Lover of Deirdre
Naoíse mac Uisneach was the eldest of the sons of Uisneach and the man Deirdre chose over the king who had raised her.
She described him to his face in three colours: his hair the black of a raven, his body the white of snow, his cheeks the red of blood. She asked why he had not taken the woman he was made for. He had been warned about her. He knew the prophecy. He knew what taking her would cost.
He took her anyway.
They fled to Scotland with his brothers Ainnle and Ardan. The years there were good. Several Scottish kings wanted their service. Several Irish attempts to bring them back were resisted. Deirdre described those years as the happiest of her life, and the account supports her. Naoíse was in honourable service across the water, his wife beside him, his brothers with him. The tradition takes care to make the exile genuinely good before it ends.
When Conchobar mac Nessa sent Fergus mac Róich as a guarantor of safe return — his personal word, his name, his oath — Deirdre told Naoíse it was a trap. He said that if they stayed in Scotland forever they would be dying slowly rather than living. He said Conchobar would not break Fergus’s word. He said they should go.
She was right. He was wrong.
The sons of Uisneach were killed by Éogan mac Durthacht on Conchobar’s order, on their return to Ireland. The broken guarantee drove Fergus mac Róich out of Ulster in fury and into Medb‘s court at Connacht. His exile, and the sword he brought with him, tilted the balance of the Táin Bó Cúailnge against Ulster.
Naoíse was the man defined by Deirdre’s description of him. The description was exact. He was also the man who chose to trust a king’s word over his wife’s warning. That choice was wrong and he knew the kind of man he was making it about. He went anyway. That is also part of the description.
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