Fir Maige

Who he is

Name

Finghin Ua Caim

Title

King of Fir Maige

Since

Not pinned

Born

Not pinned

Family

The Ui Chaim (O'Keeffes)

Confidence

medium

Mac Carthaigh's Book records his death in 1201. In 1194 the English killed a Gilla Ailbe Ua Caim with Mac Carthaig's son's approval.

Overlord

The king of Desmond

What it holds

• Fir Maige on the Blackwater

How it was acquired

Dynastic right.

Allies and rivals

Squeezed between the Barrys and Mac Carthaig.

How things stand that morning

Held; on the edge of the war zone.

Wealth

Blackwater valley.

Military

Their own following.

Threats

• The English of Cork

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: One obit.

On the map: Approximate.

Primary sources for Desmond

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Inisfallen, Anonymous (monks of Inisfallen, Kerry, and earlier of Emly and Lismore) (the manuscript was written in 1092 and continued at Inisfallen in many contemporary hands to 1450). The Munster chronicle, written in Kerry in a hand close to the events. Read online
• Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, Various; compiled by Micheal O Cleirigh and others (1632 to 1636, from medieval annals now partly lost). A seventeenth century compilation but it draws on lost medieval annals, so its 1200 entries add names and incidents missing elsewhere: the Connacht war and the English of Meath and Munster, the deaths of Irish kings and churchmen across the island, and raids in Thomond and Desmond. Read online
• Mac Carthaigh's Book (Miscellaneous Irish Annals), Anonymous (a Munster compilation) (compiled in the later Middle Ages from Munster annals; manuscript of the 17th century). A Munster annal with a Mac Carthaig and Desmond slant, giving for the years around 1200 the kings of Desmond and Thomond, their wars with each other and with the English of Cork and Limerick, and the castles the settlers were building. Read online
• The Topography of Ireland; The Conquest of Ireland, Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis) (Topographia 1187 to 1188; Expugnatio 1189, revised later). The Conquest ends in 1185 and the Topography describes the island as Gerald saw it in 1183 to 1185, so neither covers 1200, but they explain the lordship of Ireland as John found it: the grants of Leinster and Meath, the de Courcy conquest of Ulster, the Irish kings and their customs, and Gerald's advice on governing the country. Read online