The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel

In the golden age of Irish kingship, there ruled a high king whose name was Conaire Mór, and his reign was marked by such peace and prosperity that men said the very land itself loved him. Under his rule, the crops grew abundant, the cattle multiplied, and no weapon was raised in anger from one end of Ireland to the other. Such was the blessing of a rightful king upon the land.

But with great kingship came great responsibility, and with great power came sacred taboos that must never be broken. These were called geasa – mystical prohibitions that bound a king’s actions and protected both him and his realm. For Conaire Mór, these geasa were numerous and specific, given to him by the druids on the day of his coronation.

“Never go righthandwise around Tara or lefthandwise around Bregia,” the chief druid had intoned. “Never hunt the evil beasts of Cerna. Never stay abroad from Tara for nine nights. Never sleep in a house from which firelight can be seen after sunset and into which one can see from outside. Never land at Áth Cliath after sunset with three men named Fer ahead of you. And most sacred of all – never allow plundering in Ireland during your reign, for you are the king of peace.”

For many years, Conaire Mór kept these geasa faithfully, and Ireland flourished under his rule. His court at Tara was renowned throughout Europe for its justice and hospitality. Poets came from distant lands to sing his praises, and merchants traveled safely on roads that had never known such peace.

But fate is a web that even kings cannot escape, and the threads of destiny had already begun to weave the pattern of Conaire’s doom.

The trouble began with his foster-brothers, the sons of Donn Désa, who had been raised alongside Conaire but had grown into men of violence and greed. Despite the king’s laws against plundering, they had taken to raiding across the Irish Sea, bringing back stolen goods and captives from Britain and Gaul.

When word of their activities reached Conaire, his heart was heavy with sorrow and conflict. These men were closer to him than his own blood brothers, raised at the same hearth and fed from the same table. Yet their actions violated his most sacred geasa and threatened the peace that was the foundation of his kingship.

“You must choose,” his chief advisor counseled him. “Either banish your foster-brothers and maintain your geasa, or allow their raiding to continue and break the taboo that forbids plundering during your reign.”

Conaire chose what seemed the path of mercy. Rather than banish the men he loved, he exiled them only from Ireland itself, allowing them to continue their raiding abroad as long as they brought no violence to Irish soil. But this compromise, born of love and loyalty, was the first crack in the wall of his protection.

The breaking of even part of his geasa weakened all the rest, and soon other taboos began to crumble through circumstances beyond his control. A hunt for wolves that had been killing cattle led him accidentally into the sacred territory of Cerna, violating another prohibition. A series of urgent matters of state kept him away from Tara for more than nine nights, breaking yet another taboo.

Each violation brought strange omens and dark portents. Ravens gathered in unnaturally large flocks, cattle gave birth to monstrous calves, and the druids reported dreams filled with blood and fire. But Conaire, hoping that his good intentions would protect him, pressed on with his royal duties.

The final and most terrible breaking of his geasa came about through an act of treachery that he could not have foreseen. His foster-brothers, driven by greed and resentment at their exile, made a terrible alliance with Ingcél the One-Eyed, a British pirate whose own father and brothers had been killed by Irish raiders.

“I will help you plunder Ireland,” Ingcél proposed, “if you will help me take revenge against your foster-brother the king. Together, we can break his power and divide his wealth.”

The sons of Donn Désa, consumed by jealousy and ambition, agreed to this devil’s bargain. They guided Ingcél and his fleet to the Irish coast and began to ravage the very land they had once called home.

When news of this invasion reached Conaire, he was faced with an impossible choice. To allow the plundering to continue would break his most sacred geasa, but to hunt down his foster-brothers would require him to shed the blood of men he loved.

In the end, love and duty compelled him to act. Gathering his warriors, Conaire set out to stop the raiders and restore peace to Ireland. But in doing so, he was forced to violate several more of his taboos – he had to travel righthandwise around Tara to intercept the raiders, and the pursuit kept him away from his home for many more nights than was permitted.

As Conaire and his warriors tracked the raiders south, the omens grew ever more dire. A flock of ravens so vast that it darkened the sky passed overhead, flying toward the sea. Red clouds gathered despite the clear weather, and the wind carried the sound of keening women though no funerals were being held.

The pursuit led to a crossroads near the coast, where an ancient hostel stood that was owned by Da Derga, a man renowned throughout Ireland for his hospitality. The hostel was famous for never turning away any traveler, no matter how humble or how mighty, and for providing the finest food and drink to all who entered its doors.

As evening approached and Conaire realized they would not catch the raiders before nightfall, he faced another terrible choice. His geasa forbade him to sleep in any house from which firelight could be seen after sunset, but the alternative was to camp in the open while enemies were near.

“My lord,” urged his charioteer, Mac Ocht, “we should not stop at the hostel. The firelight will be visible from outside, and your taboo—”

“I am weary of these geasa,” Conaire interrupted, his voice heavy with exhaustion and despair. “They have protected me, yes, but they have also imprisoned me. Tonight, I choose to trust in hospitality rather than in omens.”

But as they approached Da Derga’s hostel, the final omen appeared. Three horsemen rode toward them along the road – and when Conaire called out to learn their names, each one answered “Fer,” which meant “man” in the ancient tongue. Thus was fulfilled the taboo about landing at a certain place after sunset with three men named Fer ahead of him, even though they were not at the sea but at a crossroads.

Da Derga himself came out to welcome them, his face beaming with pleasure at receiving such noble guests. “Welcome, great king!” he called. “My house is honored by your presence. Come, let my hearth warm you and my table feed you!”

The hostel was indeed a marvel of hospitality. The great hall could hold a hundred guests in comfort, with a fire so large that men said it could be seen from three territories away. The walls were hung with rich tapestries, the tables groaned under the weight of the finest foods, and the mead was sweet enough to make poets weep with joy.

But even as Conaire and his warriors settled in for the night, the web of fate was tightening around them. For Ingcél and the sons of Donn Désa had learned of the king’s presence at the hostel, and they saw their chance for the ultimate revenge.

“Tonight,” Ingcél declared to his raiders, “we will end the reign of Conaire Mór and plunder the greatest treasure in Ireland – the high king himself.”

Under cover of darkness, the raiders surrounded Da Derga’s hostel. They were seven hundred strong, veteran warriors and desperate men who had nothing left to lose. Against them, Conaire had only his personal guard of fifty champions, though these were the finest warriors in Ireland.

The attack began at midnight with fire. The raiders shot flaming arrows onto the roof of the hostel, trying to burn out their prey. But the warriors inside fought the flames even as they prepared for battle, refusing to be driven out by smoke and fire.

“My king,” said Conall Cernach, the greatest of Conaire’s champions, “we are outnumbered fourteen to one. Let us fight our way out and retreat to gather reinforcements.”

But Conaire shook his head. “Da Derga has given us hospitality. I will not repay his kindness by bringing destruction upon his house. We fight here, and if we die, we die with honor.”

The battle that followed was one of the most terrible in all Irish legend. The warriors of Conaire fought like lions, each one worth ten ordinary men. Mac Ocht the charioteer wielded his sword like a scythe, cutting down raiders by the dozen. Conall Cernach fought so fiercely that his enemies said he had the fury of a god upon him.

But for every raider that fell, two more seemed to take his place. The defenders were driven back step by step, fighting over the very tables where they had feasted, bleeding on the rushes where they had laughed and told stories.

As the night wore on, Conaire himself took up his sword and entered the battle. Though he was a king and not primarily a warrior, he fought with the courage of desperation and the strength that comes from fighting for honor rather than life.

The battle raged through the night, and by dawn, the great hall of Da Derga’s hostel was a ruin. The roof had partially collapsed from the fires, the walls were stained with blood, and the floor was littered with the dead from both sides.

In the end, though Conaire and his champions had fought beyond the limits of human endurance, they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. One by one, the great warriors fell, until only the king himself remained, wounded and exhausted but still fighting.

It was then that the sons of Donn Désa, his own foster-brothers, approached him with weapons drawn. In their eyes, Conaire saw not hatred but a terrible sadness, for they knew that in killing him they were damning their own souls.

“Forgive us, brother,” whispered the eldest, tears streaming down his blood-stained face. “We have chosen wrongly, and now all must pay the price.”

Conaire looked at the men who had been his childhood companions and felt only pity for them. “I forgive you,” he said quietly. “But know that this deed will bring you no peace. The crown you think to seize will be poison in your hands, and the gold you seek will turn to ashes.”

With those words, the last great king of the ancient line fell, and with him fell the golden age of Ireland. The destruction of Da Derga’s hostel became a byword for the price of breaking sacred laws and the terrible consequences that follow when loyalty is betrayed and honor is abandoned.

But the story did not end with Conaire’s death. For Conall Cernach, though gravely wounded, had survived the battle and escaped to bring word of the tragedy to the rest of Ireland. The sons of Donn Désa found that their victory brought them no joy and no lasting power, for the nobles of Ireland turned against them in horror at their kinslaying.

In the end, justice was served and the traitors met their own doom, but the damage was done. The age of peace was over, and Ireland would know war and strife for generations to come.

The tale of the Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel became one of the great tragic stories of Irish literature, a reminder that even the mightiest kings are subject to fate, and that some choices, once made, cannot be undone. It teaches that honor and duty sometimes demand terrible sacrifices, but that the alternative – the abandonment of all sacred bonds – leads to even greater tragedy.

And it shows that true hospitality, like that of Da Derga himself, is one of the most sacred values in the world, worthy of being defended even unto death. For in the end, it is not the wealth or power we accumulate that defines us, but the kindness we show to others and the principles we are willing to die for.