Flann Mainistrech, son of Echthigern, acquired his epithet "monastic" from his association with the monastery of Monasterboice, County Louth, to whose famous school he was attached. His ties with the place were enhanced by the fact that his dynasty, Cfannachta Breg, had for long been associated with it. Indeed a number of his immediate ancestors served as church officials there, as did his son, Echthigern, who died as airchinnech Mainistrech (superior of Monaster-boice) in 1067, a mere eleven years after his father. Both within his own family and in the wider world at large, however, Flann is set apart by his immense learning, as the relatively large corpus of his extant work amply attests.
Historical Scholarship
Much of this oeuvre can be described as historical scholarship for which he was accorded the title in senchaid (the historian) by admiring contemporaries. That a northern focus can be detected in some of his compositions is not surprising, best exemplified perhaps in the collection of seven poems on Uf Neill dynasties attributed to him in the Book of Leinster. Five of these deal with Cenel nEogain, four of which may in fact be part of a continuous poem, as Eoin Mac Neill has claimed on the basis of their common meter, linking alliteration, and dunad (closure) in which the final word of the last unit echoes the opening word of the first. Nonetheless, each of the self-contained sections has its own specific emphasis. Beginning with an explanation of the name of the family’s main citadel, Ailech, Flann follows this with a versified list of its most famous kings.
Thematically related stanzas in a different meter intervene before the poet reverts to snedbairdne to recount his subject’s notable victories and finally to glorify other significant exploits after which he signs himself Flann fer legind o Mainistir (Flann, scholar, from Monasterboice). Regnal lists of the neighboring dynasties of Mide and Brega complete the series, which is paralleled by a companion set of seven interconnected works dealing with world kingship contained in a variety of manuscripts. Together, "the two treatises jointly form a metrical counterpart of the Annalistic prose material," in Sean Mac Airt’s words, and he relates their composition to Flann’s teaching at Monasterboice. If so, his curriculum was heavily influenced by the Eusebian view of world history found in contemporary chronicles that must have furnished the poet with his most important source material. Thus, in line with this, Flann describes a succession of dynasties in turn—Assyrian, Mede, Persian, Greek, Macedonian, Babylonian, and Roman—in accordance with his stated aim deigrfg domuin do thuirim (to enumerate the good kings of the world), a task that he acknowledged as n( soraid, ni sneid-shuilig (not easy, not readily contrived). Part of the difficulty certainly involved metrical constraints, which Flann skilfully surmounted by recourse to eloquent chevilles. The result was a taut long list of considerable breadth, though supplying little more than the length of the reigns of various monarchs. Relative rather than absolute chronology underlies his two important metrical lists of pre-Christian and Christian kings of Tara in which his main preoccupation lay in recounting the manner of their deaths. The ambitious scope of this linked pair of poems, encompassing legendary rulers from Eochaid Feidlech to Nath I and historical monarchs down to Mael Sechnaill mac Domnaill (d. 1022), respectively, mark it out as the earliest national king list, as Peter Smith has noted. In actual fact, however, Flann skilfully elaborated and advanced the work of learned predecessors, propelled by the intellectual currents of his own time. Among those termed "synthetic historians" by Mac Neill, his work can be read in terms of the gradual formulation of a doctrine of all-Ireland history to fit an established Christian framework. Indeed Flann’s importance in this regard can be seen in the incorporation of a number of his poems into the eleventh-century national origin legend, Lebor Cabala Erenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland, commonly known as The Book of Invasions).
Other Learned Activities
If Flann’s extensive historical scholarship was appreciated by his contemporaries and their immediate descendants, so too were his other academic activities. These included considerable manuscript work to judge from a colophon in Lebor na hUidre claiming that our poet, together with a colleague, gathered texts from a selection of choice codices in Armagh and Monasterboice, including the now lost Lebor Buide (Yellow Book) and In Lebor Cerr (The Short Book) whose theft and removal overseas were lamented by the twelfth-century interpolator. Specifically mentioned is Senchas na Relec (Burial Ground Lore), of which Aided Nath I (The Death-tale of Nath I) is deemed to form part. We may note that the poetic version of Cenemain Aeda Slaine (The Birth-tale of Aed Slaine), which in conjunction with its prose telling follows Senchas na Relec in the same manuscript, is also attributed to Flann. Moreover, he is said to have composed it do chumnigud in gnima sin ocus dfa thai-scid hi cumni do chach (to commemorate that event [ Aed's miraculous birth] and to keep it in remembrance for everyone), an aim that may conceivably underlie his compilatory work. In fact, Aed’s Uf Neill pedigree may also have attracted Flann, whose authorship is supported by a similar attribution in the Book of Leinster. That his subsequent fame made him an attractive advocate for Aed’s Brega descendants, however, should be borne in mind. He is also cited in one version of Aided Chonchobuir (The Death-tale of Conchobar [mac Nessa]) as author of two stanzas, one of which unsurprisingly comments on an ancestor of his own dynasty, Tadc son of Cfan. His connection with a poetic rendering of De Excidio Troiae (On the Destruction of Troy) is more difficult to assess. Nonetheless, his mastery of Irish and Latin coupled with his obvious intellectual range suggest that he would have had both the skill and the opportunity to rework the original composition by Dares Phrygius, or, alternatively, an existing vernacular prose adaptation. Be that as it may, a sufficient quantity of scholarship has survived of which his authorship is not in doubt to justify the accolade he was accorded on his death in 1056: airdfer leighinn ocus sui senchusa Erenn (eminent scholar and master of the historical lore of Ireland).
