Mourne (barony)
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Mourne Múrna(Irish) |
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 Location of Mourne, County Down, Northern Ireland. |
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| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Country | Northern Ireland |
| County | Down |
Mourne (named after the Múrna) is a barony in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies in the south-east of the county, with the Irish Sea to its east. It is bordered by two other baronies: Iveagh Upper, Lower Half and Iveagh Upper, Upper Half to the north and west. Mourne gets its name from the Múrna (Old Irish: Mughdorna), a people who hail originally from a territory of the same name in modern County Monaghan.
According to local historian Peadar Livingstone, the Mugdorna are described as being a powerful people in the "archaic" period and may have been rulers of Ulster before the ascendancy of the Ulaid. He also suggests that some of their constituent tribes are either pre-Celtic or very early Celtic people.
Early genealogists would claim that they descend from Mughdhorn Dubh, a son of Colla Menn, however this has been rebuked as a politically-driven construct. Indeed Mugdorna is listed as being one of the territories conquered from the Ulaid by the Three Collas with Colla Menn taking possession of Mughdorna. The O'Hanratties are stated as having anciently possessed this territory.Francis John Byrne points out that the name Mugdorna, 'the slave folk', denotes their low-caste non-Gael origins and that they are the one people of the Airgíalla for whom no specific ethnic background is supplied.
Bairrche is the ancient name of the Mourne territory and originally the Mourne Mountains had also been named Beanne-Boirche ("Boirche's peaks"). According to the Dinnsenchus they were named after a shepherd called Boirche who herded on the mountains the cattle of Ross, son of Imchadh, a king of Ulaid in the third century. The Dinnsenchus states that his favourite look-out point was the highest peak in the mountain range, hence why the mountains received the name. Alternatively they are named after Bécc Bairrche mac Blathmaic, a king of the Ulaid during the 7th and 8th centuries.
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