MAEL SEACHNAILL

This area has improved over the last four or five years but it is still a bit untidy. Dunshaughlin is a town in County Meath in Ireland. As this statue is somewhat abused one must assume that the people of Trim are not too friendly with their cousins in Dunshaughlin.

Dunshaughlin is named after Saint Seachnaill, a contemporary of Saint Patrick, who established a church there in the 5th century. Seachnaill gave his name to Mael Seachnaill. It was Máel Seachnaill II who became the first king of an all-Ireland state following the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. And it is from the same Máel Seachlainn that the principal family of Brega, Ó Maoilsheachlainn, is descended. Dunshaughlin (or more specifically, the townland of Lagore) is famous for an ancient crannóg or settlement from the 7th century where a number of Irish antiquities were discovered. The oldest families still in the village are the Muintir Uí Fhloinn, who are recorded at the latest in 1550 and the Muintir Uí Mhuirí who are recorded at the same time. Outside the village families such as the Uí Ruanaidh in Trevet continue to exist on the site where they were recorded to be in 1550. The great Norman-Irish families such as the Delahides are no longer to be found in the village, neither are the religious sites which they patronised at the time.