Elim, son of Conrai, was, according to medieval Irish legend and historical tradition, a High King of Ireland

High King of Ireland

The High Kings of Ireland were sometimes historical and sometimes legendary figures who had, or who are claimed to have had, lordship over the whole of Ireland. Medieval and early modern Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of High Kings, ruling from Tara over a hierarchy of...

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The Lebor Gabála Érenn

Lebor Gabála Érenn

Lebor Gabála Érenn is the Middle Irish title of a loose collection of poems and prose narratives recounting the mythical origins and history of the Irish from the creation of the world down to the Middle Ages...

says he overthrew the previous High King Fíachu Finnolach in an uprising of aithech-tuatha or "subject peoples". The nobility of Ireland were massacred, with only three pregnant women escaping: Fíachu's wife Eithne Imgel, daughter of the king of Alba

Alba

Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is cognate to Alba in Irish and Nalbin in Manx, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as similar words in the Brythonic Insular Celtic languages of Cornish and Welsh also meaning Scotland.- Etymology :The term first appears in...

; Gruibne, daughter of the king of Britain and wife of the king of Munster

Munster

Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...

; and Aine, daughter of the king of the Saxons, and wife of the king of Ulster. Gruibe was the mother of Corb Olom, ancestor of the Eóganachta

Eóganachta

The Eóganachta or Eoghanachta were an Irish dynasty centred around Cashel which dominated southern Ireland from the 6/7th to the 10th centuries, and following that, in a restricted form, the Kingdom of Desmond, and its offshoot Carbery, well into the 16th century...

 of Munster; Aine's son Tibraide Tírech was the ancestor of the Dál nAraidi

Dál nAraidi

Dál nAraidi was a kingdom of the Cruthin in the north-east of Ireland in the first millennium. The lands of the Dál nAraidi appear to correspond with the Robogdii of Ptolemy's Geographia, a region shared with Dál Riata...

 of Ulster; Eithne fled to Alba where she gave birth to Fíachu's son Tuathal Techtmar. Elim ruled for twenty years, at the end of which Tuathal landed at Inber Domnainn and was proclaimed king. He then marched on Tara

Hill of Tara

The Hill of Tara , located near the River Boyne, is an archaeological complex that runs between Navan and Dunshaughlin in County Meath, Leinster, Ireland...

 and defeated and killed Elim in battle on the nearby hill of Achall

Achall

Achall, daughter of Cairbre Nia Fer, king of Tara, and his wife Fedelm Noíchrothach, is a minor character from the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology...

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The Annals of the Four Masters

Annals of the Four Masters

The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland or the Annals of the Four Masters are a chronicle of medieval Irish history...

broadly agree with the Lebor Gabála, adding only that the revolt of the aithech-tuatha was led by the provincial kings, Elim being the king of Ulster, and that during his reign Ireland was without corn, fruit, milk or fish, as God punished the aithech-tuatha for their evil. Geoffrey Keating

Geoffrey Keating

Seathrún Céitinn, known in English as Geoffrey Keating, was a 17th century Irish Roman Catholic priest, poet and historian. He was born in County Tipperary c. 1569, and died c. 1644...

 tells a slightly different story, ascribing the revolt to Cairbre Cinnchait

Cairbre Cinnchait

Cairbre Cinnchait or Caitchenn was, according to medieval Irish legend and historical tradition, a High King of Ireland...

, with Elim as his successor.

The Lebor Gabála synchronises Elim's reign with that of the Roman emperor

Roman Emperor

The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...

 Hadrian

Hadrian

Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...

(AD 117-138). The chronology of Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn dates his reign to AD 60-80, that of the Annals of the Four Masters to AD 56-76.