"TRÁCHT ROMRA" AND THE NORTHUMBRIAN EPISODE IN "BETHA ADAMNÁIN"

Abstract:This paper examines an episode from the tenth-century Irish Life of St Adomnán, in which the abbot travels to England to secure the release of Irish captives taken there after a Northumbrian raid on Brega. It considers the site where Adomnán and his companions made their landfall on the Northumbrian coast, Trácht Romra, and its identification as the Solway Firth. The paper argues that there is not a solid enough basis to support this identification. It suggests that the author of Betha Adamnáin chose to locate the Northumbrian episode at Trácht Romra not for reasons of geographical accuracy, but as a subtle allusion to biblical events, intended to highlight a comparison between the Northumbrian episode and the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and to cast Adomnán in Mosaic guise.