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Comlond Díarmata meic Cerbaill fri Rúadán
"Díarmait mac Cerbaill's Contention with Rúadán"

Edition

• D. Wiley (ed. & tr.), An Edition of Aided Diarmata meic Cerbaill from the Book of Uí Maine.  Unpublished Ph.D. Diss. (Harvard 2000) 205-10.
• A new edition and translation of this text by D. Wiley are forthcoming.

Manuscripts

• R.I.A.  23 P 16 (1230) (Leabhar Breac) p. 260 bm.

Date

• Middle Irish period

Characters

• Díarmait mac Cerbaill (544-565), king of Tara from the Southern Uí Néill.
• Rúadán of Lorrha (d. c. 584), an important Munster saint who also had a cult in Germany.
• Becc mac Dé (d. c. 553), Díarmait's seer.  Some sources regard him as a saint.
• Áed Dub mac Suibne (d. 588), foster son of Díarmait and later king of Dál nAraidi

Notes

• This texts belongs to the Cycle of Díarmait mac Cerbaill.
• In different language, it narrates some events also recounted in Aided Díarmata meic Cerbaill and Aided Díarmata (2).  It is important because it explains how the ridge-pole of the king's house that is fated to end his life gets to Banbán at Ráith Becc and it implies that Áed Guaire (unnamed in this text) is related to St. Rúadán.

Summary

Becc mac Dé was the best seer of his day.  He could answer the questions of nine different people with a single response.  He was the chief prophet of King Díarmait mac Cerbaill, who ‘was the most wonderful king in the land of Ireland’ until he offended St. Rúadán of Lorrha by imprisoning a kinsman of his who had violated the king’s law.  While Díarmait held his man prisoner at Tara, Rúadán cursed him for an entire year, but Díarmait warded off Rúadán’s curses with miracles of his own (dobered Diarmait firt fo araile do Ruadán frisin mbliadain láin).  Finally, the saint stuck the Black Bell of Tara (in Dub Themrach) against the hearth and cursed the royal site, so that there would never again be smoke from a building on that hill.  Then, Díarmait looked up at the ridge-pole of his house, and Rúadán predicted that it would one day fall on his head and kill him just as foreigners were putting him to the sword.  After that, Díarmait had the ridge-pole cast into the sea, but it floated north to the shores of Dál nAraide where it was salvaged and used in the construction of the very house in which Diarmait was killed by Áed Dub, just as Aided Diarmata relates.