Mide
Meath · the middle
Mide, in English Meath, said MEE-dheh. A kingdom.
The middle kingdom, and the fifth province. Tara is in it, which is the whole point of it.
The name
the middle
Where
Meath and Westmeath, with reach into Longford and north Offaly.
In today's counties: Meath (An Mhí), Westmeath (An Iarmhí), Longford (An Longfort), Offaly (Uíbh Fhailí).
When it mattered
Under Clann Cholmáin of the southern Uí Néill, from the seventh century to the twelfth.
Ireland has four provinces and the Irish for province is cúige, a fifth. The missing fifth is Mide, the middle, carved out of the midlands by the Uí Néill and holding the one piece of ground every ambitious king wanted: Tara.
Clann Cholmáin ruled it and took their turns at the kingship of Tara. Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill, the last of them to hold it unchallenged, is the king Brian Bóruma displaced, and who then, remarkably, took it back after Clontarf and died in his bed as king of Ireland.
The kingdom broke apart under Norman pressure in the twelfth century, and its name survives split in two across the modern map.
What is left of the name
Meath and Westmeath. The Hill of Tara is in Meath, nine miles from Navan, and it is a quieter place than its reputation suggests.
Names out of it
Families on this site that belong to Meath. A surname is not a pedigree, and plenty of people carry these names for reasons that have nothing to do with the old kingdom.