page_title: Gofraid mac Amlaíb meic Ragnaill
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Gofraid mac Amlaíb meic Ragnaill / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: An excerpt from folio 42v of Oxford Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson B 489 (the Annals of Ulster). The excerpt records the name of Echmarcach mac Ragnaill (died 1064/1065) in an annal-entry recording his death.
context_page_description: Gofraid mac Amlaíb meic Ragnaill was a late eleventh-century King of Dublin. Although the precise identities of his father and grandfather are uncertain, Gofraid was probably a kinsman of his royal predecessor, Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, King of Dublin and the Isles. Gofraid lived in an era when control of the Kingdom of Dublin was fought over by competing Irish overlords. In 1052, for example, Echmarcach was forced from the kingdom by the Uí Chennselaig King of Leinster, Diarmait mac Maíl na mBó. When the latter died in 1072, Dublin was seized by the Uí Briain King of Munster, Toirdelbach Ua Briain, a man who either handed the Dublin kingship over to Gofraid, or at least consented to Gofraid's local rule.
  Gofraid appears to have had little independence from his Uí Briain overlord, as evidence by surviving correspondence between him, Toirdelbach, and Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. Gofraid's reign came to an end in 1075, when Toirdelbach drove him overseas from Ireland, perhaps to the Kingdom of the Isles, after which he died within the year.
context_section_description: Gofraid seems to have been a close kinsman of Echmarcach mac Ragnaill, King of Dublin and the Isles. The familial background of the latter is uncertain. He could have been a member of the Waterford dynasty descended from Ímar, King of Waterford, and thus a descendant of Ímar's son, Ragnall, or the latter's son, Ragnall. Alternately, Echmarcach could have been a member of the Meic Arailt dynasty, and a descendant of Ragnall mac Gofraid, King of the Isles.
  In the eleventh- and twelfth-centuries, four candidates to the high-kingship of Ireland managed to gain control of the Kingdom of Dublin, and appoint their intended heirs as its rulers. In effect, control of this Norse-Gaelic coastal kingdom, and the exploitation of its military strength and remarkable wealth, had become a prerequisite for any Irish ruler wishing to stake a claim to the high-kingship.
  In 1052, Echmarcach was driven overseas from Ireland by Diarmait mac Maíl na mBó, King of Leinster, who thereupon assumed the kingship of Dublin. For the next twenty years, Diarmait controlled the realm, and the town itself served as his capital. About ten years after Diarmait's victory in Dublin, Echmarcach apparently fell prey to Diarmait again, as Mann was raided by Diarmait's son, Murchad, who received tribute from a defeated mac Ragnaill, perhaps Echmarcach himself. Echmarcach eventually died in Rome, in 1064 or 1065. On his death, the contemporary chronicler Marianus Scotus described him in Latin as "rex Innarenn", a title that could either mean "King of the Isles", or "King of the Rhinns". If it represents the latter, it could be evidence that Echmarcach's once expansive sea-kingdom had gradually eroded to territory in Galloway only.
  On Diarmait's unexpected death in 1072, Toirdelbach Ua Briain, King of Munster gained overlordship of Leinster, and took control of Dublin. The eleventh- to fourteenth-century Annals of Inisfallen claims that the kingship of Dublin was offered to Toirdelbach by the Dubliners. Although this record may be mere Uí Briain propaganda, it could instead be evidence of the Dubliners' preference for a distant overlord from Munster rather than one from neighbouring Leinster.
caption: The name of Echmarcach mac Ragnall as it appears on folio 42v of Oxford Bodleian Library Rawlinson B 489 (the Annals of Ulster).[20]
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