Ced ri cloindi Briain na mbladh | The first of the family of Brian the | famed Duach galach gargg dargiallsad, | was Duach valiant (_Galach_) fierce | to whom men gave obedience; bladh don duine os gach dine | fame the man had beyond all | generations gurgab uile in airdrige. | so that he took the entire | overkingship. secht oshein rochuala | 77 years from thence I have heard secht ndeich da bliadan buadha | years of victory co Seagais in Coraind cain | to Segais of fair Corand co har Conaill is Eogain. | to the battle of Conall and Eogan. The last stanza presents a difficulty. The battle of Segais was not the “battle of Conall and Eogan,” so that the preposition _co_ “to” either in v. 3 or in v. 4 must be a mistake for _ó_ “from.” O’Curry, in his _Manuscript Material_, refers to this poem, and evidently assumes that _ó_ should be read in v. 4; for he infers that the battle in which Duach son of Brian was killed was fought 79 [sic] years before the battle of Segais (which he dates A.D. 504 after the Four Masters), thus obtaining 425 for Duach’s death, and placing his reign before Amolngaid. Now it is to be observed that the 77 years exactly correspond to the sum total of the regnal years between the death of the first Duach and that of the second Duach, according to O’Duinn’s own incorrect arrangement (37 + 5 + 27 + 7 = 76). The question therefore arises: is the statement as to the period of 77 years an inference from the arrangement, or is the arrangement determined by an independent record that 77 years elapsed between the two battles in question? The former alternative seems less probable; for it does not appear why this particular interval, if it were only an inference from the arrangement, should be selected for special mention. It seems much more probable that (as is suggested by the expression “I have heard”) the stanza embodies a tradition independent of this particular reconstruction of the regnal list. If so, O’Curry’s inference was correct, and we get (502 - 77 =) 425 as the date of the battle in which Duach MacBriain fell. There would be no difficulty in this date for Duach’s death; his father, Brian, was son of Eochaid and brother of Niall; he was himself cousin of Loigaire and Amolngaid.[412] In this case, one of the causes of the contradictions in the Connaught succession was a confusion of the Duach who reigned towards the beginning of the fifth century with the Duach who reigned at the end.