Ragnall mac Torcaill

Ragnall mac Torcaill
King of Dublin
Ragnall's name as it appears on folio 23r of Oxford Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson B 488 (the Annals of Tigernach): "Raghnall".
Died	1146
House	Meic Torcaill
Father	Torcall

Ragnall mac Torcaill (died 1146) was a twelfth-century Norse-Gaelic magnate who may have been King of Dublin. He was a member of the Meic Torcaill, and may be identical to a member of this family who campaigned in Wales in 1144. Ragnall was slain in 1146, with some sources styling him king in records of his demise. He was the father of at least one son, Ascall, a man who certainly reigned as king.

Ragnall's father, a significant figure named Torcall (fl. 1133), is mentioned by the sixteenth-century Annals of Loch Cé in 1133. Although Torcall's ancestry is uncertain, later sources suggest that his family—the Meic Torcaill—were a substantial landholding kindred in the region. Torcall's rise to power seems to have occurred at about a time when Kingdom of Dublin was closely aligned with Diarmait Mac Murchada, King of Leinster (died 1171). The latter lost control of Dublin in 1141, however, as the seventeenth-century Annals of the Four Masters reveals that the town was seized and held by Conchobar Ua Briain (died 1142), overlord of Munster.

Following Ua Briain's ousting, the Annals of the Four Masters further indicates that the Dubliner's installed a certain Islesman, Ottar mac meic Ottair (died 1148), as King of Dublin in 1142. Two years later, Ottar, along with an unnamed member of the Meic Torcaill—who may well have been Ragnall himself—and an unnamed son of a certain Erulb, are noted in the context of mercenary operations in Wales by the thirteenth/fourteenth-century Brenhinedd y Saesson, the thirteenth/fourteenth-century Brut y Tywysogyon, and the "B" and "C" versions of the eleventh–thirteenth-century Annales Cambriæ. This episode seems to concern Dublin's military involvement in a Welsh factional dispute between Owain Gwynedd (died 1170) and Cadwaladr (died 1172), sons of Gruffudd ap Cynan, King of Gwynedd (died 1137). It was in the course of this inter-dynastic struggle that Cadwaladr sought assistance from Ireland. At one point, the sources report that the Dubliners demanded two thousand captives or cattle for their assistance, a pay-off that evinces the kingdom's interest in the continuing twelfth-century slave trade. Contemporary sources reveal that a desire to extinguish the Irish Sea slave trade was one of the reasons the English used to justify their twelfth-century conquests in Ireland.