Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh

Who is Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh?

Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh was a Gaelic poet and crusader and member of the Ó Dálaigh bardic family.

The Annals of the Four Masters of Ireland, s.a. 1213, tells us that he was the ollamh of Domhnall Ó Domhnaill. Muireadhach lived in County Sligo and fled from Ireland after killing King Domhnall's tax-collector Fionn Ó Brolacháin, whom Muireadhach considered had been insolent, with an axe.

In a poem, Ó Dálaigh dismisses his murder as his victim was a mere commoner and therefore of no account, a telling indication of the rigid stratification of traditional Irish society:

Trifling is our difference with the man,

A shepherd was affronting me;

And I killed that clown;

O God! Is this a cause for enmity?

Nevertheless, it was in Scotland that Muireadhach made his name. He served as the court bard to the Mormaer of Lennox. The specific mormaer who patronized him is often thought to have been Ailín II, but as the mormaer is called "Mac Muireadhach", son of Muireadhach, it was almost certainly in fact his predecessor and father, Ailín I. Muireadhach Albanach is important for the cultural history of Scotland because he is the alleged founder of the family of hereditary Scottish bards known to history as the Mac Mhuireadhaich or "MacVurich" family. Muireadhach, like his fellow Gaelic poet Gillebrìghde Albanach, went on the Fifth Crusade and travelled to Acre and Damietta. In 1228 he was apparently allowed to re-enter Ireland.