Congal Cáech

Congal Cáech (also Congal Cláen) was a king of the Cruithne of Dál nAraidi, in modern Ulster, from around 626 to 637. He was king of Ulster from 627–637 and, according to some sources, High King of Ireland.

The sources for Congal's life and times are limited and generally date from long after his death. The Irish annals are for this period believed to be largely based on an annal kept on the island of Iona, where Saint Columba had founded a monastery in the middle 6th century. These annals survive only in later copies. Of these, the Annals of Ulster and the Annals of Tigernach are generally considered to be the most reliable and representative of the original material. Congal does not appear directly in Adomnán's Life of Saint Columba, another early source for Irish history, but a number of his contemporaries do and it supplies some context for events. He is mentioned in the Early Irish Law tract Bechbretha—on beekeeping—written in the later 7th century; this purports to explain Congal's epithets.

He also appears later and less reliable materials such as verse and prose tales, including the Cath Maige Rátha (The Battle of Moira) and Fled Dúin na nGéd (The Feast of Dún na nGéd, literally The Feast at the Fort of the Geese), both of which date from the Middle Irish period, perhaps the early 10th century for the Cath Maige Rátha and the 11th or 12th, perhaps later, for Fled Dúin na nGéd. Those genealogies which include Congal are contradictory.

While Irish history in this period is replete with the names of persons, about whom little is usually known save for their ancestry and the date and manner of their death, no early source preserves Congal's ancestry. According to later materials Congal was the son of Scandal Sciathlethan and grandson of Fiachnae mac Báetáin. In the 6th and 7th centuries the Dal nAraide were part of a confederation of Cruithne tribes in Ulaid (Ulster) and were the dominant members. The main ruling line of the Dal nARaide was known as the Uí Chóelbad based in Mag Line, east of Antrim town in modern county Antrim. It is possible that Congal did not belong to this branch of the Cruithne but some other rival branch and so would not be the grandson of Fiachnae who was of this branch

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