"The Saga of Cellachan of Cashel must be historical like "The War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill". It cannot be the fabrication of an Irish author of the 12th or 13th century . . ." Professor Alexander Bugge (1905:x).
"There is, as we have seen, good reason to believe that the writer's purposes was to produce a saga glorifying Cellachan and thus his descendants. The purpose of the exercise is political propaganda and, if such is to be effective, it must be credible in one way or another. Yet the text is full of the wildest chronological errors and the grossest blunders. However, these notions derive from our ideas of history and there is no good reason to believe that they ever crossed the mind of the compiler of CCC [Caithreim Cellachain Caisil] . . . we can say of CCC that it is a humble and perhaps not ineffective example of its genre and if it can teach us nothing about the tenth century it contains valuable information about the twelfth." Professor Donnchadh O Corrain (1974:63-4,69).
Unresolved Questions: An Essay by Kevin L. Callahan
I have many personal thoughts on the variety of conflicting opinions expressed about Ceallachan of Cashel and whether or not Caithreim Cellachain Caisil is based on historical events or is a work of fiction (or both).
Opinions vary widely in the secondary materials from one scholar to the next about the legacy of Ceallachan of Cashel and the saga written about him. This is probably not to be entirely unexpected since historians frequently disagree with each other. Being human, all historians occasionally make mistakes, and an adversarial dialogue helps as a check on information and often generates new ways of looking at things. New information also may develop over time.
On the positive side of the continuum regarding the historicity of Caithreim Cellachain Caisil are earlier authors like Geoffrey Keating and Alexander Bugge who viewed Caithreim Cellachain Caisil as basically historical or based on historical events. In the middle of the contiunuum is perhaps A. Walsh (1922), and on the negative side are authors like Peter and Fiona Somerset Fry, John Ryan, and Donnchadh O Corrain. The latter has described this genre of saga writing which includes Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaih, The War of the Gaidhil with the Gaill, or the invasions of Ireland by the Danes and other Norsemen (regarding Brian Boru), and the Fragmentary Annals which includes material from an Osraige chronicle, as "dynastic propaganda texts" (O Corrain 1998:443).
Francis John Byrne began his chapter on "The Kingship of Tara" with the following interesting cautionary tale about another Irish saga (unrelated to the saga of Ceallachan):
"The earliest reliable historical traditions in Ireland concern the warfare between the Ulaid and the Connachta. These traditions are, it is true, enshrined in legend and saga rather than historically documented. Furthermore, the sagas were written in the eighth and ninth centuries by men acquainted with the new learning of the monasteries, and they continued to be retold and embellished in each succeeding generation as much for literary enjoyment as for antiquarian interest. The twelfth-century scribe who laboriously filled 50 pages of the Book of Leinster with the latest version of the Tain Bo Cuailnge commented sourly:
"But I who have written this history or rather fable, do not give credit to much of it. For some things in it are tricks of demons and others the figments of poets; some things are plausible, others not; and some are there for the entertainment of fools." (Byrne 1973:48).
The unmistakable impression from the saga of Ceallachan is that whomever wrote or commissioned the saga (King Cormac III, King of Munster according to Peter Beresford Ellis) viewed Ceallachan positively and presumably that sentiment was not too far out of keeping with what the twelfth century audience for the text would have understood of their own past from the storytellers.
There has been differential preservation of historical materials and there was probably a differential lack of information and access by the Ui Neill and monastic witnesses and informants to battles between two of their enemies, Ceallachan and the Vikings. Even if they knew of such events there would have been little reason to report the outcome of battles between Ceallachan and the Vikings when both were their enemies. Why would they particularly want to record Ceallachan's successes against Vikings within Munster? He was better portrayed as an ally of the Foreigners. Unless an event affected Ui Neill or ecclesiastical interests there may have been little political incentive to describe the triumphs of one enemy over another enemy in the rival province of Munster.
The saga is in stark contrast to the impression one would gather from texts written by Ceallachan's enemies, the Ui Neills and the monks of Clonmacnoise. Monasteries then were not necessarily the serene and apolitical institutions we are familiar with today. In Ireland some monasteries raised armies and fought battles with each other.Contemporary historians have an explicitly stated agenda to revise written history to view the Vikings in Ireland in a more peaceable light. They see the saga of Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaih written about Brian Boru as the source of the view that the Vikings were an oppressive foreign presence in Ireland in the tenth and eleventh centuries (e.g. Maire Ni Mhaonaigh, 1998; O Corrain 1998, 1980).
Written history is constantly being revised. Each generation seems to rewrite it even though the primary historical sources about Ceallachan of Cashel such as the annals, the Eoghanact genealogies, the Saga, and the Circuit remain the same. One of the things that seems to disturb contemporary historians is that Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaih and Caithreim Cellachain Caisil portray the Vikings in a negative light. They argue that these works exaggerated the ferocity and brutality of the Vikings in order to make the Irish warriors look heroic. There apparently seems to be a trend among Irish historians today towards making the Vikings look less ferocious and more assimilated than the view suggested by the sagas.
Another example of a statement made early in the saga that seems to especially irk contemporary historians is the statement on pages 58 - 59 about what medieval historians were said to have written about Ceallachan that, "It seems from the writings of the historians that from Airtri to noble Brian the heroes or territories of Munster were not freed, except what the nimble-sworded Cellachan did to defend them." Obviously, there were several Munster kings who resisted the Viking invasions and the author of the saga made that very point in the third sentence where it is stated, "But from the time of Airtri to the good time of Cellachan they [the Vikings] found battles and conflicts" (Bugge 1905:570). The saga author was quoting medieval historians. He was not claiming that "He [Ceallachan] is the only king according to the writers [of the saga] who defended Munster against the Vikings from the reign of Artri mac Cathail to the reign of the great Brian" as O Corrain erroneously put it. This is fairly typical of the slanted treatment of the saga by some contemporary Irish historians. O Corrain's genealogical speculations are just that. For example, he changes the spelling of common names in the saga and then concludes they are someone on the genealogy charts laying in front of him! He then makes "generation counts" and tells us the generations don't match up with Ceallachan's when many of the people do not have dates associated with them and are in conflict with dates in the annals. Like most things, some of his observations and arguments are quite good and some of them are implausible. His speculations as to how the author of the saga might have constructed the work 800 years ago are presented to us as conclusions.
As in the case of asking for an opinion about someone living today, the answer you receive about someone who lived a millenium ago will depend largely on who you ask. The continuum of expressed opinions is broad and conflicting. In the end you will have to make up your own mind.
What would be helpful would be to see actual independent positive or negative evidence, one way or another, about the events described in the saga. With the possible exception of O Corrain little or no independent research to follow up on the details of the saga appears to have been done. I have run across no published investigation or analysis of archaeological materials. For example it is fairly specifically related where the dead were buried after the Battle on the Viking Ships at Dundalk.
"Then they brought the nobles of their people into the town to bury them. And they were greatly sorrowful and exhausted after the battle during that night: They arose early next morning in order to bury their people, and they carried the highest of their chieftains and the nobles of their people with them to the church on the northern side of Dundalk. Their chieftains were placed in four graves . . ." (Bugge 1905:110).
Are their any remains of a medieval church on the northern side of Dundalk with four 10th century graves with any possible headstones or markers?
As another example, I would imagine that if he is not a fiction, Scandinavian sources somewhere might have recorded the date and cause of death for the Sitric described in the saga (the King or Lord of Dublin), and it is possible that archaeological methods might be able to find additional relevant coinage and determine if dateable fires or battles had occurred in or near the towns described in the saga. Mauric Hurley in "Viking Age Towns: Archaeological Evidence from Waterford and Cork" has suggested that at the present time tenth century evidence from Cork and Waterford is meagre compared to what has been recovered in Dublin from the tenth through the twelfth centuries. Hurley writes that, "The earliest excavated levels in Waterford can be reliably dated to the mid-eleventh century.. . . Archaeolgical evidence for an early Viking Age presence in Cork is scant and material available from other sources is 'negligible'" (Hurley 1988:165; Jeffries 1985:14). According to John Sheehan's "Viking Age Hoards from Munster, A Regional Tradition?" in Early Medieval Munster Archaeology, History, and Society (1998:157) however, at least four coin and mixed hoards from Munster have been successfully recovered during the period of Ceallachan's reign . These hoards came from Co. Tipperary c. 942, Rathbarry, Co. Cork c. 945, Macroom, Co. Cork c. 953, and Mungret, Co. Limerick c. 953. Apparently two coins, one of which was found in Ireland, issued in York, England c. 942 have the name Sitric on them. Given the relationships between Vikings in England and Ireland it is not unlikely that a coin from York could have the King or Lord of Dublin on it. Directly contrary to what historian Alfred P. Smyth would have us believe (see Smyth 1987:124) coins bearing the names of Ethelred and Cnut have Dublin as the place of mintage and, the opposite occured as well. If there are two coins c.942 with the name Sitric on them, they could be referring to Sitric II or there may be another Sitric that did not show up in the annals. O Corrain thinks the Sitric, son of Turgeis, in the saga is derived from a story in Cogadh that he believes is untrue, however, the Annals of the Four Masters describes a Sitric Lord of Dublin being taken as a hostage in the Circuit of Ireland i. e. "M939.6 . . . Muircheartach afterwards assembled the Cinel-Conaill and Cinell-Eoghain, and the people of the North in general, at Oileach, where he selected ten hundred of the chosen heroes, and made a circuit of Ireland, keeping his left hand to the sea, until he arrived at Ath-cliath; and he brought Sitric, lord of Ath-cliath, with him as a hostage."
As Alcenius has pointed out,
"The English coins are usually accompanied by some Irish coins entirely of English type (usually Ethelred), but the legend on the obverse has the name SIHTRIC, (King of Dublin 989-1029). The reverse has either the name of a mint-master and an Irish town (usually:--FAERMIN MO DYFLI) or is copied without or with slight alteration from English coins, with the names of English mint-masters and English towns" (Alcenius 1894-97; cited in Bernard Roth Hiberno-Danish Coins, 1910:8).
The author of Caithreim Ceallachan Casil was right about Eric Bloodaxe's rule in the Scottish Islands and it probably contains more accurate memories than it is given credit for by its critics. The Circuit of Ireland also mentions Muirchertach taking "Sitric the wealthy," as a hostage from Dublin in the 940's. Sitric II who was King of Dublin is recorded as having died (the cause of death is not mentioned) in 927 AD according to the Chronicon Scotorum and the Annals of Inishfallen (O'Donovan 1841:34-5; Dolley 1961:25,pl.X,no.35; Dolley and Ingold 1961:241-265,pl.XVI; Smyth 1987:124). If Irish historians would get out of the closed mindset they seem to have fallen into during the last half century they might realize that much more research could to be done outside of one philological exercise a quarter of a century ago that in the end is really not all that convincing. That is not to say that they should not be rigorous or skeptical, but it looks as if all inquiry stopped in Ireland 25 years ago and historians have been riding on the coattails of Donnchad O Corrain with no independent spirit of inquiry. As an archaeologist, one question I wonder about is what, if anything, might be sitting at the bottom of Dundalk harbor. Professor Alexander Bugge, as a Norwegian and an "outsider," wrote several pages of reasons why he considered the saga hisorical (see Bugge 1905: x-xviii or 10-18 above). If a medieval author writing 150 years after events did make errors of historical fact or articulated statements that a 20th century historian found improbable, should the entire document be thrown away as a fiction any more than we would throw away The Conquest of Gaul because it mentions unicorns? It seems to me that recent Irish historians have thrown the baby out with the bath water. The ferocity with which they have attacked what they see as improbabilities in the text based upon a side-by side comparison with what they admit are incomplete genealogy lists and outside annals, and the assurance with which they state their conclusions is rather surprising. It has not been been balanced with any similar comparison of the inconsistencies of the annals with the genealogy lists, nor a full articulation of the problematic reliability of the sources upon which they have attacked the historicity of Caithrem Ceallachain Caisil. It comes across as overconfidence.
Twentieth century Irish studies scholars have influenced the way contemporary historians write general Irish history. The latter must devote fairly limited space to any 10 year reign in covering the breadth of Irish history which incorporates material from thousands of years. As a result, a description of the activities of Ceallachan of Cashel is often a short "sound byte" with little information other than a repeated opinion or judgment. Each puts their own little "spin" on his life. Some of these have been quite harsh and unfair and there seems to be no hesitation about speaking ill of the man and then furnishing little or no information to support the statement.
Much of what ends up in general histories comes from historians reading Irish journals. The orientation of Irish studies towards the analysis of early documents has often been to focus on the motives of the author of the documents (i.e. "hermeneutics"), which are usually assumed to be at least partly political because, in the past, genealogy was related to political power. As this line of thinking goes, possessing a heroic biography of an ancestor would be politically advantagous for subsequent contenders for a kingship. A frequently encountered trend in the last half of the twentieth century in Irish studies (not just with regard to Ceallachan of Cashel) is to view sagas not just as stories but to analyze the political implications of the document. Sagas and stories are then viewed as an important kind of political propaganda for descendants seeking politcal power. The term "propaganda" and the theme of texts as political "propaganda" is often seen in books and Irish studies journal articles since WWII. Sorting the "history" (meaning "reliable") from the "propaganda" (meaning "unreliable") has come to be seen as the task of Irish studies scholars, and "propaganda" in certain cases appears to refer to anything that they think is improbable.
It is the historian's job to separate fact from fiction. In the real world of writing history there is very limited information to work with or to make any attempt at forming a judgment of what was probably true and and what is improbable. Since Medieval sagas are frequently a story combining history, action, adventure, and romance into a hero story, with some self-serving political statements thrown in for good measure, sorting the genre into the two categories of "history" or "propaganda" strikes me as no small undertaking and quite frankly more than a bit reductionist and a rather simplistic dichotomy when talking about the story-telling tradition of the tenth and eleventh centuries and the origins of sagas (see A. Walsh 1922 Scandinavian Relations with Ireland during the Viking Period, pp64-69). Walsh states that " In the case of The Victorious Career of Cellachan of Cashel, it is difficult to say whether this was originally an oral narrative committed to writing in the fifteenth century or whether it was copied from an older manuscript, now lost" (Walsh 1922:68). Bugge clearly was of the opinion that there was an earlier manuscript which was copied and he articulated his reasons for believing so (Bugge 1905). Bugge also thought that the poems may have been earlier than the prose. Contrary to what the historians have assumed then, for all we really know the poems may have been contemporary with the events and could have been passed down by the storytellers. The prose may have been added in the early 1100's during the commissioning of the saga.
Donnchad O Corrain thinks that he has more accurate information today with the annals and what has survived 800 years than the author of the saga did 200 years afterwards. From O Corrain's detailed analysis of geneaology lists, inferences from generation counts, the annals, and another saga, he concluded that many of the people mentioned in the saga could not have been contemporaries and the events are therefore not historical (O Corrain 1974). Although his critique of Caithreim Ceallachain Cashel is largely based on Eoghanacht genealogy lists, interestingly, 16 years later, in 1980 O Corrain would write in a review of Francis John Byrne's Irish Kings and High Kings some rather interesting things about Eoghanact genealogies. It is not entirely clear to me what time period he is referring to or if this is a general observation of all of them but he stated that, "The genealogies of the Eoghanact are untidy and self-contradictory while the more streamlined products of the Ui Neill may conceal 'revisions' and readjustments"(O Corrain 1980 Celtica vol. 13:151). He also wrote about the earlier Eoghanact genealogies that, "Genealogical fabrication is as common in Munster as elsewhere but the poverty of annalistic sources and the confusion and skimpiness of the genealogies themselves makes their evaluation even more difficult. Professor Byrne's criticism of the Eoghanact dynastic poems seems well founded and they may indeed be ninth-century antiquarian products" (O Corrain 1980 Celtica vol. 13:161). If the early Eoghanact genealogies are untidy, self-contradictory, confused, skimpy, and perhaps were possibly subject to revisions and readjustments like the Ui Neill's, why aren't the later ones as well, upon which O Corrain based his critique of Caithreim Cellachain Caisil in 1974? Why should we accept his argument of the achronicity of the characters in the saga based upon his analysis of apparently unreliable genealogy lists. The conclusion of the 1974 article has been repeated ad nauseum by later writers who have usually added nothing new to the discussion and certainly have not added any new primary sources. Perhaps it is time to reexamine the basis of the conclusions in that article? No Scandanavian sources or archaeological information were examined in 1974 and O Corrain appeared to simply assume the accuracy of the Eoghanct genealogies and the annals in his analysis. In describing how the Ui Neill held the initiative in dynastic propaganda over the kings of Cashel, historian Francis John Byrne wrote in Irish Kings and High Kings about the problems with Eoganacta genealogy lists. "Throughout the struggle the Ui Neill held the initiative, geographically, politically and in the development of dynastic propaganda. The weakness of the Eoganacta is reflected in the disarray of their records. Few of the regnal lists are in agreement, and the various annals, most of which were written outside of Munster, recognise kings of Cashel who are not found in the lists or synchronisms. The pedigrees of individual kings are often hard to trace, and those of the Eoganacht Chaisil, the sept which produced most kings of Munster, exhibit a bewildering confusion. The Eoganacta, in short, did not succeed in evolving an 'accepted lie' which could give their cause the morale it needed in the eyes of the learned public" (Byrne 1973:203). O Corrain based his critique of the historicity of Caithreim Ceallachain Caisil primarily on genealogy lists and he did acknowledge and discuss their problems of reliability. He noted, for example, "defective pedigrees" with dotted lines (O Corrain 1974. If the names in the annals authored outside of Munster and the Eoganact genealogy lists are not in agreement with each other, why should we expect that the names in Caithreim Ceallachain Caisil would match up any better? Francis John Byrne gives an example of a probable error by an outside annal regarding Olchobur mac Flainn, supposedly being a king of Cashel. "The Annals of Ulster may have been misled by confusion with two other Eoganacht princes of the same name" (Irish Kings and High Kings 1973:213).
Lets examine more closely this genealogical comparative analysis by O Corrain. He asserts for example that, "The choice of Domnall mac Faelain as king of the Deisi is anachronistic, for Domnall could never have been king in the lifetime of Ceallachan" (O Corrain 1974:19). O Corrain then produces a genealogy chart showing dates of death of some individuals. He then states:" The kings who were contemporary with Ceallachan are a generation earlier: Celechair mac Cormaic ([died] 941 and Faelan mac Cormiac ([died] 966). A fortiiori, Aed, son of Domnall, who is unknown to the genealogists, is two generations later than Cellachan and could scarcely have been born before Cellachan's death." (O Corrain 1974:18). If Celechair was 60 years old, Domnall was 40 and Aed was 20 years old in 941 AD there is no age problem here at all. Ceallachan could be any age in 941 and he would live another 13 years before he died. O Corrain never mentions the Annals of Inisfallen which indicate: "[941 A.D.] A slaughter of the Deisi by Cellachan, king of Caisel, in which Celechair son of Cormac, king of the Deisi, and four hundred along with him, fell.. . ." Celechair and Faelan were both sons of Cormac and Domnall was Faelan's son. In other words Domnall was in the generation that immediately followed Celachair. From the information O Corrain presented it is not "impossible" that during Ceallachan's lifetime Domnall could have been king of the Deisies. We are not told how long any intervening reigns, if any, might have been. As events both immediately before Ceallachan's reign and following Ceallachan's death show, reigns of Munster kings sometimes only lasted a couple of years. Some kings retired early and before their deaths. Whether or not Domnal mac Faelan was a king of the Deisies during Cealalachn's lifetime is not the point here. Insufficient information is presented by O Corrain to support his conclusions or to make a prima facie case.
Another indication of how slanted O Corrain's viewpoint is comes from placing Bugge's comments about the name Amlaib, and its appearance and associations with Limerick in the annals (Bugge 1905:125), next to O Corrain's analysis of the same subject (O Corrain 1974:54-55). Bugge's observations are less argumentative, more balanced, and ultimately more persuasive than O Corrain's. Like Ryan before him, O Corrain looks like he is taking Bugge's ideas and passing them off as his own without crediting the source. Bugge has a balanced and well thought out note on Amlaib and concludes that: "We see from this that Amlaib was a common name among the Norsemen of Limerick. I think it most likely that our 'Amlaib of Limerick" is the same as Amlaib, the father of Amlaib mac Amlaib, who was banished A.D. 968" (Bugge 1905:125). This father's name was Amlaib Cenncairaech. According to Bugge: "From A.D.933 to 937 Amlaib Cenncairech (Olaf Scabby-head) is mentioned by the Four Masters and by the Ulster Annals as the lord of Limerick" (Bugge 1905:125). O Corrain took the idea, without crediting Bugge, and similarly wrote: " The Amlaib of the text may be a vague memory of Amlaib Cennchairech but it must be remembered that Amlaib is one of the commonest names in Ireland" (O Corrain 1974:55).
Whether or not the saga is closer to an accurate recitation of actual historical events, or is perhaps more like the instructive stories told to young people about George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and Abe Lincoln walking ten miles to return a borrowed book, or is political propaganda for a twelfth century king is something you will have to decide for yourself after reading the saga and perhaps some of the secondary materials. Whether or not the poems were written earlier, and the prose later, as Professor Bugge suggests also is an unresolved question.
The critics of Caithrem Ceallachan Caisil have relied on so many unexamined assumptions, and used so much circular reasoning, that one gets the distinct impression that they are placing one tenous chronological inference or date upon another and their conclusions ultimately may have about as much solidity as a house of cards. There are 800 years between the author of Caithrem Ceallachan Caisil and his critics and at this point it is a rather one-sided conversation. It is also clear that the monastic outlook of the authors of the annals have obviously colored the views of contemporary historians, some of whom wax eloquently about how evil and un-Christian it was for Ceallachan to have plundered monasteries (particularly egregious examples of this ethnocentrism are Smyth 1987, Ryan 1941, and Frey and Frey, 1988).
Ultimately, all readers reading a saga will make decisions about how much of the saga seems probable to them and how much of it is "gilding the lily." I have usually found it is better to read a saga first for what it has to say, and to enjoy it and experience it for what it is, before reading the secondary materials with the various opinions of others about what is historical and what is mythic. Some parts of sagas can be very historically accurate as demonstrated by subsequent archaeological finds and some may be more accurately described as "creating a legend" and "myth-making" about an an actual historical figure. Saga authors were obviously not newspaper reporters. My suggestion would be to read everything with a "grain of salt," but ultimately it will have to be you who makes the final decision. As with a play or movie though, read the saga before subscribing to or being influenced by the various opinions of the critics.
Let me give you one case to illustrate my point. In 1941 the Reverend John Ryan published an article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquities (pp.89-100) entitled "The historical content of the Caithreim Ceallachain Chaisil." The Reverend Ryan thought that raids on churches (a word he spelled with a capital "C") were disgraceful and the Annals written by churchmen were an "unvarnished record." He constructed an argument that the saga of Ceallachan of Cashel must be untrue because it would be impossible that a Munster army would ever march through the territory of Brega to Dundalk. This was because he thought Congalach was the high king at the time and Congalach was from Brega. This of course requires that you assume that Ryan's inferences of chronological dates are correct and also that somehow the men of Munster were as awed by Congalach as Ryan apparently seemed to be. Since Caithreim Cellachain Caisil specifically mentions that Donnchad, son of Flann, king of Tara and king of Erin (NOT Congalach) was alive at the time of the saga and the Vikings made known to Donnchad their plan to kill Ceallachan (see Bugge 1905:74-75), Ryan's argument makes no sense to someone who has read the saga. Later in the saga when Ceallachan and Donnchadh, the son of Caem and the others are deciding on a route home Ceallachan even states,
"If you cross the plain of Meath,
O host whose valour is all-sufficient,
You will find on the way to the east,
Donnchadh and the Lochlannachs." (Bugge 1905:112).
Someone reading the Reverend Ryan's opinions first might not even read the saga.
It is interesting how the annals and the Ulster sources are uncritically accepted at face value by writers like Ryan and accepted as the "unvarnished" truth and historical fact, but writings from Munster are propaganda. The assumption is that if there is any conflict between the annals, or the Circuit of Ireland, and Caithreim Cellachain Caisil then the annals or the Circuit must be the truth. But why should anyone assume that? The annals disagree amongst themselves about events. The annals were written by various authors. Even though they may (or may not) be more contemporaneous with events (they were compiled much later) that does not mean that any particular author necessarily or reliably knew what was going on elsewhere in Ireland. They may have consciously chosen not to record things or to slant the description of events based upon their own viewpoint and agenda. Clonmacnoise was in Ulster controlled Ireland and had apparenly been sacked by Ceallachan's men. These groups were enemies.
Abbotts of monasteries were not necessarily the apolitical and peaceful people we might think of today. In the history of Munster some individual abbots were quite warlike and both politically and militarily dangerous. As Donnchadh O Corrain has pointed out: ""Monasteries also played their part in secular warfare as the allies of kings. Of the examples recorded in the annals, we may cite that of 776, when Durrow played an important part in a war between Munster and the Ui Neill. Direct military confrontations between monasteries and kings also occur. In 752, for example, Bodbgal, abbot of Mungret, went to war with the Ui Fidgente and in 757 the same warlike abbott fell in battle in Munster at the head of his monastic contingent" (O Corrain 1972:87).
An example of the absolute decontextualized nonsense that some Irish historians have written about Ceallachan of Cashel (apparently in an attempt to demonize him) is Alfred P. Smyth who wrote a book entitled Scandanavian York and Dublin (1987 Irish Academic Press: Dublin). In this book he attempts to portray Ceallachan as a "slave trader" (!) based on Smyth's misreading of one entry in the Annals of the Four Masters. The first thing that needs to be noted about Smyth is that he, like Ryan (1941), views the annals uncritically and as the unvarnished truth of churchmen. He displays little of the perspective of a typical historian and he skewed the history according to his religious prejudices throughout the book. Smyth mischaracterized the expedition described in the Four Masters with the following absolutely outrageous statements: "We find him three years later leading his Munstermen, along with the Norsemen from Waterford led by the 'Son of Hakon' into Mide where they raided as far as the monastery of Clonard. This was as much a slave-raid as a 'normal' plundering expedition, and among the prizes carried off by Cellachan were two abbots, from Cell Achid and Cluain Eidnech. Clearly the raid was designed to antagonize the highking Donnchad who controlled Mide from Clonmacnoise to Clonard. But Cell Achid and Cluain Eidnech lay in Ui Failge territory on the Munstermen's route into Mide. Cellachan was hunting for captives in Ui Failge and this time we have proof that they were destined for the Dublin slave-market. We find that in the following year Coibdenach, abbot of Cell Achid, who had been carried off by Ceallachan, 'drowned in the sea off Dalkey while fleeing from the Foreigners" (Smyth 1987:132-33).
Ceallachan was on an expedition into what he considered the enemy country of the Ui Neills and he came across two abbots who for all we know may have been working for or assisting the Ui Neills whom he presumably considered enemies. We also do not know if they were part of the Ui Neill dynasty or what the history had been surrounding these particular abbots. As he traveled into Meath he would not have left two enemies to his rear to warn the Ui Neill. He turned over all of the other abbots to the lord of Ui Failge and those particular two he apparently let the Vikings have. He did not sell them nor did he execute them on the spot. This was a political and military expedition against the Ui Neill to demonstrate control of the territory on Munster's northen border, not a some slave raid for profit. Some Vikings would temporarily ally with any provincial king to fight the Ui Neills and for all we know the Vikings probably considered these abbots more valuable as hostages for ransom rather than as slaves. O Corrain mentions that, "In 845 the abbott of Armagh, the chief ecclesiastic in Ireland, was captured in Munster and brought off to the ships on the Shannon estuary. He returned in 846, doubtless on payment of a ransom, but not much the worse for his experience" (O Corrain 1972:90). O Corrain discusses the history of plundering churches and enemies' territories at length, which predates the arrival of the Vikings (O Corrain 1972 83-89). Here is what the Annals of the Four Masters actually said, contrary to Smyth's gross mischaracterization:
"M936.9 Ceallachan, King of Caiseal, with the men of Munster, and Macca Cuinn, with the foreigners of Port-Lairge, went into Meath, and seized upon a great prey, and took the spoils and prisoners of Cill-eidhneach and Cill-achaidh; and took their two abbots, namely, Muireadhach Ua Conchobhair, and Coibhdeanach, son of Beargdha; but they left behind Oilill, son of Aenghus, lord of Ui-Fothaidh, and many others, in the hands of Aimhergin, lord of Ui-Failghe. The men of Munster, under Ceallachan, King of Munster, who had the foreigners along with him, plundered the churches of Cluain-eidhneach and Cill-achaidh, and the territory of Meath, as far as Cluain-Iraird."
If the goal was to get rid of two abbots who were working against Munster, then giving them to the Vikings to be transported elsewhere might have been a way of getting rid of political enemies. There is no evidence that Ceallachan sold anyone for profit or was in any way a "slave raider." This historical slander is a creation of Smyth's imagination since the monks at the time, who did not like Ceallachan particularly well, never called him that.
Turning again to the saga written in the twelfth century it seems difficult to believe that a sagaman would not incorporate memories and stories handed down over time. Ceallachan's son Donnchadh had also been King of Munster for four years during this period. Ryan thought the saga was written no later than 1118 AD. This means that, "About 150 years would then have passed since Ceallachan's death" (Ryan 1941:91). Would no one at the time have objected? Would the story have been recorded and then recopied if people really thought it was not based on actual events? That would be like me running for a political office and fabricating a long detailed story about how my ancestor's army burned Philadelphia during the early 19th century and then killed General Cornwallis by throwing him overboard at Yorktown. Would such an absurd story be written down and recopied for hundreds of years?
Archaeologists who work with written records are very familiar with the mixing of fact and fiction in early genre's of literature. Identifying an exaggeration or misinformation in a saga is not the signal for the end of research about a text but should be the signal to begin research on what is true and what is not. Not even the most snide or critical historian has any doubt that Ceallachan of Cashel was a tenth century king of Munster and that he was involved in several military conflicts. Other evidence may exist that will shed more light on this historical figure.
It is important to remember that Ceallachan of Cashel did not write Caithreim Cellachain Caisil. It was written about him by someone else. The underlying question of who he was and what he was like will remain no matter what position one ultimately adopts about how much of the saga is based on actual historical events.
In the long run, I suspect it may require interesting people from outside of Ireland, perhaps in Norway or Denmark or elsewhere, to look for independent evidence one way or the other as to the historical accuracy of the events described.in Caithreim Cellachain Caisil before the question can be more definitively answered.
In the meantime, enjoy the saga. Its a good read.