Mac Cécht (Early Modern Irish:Mac Céacht) is the patronymic or cognomen ("son of power") given to one or two warrior champions fromConnacht in theUlster Cycle ofearly Irish literature. The personages may be identifical or may have been conflated at some stage, although the connection is nowhere made explicit and different fathers are ascribed to them in the tales.
Mac Cécht first appears in the taleTogail Bruidne Dá Derga("The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel") as the bodyguard of theHigh KingConaire Mor along with the Ulster heroConall Cernach. In this tale he is called a son of Snaide Teichet. When the king goes to settle a quarrel inMunster and returns toTara viaLeinster, he is obliged to violate hisgessi or taboos and is subsequently doomed. When he stays in the house of Dá Derga, a Leinster hospitaller (briugu), he is stalked by his fosterbrothers (the great-grandsons of Donn Deasa) and a British exile named Ingcél, who have become freebooting pirates and fallen out of favour with the king. While Conaire and his people feast in Dá Derga's hostel, the freebooters attack them and a battle ensues. Conaire, Mac Cécht and Conall perform prodigies of valour and kill a great many of the attackers in the melee, defeating them, but Conaire dies of his wounds. On the third day, Mac Cécht dies of his wounds on the battlefield. The interpolator +H of theLebor na hUidre version offers an alternative ending in which Mac Cécht buries Conaire and returns to his own country, Connacht. No other version associates Mac Cécht with Connacht, which may possibly mean that the interpolator had intended to connect him with the Mac Cécht of the tale below.
Mac Cécht's role in the tale is recalled in adindsenchas prose text on Ráith Cnámrossa, which gives his father's name in garbled form as Slaite Seched of Connacht.[1] He is presented as the fosterfather ofLé Fer Flaith, son of Conaire, whom he tried to bring into safety when Dá Derga's hostel was on fire. However, the boy, who was kept in the hollow of his shield,[2] died athreefold death in Corra Ednecha, having been mangled, burnt and drowned through Mac Cécht's sheer force, heat and sweat as the warrior was attempting to rescue the king. Mac Cécht buried the remaining bones,cnám-fhros "bone-shower", in a place afterwards called Cnámross. The text then offers two alternative explanations for the placename.
In the late Middle Irish taleCath Bóinde ("The Battle of the Boyne") – alsoFerchuitred Medba ("Medb's husband allowance") – Mac Cécht is the nickname for Monodar son of Conrach Cas, a warrior who supposedly lived inConnacht, Ireland, around the 1st century. He and his brother Tindi killed Fidig mac Feicc of theGamanraige of north Connacht on account of his courtship ofMedb, the daughter ofEochu Feidlech,High King of Ireland. It is reported that Eochu banished Tindi on account of the killing "to the deserts of Connacht".
Monodar appears later in exile inUlster and is somehow no longer on good terms with Tindi, as it is told that Tindi was killed in single combat by Monodar during the battle of the Boyne after the former had joined Eochu Feidlech to attack Ulster along with the men ofMunster and Sraibgend MacNiuil, the grandfather of Medb's future husbandAilill mac Mata. Here, for this deed Monodar receives the nickname "Mac Cécht", explained asmac écht 'son of slaughter'. He appears to have become one ofConchobar mac Nessa's champions.
The etymological derivation is recalled in the lateMiddle Irish tractCóir Anmann ("The Fitness of Names"), item 158:
A Conadar mac Cécht also makes brief appearances as a chieftain and champion of Medb's retinue in Ulster Cycle tales of theGlenmasan manuscript (15th century).[3]
Togail Bruidne Dá Derga (Recension II), ed.Eleanor Knott (1936).Togail Bruidne Da Derga. Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series 8. Dublin:DIAS.; tr.Whitley Stokes (1901–1902)."The Destruction of Dá Derga's Hostel".Revue Celtique.22–3:9–61,165–215,282–329, 390–437 (vol. 22), 88 (vol. 23).