[1] In the 6th and 7th centuries the Dal nAraide were part of a confederation of Cruithne tribes in Ulaid (Ulster) and were the dominant members.
[3] The Fled Dúin na nGéd makes Congal a grandson of Eochaid Buide, King of Dál Riata, which is unconfirmed by other sources but chronologically feasible although it contains an anachronism in that Eochaid Buide's death is recorded years before the Battle of Mag Rath.
He first appears in the record in 628, when he killed Suibne Menn of the Cenél nEógain, supposedly High King of Ireland, at Traig Bréni on the shore of Lough Swilly.
[7] In 629, the Dal nAraide appear to have defeated the Dál Riata at Fid Eóin, killing Connad Cerr, although the victor is named as Maél Caích, perhaps an otherwise unknown brother of Congal.
[8] As well as their king, the Dál Riata suffered the loss of two grandsons of Áedán mac Gabráin and the Bernician exile Osric (perhaps a son of Æthelfrith) was also killed.
It is possible that upon becoming King of Ulaid, Congal resigned the affairs of Dal nAraide to Maél Caích mac Scandail who met opposition from other Criuthne led by Dícuil mac Echach who may have been a member of the Latharna of Larne (a Dal nAraide tribe).
No later sources make Congal a High King of Ireland, which is largely the same as the kingship of Tara, but the Cath Maige Rath echoes the Bechbretha in claiming that the men of Ulaid demanded that the eye of the beekeeper's son – a son of the High King Domnall mac Áedo – be put out in repayment.
Congal does not appear directly in Adomnán's Life of Saint Columba, another early source for Irish history, but a number of his contemporaries do and it supplies some context for events.
He is mentioned in the Early Irish Law tract Bechbretha—on beekeeping—written in the later 7th century; this purports to explain Congal's epithets.