Maine of Tethba

Máiné of Tethbae or Máiné mac Néill was a supposed son of Niall Noigiallach. Writing of him in 1973, Irish historian Francis John Byrne stated his belief that:

We may suspect then that eastern Uí Máiné was so successfully absorbed into the Uí Néill ambit that their kings, by a polite fiction, were accepted into the dominant dynasty circle ... The fact that the annalistic obit of Máiné mac Néill in 440 is so much earlier than that of any of his supposed brothers also suggests that he was adopted into the dynasty some time after the synthetic historians had agreed to push back the date of Niall's reign by a generation or more. [Byrne 1973:92–93]