h preserves their name;
Mag Molt ("the plain of wethers") is probably the plain surrounding
the town. The _Aradenses_, to whom LB ascribes the origin of Beoit,
were the people known in Irish record as _Dal n-Araide_, the
pre-Celtic people of the region now called Antrim.

Dar-erca, "daughter of brightness" or "of the sky," was a common
female name in ancient Ireland. The Glasraige to whom she belonged
was a tribe with divisions scattered in various parts of Ireland.
Irluachra was south-east Kerry with adjoining parts of Cork and
Limerick. Of her poet grandfather Glas nothing is known.

It would perhaps be too far-fetched to see a hint at a mythological
element in the traditions of Ciaran in the signification of his
parents' names. Indeed, considering the _Tendenz_ of the Ciaran
_Lives_, it is remarkable that there is no supernormal element in the
account of the birth of this particular saint; supernatural births are
almost a commonplace in Irish saints' lives as a rule.

The saint's own name is regularly spelt with an initial K or Q in the
Latin texts, doubtless because Latin _c_ was pronounced as _s_ before
_e_ and _i_ in mediaeval Ireland.

The _Annals of Clonmacnois_ preserves for us a totally different
tradition of the origin and upbringing of the saint. Modernising the
haphazard spelling and punctuation of the seventeenth-century English
translation (the original Irish of this valuable book is lost), we may
note what it tells us. "His father's name was Beoit, a Connacht man
(_sic_) and a carpenter. His mother Darerca, of the issue of Corc mac
Fergusa mic Roig of the Clanna Rudraige. He in his childhood lived
with his father and mother in 'Templevickinloyhe' [wherever that may
have been] in Cenel Fiachach; until a thief of the country of Ui
Failge stole the one cow they had, which, being found, he forsook
together with his father and mother the said place of the stealth [=
theft], fearing of further inconvenience." Here note: (1) that Darerca
is given the ancestry attributed in the _Book of Leinster_ pedigree
to Beoit, thus hinting at an originally _matrilinear_ form of the
official pedigree: (2) that the settlement of the family in Cenel
Fiachach, _i.e._ the place of Darerca's dwelling, is definitely
stated; (3) that the migration of the family does not take place till
after Ciaran's birth; (4) that a totally different reason is assigned
for the migration; (5) that incident X of the _Lives_ is directly
referre