The magnificence of Cormac's palace at Tara was commensurate with the greatness of his power and the brilliancy of his actions. He fitted out a fleet which he sent to harass the shores of Alba or Scotland, until that country also was compelled to acknowledge him as sovereign. He wrote a book, or tract, called "Teagusc-na-Ri," or the "Institutions of a Prince," which is still in existence, and which contains admirable maxims on manners, morals, and government. He died A.D. 266, at Cleitach, on the Boyne, a salmon-bone, it is said, having fastened in his throat while dining, and defied all efforts at extrication. He was buried at Ross-na-Ri, the first of the pagan monarchs for many generations who was not interred at Brugh, the famous burial-place of the prechristian kings.
Ferguson's poem, classically entitled "The Burial of King Cormac," recounts the incident of his death at length, and picturesquely.
Cormac must have been altogether a glorious personage, judging from a description which has come down to us from an ancient Irish MS.:
"Beautiful was the appearance of Cormac (this was before he lost his eye) in that assembly. Flowing, slightly curling hair upon him; a red buckler with stars and animals of gold and fastening of silver upon him; a crimson cloak in wide, descending folds upon him, fastened at his breast by a golden brooch set with precious stones; a neck-torque of gold around his neck; a white shirt with a full collar, and intertwined with red-gold thread upon him; a girdle of gold inlaid with precious stones around him; two wonderful shoes of gold with runnings of gold upon him; two spears with golden sockets in his hand."
This, then, is the description of the royal Cormac with his curling, golden hair and opulence of barbaric trappings, and the scenes over which he presided were surely in keeping with his magnificence, though only by a strong effort of imagination can they now be recalled.
The chief and most splendid structures of the interior of Ireland in ancient times were Emania and Tara. The former, the one-time palace of the kings of Ulster, was alleged to have been built about three hundred and fifty years before the Christian era. It existed as late as Columba's time, though it had ceased to be a royal residence; and the antiquarians, Camden and Speed, attest that fragmentary remains of this splendid establishment existed even in their day (seventeenth century). If this be really so, the ruin, if it could even be called by so explicit a name, must have been one of the most ancient existing in northern climes.