the six Sodhán tribes. Rendered into English, it reads: "Though long has been their honorable possession of their patrimony, that domain still rests with the house of Uí Dhiarmada." The next quatrain tells us: "Chiefs of Cinél Rechta of lasting fame are the strong Uí Dhiarmada, the race of the bard, the well-armed stern warriors of Ulster descent." "Cruas connacht clanna sogain" The succeeding Mac an Bháird generations are listed in "cruas connacht clanna sogain" ("rigorous Connacht family of the Sogan"), describing the ancient tradition that the Sodháin are descended from Conaill Cearnach, the great mythological hero of Ulster's Knights of the Red Branch, and three of his descendants, one of whom is Sodhán Salbhuidhe, just as they leave Ulster. In this version of the family's descent, Sodhán's son eventually settles the tribes in Connacht, where they are given land by the legendary (and probably mythological) Queen Maeve. The poem continues, praising the "brownish, fair-haired" Mac an Bháirds as trustworthy and loyal, while their gatherings are occasion for the chief of the name to be surrounded "by his fearless, active, well-armed, genial band." Counting backwards from the chief of the name at the time the poem was written (Seán Mac an Bháird, about 1370 AD), the genealogy continues to the beginning of the tenth century, providing historical documentation for the original Mac an Bháird sept to about the year 900. Continuing back, it records various mythological and quasi-historical ancestors, particularly useful because it substantiates the ancient tradition that the Mac an Bháirds are not descended from Maine Mór, a Munster king from whom the Uí Maine tribe was named, nor the Gaels. Quite possibly they are descended from a pre-Gaelic Celtic tribe, the Picts, Cruitháin, or Érainn – they may all be the same tribe – anciently settled in Ireland. The same poem refers to three branches of the Mac an Bháirds within this general territory. One of them was located near Ballymacward, at Annagh. Of the other two, only speculation is possible. Flynn surmises one of them was probably the branch residing at Cooloortan in Abbeyknockmoy, and the third may conceivably have been a branch of the sept continued in the MacWards of Doon. The poem continues, exhorting Seán Mac an Bháird to hold on to "the gladsome region handed down through twenty generations" into which the foreigners, so the poet boasts, never set foot. In addition to their