A Man of No Mean Standing: The Career and Legacy of Donnchad mac Briain (d. 1064)

This article offers a sympathetic appraisal of the career of Donnchad mac Briain, an overlooked eleventh-century king of Munster. In addition, it is argued that his association with the Crown of Ireland and position as a genuine and supposed ancestor of various Gaelic and Anglo-Irish families (as portrayed in bardic poetry and genealogies) suggests that he possessed a positive legacy during the medieval and early modern periods.