Gofraid mac Fergusa

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Forms of Gofraid mac Fergusa's name as they appear on folios 313r (image a) and 320v (image b) of the seventeenth-century Dublin Royal Irish Academy C iii 3 (the Annals of the Four Masters).^[1]

Gofraid mac Fergusa is an alleged ninth-century figure attested by the Annals of the Four Masters and various pedigrees concerning the ancestors of Clann Somhairle and Clann Domhnaill. If the pedigrees are to be believed, he was a son of Fergus mac Eirc, and a descendant of Colla Uais. Likewise, the two annal-entries that note Gofraid mac Fergusa claim that he was an Airgíallan ruler, who aided Cináed mac Ailpín in 835, and died sixteen years later as a ruler of the Isles. Gofraid mac Fergusa's place in the aforesaid pedigrees is chronologically impossible. The events associated with him by the annals are not supported by any contemporary or near contemporary source. In fact, the two annal-entries that recount these alleged events are fabricated additions inserted into the chronicle at some point before the mid seventeenth century.

As a genealogical construct, Gofraid mac Fergusa may represent Clann Somhairle's matrilineal descent from Gofraid Crobán. The latter was the eponym of the Crovan dynasty, a family from which Clann Somhairle dynasts derived their claims to the kingship of the Isles. Both kindreds vied for control of the Isles in the twelfth- and thirteenth centuries. Praise poetry pre-dating the first notice of Gofraid mac Fergusa indicates that Clann Somhairle's descent from a man named Gofraid was indeed highly regarded in the thirteenth century. The chronology of the evolution of this Gofraid into Gofraid mac Fergusa is unknown. The latter's constructed descent from Fergus mac Eirc, and fabricated connections with Cináed mac Ailpín, suggest that he was crafted as a means to connect Clann Domhnaill with the earliest history of the Scottish realm.