# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Brolchain, Flaibhertach

Flaithbertach Ua Brolcháin in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
​O'BROLCHAIN, FLAIBHERTACH (d. 1175), first bishop of Derry, belonged to a family which produced several learned men and distinguished ecclesiastics from the twelfth to the thirteenth century. They were descended from Suibhne Meann, king of Ireland from 615 to 628, and their clan was called Cinel Fearadhaich, from the king's grandfather Fearadhach, who was fourth in descent from Eoghan, son of Niall Naighiallach, so that they were one of the branches of the Cinel Eoghain. Flaibhertach O'Brolchain was abbot of Derry in 1150, and as such was the chief of the Columban churches in Ireland, and entitled Comharba Choluim Chille, or successor of Columba. Derry had been burned in 1149, and in 1150 he made a visitation of Cinel Eoghain, obtaining grants from the whole territory—a gold ring, his horse and outfit from Muircheartach O'Lochlainn [q. v.] as king of Ireland, and twenty cows as king of Ailech; a horse from every chief, which would have given him about fifty from the Cinel Eoghain; a cow from every two biatachs, or great farmers; a cow from every three saerthachs, or free tenants; and a cow from every four diomhains, or men of small means. In 1158 he attended an ecclesiastical convocation at Bric Mic Taidhg in Uí Laeghaire, a district of Meath, at which a papal legate was present; and it was resolved that he should have ‘a chair like every other bishop.’ This is generally considered the foundation of the bishopric as distinct from the abbacy of Derry. After the synod he visited the territory of Uí Eachdhach Cobha, now Iveagh, co. Down, and Dal Cairbre, the site of which has not before been determined, but which is no doubt the same as Dalriada, the part of Antrim north of the mountain Slemish, called after Cairbre Riada, son of Conaire II, king of Ireland. Flaibhertach thus visited the two parts of Ulidia, or Lesser Ulster, and obtained from its king, O'Duinnsleibhe, a horse, five cows, and a ‘screaball’—probably a payment in some kind of coin—an ounce of gold from the king's wife, a horse from each chief, and a sheep from each hearth. In 1161 he freed the churches and communities of Durrow, Kells, Swords, Lambay, Moone, Skreen (co. Meath), Columbkille (co. Longford), Kilcolumb, Columbkille (co. Kilkenny), Ardcolum, and Mornington, from all dues to the kings and chiefs of Meath and Leinster, and visited Ossory. He pulled down more than eighty houses which stood adjacent to the cathedral of Derry, and built round it an enclosure of masonry called Caisil an urlair, the stone close of the floor, in 1162; and in 1163 built a limekiln at Derry seventy feet square in twenty days. This was probably in preparation for rebuilding his cathedral, which he did in 1164, with the aid of Muircheartach O'Lochlainn. He made it eighty feet long, a vast extent compared with the very small churches then common in Ireland; but, as it is recorded to have been finished in forty days, it cannot have been an elaborate structure. In the same year (Annals of Ulster) Augustin, chief priest of Iona; Dubhsidhe, lector there; MacGilladuibh, head of the hermitage; and MacForcellaigh, head of the association called the Fellowship of God, and others, came to ask him to accept the vacant abbacy of Iona. The Cinel Eoghain, Muircheartach O'Lochlainn, and Gilla-Mac-Liag, coarb of Patrick, all opposed his leaving them, and he did not go. He died at Derry in 1175, and was succeeded in the abbacy of Derry by Gilla MacLiag O'Branain, of a family which furnished several abbots to Derry. Other important members of the learned family of O'Brolchain are:
Maelbrighde O'Brolchain (d. 1029), who is called in the ‘Annals’ priomhshaor or archwright of Ireland.
Maelisa O'Brolchain (d. 1086), who lived for the first part of his life in Inishowen, co. Donegal, at Bothchonais, where an old graveyard and a very ancient stone cross, with an ox carved on its base, still indicate his place of residence. He afterwards migrated to Lismore, co. Waterford, and there built a dertheach or oratory. He is described in the ‘Annals’ as learned in literature (filidhecht) in both languages, i.e. in Irish and Latin. He died on 16 Jan. 1086. Colgan states that he possessed some manuscripts in the handwriting of Maelisa O'Brolchain.
Maelcoluim O'Brolchain (d. 1122), bishop of Armagh.
Maelbrighte O'Brolchain (d. 1140), bishop of Armagh.
Maelbrighte Mac an tSair O'Brolchain (d. 1197), bishop of Kildare.
Domhnall O'Brolchain (d. 1202), prior of Iona. He built part of the existing cathedral at Iona, and on the capital of the south-east column, under the tower, close to the angle between the south transept and choir, ​are the remains of an inscription, which was perfect in 1844, ‘Donaldus Obrolchan fecit hoc opus,’ but has since been defaced, and now shows only some fragments of letters at the beginning and end. He died on 27 April 1202.
Flann O'Brolchain (fl. 1219), abbot of Derry, was elected coarb of St. Columba in 1219. He was elected by the Cinel Eoghain, and the community of Derry opposed him. Aedh O'Neill put him into office, but the community of Derry soon after expelled him and elected another abbot.
[Annala Rioghachta Eireann, ed. O'Donovan, vols. ii. and iii.; Annals of Ulster, ed. m'Carthy, vol. ii. Rolls Ser.; Annals of Loch Cé, ed. Hennessy, vol. i. Rolls Ser.; Reeves's Antiquities of Down, Connor, and Dromore; Reeves's Life of St. Columba, written by Adamnan, Dublin, 1857; Colgan's Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ.]
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