The twelfth-century tale known as the Bóroma (The Tribute) begins by describing the ill-fated lives of the daughters of Tuathal Techtmar, high-king of Ireland. The eldest, Fithir, is described as the ‘beloved foster daughter’ (dalta dil), of the king of Connacht. The youngest, Dárine, was fostered by the king of the Ulaid. When they both die of grief and shame caused by the duplicitous actions of their husband, the king of Leinster, both foster fathers muster their armies, march to the border and, according to ‘the men of Connacht’, the foster fathers ‘would not go from Leinster without battle. The Ulaid said the same.’ This kicks off the action of the Bóroma itself. But what did the love that the king of Connacht expressed for his foster daughter mean? Was the anger that the two foster fathers felt on behalf of their slain foster children justified? What experience in the mind of the contemporary audience was that relationship speaking to? Was there any social reflection of these emotions within fosterage at all? These are the questions this book seeks to answer.

It is often stated that fosterage was used to create strong emotional bonds between the members of a given foster family. Such an observation is made in modern secondary literature, for example, Preston-Matto likens fosterage to marriage ties: ‘[F]osterage served as a way to strengthen or re-establish ties between families, or even, perhaps a way to forestall military issues between families much in the same way that marriages were meant to work.’