Gebeachan

An early twentieth-century depiction ofAmlaíb mac Gofraidcampaigning against the English in 937.

Gebeachan(died 937),also known asGébennach,andGebechán,was a tenth-centuryKing of the Isles.He seems to have been a subordinate toAmlaíb mac Gofraid, King of Dublin,and is recorded to have fought and died at theBattle of Brunanburhin 937.

Career

Gebeachan was slain in 937 at theBattle of Brunanburh,a remarkably bloody affair fought byÆðelstan, King of the Englishon one side, andAmlaíb mac Gofraid, King of Dublin,Custantín mac Áeda, King of Alba,andOwain ap Dyfnwal, King of Strathclydeon the other.According to a poem preserved by the ninth to twelfth-centuryAnglo-Saxon Chronicle,Æðelstan's opponents suffered greatly, with five kings, seven earls, and "countless of the raiding-army of Seamen andScots"amongst their dead.As for Gebeachan, his fall in this conflict is attested by a single source, a seventeenth-century translation of the now lostAnnals of Clonmacnoise.The original translator of this source,Conall Mac Eochagáin,is known to have incorporated his own comments and material into his translation. Since the original version no longer exists, it is uncertain what information is accurately interpreted and what originates from Mac Eochagáin himself.Nevertheless, this source styles Gebeachan "king of the Islands",a royal title that appears to be a translated form of the Gaelicrí Innse Gall,and is otherwise first recorded in 989.

"Gebeachan", the name that theAnnals of Clonmacnoiseascribes to him, seems to represent either theGaelicGebechán,Giblechán,orGébennach(the latter two attested by the fifteenth- to sixteenth-centuryAnnals of Ulsterin 890 and 973 respectively).Another possibility is that the name is derived fromgebech,a word for a type of craftsman.Alternately, Gebeachan's name could be derived from anicknamereferring tofettersor bondages.Whatever the case, the name is clearly Gaelic,which indicates that Gebeachan was unlikely to have been fromOrkney,and more probably centred in the southernHebrides.

There is reason to suspect that Gebeachan may have been a subordinate of Amlaíb,a monarch styled "king of the Irish and the many islands" by the twelfth-centuryChronicon ex chronicis.If so, Gebeachan's obituary would be evidence ofUí Ímairauthority in the Isles in the 930s and 940s.In fact, Gebeachan's attested title suggests that he was one of the fivereguli,noted by theChronicon ex chronicis,who are stated to have fallen supporting Amlaíb at Brunanburh.Amlaíb himself died in 941. In an entry following his death, the twelfth-centuryChronicon Scotorumrecords thatMuirchertach mac Néill, King of Ailechraided "the Isles ofAlba"in an annal-entry that seems to refer to the southern Hebrides.This notice may have bearing on Gebeachan's apparent cooperation with Amlaíb, and appears to show that opponents of the Uí Ímair seized the initiative on his death.

Also in 941, the seventeenth-centuryAnnals of the Four Mastersreports that a chieftain named Áed Albanach was slain amongst a vast host of Dublin Vikings by the invading forces of Amargein mac Cináeda, overking ofUí Failge.The fact that Áed bore a Gaelicpersonal name,died with the Dubliners, and bore anepithetreferring to aScotsman,could be evidence that he was a successor of Gebeachan.Further evidence of this may be the record of Mór, a woman attested by the twelfth-century pseudo-historicalCaithréim Chellacháin Chaisil,which identifies her as a daughter of a certain Áed mac Echach, and describes her as the daughter of a King of the Hebrides.

References

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