Críchad an Chaoilli
medieval Irish text
Críchad an Chaoilli ("boundary of the Caoille") is a medieval Irish text.
Overview
Written in Middle Irish sometime between 1100 and 1300, Críchad an Chaoilli is a topographical text that takes its title from its opening verse:
Crichad an caoilli gu cruaidh
in fuil uaibh nech noimluaidh ?
tucad do mac Sonaisc sin
ar an forbhais d'fhoirdhin
which translates as
The exact boundary of the Caoille,
is there anyone of you who would describe it?
It was given to the son of Sonasc
for assisting at the siege.
The rest of the text is written in prose, and describes the land and proprietors of Fermoy, County Cork, an area originally known as the kingdom of Caoille or Fir Maige Féne.
It survives in two manuscripts – Book of Lismore, on folio 140a, 2; and in Egerton 92, fo. 13b, preserved in the British Library, London.
Authorship
Its unknown author is thought to have been a monastic scribe.
See also
Crichaireacht cinedach nduchasa Muintiri Murchada
Triallam timcheall na Fodla
Seán Mór Ó Dubhagáin
Giolla na Naomh Ó hUidhrín
External links
http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/G100063/index.html
References
Manuscript sources
Cork, University College Cork, Book of Lismore, fo. 140a, 2.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Críchad an Chaoilli” is medieval Irish text. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Críchad, Chaoilli and medieval, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “medieval Irish text” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 30, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q5191486. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1100 and 1300.
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This entry incorporates text from “Críchad an Chaoilli” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.