Dáire Drechlethan

Who is Dáire Drechlethan?

Dáire Drechlethan "Dáire of the Broad Face" is a King of Tara listed in the Old Irish Baile Chuinn Chétchathaig. His identity with any king of Tara from Irish legend remains uncertain because his epithet is unique in the surviving corpus.

However, three candidates have recently been proposed, the most likely being Dáire Doimthech, a well known king of Tara from Irish legend. His kindred, the Dáirine or Corcu Loígde, believed to be related to the Érainn, provided a number of powerful kings of Tara in the early period, and this could not be ignored by the Uí Néill compilers of the list. A descendant of Dáire Doimthech, Mac Con moccu Lugaid Loígde, is also listed in BCC. Dáire Doimthech is also called Dáire Sírchréchtach or Sírdréchtach often in the tales and genealogies, where he is prominent as an ancestral figure. On the other hand he is regarded as an ancestor deity of the Érainn by scholars following the theories of T. F. O'Rahilly.

The alternative candidates are first Dáire mac Cormaic, a son of the famous Cormac mac Airt, an early ancestor of the Uí Néill. Nowhere mentioned in legend as a king of Tara, he is only proposed on the basis of BCC apparently exhibiting bias in favour of Dál Cuinn candidates.