Faelan mac Colmain
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Faelan mac Colmain was King of Leinster and died about 642. He was one of the early consolidators of Ui Dunlainge power, the dynasty that would hold the province in rotation for the next three hundred years.
Research notes
*** CURRENT GRADE - READ FIRST (15 Sep 2026): ✓ FULLY HISTORICAL - the first Ui Dunlainge ruler on near-contemporary record (Ath Goan 633, Kildare); ATTESTATION FIRMS HERE - the hinge of the Irish royal descent. *** ✓ DOCUMENTED (Source: the Uí Fáeláin / Uí Dúnlainge royal genealogy of Leinster, attested in the Irish Annals and the medieval tracts (Book of Leinster; Rawlinson B502 - Genelach h-Úa n-Dúnlainge); supplied 23 Jul 2026.): FAELAN MAC COLMAIN, KING OF LEINSTER; d. c.642 - an early consolidator of Ui Dunlainge power. Father of Conall. Direct ancestor. Added 23 Jul 2026. || ⭐ ATTESTATION FIRMS HERE - marker added 15 Sep 2026 (DIB 'Faelan' a2980; standard scholarship): FAELAN MAC COLMAIN is the first Ui Dunlainge ruler whose reign is cross-verified by near-contemporary record - victory at ATH GOAN (633), seizure of the kingship from the Ui Mail, and the dynasty's capture of KILDARE date the family's real supremacy from him. Every rung ABOVE him to Dunlaing is genealogy-carried with retrojected titles (see the regrades); every rung BELOW him is annal-historical. The honest hinge of the Irish royal descent - the equivalent of Egbert's position in the Wessex line, with five hedged rungs kept above him where Wessex keeps none, because the Leinster genealogical corpus (7th-c. strata, adversarially maintained between rival septs) reaches further than the ASC - the asymmetry is in the evidence, and now the grades say so rung by rung.