Curtis's biographical note: MacCarthy or MacCarrthaigh; Taig, Cormac son of Dermot, Donal, Cormac son of Donal, see p. 158, 192, 198. Taig or Tadhg MacCarthy Mor (‘Maior’), Princeps Hibernicorum Dessemonie, was son of Donal Og and became King of Desmond in 1391. He married Joan, daughter of the third Earl of Desmond. As the senior MacCarthy he was suzerain over the otherr branches of the family. Cormac, son of Dermot, was cousin of Taig and Lord of Muskerry in west Cork, a lordship founded by his father Dermot, son of Donal Og, who died in 1368. Donal MacCarthy was head of the family of MacCarthy Reagh of Carbery in south-west Cork, the next most important branch after MacCarthy Mor, and Cormac who submits with him is probably his son, founder of a sept called ‘Sliocht Chormaic na Coille’. The MacCarthys at the time were making a constant advance at the expense of the Cogans, Lombards, Barrys, and Barrets of mid Cork.
K.W. Nicholls, Gaelic and Gaelicized Ireland in the Middle Ages (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2003: 186-191.
Kenneth Nicholls, "The Development of Lordship in County Cork, 1300-1600" in Patrick O'Flanagan and Cornelius G. Buttimer, eds., Cork: History and Society (Dublin: Geography Publications, 1993): 157-211.
Brian Ó Cuív, “A Poem for Fínghin Mac Carthaigh Riabhach,” Celtica 15 (1983): 96–110.
Diarmuid Ó Murchadha, Family Names of County Cork (Cork: Collins Press, 1996): 53-58.
Dermot, the son of Cormac Donn Mac Carthy, was taken prisoner by Mac Carthy, of Carbery, and by him delivered up to the English, who afterwards put him to death.
Similar APPOINTMENT [as keepers of the peace in co. Cork, as in §270] addressed to the following persons, viz.:
Thomas s. of John kt; John s. of Maurice s. of Richard; Raymond Caunton and William his son; John Roch Barry; Nicholas Poer and Walter s. of Peter le Poer; Maurice s. of Maurice Mac Gybon; Thomas Mac Shane Mac Gybon; David Barry kt and John his son ; John Roche; John Barret; Taddeus son of Dermitius Mac Carthy; Richard Burgo kt and David his son; Cormacus s. of Donatus Mac Carthy; Robert s. of David Barry.
A very great defeat was given by Mac Carthy of Carbery to O'Sullivan, and the two sons of O'Sullivan, Owen and Conor, together with many others, were slain in the conflict.
A war broke out between Mac Carthy and O'Sullivan Boy. Turlough Meith Mac Mahon, who was at this time Mac Carthy's chief maritime officer, came up at sea with O'Sullivan and the sons of Dermot Mac Carthy, who were aiding O'Sullivan against Mac Carthy; and he drowned O'Sullivan, and made a prisoner of Donnell, the son of Dermot Mac Carthy, on this occasion.
Eoin O Callannain a scríobh a bhformhór seo i Cill Breatain; dáta 15-5-1414. (Owen O'Callanan wrote the majority of this at Kilbrittain, May 15, 1414.)
Mac Carthy Cairbreach, i.e. Donnell, the son of Donnell, died.
Cormac Mag Carthaigh of the Wood was slain by the sons of Eogan Mag Carthaigh: to wit, the one son of a king who was best in generosity and prowess that was of the Momonians in his own time.
Great war arose this year between Mag Carthaigh the Grey and the Earl. The castle of Cell Britain was taken by the Earl, namely; James, from Mag Carthaigh the Grey, and the Earl gave it to Donchadh Mag Carthaigh, that is, the brother of the Mag Carthaigh, who was along with himself at the taking of that castle and so forth.
A great war broke out between Mac Carthy Reagh and the Earl, i.e. James. The castle of Cill-Britain was taken by the Earl from Mac Carthy, and given to Donough Mac Carthy, Mac Carthy's own brother, who was along with him in storming the castle.
Donal Reagh, the eponymous founder of the MacCarthy Reagh dynasty, was lord of Carbery in west Cork from 1366 to 1414. He was married to Joanna FitzMaurice, possibly a daughter of FitzMaurice. Donal expanded the lordship aggressively, taking the castle of Kilbrittain from the de Courcys and making it the seat of his lordship. He was also a patron of poets and scholars. His death was commemorated in two elegies, and a colophon in a medical manuscript produced by his physician provides Kilbrittain as his place of death. Following his death, however, the lordship (and indeed many of the Munster lordships) descended into internecine disputes that consumed the region for decades.
Kenneth Nicholls, "The Development of Lordship in County Cork, 1300-1600," in Patrick O'Flanagan and Cornelius G. Buttimer, eds., Cork: History and Society (Dublin: Geography Publications, 1993): 157-211: 191-192.
Diarmuid Ó Murchadha, Family Names of County Cork (Cork: Collins Press, 1996): 53.
This "Cormac, son of Donal MacCarthy" is almost certainly Cormac na Coille ("of the wood"), son of Donal Reagh. Cormac survived his father, but not by much, dying in 1421 in a regional conflict involving the Roches and two rival claimants to the lordship of the MacCarthys of Muskerry.