celtica 24125 (1989190): 1-14.
21 JE. Lloyd, History of Wales, 3rd edn (London, 1939), 1.323-4; N.K. Chadwick, 'Early
culture and learning in North Wales', 79-82. The clearest evidence is from the Kyuoesi