KOR-mak mahk AIRT
A legendary High King of Ireland whose reign at Tara is remembered as a golden age of wisdom, law, and prosperity.
Cormac mac Airt is remembered by medieval tradition as one of Ireland's greatest High Kings, ruling from Tara in a reign later chroniclers treat as a high-water mark of just and prosperous kingship. He is closely tied to the Fianna in the wider tradition, since Fionn mac Cumhaill and his warriors serve as Cormac's standing guard through much of the Fenian material.
Later legend credits him with remarkable wisdom and fair judgment, including tales of rulings so shrewd they became proverbial, and — in some Christianized retellings — even a deathbed rejection of pagan burial at Brú na Bóinne in favor of facing the rising sun, reflecting how thoroughly later scribes reworked the "historical" kings into moral exemplars.