UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES
PHASES OF IRISH HISTORY
PHASES
OF
IRISH HISTORY
BY
EOIN MacNEILL
Professor of Ancient Irish History in
the National University of Ireland
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CONTENTS
Foreword
i
PAGE
vi
II. The Ancient Irish a Celtic People.
-
II. The Celtic Colonisation of Ireland and
fo
*,
\
s -\
Britain
III. The Pre-Celtic Inhabitants of Ireland . 61
IV. The Five Fifths of Ireland
. 98
0 V. Greek and Latin Writers on Pre-Christian
T t *>
l03
Ireland ....
VI. Introduction of Christianity and Letters 161
VII. The Irish Kingdom in Scotland
* VIII. Ireland's Golden Age
*n
IX. The Struggle with the Norsemen
X. Medieval Irish Institutions.
XI. The Norman Conquest
XII. The Irish Rally
Index
. 194
. 222
. 249
. 274
. 300
• 323
• 357
,
FOREWORD
The twelve chapters in this volume, delivered as
lectures before public audiences in Dublin, make no
pretence to form a full course of Irish history for
any period. Their purpose is to correct and supple-
ment. For the standpoint taken, no apology is
necessary. Neither apathy nor antipathy can ever
bring out the truth of history.
I have been guilty of some inconsistency in my
spelling of early Irish names, writing sometimes
earlier, sometimes later forms. In the Index, I have
endeavoured to remedy this defect.
Since these chapters presume the reader's ac-
quaintance with some general presentation of Irish
history, they may be read, for the pre-Christian
period, with Keating's account, for the Christian
period, with any handbook of Irish history in print.
Eoin MacNeill.
I. THE ANCIENT IRISH
A CELTIC PEOPLE
EVERY people has two distinct lines of descent
— by blood and by tradition. When we
consider the physical descent of a people,
we regard them purely as animals. As in any
breed of animals, so in a people, the tokens of
physical descent are mainly physical attributes —
such as stature, complexion, the shape of the skull
and members, the formation of the features. When
we speak of a particular race of men, if we speak
accurately, we mean a collection of people whose
personal appearance and bodily characters, inherited
from their ancestors and perhaps modified by
climate and occupation, distinguish them notably
from the rest of mankind. It is important for us
to be quite clear in our minds about this meaning
of Race, for the word Race is often used in a very
loose and very misleading way in popular writings
and discussions. Thus we hear and read of the
Latin races, the Teutonic race, the Anglo-Saxon
race, the Celtic race. If these phrases had any
value in clear thinking, they would imply that in
each instance it is possible to distinguish a section
of mankind which, by its inherited physical charac-
ters, differs notably from the rest of mankind.
Now in not one of the instances mentioned is any
such distinction known to those who have made
2 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
the races of man the subject of their special study.
There is no existing Latin race, no Teutonic race,
no Anglo-Saxon race, and no Celtic race. Each of
the groups to whom these names are popularly
applied is a mixture of various races which can be
distinguished, and for the most part they are a
mixture of the same races, though not in every case
in the same proportions.
In the case of the populations which are recog-
nised to be Celtic, it is particularly true that no
distinction of race is found among them. And this
is true of them even in the earliest times of their
history. Tacitus, in the remarkable introductory
chapters of his book, " De Moribus Germanorum,"
gives a brief physical description of the Germans of
his time. " Their physical aspect," he says, " even
in so numerous a population, is the same for all of
them : fierce blue eyes, reddish hair, bodies of great
size and powerful only in attack." Upon this the
well-read editor of the Elzevir edition of 1573 has
the following remarks : " What Tacitus says here of
the Germans, the same is said by Florus and Livy
in describing the Gauls. . . . Hence," he continues,
" it appears that those ancient Gauls and Germans
were remarkably similar in the nature of their
bodies as well as of their minds." He goes on to
develop the comparison, and sums up as follows :
" Who then will deny that those earliest Celts were
similar to the Germans and were in fact Germans ? '
These Latin writers were contemporary witnesses,
and among the captives taken by Roman armies
they must have seen the men that they describe^
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 3
Thus, in early times the Romans observed the same
physical semblance in the two peoples, Celts and
Germans. It may be pointed out, however, that
the physical characteristics on which they lay stress
are those which exhibit the greatest difference be-
tween these northern peoples and the peoples of
southern Europe. For that reason we may suspect
a certain element of exaggeration in the description.
We may take leave to doubt whether all the Germans
of antiquity were fair-haired and blue-eyed, as
Tacitus describes them. It was the fair-haired and
blue-eyed Germans and Celts that attracted the
attention of Latin writers, accustomed to a popula-
tion almost uniformly dark-haired and dark-eyed,
and they would naturally seize upon the points of
distinction and regard them as generally typical.
If, then, by the name Celts we cannot properly
understand a distinct race, what are we to under-
stand by it ? By what criterion do we recognise
any ancient population to have been Celts ? The
answer is undoubted — every ancient people that is
known to have spoken any Celtic language is said
to be a Celtic people. The term Celtic is indicative
of language, not of race. We give the name Celts
to the Irish and the Britons because we know that
the ancient language of each people is a Celtic
language.
A certain amount of enthusiasm, culminating in
what is called Pan-Celticism, has gathered around
the recognition of this fact that the Irish, the Gaels
of Scotland, the Welsh and the Bretons are Celtic
peoples. So much favour attached to the name
4 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
Celtic that in our own time the Irish language was,
so to speak, smuggled into the curricula of the Royal
University and of the Intermediate Board under
that name. What ancient writers called opus
Eibernicum, " Irish work,'"1 is popularly known in
Ireland as Celtic ornament. In the same way
people speak of Celtic crosses, and there are even
Celtic athletic clubs. There is no small amount of
pride in the notion of being Celtic. It is somewhat
remarkable, then, to find that throughout all their
early history and tradition the Irish and the Britons
alike show not the slightest atom of recognition that
they were Celtic peoples. We do not find them
acknowledging any kinship with the Gauls, or even
with each other. In Christian times, their men of
letters shaped out genealogical trees tracing the
descent of each people from Japhet — and in these
genealogies Gael and Briton and Gaul descend by
lines as distinct as German and Greek. This ab-
sence of acknowledgment of kinship is all the more
noteworthy because there is little reason to suppose
that, before Latin displaced the Celtic speech of
Gaul, the differences of dialect in the Celtic speech
of Gaul, Britain, and Ireland were sufficient to
prevent intercourse without interpreters.
From this ignorance of their Celtic kinship and
origin we must draw one important conclusion.
The extraordinary vitality of popular tradition in
some respects must be set off by its extraordinary
mortality in other respects. There must have been
a time when the Celts of Ireland, Britain and Gaul
were fully aware that they were nearer akin to each
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 5
other than to the Germans and Italians, but this
knowledge perished altogether from the popular
memory and the popular consciousness.
It was re-discovered and re-established by a
Scottish Gael, George Buchanan, in the sixteenth
century. Buchanan, in his history of Scotland,
published in 1589, dismissed as fabulous that section
of the Irish and British genealogies that purported
to trace the origin of each people, generation by
generation, from Japhet. He was a man of great
classical learning. No better refutation could be
adduced of the notion that Bacon, who was a child
when Buchanan wrote, established the inductive
method of scientific proof than the clear and well-
marshalled argument by which Buchanan proves
from numerous Greek and Latin sources that the
Gaels and the Britons were branches of the ancient
Celtic people of the Continent.
An account of Buchanan's discourse on this sub-
ject will be found in an article by me in the " Irish
Review," of December, 191 3. Buchanan's discovery
seems to have lain dormant, as regards any effect
on learning or the popular mind, for more than a
century. In his argument he dealt rather severely
with the statements of a contemporary Welsh anti-
quary, Humphrey Llwyd, and this controversy had
probably the effect of sowing the seed of what may
be called Celtic consciousness in the soil of Welsh
learning. In Ireland, though Buchanan's work was
doubtless known and read, his theory of the Celtic
origin of the Irish people and their language, and of
their kinship to the Britons and the Continental
6 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
Celts, docs not appear to have been thought worth
discussion, so firmly established were the ancient
accounts which attributed to the Gaels of Ireland
a Scythian origin. Yet these ancient accounts, as
I propose to show in the third lecture of this series,
did not belong to the true national tradition, ran
counter to tradition, and owed their invention to
the Latin learning of Ireland in the early Christian
period.
In 1707 the publication of the first volume of
Edward Llwyd's " Archaeologia Britannica ' ex-
hibits the first fruiting of Buchanan's theory, in the
form of a sort of conspectus of the Celtic languages
then extant, namely, the Gaelic of Ireland and
Scotland, and the British languages of Wales, Corn-
wall and Brittany. From this time onward, the
existence of a group of Celtic peoples may be taken
as a recognised fact in the learned world. I do
not know whether anyone has yet traced the early
stages of the recognition of the same fact in Con-
tinental learning.
The Celtic languages now began to attract atten-
tion from outside. I ought, however, to note here
that already for a brief period the Irish language
had seemed about to extend its influence beyond the
limits of its own people. It will be remembered
that Edmund Spenser, during his residence in
Ireland (1 586-1598), made some small acquaintance
with Irish poetry which was translated for him,
and that he was pleased in some degree with its
peculiarities. About the same time an English
official in Dublin reports to his masters in London
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 7
that " the English in Dublin do now all speak Irish,"
and adds that they take a pleasure in speaking Irish.
A primer of the Irish language was composed by
the Baron of Delvin for the special use of Queen
Elizabeth, and a facsimile of portion of it may be
seen in Sir John Gilbert's " National Manuscripts
of Ireland."
The growing interest in Celtic literature among
outsiders is exemplified in some of the work of the
English poet Gray, who died in 1771. His poem of
"The Bard," reflected, if it did not initiate, the
notions long afterwards fashionable of the character
of the Celtic bards and of the spirit of their poetry.
Gray had the reputation in his time of being an
antiquarian. He made an English version of the
vision-poem on the battle of Clontarf from the
Icelandic saga of Burnt Njal, and from this same
poem part of the inspiration of his " Bard '' is ac-
knowledged by him to have been derived. Gray
also wrote English versions of some Welsh poems,
and the novelty of poetic expression which he
borrowed here seems to have baffled for once the
critical experience of Johnson, who contents him-
self with saying that " the language is unlike the
language of other poets." " The Bard " was pub-
lished in 1755, and, if I am not mistaken, its weird
rhapsodical spirit contained the germ of the Celtic
literary revival, for Gray's " Bard " may be re-
garded as the literary parent of Macpherson's
"Ossian." In 1760, five years after the publica-
tion of " The Bard," appeared the first collection
of Macpherson's pretended translations, entitled
8 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
" Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the
Highlands of Scotland." The consequences of this
publication are fitly described by Dr. Magnus
MacLean : "[The arrival of James Macpherson
marks a great moment in the history of Celtic
literature. It was the signal for a general resurrec-
tion. It would seem as if he sounded the trumpet,
and the graves of ancient manuscripts were opened,
the books were read, and the dead were judged out
of the things that were written in them." In 1764
was published Evans's " Specimens of the Poetry
of the Ancient Welsh Bards " — which supplied Gray
with fresh material. In 1784 appeared " Musical
and Poetical Relics of the Welsh Bards," and from
that time onward the stream of translations from
Welsh to English was fairly continuous. Notwith-
standing the controversy that soon arose about the
authenticity of Macpherson's compositions, their
direct influence and vogue went on increasing for
half a century. Among those who shared in the
Macpherson craze were Goethe and Napoleon Bona-
parte. In France, de Villemarque published his
" Chants populaires de la Bretagne," a collection
of poems from the Breton. In Scotland, Macpherson
had several imitators. In Wales, the new movement
took shape in the revival of the National Eisteddfod
in 1 8 19. In Ireland, the first fruits of Macpherson's
genius are found in Walker's " Historical Memoirs
of the Irish Bards," published in 1786, and in
Charlotte Brooke's " Reliques of Irish Poetry,"
published in 1789. The originals in this case were
genuine, including a number of poems of the kind
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 9
called, since Macpherson's time, Ossianic.1 The English
versions supplied by Miss Brooke were in close
imitation of the style and diction of Macpherson.
The same influence extends to Hardiman's " Irish
Minstrelsy," published in 1831.
The expansion of the new Celtic consciousness is
exemplified in the publication in 1804 of a tract in
French on the Irish Alphabet by Jean Jacques
Marcel. The first important philological treatise
on the Celtic languages was published by the French
philologist Pictet in 1837, dealing with " the affinity
of the Celtic languages to Sanscrit." Next year,
1838, appeared Bopp's work in German, showing the
relation of the Celtic languages to Sanscrit, Zend,
Greek, Latin, German, etc. The Celtic literary
enthusiasm was henceforth supplemented by solid
scientific research.
In these particulars is presented, I think, a fairly
accurate sketch of the wholly modern development
of the Celtic consciousness. I wish to recall here
the fact that from the earliest traceable traditions
of the Gaelic people down to the time of George
Buchanan, there is not found the slightest glimmer
of recognition that the Celts of Ireland were Celts,
or that they were more nearly akin to the Celts of
Britain and the Continent than to any other popu-
lation of white men. The second fact which I wish
particularly to emphasise is that throughout all its
history the term Celtic bears a linguistic and not a
racial significance.
1 The Irish term for this class of poetry is " Fianaidheacht," and
is of great antiquity.
io THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
It need hardly be re-stated here that the Celts
are a linguistic offshoot of a prehistoric people whose
descendants — also in the line of language — com-
prise many ancient and modern populations in
Europe and Asia. It would be out of place now to
discuss the central location from which the various
branches of this prehistoric people spread them-
selves over so wide an area. Indeed, it is a facile
and fanciful assumption to suppose that the spread-
ing took place from one central habitat. It is
enough to say that, whereas the earlier philologists
took for granted that the original population, before
its division into various linguistic groups, was located
in Western Asia, the later philologists are strongly
inclined to place its home in Europe, in the region
south-east of the Baltic Sea.
The oldest known geographical descriptions of
Europe are those of Hecataeus, who flourished about
500 years before the Christian Era, and Herodotus,
about half a century after him. Their knowledge of
the European mainland, north of the countries
bordering on the Mediterranean and its inlets, was
of the most vague and general kind. They divided
the whole of northern and middle Europe between
two peoples, the Scythians in the eastern, and the
Celts in the western parts. They also knew of the
Iberians in the south-west, in the Spanish penin-
sula and the adjoining parts of France. Herodotus,
however, recognised to the west of the Celts a people
whom he calls Kunesioi and Kunetai, and in the
furthest north of Europe a population distinct from
the Celts and Scythians, but unknown to him by
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE n
any name of their own, for he calls them Hyper-
boreans, i.e., out and out northerns. In the time
of Eratosthenes, about 200 B.C., this knowledge
does not appear to have been very much increased
among the Greeks. They knew, however, of the
existence of the islands of Ireland, which they called
Ierne, and Britain, which they called Albion, and
also of a country beyond the Baltic ; but they
still divided the northern mainland of Europe be-
tween the Celts and the Scythians.
I have already remarked how ancient Irish tra-
dition ignores the Celtic origin and affinities of the
Irish. We may go farther and say that our ancient
writers, when they set about exploring the geo-
graphical knowledge of the, world that came to
them in Latin writings, had it very definitely in their
minds that the Irish were not of Celtic origin ; for,
of the three great populations of northern and
western Europe known to the oldest classical writers
— the Iberians, the Celts, and the Scythians — they
excluded the Celts, and included the other two,
some selecting the Iberians and others the Scythians
as the ancestral people from which the Gaels were
descended.
The reason why to the Greek mind, in the early
centuries of history, the Celts appeared to occupy
so much of Middle Europe and to occupy it so ex-
clusively, was I think this : the Celts at that time
actually occupied the upper valleys of the Danube,
the Rhone, the Rhine, and the Elbe, and the high
ground between. These rivers were the principal
highways of such transcontinental commerce as then
12 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
existed, and this commerce was probably con-
siderable, comprising various metals, salt, amber,
etc. Whatever came and went in the course of
transcontinental trade from north-western Europe
to the Mediterranean countries followed trade routes
which lay through the central region north of the
Alps, and all this region was held by the Celts. In
this way, the Celts seem to be more extensively
spread over northern middle Europe than they
actually were.
Archaeology takes us back farther and tells us
more than history in relation to the Celts while they
were as yet, so far as we know, located solely or
mainly in the mid-European region to the north of
the Alps. It is not questioned that the ancient
cemetery discovered and explored many years ago
at Hallstatt in Upper Austria belonged to Celts and
that the curious remains of art and industry found
there are the work of a Celtic people. The period
assigned for that work begins in the ninth century
before the Christian Era and may extend onward
for several centuries. The discoveries indicate an
organised and progressive community, among whose
resources were agriculture and the working of mines
for metals and salt ; but the principal fact disclosed
is that, already in that early time, the Celts were
acquainted with the use and manufacture of iron.
In the northern parts of Europe, in Scandinavia,
Britain and Ireland, as archaeologists are agreed,
the Iron Age did not make its appearance until
several centuries later.
We need not doubt that it was this possession of
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 13
iron in abundance and of skill in its manufacture, at
a time when neighbouring peoples found in bronze
the highest class of material for their implements of
industry and war, that gave the Celts the power and
prosperity which they long enjoyed in Mid-Europe
and enabled them to conquer and colonize all the
countries that surrounded them.
One effect of the mastery of iron, for a people
occupying an inland region with small facilities for
water-traffic, was that the Celts acquired a notable
skill in the making of vehicles. From them in a
later age the Romans borrowed the names of nearly
every variety of wheeled vehicle that the Romans
used : carrus or carrum, carpentum, esseda, rbeda,
■petorritum. From this it obviously follows that
the Celts were also great road-makers. During the
nine years that Julius Caesar spent in the conquest
of Transalpine Gaul, and marched his legions in
every direction over that vast region, it is quite
evident that he was operating in a country already
well supplied with roads.
The earliest recorded expansion of the Celts from
the region north of the Alps was over northern Italy,
and no historian supposes or suggests that the first
Celtic occupation of northern Italy was earlier than
about 600 b.c. This item ought to be borne in mind,
for it has an important bearing on the date of the
early Celtic migrations to Britain and Ireland. It
was probably about the same time that they began
to move westward across the Rhone, occupying
the parts of France between the Garonne on the
south and the English Channel on the north, which
14 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
parts are specifically described by Julius Caesar as
Gallia Celtica, Celtic Gaul. Between 500 and 400
b.c. they spread south-westward into Spain, ap-
parently more as conquerors than as colonists, for
the resultant of the Celtic occupation of the Spanish
Peninsula was the formation of a mixed people,
partly Celts and partly Iberians, whom ancient
writers distinguish from the Celts by giving them
what we may call a hyphenated name, Celtiberians.
We are not to imagine from this that Celtic con-
quests elsewhere were of an exterminating character,
or that they did not result in a fusion of peoples.
The notion that the migratory conquests of antiquity
resulted in the displacement of one population by
another is one of the favourite illusions of popular
history. In Spain no doubt the Celtic element was
relatively less numerous than in Gallia Celtica, and
also perhaps the Celtic civilisation became less
dominant, for the Iberians were in touch more or
less with another and still more highly developed
civilisation, that of the Phoenicians. That there
was a somewhat distinctive civilisation south of the
Garonne is clearly to be inferred from Caesar's ac-
count, which tells us that the people of Celtic Gaul
differed from those of Aquitaine, as well as from
those of Belgic Gaul, in language, culture, and
institutions.
In the fourth century b.c a second wave of Celtic
migration poured over Italy. The Celts in this
movement captured and destroyed the city of Rome.
But they also appear to have destroyed the pre-
dominance of the Etrurians, and thereby to have
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 15
facilitated the later imperial expansion of the Roman
power. There was also an eastward Celtic move-
ment along the Danube. In the third century b.c.
the Celts overran most of what is called the Balkan
Peninsula, including Greece, and in 278 b.c. large
bodies of them passed over into Asia Minor and
settled in the country which after them was named
Galatia.
Let it be noted at this point that so far as history
casts light on the subject, the known period of
Celtic expansion on the Continent lies within the
years 650 B.C. and 250 B.C. We shall have to recur
to this fact when we come to consider, in the follow-
ing lecture, the probable date of the Celtic colonisa-
tion of Ireland. We shall see also that the evidence
from archaeology leads to the same conclusion as the
evidence from history.
History recognises the expansion of the Celts from
inland and central Europe southward, westward and
eastward, but is silent about any expansion north-
ward. No one doubts that in these early times the
parts of Europe northward of the old Celtic country
already described were occupied by the Germans,
but Greek and Latin writings have no word of the
Germans until the last quarter of the third century
b.c. Yet we know from archaeology that there was
trade intercourse long before that time between the
Mediterranean countries and the shores of the Baltic,
extending even to Scandinavia. As geographical
facts, the Baltic and Scandinavia were known to
the Greeks, if only vaguely known to them, in the
time of Eratosthenes, i.e., about 200 B.C. How is
i6 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
it, then, that the Germans are not mentioned by
that name or by any name ? I suggest that the
reason was that the Germans of that period were so
much under Celtic domination that they were not
recognised as a distinct people of importance.
The first mention of Germans in history is found
in the Roman Acta Triumphalia for the year 222 B.C.,
in the record of the battle of Clastidium. Clastidium,
now called Casteggio, is in northern Italy, on the
south side of the river Po and a few miles from that
river. It is a little west of the meridian of Milan,
which at the time of the battle was Mediolanum, the
chief town of the Insubrian Gauls. In the battle,
the Roman consul Marcellus overcame the Insubrians
and gained the spolia opima by slaying with his
own hand their commander Virdumarus. The Acta
Triumphalia state that he triumphed " over the
Insubrian Gauls and the Germans." Now so far as
is known or thought probable there was no German
population at the time settled anywhere within
hundreds of miles of Clastidium, whereas the In-
subrian Gauls were settled on the spot or in its near
neighbourhood. Moreover, unless the Germans were
there fighting in considerable force, it is most un-
likely that any notice of them would have appeared
in the record. The commander was a Gaul, bearing
an undoubted Celtic name. Therefore the Germans
at Clastidium were not fighting for their own hand,
they had not come there as invaders. Thus we are
brought to the interesting conclusion that, on this
first appearance of the Germans in history, they
had been brought from their own country, hundreds
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 17
of miles away, to assist a Celtic people resident in
the valley of the Po. To assist them in what
capacity ? Undoubtedly either as hired troops or
as forces levied on a subject territory. Whichever
view we take, the presence of German forces at the
battle of Clastidium in 222 B.C. must be regarded
as an indication that the German people, or portion
of them, were still at that time under Celtic pre-
dominance. I say " still at that time," because it
will be seen that the Celtic ascendancy over the
Germans soon afterwards came to an end.
What is thus inferred from the historical record
is corroborated by philology. A number of words
of Celtic origin are found spread through the whole
group of Germanic languages, including the Scan-
dinavian languages and English, which was originally
a mixture of Low German dialects. Some of these
words are especially connected with the political
side of civilisation and are therefore especially
indicative of Celtic political predominance at the
time of their adoption into Germanic speech. Thus
the German word retch, meaning realm or royal
dominion, is traced to the Celtic rigion, represented
in early Irish by rige, meaning kingship. From the
Celtic word amb actus, used by Caesar in the sense
of " client " or " dependent," indicating one of the
retainers of a Gallic nobleman, but originally signi-
fying " one who is sent about," a minister or envoy
— from ambactus is derived the German word ami,
meaning " office, charge, employment." From am-
bactus are also derived the words embassy and am-
bassador, with their kindred terms in the Romance
iS THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
languages. From the Celtic word dunon, a fortified
place, represented in Irish by dun, is derived the
word town in English and the cognate words in the
other Germanic languages. Professor Marstrander
holds that several of the names of the numerals in
all the Germanic languages, and therefore in the
original German speech from which they have
diverged, are formed from or influenced by Celtic
names of the same numerals. If this is so, it indi-
cates a thoroughly penetrating Celtic influence
among the ancient Germans, for the names of the
numerals may be regarded as among the most native
elements of speech, so much so that it is said that
facility in the speaking of two languages rarely
exists to the degree of being able to reckon numbers
with equal readiness in both, and that the language
a person uses in ordinary reckoning must be regarded
as his native and natural speech.
This matter of the early intermingling of Celts
and Germans in northern Mid-Europe will be after-
wards seen to have a special interest in reference to
the Celtic colonisation of Britain and Ireland. Be-
fore concluding the evidence I have to bring forward
on the subject, it will make the drift of the matter
clearer if I state the later outcome of the Celtic
migrations northward among the Germanic popula-
tion. We have already seen that, as archaeologists
are agreed, the Celts north of the Alps were in
possession of iron long before the use and manu-
facture of iron was established in the more northern
parts of Europe. It is mainly to this advantage
that we may ascribe the predominance acquired
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 19
by the Celts among the Germans. In the German
regions, however, the Celts were for the most part
an ascendant minority. Their domination must
have lasted for several centuries. A time came
when, in those parts which in the Celts were
numerically and otherwise in greatest strength, a
fusion of peoples took place, resulting in a Celto-
Germanic population, Celtic in language but mainly
Germanic in race. Meanwhile, the less blended
section of the Germans, retaining their native
language, had acquired the craft of ironwork, and
were advancing in civilisation and no doubt in-
creasing at the same time in numbers. Eventually
the German-speaking Germans became more powerful
than the once dominant Celtic minority and more
powerful also than the Celto-Germanic folk who had
become Celtic in language. A sense of distinct
nationality grew up between the two populations.
The Celticised Germans were located in western
Germany, towards the Rhine, the un-Celticised
Germans farther east. Under hostile pressure from
the German-speaking element, the Celtic-speaking
element were forced westwards across the Rhine
into Gaul. Here they in turn pressed back the
Celts who had settled in north-eastern Gaul, and
modern events will help to fix in the mind the fact
that this overflow of Celto-Germans into Gaul ex-
tended as far west as the river Marne, where it was
brought to a stand by the resistance of the earlier
Celtic inhabitants. The date of this migration was
probably later than that of the battle of Clastidium,
222 B.C., when, as we have seen, the Celts appear
20 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
to have still held sway over the Germans. The
Celto-Germanic settlers between the Rhine and the
Marne were the Belgae of Caesar's time.
At first sight, this account may seem to be too
precise an effort to fill up a blank in history, but the
testimony of Caesar and Tacitus, witnesses of prime
authority, seems to leave no room for any alternative
view.
Caesar is the first writer in whom any mention of
the Belgae is found. Holding the Gallic command
for about nine years, he reduced the whole of Gaul
to obedience to the Roman power. For him, Gaul,
Gallia, signified the whole country between the
Rhine and the Pyrenees. All its inhabitants in
general were named Galli by him, but we also find
that he uses the name Galli in a more precise sense
as proper to the people of those parts which were
not occupied by the Belgae. He also calls this
people Celtae, Celts. Therefore in Caesar's mind
the Belgae were less Gallic and less Celtic than their
neighbours to the west. His evidence on this sub-
ject however is much more precise.
The Rhine was for Caesar the main boundary line
between Gaul and Germany, between the Belgae
and the Germans. The Belgae, he states, differ from
the Celtae, as these from the Aquitani, in language,
culture, and institutions. The difference between
the Celtae proper and the Aquitani has already been
accounted for. The Aquitani, bordering on Spain,
were the same Celtiberian mixture as the people of
Spain ; they were Celtic, or mainly so, in language,
but otherwise mainly Iberian. I am proceeding to
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 21
show that the difference between the Celtae and
the Belgae is to be explained in a similar way.
The Belgae were likewise Celtic in language, at
all events mainly so, but otherwise they were mainly
Germanic. When Caesar says that the three divisions
of Gaul differed from each other in language, we
must understand that he refers to broad distinctions
of dialect, for the names of persons and places in
Belgic Gaul at that time appear to the reader to be
quite as Celtic as those in Gallia Celtica or western
Gaul. Caesar tells us that the Belgae are ruder, less
civilised and more warlike than the Celtae or Galli
more properly so called, and his explanation for this
is that they have less commerce and less intercourse
with outsiders, and so are less softened by refinement
and luxury. This is interesting, because it implies
that Gallia Celtica had a sufficient degree of com-
merce, intercourse, refinement and luxury to con-
siderably soften down the character of its in-
habitants.
The westward and southward pressure of the Ger-
mans, then a very powerful and numerous people,
was in full force in Caesar's time, so much so that
it seems certain that Caesar's conquest of Gaul came
just in time to stay and delay that tide of Germanic
invasion which overran Gaul some centuries later.
His first operations in Gaul were against the Helvetii,
whose country corresponded to the modern Switzer-
land. He tells us that the Belgae are at continual
war with the Germans along the Rhine, and also
that the Helvetii in their own country fight almost
daily battles with the Germans. In the first year of
22 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
Caesar's Gallic command, the Helvetii came to a de-
cision to migrate from their country westward, and
Caesar's first campaign was conducted with the pur-
pose of forcing them to return to their own country.
He ordered them to return thither, he states, lest the
Germans should take possession of the territory and
thus become neighbours to the old Roman province
in southern Gaul.
Caesar states plainly that the Belgae for the most
part are of German origin ; that in former times
they had crossed the Rhine and dispossessed the
Galli (here he used the name Galli as proper to the
other inhabitants of Gaul in distinction from the
Belgae). He indicates that, after this migration,
they had offered a successful resistance to the in-
vasion of the Cimbri and Teutones (between 113 and
102 B.C.).
Modern Frenchmen, though their national name is
in origin the name of a Germanic people, show a
tendency, easily understood, to minimise the Ger-
manic element in their composition, and M. D'Arbois
de Jubainville, dealing with Caesar's statement that
the Belgae were mainly of Germanic origin, seeks to
explain that this was true geographically not ethno-
graphically, that they came from German lands but
did not come of German ancestry. Against the plain
statement of a contemporary observer, such ex-
planations are always to be received with caution.
In this instance, there is corroborative evidence
which indicates that Caesar's words are to be taken
at their face value. Caesar also tells us that the
Condrusi, Eburones, Caerosi and Paemani " uno
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 23
nomine Germani vocantur " — are called by the
common name of Germans. Again he says that
the Segni and Condrusi are " ex gente et numero
Germanorum " — of the German nation and so ac-
counted. Strabo, writing within a century of Caesar,
says that " the Nervii are a Germanic people."
According to Caesar, the Nervii had no commerce,
avoided wine and other luxuries, and were fierce
men of great valour. They led the rest of the Belgae
in opposing him. Tacitus is a hardly less valid
authority, for his father-in-law Agricola had been
engaged in long campaigns against the Germans in
the Rhine country. " The Treveri and the Nervii,"
he says, " are especially forward in asserting their
German origin, as though by this boast of race to
be distinguished from the pacific character of the
Gauls." It was surely not a geographical origin that
was claimed in such a way. The Treveri dwelt on
the west side of the Rhine. They were a Celtic-
speaking people, and unlike most of the inhabitants
of Gaul they seem to have retained their Celtic lan-
guage throughout the period of Roman domination,
for St. Jerome, writing in the late part of the fourth
century, says that " the Galatians (of Asia Minor),
apart from the Greek language, which all the East
speaks, have a language of their own almost the
same as the Treveri." In one respect the Treveri,
Caesar tells us, resembled the Germans of his time —
they excelled in cavalry ; and his continuator,
Hirtius, writes that " in fierceness and in manner
of life they differed little from the Germans." The
Advatuci, he writes, " were descendants of the
24 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
Cimbri and Teutoni." All these peoples dwelt in
Belgic Gaul and came under the common appellation
of Belgae. In addition to Caesar's statement that
the Belgae as he learned, not supposed, were, for
the most part of German origin, we have detailed
evidence that, of about eighteen States composing
Belgic Gaul, no fewer than eight, in Caesar's time and
long after it, were still accounted to be German.
On the other hand, then and afterwards, a number
of peoples reckoned to be Celtic continued to inhabit
countries to the east of the Rhine. The Tencteri
and the Usipetae, on the German side of the Rhine,
were Celts, according to Dio Cassius. Tacitus,
speaking of the Helvetii and the Boii, says that
" both are Gallic nations," yet in another passage
he speaks of " the Boii, a nation of the Germans."
Still further east dwelt the Cotini and the Osi, of
whom he writes : " The Cotini by their use of the
Gallic language and the Osi by their use of the
Pannonic language are proved not to be Germans " :
from which it appears that language was the criterion
by which the Romans were accustomed to distinguish
Germans from Celts. Again Tacitus writes : " The
Triboci, Vangiones and Nemetes are certainly Ger-
mans," but modern German authorities recognise
that the Triboci and Nemetes are Celtic in these
very names. Of the Aestyi, dwelling apparently on
the northern seaboard of Germany, Tacitus says that
their language resembles that of Britain.
Further evidence of Celtic occupation of regions
considered German in Caesar's time and ever since
then is afforded by a number of ancient place-names.
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 25
For example, there were two towns or stations named
Carrodunon, i.e. " wagon-fortress," one on the river
Oder, the other in the upper valley of the Vistula.
Other Celtic place-names, like Lugidunum, Eburo-
dunum, Meliodunum, are found in central Germany.
Tacitus confirms the evidence of Caesar to the
effect that the Belgae were a Germano-Celtic people
who came westward over the Rhine and conquered
part of the country already occupied by the Celts.
" Those," he says, " who first crossed the Rhine and
expelled the Gauls were then named Germans but
now Tungri." The Tungri inhabited a part of
Belgic Gaul between the Nervii and the Treveri.
It seems to me, then, to be certain that the Belgae
not only came into Gaul from Germany, but were
themselves a mixed population of Celts and Germans
speaking a Celtic dialect. Holder assigns their
migration into Gaul to the third century b.c. It is,
however, undesirable to attempt to fix anything but
a somewhat extended period for migratory move-
ments of the kind. The instance of the Helvetii
proves that down to Caesar's time the Celts in con-
tact with the Germans were still in a very mobile
condition.
Before using the facts hitherto stated and the
conclusions derived from them to throw whatever
light they can on the Celtic colonisation of Ireland,
it may be well to state in a general way what can
be said as to the stage of civilisation reached by the
continental Celts before their subjugation by the
Romans.
Some modern writers, but not very recently, have
26 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
written about a Celtic Empire in ancient Europe.
The nearest approach to authority for the existence
of such an empire is a statement by Livy, who says :
" While the elder Tarquin reigned in Rome, the
supremacy among the Celts belonged to the Bituriges.
They gave a king to the Celtic land. Ambigatus was
his name, a very mighty man in valour and in his
private and public resources, under whose rule Gaul
was so abounding in men and in the fruits of the
earth that it seemed impossible to govern so great a
population."
The most that can be made of this passage, sup-
posing that Livy had it on better authority than
some other parts of his history, is that at one time
the Bituriges held what the Greeks called hegemony,
a political primacy among the Gauls, and this, too,
only in the time of a single king. It may reflect a
genuine Celtic tradition, going back to the time
when the Celts were still a compact nation inhabiting
a relatively small territory.
When we come to contemporary evidence of the
political condition of the Celts, we find that every-
where on the continent and in Asia Minor, their
form of government resembles that of the Roman
Republic. There are no kings, and the power of the
state is vested in a senate with certain high executive
officers. The Celtic form of government in historical
time was that of a patrician republic. The Celtic
people was divided into a large number of small
states without any organised superior power. From
time to time, however, one or other of these states
might acquire a degree of political pre-eminence
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 27
over a group of neighbouring states, forming a
loose federation in which it took chief direction
of the common affairs. We find the same tendency
among the states of ancient Greece. In Asia Minor,
the three states of the Galatae formed themselves
into a strict federation, with a fixed constitution, a
common council of state and a common executive
both civil and military.
So far as I have been able to trace, wherever the
Greeks and Romans came in contact with Celts so
as to acquire a closer knowledge of Celtic affairs,
they found this kind of patrician republican govern-
ment. Caesar found no kings in Transalpine Gaul,
and the governing authority, when he mentions it,
belongs to senates and magistrates, i.e., chief officers
of state. It was apparently so in Spain a century
earlier ; and in distant Lusitania, corresponding to
the modern Portugal, the most western Celtic region
on the continent, in resisting the Roman conquest
the chief command is held by Viriatus, who is not
called a king by the Roman and Greek historians,
Dor is any king mentioned in his time. Nor do we
read of kings in Cisalpine Gaul. Thus from farthest
east to farthest west, the patrician republican form
of government seems to have prevailed in all Celtic
communities with the probable exception of Ireland ;
and this was probably their political condition as far
back as 300 B.C., or earlier, before the Galatians
passed into Asia Minor.
At some earlier period, the Celts were undoubtedly
governed by kings. The word for king, represented
by the Irish word ri, is widely exemplified in ancient
28 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
Celtic names. From it, as I have already re-
marked, the Germanic languages took their word
for kingdom or realm. Sometimes it is found in
the names of peoples, e.g., the Bituriges, Caturiges,
etc.; sometimes in the names of men, e.g., Dumnorix,
Ambiorix, Vercingetorix. We find evidence, too, of
a strong anti-monarchical sentiment, as among the
Romans. The law of the Helvetii made it a capital
offence, under penalty of being burned alive, to aim
at autocratic power.
Not only the Celts, but the Germans of that
time, were governed without kings, as Tacitus
records. He adds, however, that they appointed
kings to command them when they went to war.
Here we have a parallel to the Roman dictatorship,
the vesting of the power of the republic in the
hands of a single ruler during a time of critical
warfare.
I have already mentioned the proficiency of the
Celts in the construction of wheeled vehicles, and
the consequent deduction that they were practised
in the making of roads. The passage already quoted
from Livy shows that, with all their military ardour,
they were known to be active in agriculture ; and
this is corroborated by other ancient authorities.
The countries occupied by the Celts excelled in
ordinary agriculture not only during what we may
call Celtic times but in subsequent ages, and it is
these countries that have furnished the most ex-
cellent breeds of domestic animals — cattle, sheep,
poultry, dogs.
Originally an inland people, the Celts who occu-
THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE 29
pied the seaboard soon became proficient in naviga-
tion. Caesar bears witness to their skill in ship-
building, and he seems to have found no great
difficulty in collecting from the Belgic coast a
sufficient fleet of ships to transport his army and
supplies to Britain.
From the Greek settlement at Massilia (Marseille)
two arts especially appear to have spread among
the Celts of Transalpine Gaul : sculpture and the
use of letters. The remains of Celtic sculpture in
Gaul show evident signs of Greek origin. Caesar
makes the remarkable statement that the Gauls in
his time use Greek writing in almost all their
business, both public and private. The Romans
of Caesar's time had not long emerged, under Greek
influence, from a state of comparative illiteracy, as
every student of Latin literature must recognise.
Among the spoils of the Helvetii captured by Caesar,
he found a complete census of the people written in
Greek characters. Inscriptions in the Celtic lan-
guage before the Roman conquest are in Greek
characters, except in Cisalpine Gaul, where the
characters are Etruscan.
On the subject of ancient Celtic art on the
continent, reference may be made to the book by
Romilly Allen, from which also a good idea of the
skill and taste of the Celts in metal work may be
obtained.
In general, it is clear that the Celts were a highly
progressive people with a strong civilising tendency.
Under the Druids, the western Celts developed a
system of education and some kind of philosophy.
30 THE ANCIENT IRISH A CELTIC PEOPLE
With regard to their religion and to the part played
by the Druids in Celtic life, I have summarised my
own studies in a brochure entitled " Celtic Religion,"
which is published by the Catholic Truth Society of
England.
II. THE CELTIC COLONISATION
OF IRELAND AND BRITAIN
IN the preceding lecture, I have claimed to show
that, so far as positive knowledge goes, the
period of Celtic expansion from Mid-Europe lies
between the years 600 B.C. and 250 b.c The spread
of the Celtic peoples and of their power was arrested
by a movement of German expansion on the north,
beginning perhaps about 200 B.C., and by the growth
of the Roman Empire, for which a starting point
may be found in the final subjugation of Etruria,
265 b.c. I have also claimed to show that there was
a large northward expansion of the Celts, resulting
in a partial fusion of Celts and Germans, and that
this Celto-Germanic population was afterwards for
the most part, but not all, forced westward across
the Rhine by the more purely German population,
and was represented by the Belgae of Caesar's time.
From the objects discovered at Hallstatt, the
early period of Celtic art in the Iron Age is called by
archaeologists the Hallstatt period. It is succeeded
by a later stage and higher development of orna-
mental art, exemplified in discoveries at La Tene in
Switzerland. The period in which this higher de-
velopment is found has been named the La Tene
period ; but the same stage of Celtic art is ex-
emplified by objects discovered in the valley of the
Marne in northern France, and the term " Marnian
31
32 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
period " is used by French archaeologists as an
equivalent of " La Tene period." So far as I am
aware these Marnian remains represent the earliest
known substantial appearance of Celtic work, of
Celtic activities of any kind, in the north-western
parts of Europe. The La Tene or Marnian period
is estimated to begin about 400 B.C., and not earlier
than 500 b.c. This estimated date is an important
part of the evidence that goes to establish the date
of the Celtic migrations to Britain and Ireland.
Before going more fully into the evidence, it is
necessary to deal with the theory which at present
holds the field in British archaeology, and which is
based principally on the authority of the late Sir
John Rhys. So completely has his theory domi-
nated, that we find it stated in summary in books
for general instruction. I find a good exemplifica-
tion in the volume on Lincolnshire of the Cam-
bridge County Geographies, a series devised for
school study and general information. The follow-
ing paragraph purports to tell us how Britain was
peopled before the Roman occupation :
" We may now pause for a moment," says the
writer, " to consider who these people were who
inhabited our land in these far-off ages. Of Palaeo-
lithic man we can say nothing. His successors, the
people of the Later Stone Age, are believed to have
been largely of Iberian stock — people, that is, from
south-western Europe — who brought with them their
knowledge of such primitive arts and crafts as were
then discovered. How long they remained in un-
disturbed possession of our land we do not know,
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 33
but they were later conquered or driven westward
by a very different race of Celtic origin — the Goidels
-or Gaels, a tall light-haired people, workers in bronze,
whose descendants and language are to be found
to-day in many parts of Scotland, Ireland, and the
Isle of Man. Another Celtic people poured into
the country about the fourth century b.c. — the
Brythons or Britons, who in turn dispossessed the
Gaels, at all events as far as England and Wales are
concerned. The Brythons were the first users of
iron in our country."
So far the quotation. The writer is a man of
scientific education, a master of arts, a doctor of
medicine, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
This is the age of science, not of credulity, and in
matters of science men of scientific education are
believed to require scientific proof before they state
anything as a fact. If it is the age of science, it is
also the age of invention. The statements made in
the passage I have quoted are definite enough. In
fairness to their writer, however, I shall quote his
next paragraph, in which this definite assurance is
somewhat qualified :
' The Romans," he writes, " who first reached our
shores in b.c. 55, held the land till about a.d. 410;
but in spite of the length of their domination they
do not seem to have left much mark on the people.
After their departure, treading close on their heels,
came the Saxons, Jutes, and Angles. But with these,
and with the incursions of the Danes and Irish, we
have left the uncertain region of the Prehistoric
Age for the surer ground of History."
3
34 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
From what is said just afterwards on the surer
ground of History, we are prepared in some measure
to assess the value of what has been said, very
definitely indeed, in the uncertain region of the
Prehistoric Age :
" Of the Celtic population of this county [Lin-
colnshire]," we are told in continuation, " at the
time of the Roman invasion, but few traces are
left, thus contrasting greatly with what has hap-
pened in counties such as Somerset, Cornwall, and
the wilder parts of Wales, and the Lake district,
where the Brythons (hence the name Britain) fled
before the Roman advance and later from the
Saxons. These Celts, belonging to the tribe of
Coritani, have left little impression on the names of
places (Lincoln itself being an exception), and pro-
bably none on the actual people of Lincolnshire.
On the other hand, the Saxon invasion and settle-
ment must have been complete early in the sixth
century."
Now let us consider first what the English reader
and student is asked to believe in regard of the effect
of strictly historical movements on the population
of an English county. " The Romans," we are told,
during about four centuries of occupation, " do not
seem to have left much mark on the people." The
writer's object is to show from what early population
elements the modern population is composed. By
what tokens does he assure us that the prolonged
Roman occupation left no permanent element be-
hind ? Is it by the scarcity of Roman noses in the
Lincolnshire of to-day ? Let us regard the facts.
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 35
For generation after generation, the Romans sent
legion after legion of their soldiers into Britain.
These legionaries were not all Italians. They were
recruited from various parts of the Roman Empire.
We know that one of the Roman emperors, holding
command in Britain, took a woman of British birth
to wife, and that Constantine the Great was their
child. Are we asked to believe that the thousands
upon thousands of Roman legionaries in Britain lived
a life of celibacy, and left no descendants after
them ? The city of Lincoln was itself no mere
military station but a Roman colony, Lindi Colonia,
and the volume from which I quote shows that
Lincolnshire has produced very extensive traces of
its Roman occupation, civil as well as military. The
county appears to have contained no fewer than six
Roman military stations, and was traversed by four
Roman roads.
In the preceding lecture, I have alluded to that
common illusion of popular history through which
people are led to imagine that the migratory con-
quests of ancient times led to the extermination of
the older inhabitants by the newcomers. On this
same illusion, lodged in the mind of a man of
scientific education, is based the notion that the
Roman occupation left no mark, in the ethno-
graphical sense, on the later population. We find
the definite expression of this illusion in the words
in which the writer professes to account for the
total disappearance of the Celtic population of
Lincolnshire, on whose people, he says, still speaking
ethnographically, the Celts have probably left no
36 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
impression. " The Brythons," he tells us, " fled
before the Roman advance." Bear well in mind
that we are now on the surer ground of history.
The Roman conquest of Britain was completed by
Agricola in the year 80 of the Christian era. We
have the account of this conquest from a con-
temporary authority, Tacitus, who was son-in-law
to the conqueror, Agricola. In a remarkable
passage, Tacitus tells how the Britons behaved
after Agricola had warred down their pride :
" During the following winter," he writes,
" Agricola was occupied in carrying out a most
salutary policy. The Britons were a rude people,
dwelling in the open country, and for that reason
they were readily disposed to war. Agricola's aim
was to reduce them to peace and a life of ease by
ministering to their pleasures. He exhorted them
in private and assisted them in public to build
temples, places of assembly, and houses. [He
means, in the Roman manner, and obviously refers
especially to the noble and wealthy of the Britons.]
Those who were quick to act in this way he praised,
those who were reluctant he punished ; so that
they could not avoid competing with each other for
distinction. He set about providing the culture of
a liberal education for the sons of their chief men,
and he used to award the Britons the palm of ex-
cellence over the Gauls in their studies, so that those
who not long before refused to speak the Roman
tongue were now actually eager to exhibit their
eloquence in Latin. Even our fashion of dress be-
came honourable among them, and the toga was
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 37
quite generally worn. By degrees they yielded to
the attractive apparatus of vices, lounging in
covered walks, frequenting public baths, and enjoy-
ing elegant banquets." The comment of the Im-
perial historian on the real aim and character of
this " salutary policy " carried out by his father-
in-law has a cynical frankness which is quite refresh-
ing in comparison with the studied attitude of moral
justification that we might expect from a modern
Tacitus : " And this," he says, " was called civilisa-
tion by the ignorant Britons, whereas it was in
fact an element of their enslavement."
We have here a graphic picture of the British
nobility, under distinguished patronage, making
themselves familiar with the luxuries and vices of
Imperial Rome, and their sons at school learning
to become eloquent Dempseys in the conqueror's
tongue. Compare it with Dr. Sympson's statement
on the surer ground of History : " The Brythons
fled before the Roman advance," to take refuge in
the remoter and wilder parts of the island. Having
already fled before the Romans, they again fled,
we are told, before the Saxons. There is just as
much historical foundation for the one statement
as for the other. I remember reading, in one of
Archbishop Trench's works on the origin and
growth of the English language, a list of words
which passed from the ancient British tongue into
Anglo-Saxon — most of them being names of things
used in ordinary rural industry, and the con-
clusion drawn from this class of words, that, under
the Anglo-Saxon conquest and occupation, the
i
8 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
menial work of the country continued to be done
by the conquered Britons. There is an old yarn
about a whaling crew in the northern seas. The
cold was so intense that, when the seamen tried to
speak, the words were frozen hard as they came
from their lips and could be heard falling on the
deck. It must have been under the operation of
some similarly marvellous phenomenon, shall we say
the excessive coolness of the Anglo-Saxons, that
they were able to capture and preserve the vocabu-
lary of the fugitive Britons.
In my first lecture, I have attempted to trace
the somewhat academic origin and growth of the
modern Celtic consciousness. The Anglo-Saxon
consciousness has a very similar history. It begins
in learned circles of the reign of Elizabeth, when,
under the stimulus of the Anglican controversy
and the special patronage of Archbishop Parker,
a keen interest was aroused in the remains of Anglo-
Saxon literature. The Anglo-Saxon craze appears
to reach its high-water mark in some American
universities. I wonder if it will survive the war.
The compiler of the Cambridge Geography of
Lincolnshire has outdone Attila himself in extermi-
nation. He has completely wiped out five successive
populations to make Lincolnshire an exclusive
habitat for pure-blooded Low Germans.
Let us now return to the paragraph which sum-
marizes Sir John Rhys's theory of the peopling of
prehistoric Britain. Its first article is this : " Of
Palaeolithic man we can say nothing," and we pass
on to " his successors." The people who in-
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 39
habited Britain in the Early Stone Age are ex-
tirpated in a phrase of six words. It is a less
interesting, if less appalling fate than that which
overtook Parthalon's people in the Book of In-
vasions. They all died of a plague, and then
apparently the dead buried their dead in " the
plague-cemetery of Parthalon's people " — Tamh-
lacht Mhuinntire Parthaloin, now called Tallaght.
Let us take up another current handbook of
popular instruction, the volume entitled " Pre-
historic Britain," by Dr. Munro, in the Home
University Library series. The date of writing is
191 3; the same as the date of the Cambridge
volume on Lincolnshire. Dr. Munro discusses a
certain type of skulls found in various parts of
England. " All of these," he says (p. 234), " are
usually assigned to the Neolithic period (the later
Stone Age), and represent the prevailing type of
Englishman at the commencement of that period,
and probably also in the latter part of the Palaeo-
lithic period (the Early Stone Age). The skulls
mentioned may represent British men and women
living thousands of years apart. They clearly be-
long to the same race, which, for lack of a better,
we may name ' the river-bed race.' It is the
prevailing type in England to-day, and from
the scanty evidence at our disposal we may pre-
sume that it has been the dominant form many
thousands of years. . . . All trace of this race has
disappeared in Switzerland, whereas in England,
in spite of invasion of Saxon, Jute, Dane and
Norman, it still thrives abundantly." And further
4o THE CELTIC COLONISATION
he says (p. 235) : " According to Dr. Keith, Palaeo-
lithic blood is as rife in the British people oi to-day
as in those of the European continent — a con-
clusion," adds Dr. Munro, " which entirely meets
with the present writer's views."
Thus we see that, according to two eminent
British authorities, the race which inhabited
Britain in the Early Stone Age is still the preva-
lent type in that island, and has not been displaced
by Celt or Roman or Anglo-Saxon.
[It is, however, due to Dr. Sympson to say that
a year earlier, in 191 2, Dr. Munro, as he himself
observes, thought it " possible that (at the close
of the Early Stone Age) the Palaeolithic people would
shrink back to Europe and thus, for a time, leave a
gap in the continuity of human life in Britain "
(p. 236) ; and this, he says, was formerly the
general idea.]
The second population of Britain, " the people
of the Later Stone Age," says Dr. Sympson, " are
believed to have been largely of Iberian stock —
people, that is, from south-western Europe."
Before the discovery of " the law of gravity "
and of the operation of atmospheric pressure, the
old-fashioned scientists used to explain the rising
of water in a pump by saying that " Nature abhors
a vacuum." There is no doubt that when the
human mind becomes interested in any department
of knowledge and inquiry, it abhors a vacuum, and
this very laudable abhorrence often leaves the
mind a victim to almost any plausible and positive
effort to fill the vacuum. That is why such a very
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 41
precise and particular term as Iberian comes so
handy and brings so much satisfaction. Ethnolo-
gists, however, are agreed that in prehistoric times,
before the Celts had invaded south-western Europe,
there were already at least two very distinct races
in that region, and that both are still well repre-
sented in it. To speak of them as one race, and
to call that race Iberian, or to use the term
" Iberian " without distinguishing between them,
is merely filling the vacuum. Rhys has succeeded
in popularising the term " Iberian " as a name
for the population which occupied Britain and
Ireland before the first coming of the Celts, and he
has identified the Picts with this Iberian stock.
Politics, as well as war, is eager to turn to account
the services of science. There is, perhaps, no more
acute and more highly educated mind in England
of to-day than that of Mr. Arthur Balfour. I wish
to remark here that I am only dealing with certain
prevalent views about ancient history, and that I
am not arguing politically one way or the other.
But Mr. Balfour, in a written document supporting
certain political views of his with regard to the
political claims of a certain proportion of the Irish
people, gave it as a reason for rejecting the claims
in question, that the people of Ireland were in a
large degree of the Iberian race, descendants of the
primitive inhabitants during the Later Stone Age.
As for any political controversy on that point, I
have nothing at all to say. I should prefer to hear
it discussed between Mr. Balfour and the Portu-
guese ambassador to London. I do confess that
42 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
I am very curious to know what political conclusion
Mr. Balfour would derive from the scientific con-
clusion of Dr. Keith and Dr. Munro, that the pre-
vailing type in the English population of to-day
represents something still more primitive than Sir
John Rhys's Iberians, and is the survival of that
" river-bed race " who, in the words of Dr. Munro,
were " miserable shell-eaters."
In Sir John Rhys's theory, the Iberians of the
Later Stone Age are succeeded by the Goidels or
Gaels, of Celtic origin, who introduced the Bronze
Age in Britain and also in Ireland. Many
centuries after these came the Brythons, who
introduced the Iron Age, and drove the Gaels out
of the greater part of England. Dr. Sympson says
that the Brythons of that invasion drove the
Gaels out of Wales also, but for this he has no
warrant from Sir John Rhys. According to
Rhys, the Gaels continued to occupy the more
westerly parts of the island, even after the Roman
occupation.
Rhys's theory is still more elaborate. The three
divisions of Gaul with which Caesar begins the
account of his Gallic war are familiar to students
of Latin. Rhys equates his Neolithic Iberians of
Britain and Ireland with the Iberian element in
Aquitanian Gaul and Spain, his Bronze-Age Goidels
or Gaels with the Celtae of Caesar's Gallia Celtica,
and his Iron-Age Brythons of England with the
Belgae of Caesar's Gallia Belgica. He goes still
farther with this process of equation. Finding
that the consonant Q, where it occurs in the most
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 43
ancient forms of the Irish language, is replaced by
P in the corresponding forms of the British or
ancient Welsh language, he divides the Celts into
two linguistic groups which he labels the Q-Celts
and the P-Celts, and this division he makes to
correspond to the other classification into Celtae
and Belgae. In this way, he produces a most
interesting and symmetrical set of equations show-
ing the successive stages of population-change in
Britain.
First, there are the people of the Early Stone
Age, not named.
Secondly, the people of the Later Stone Age,
Iberians.
Thirdly, the people of the Bronze Age, Goidels
or Gaels, or Celtae, or Q-Celts.
Fourthly, the people of the Iron Age, Brythons
or Britons, or Belgae, or P-Celts.
For the present, let us pass away from the
Iberians, and consider the theory as it concerns
the Celtic migrations to Britain and Ireland. The
earliest known habitat of the Celts is the region to
the north of the Alps. The earliest definitely
known migration of the Celts is their southward
movement into Northern Italy. For this migra-
tion no earlier date than 600 b.c. is assigned.
The chief authority on the Bronze Age in Ireland
belongs to the late Mr. George Coffey. In his book
on the subject, " The Bronze Age in Ireland," he
hesitates to date the close of the Stone Age and the
introduction of the Copper Period as far back as
2500 B.C., which is the approximate date estimated
44 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
by Montelius. He puts the close of the Copper
Period between 2000 and 1800 b.c. and the first
period of the true Bronze Age between 1800 and
1500 b.c. Now, according to the theory prevalent
in Britain, the first Celtic invaders introduced the
Bronze Age, and these were the Gaels or Goidels.
If we accept this view and combine it with the
best archaeological authority, we shall conclude
that the Celts reached Ireland at least 1,200 years
before they are known to have entered Italy —
that they pushed out to a distant island in the
ocean more than a millennium before they occupied
the fertile and attractive plains which lay on their
very borders.
But, it may be objected, is it not possible that
the Celts of the Bronze Age had settled far away
from the Alps, on the coasts of north-western
Europe. Possible, perhaps, but what is the value
of mere possibilities ? We have seen it stated, and
the Cambridge handbook is only a specimen of
many publications that accept the view, stated
most definitely that the Gaelic branch of the Celts
introduced the Bronze Age to Britain and Ireland.
Surely something more than a mere possibility,
some shade or degree of probability should appear
in support of teaching so positive.
Now let us suppose that the dominant Bronze
Age population of Britain and Ireland were Celts,
as we are instructed to believe. Let us see what
would follow from this position. It would follow,
beyond question, that the peculiar art and works
of the Bronze Age in Britain and Ireland would be
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 45
mainly connected with the art and works of the
Bronze Age in those parts of Europe which were
likewise inhabited by Celts, rather than with other
parts of the Continent. I cannot find that any such
connection has been established or is believed in by
archaeologists.
The Brythons, we are told, were Belgic invaders
who introduced the Iron Age. Not the faintest
probability has been brought forward to establish
this very precise and positive doctrine. Coffey
places the close of the Bronze Age in Ireland and
the coming of iron into general use at about 350 b.c.
It is admitted that the Celts of central Europe were
in possession of iron about four centuries earlier.
This affords a most cogent argument that, during
the intervening four centuries, there was no such
social and industrial continuity between central
Europe and these islands as must undoubtedly
have been if both regions and the intervening parts
of the Continent had been occupied by Celtic
populations.
Again, if the Brythons or Belgic Celts, armed
with iron, were able to cross the channel and dis-
place the western Celts in Britain, it would surely
have been much easier for them to cross the Marne
and the Seine and displace the western Celts in
Gaul. The theory seems to presuppose that an
invasion was necessary to bring the Iron Age into
Britain, but the same theory would have it that
the Iron Age found its way into Ireland without
any invasion, for it leaves the Bronze Age Goidels
of Ireland to learn the use of iron in some more
46 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
pleasant way than by meeting iron-headed spears in
the hands of Belgic conquerors.
It is certain that after the withdrawal of the
Roman legions from Britain and after the Anglo-
Saxon invasions, there were Gaelic populations in
various parts of western Britain, in Argyllshire,
North and South Wales, and the Cornish peninsula.
Rhys supposed these to be the remnants of the
Gaelic population which, in his view, had occupied
all England during the Bronze Age. There is
sufficient evidence to show that they were fresh
settlements made by the Irish of Ireland during
and after the collapse of the Roman power in
Britain.
The " P and Q " element in the theory is equally
unsound. It is certain that, where the Irish Celts
retained the consonant Q in their language, the
British Celts replaced it by P. But no such dis-
tinction has been shown to have existed between
the language of the western Celts and the language
of the Belgic Celts on the Continent. Such
phonetic changes as the substitution of P for Q
spread in an almost mysterious way through lan-
guages. Their spread may be arrested by a geo-
graphical barrier so considerable as the Irish Sea,
but it was not at all likely to have been brought
to a stand by the waters of the Seine and Marne.
Nor can a phonetic change of the kind be taken as
necessarily corresponding to any racial or political
boundaries. In all the western dialects of Latin
which grew into the Romance languages, the initial
W of Germanic words was changed into GW, and
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 47
this identical change also took place in the Welsh
language, but riot in Irish. It took place in Spanish,
yet that does not appear to prove that the Welsh
are more near akin to the Spaniards than they are
to the Irish, nor, if history happened to be silent,
would it prove that Britain after the Roman
occupation was peopled by a Spanish invasion which
did not extend to Ireland.
There is one serious argument which has been ad-
duced in support of the view that Britain was in
Celtic occupation during the Bronze Age. The
existence of the word kassiteros, meaning " tin," is
traced in the Greek language as far back as about
900 B.C. There seems very good reason for think-
ing that kassiteros was a Celtic word adopted into
Greek. From this it is argued that the metal itself
came from the Celts to the Greeks, which seems
reasonable enough. It is further argued that the
Celts must accordingly have been in possession of
the country which produced the metal, and that
this country was Britain. The conclusion is that
the Celts were in occupation of Britain earlier than
900 B.C. It seems to me, however, that the fact,
granting it to be a fact, that the metal tin reached
the Greeks bearing a Celtic name is by no means
proof that it came from a country inhabited at the
time by Celts. If you visit the Zoological Gardens
in the Phoenix Park, you will be invited, before you
reach the entrance, to purchase for the delectation
of the monkeys a certain vegetable product, the
name of which, upon inquiry, you will learn to be
" pea-nuts." No one will be rash enough to deny
48 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
that " pea-nuts " is an English word. I have not
the least idea where pea-nuts grow, but I am quite
certain that the fact of their being named " pea-
nuts " is no proof that they grow in England or in
any English-speaking country. It is very good
proof, however, if proof were needed, that the trade
in pea-nuts has passed through the hands of English-
speaking people. If kassiteros is a Celtic word, as I
think it very probably is, it proves no more than
that, when the Greeks learned this Celtic name for
tin, the trade in tin passed towards them through
the hands of a Celtic-speaking people. If it was
British tin, which again is not improbable, I suggest
that it came to Greece by an overland route through
the Celtic region in Mid-Europe, probably along
the Rhine and the Danube or to the head of the
Adriatic. As a matter of fact, the Greek writer
Poseidonios states that in his time British tin
reached the Mediterranean by an overland route.
" It is brought," he says, " on horses through the
interior of the Celtic country to the people of
Massilia and to the city called Narbon."
There is, then, no evidence from archaeology,
history, or language, sufficient to establish even a
moderate degree of probability for the theory of a
Celtic occupation of Ireland or Britain during the
Bronze Age.
On the other hand, taking Coffey's approximate
date of 350 B.C. as the beginning of the period of
the general use of iron in Ireland, we shall, I think,
find sufficient evidence to warrant the belief that
the Celts reached Britain and Ireland about that
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 49
time, and not earlier, at all events not considerably-
earlier than that time.
Why not earlier ? I think we have conclusive
grounds for believing that the Celtic migrations to
Ireland cannot have begun very much, if at all,
sooner than the fourth century b.c. Before stating
these grounds, let us ask is there any discoverable
reason for supposing that the Gaels inhabited
Ireland from a time many centuries farther back.
I think it possible that those who in modern times
have entertained this view have been influenced
by the dates assigned to the Gaelic immigration
by Irish writers like the Four Masters and Keating.
These dates may be taken to correspond closely
enough with the estimates of archaeological
authorities for the commencement of the insular
Bronze Age, and, in the absence of evidence to the
contrary, it might be imagined that they were
founded on some basis of tradition.
It is not the habit of popular tradition to en-
cumber itself with chronology. There is no known
instance of ancient reckoning in years and periods
of years that is not based on some era, on the ac-
cepted date of some real or supposed event or events.
Nowhere in Irish tradition has any trace been found
of the existence of a native system of chronology
before the introduction of Christian learning. In
a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal
Irish Academy (July, 1910), I have shown how
the extant written chronology of the Irish Invasions
was first originated. The method was not unlike
Sir John Rhys's series of equations.
4
50 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
The Irish historian found in Latin histories a set
of definite epochs by which antiquity was divided :
the beginning of the Assyrian empire, the beginning
of the Median empire, the beginning of the Persian
empire, the usurpation of the Magi in Persia, and
the beginning of Alexander's empire. The chronology
of the Irish Invasions was settled by the easy process
of making each invasion coincide exactly in time
with each of these epochs. It is evident that no
traditional value can be attached to a chronological
system of this kind.
But, it may be objected, the very remoteness of
the time assigned to the Gaelic invasion by Irish
historians may reflect the popular belief in its remote-
ness. If that be so, then the earlier the historian
is the more near he is to the popular tradition. In
the paper just cited, I have shown that, in the earliest
known version of this chronology of the Invasions, the
Gaelic migration to Ireland coincides with the date
of Alexander's empire, 331 b.c. That is not very
far from the date assigned by Coffey for the end of
the Bronze Age in Ireland, about 350 b.c. For my
own part, I attach no traditional value to this co-
incidence, but if it pleases anyone to insist that Irish
prehistoric chronology has a traditional value, then
it must be conceded that tradition, as far as it is
valid, is altogether favourable to the view that the
Gaelic occupation of Ireland belongs to the end,
and not to the beginning, of the Bronze Age.
The migratory movements of the Celts on the
Continent have a bearing which cannot be ignored
on the time of the Celtic migrations to Britain and
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 51
Ireland. So far as I am aware, no modern investi-
gator has suggested that the Celts were not already
in the Iron Age at the time of their expansion into
Italy and Spain. Why then should it be imagined,
in the absence of any positive indication to the
purpose, that they occupied these islands more than
a thousand years earlier ?
If I am not mistaken, the archaeological evidence
is fairly decisive on the point. Archaeologists are
agreed in dividing the Celtic Iron Age into two main
periods, the Early Celtic or Hallstatt period, and
the Late Celtic or La Tene period, also called the
Marnian period. Each of these periods is taken to
consist roundly of about four centuries, and the
two periods on the Continent together correspond
roughly to the last eight or nine centuries before
the Christian Era. The Late Celtic period is
abundantly represented in the antiquities of Great
Britain and Ireland, but the objects that have
been found in either country belonging to the
Early Celtic Period are extremely rare. On this
head Coffey writes as follows (" Bronze Age in
Ireland," page 5) :
" It must be remembered that the Continental
Hallstatt period is not at present well repre-
sented in Great Britain and Ireland, and though,
under Hallstatt influence, certain Continental Iron-
Age types such as bronze caldrons, trumpets, round
shields, etc., found their way into Ireland, we cannot
as yet definitely separate this period from the end
of the Bronze Age."
In fact, " sporadic finds " arc all that represent
52 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
the Early Celtic period in Ireland, in Britain, and
even in the neighbouring regions of the Continent.
It will not be questioned that during the Hallstatt
period there was quite sufficient intercourse of trade
between the islands and the Continent to explain
these sporadic finds as importations.
The main fact is that, so far as archaeological
research has ascertained, the Early Celtic period of
the Iron Age is substantially absent from Ireland
and Britain, whereas the Late Celtic period is
abundantly represented. The Bronze Age in Ireland
comes down to about 350 B.C., and its Continental
affinities are not specially or notably Celtic. The
Bronze Age is succeeded in both Britain and Ireland
by the Late Celtic period of the Iron Age. The
inference, to my mind, is obvious, that the Celts
did not reach either Britain or Ireland until the Late
Celtic period, i.e., until the fourth or fifth century
B.C. This conclusion agrees well with all that is
known of the migratory movements of the Celts on
the Continent.
Let us now revert to the Belgic migrations and
consider their bearing on the matter of the Celtic
colonisation of Ireland. The Belgae, we have seen,
were a Celto-Germanic group which, according to
Caesar and Tacitus, occupied the lands stretching
from the Rhine to the Seine and Marne, and ex-
pelled from that region the Celtae proper. There
is no indication in what Caesar says that in his time
this movement was one of remote antiquity. In
fact, it is perfectly clear that it was a movement by
no means exhausted but still in active progress
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 53
when he took command of the Roman armies in
Gaul. The attempted migration of the Helvetii in
the first year of his command, b.c. 58, was a part of
this movement. A little later, Caesar had to repel
similar attempts of the Usipetes and the Tencteri
to cross the middle Rhine and settle in Gaul; and
these, according to Dio, were two Celtic peoples.
Still later, in the time of Augustus, the Ubii migrated
from the eastern to the western side of the Rhine.
From all this it is clear that the Belgic migration was
a continuous movement and that its force was far
from being spent at the time of the Roman conquest
of the country west of the Rhine. Caesar indicates
that there were powerful Belgic settlements west of
the Rhine during the great wandering movement of
the Cimbri and the Teutones, i.e., about half a
century before he began his Gallic campaigns. There
is nothing, however, to show that these settlements
were of earlier date than the second century b.c,
and I have seen no reason for thinking that they
could have been much earlier.
We now come to the question of the Belgic in-
vasion of Britain and its probable date. In Rhys's
theory, which is still accepted in England, the
Belgic invaders were the first to establish the Iron
Age in Britain. I claim to have shown good grounds
for believing that there was no Celtic occupation of
Britain before the Iron Age. I have already sug-
gested that, if this Celto-Germanic movement was
brought to a standstill on the banks of the Marne,
it was not likely to have succeeded in over-running
all England at the commencement of the Iron Age
54 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
in England. It will be seen that the Celto-Germanic
migrations extended not merely to Britain but also
to Ireland, and I suggest that if these Celto-German
Belgae had been the first people to come over
armed with iron, they would have made an easy con-
quest of Ireland as well as of England.
Let us look at the actual evidence of the Belgic
conquest of England. The sole historical witness
on the point is Julius Caesar, and this is his testimony :
" The interior of Britain is inhabited by those who
say that, according to tradition they are natives of
the island ; the maritime part by those who had
crossed over from Belgium [meaning Belgic Gaul]
for the sake of plunder, nearly all of whom are called
by the same names of states as the states from
which they originated and came thither, and having
made war they settled permanently there and began
to till the land."
From this it is clear that Caesar was informed of
two populations in Britain, one which was more
ancient and claimed to be native, another which
resulted from comparatively recent invasion. The
older population he assigned to the interior, the
more recent to the seaboard. What did Caesar
mean by the seaboard, the maritime part ? Sir John
Rhys has no difficulty in supposing that Caesar did
not mean the whole seaboard of Britain or if he did
mean it that he was not fully informed, for accord-
ing to Rhys's theory, the older population, which
he supposed to be Gaelic, continued to inhabit the
western seaboard of England and Wales. I also
agree that, whatever Caesar may have understood,
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 55
his statement about the maritime part must be
taken in a restricted sense, for no one believes that
the Celtic occupation in Caesar's time extended to the
seaboard of the northern parts of the island. I agree
also with the view that the traditional natives of
whom Caesar speaks probably included the earlier
Celtic colonists, whose settlements dated, according
to my argument, from the fourth century B.C., about
three centuries before Caesar's time. The more
recent maritime settlements, in that case, would
have been very recent in his time, and I think that
his statement leads us to that conclusion. These
later settlers on the seaboard, he tells us, are known
collectively by the same names as the states on the
Continent from which they originated. Now this is
a statement about a fact likely to be within Caesar's
personal knowledge. He was certainly well ac-
quainted with the names of the states of Belgic
Gaul, and there is no reason why he should have
said that populations retaining the same names
existed in his time on the British coast if he did not
know it to be a fact. His testimony on this point,
touching a matter within the scope of his personal
observation, is of higher evidential value than any
other part of the statement quoted. Caesar does not
himself name these states, but in the two following
centuries the names of the various states of Britain
are given by Ptolemy and other writers, and when we
compare these names with those of the states of
Belgic Gaul, we find that they coincide only in three
instances. These arc the Parish on the foreland
north of the Humber, the Atrcbatii in the district of
56 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
Berkshire, and the Belgae, eastward from these to
the Bristol Channel. There are some eighteen other
states enumerated in Britain, so that the coincidence
of names amounts to only one in seven, a proportion
which by no means corresponds to Caesar's words,
fere omnes, " nearly all." Except for the Parisii,
who occupied the promontory north of the Humber,
the states bearing names also found in Belgic Gaul
are located in southern England, south of the
Thames and the Bristol Channel. One of these,
and the most extensive, bears the general name
Belgae. which certainly does not suggest that the
remainder of the population was also Belgic. Now
the j'ere omnes, " nearly all," in Caesar's statement
cannot refer to such a small minority of the states
of Britain. Therefore, either Caesar was grossly in
error, in which case there is not much to be built on
his whole statement, or, if he stated the truth, which
is much more likely, then there were Belgic settle-
ments on the British seaboard in his time which had
lost their identity and passed into insignificance a
century later. This I take to be true, for it will be
seen that there were also Belgic settlements on the
Irish coast after Caesar's time and that as states
they had disappeared a few centuries later. It is
indeed quite possible that the Belgae so named, in
southern England, consisted of a collection of colonies
from various states of Belgic Gaul, whose names were
preserved in Caesar's time, but not one of which was
sufficiently populous or otherwise considerable to be
worth naming by later writers. There may have
been similar Belgic colonies on other parts of the
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 57
southern and eastern seaboard of Britain, none of
them considerable enough to be reckoned as a state.
At all events, I submit that Caesar's statement, far
from justifying the assumption of a Belgic conquest
on a grand scale, comprising the greater part of Celtic
Britain, is rather contrary to that assumption ; .also,
that it cannot reasonably be taken to refer to settle-
ments made in Britain at the close of the Bronze Age
three or four centuries before Caesar's time.
I have referred to the existence at one time of
Celto-Germanic settlements on the coast of Ireland.
The authority on the point is Ptolemy the geographer,
who flourished about a.d. 15c. In the south-eastern
angle of Ireland, the region of Wexford, he places
a population named Brigantes. There was a very
extensive state of this name in the north of Roman
Britain. Its territory extended across the country
from the North Sea to the Irish Sea. Whether the
Brigantes were or were not Belgic colonists in Britain
and Ireland, I find no means to determine. North
of the Brigantes, on the Leinster coast, Ptolemy
locates the Manapii. It can hardly be doubted
that these were a Belgic people, a branch of the
Menapii,1 whose territory on the Continent lay in
parts of the countries now called Belgium and
Holland. North of the Manapii on the Leinster
coast, Ptolemy places the Cauci. The topo-
graphy of Ireland from the time of Saint Patrick
onward is very copious and minute, but no trace
has been discovered in it of these three peoples in
1 The syllables en and an are found interchangeable in many
Celtic words, perhaps varying according to dialect,
58 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
the location ascribed to them by Ptolemy. It
seems to me possible that the Manapii may be repre-
sented in later times by a scattered people called
the Monaigh or Manaigh. Some of these dwelt in
eastern Ulster, near Belfast. Another branch of
them dwelt in the west of Ulster, and their name is
preserved in that of the county Fermanagh. It is
interesting to note that the Irish genealogists derive
the origin of both from Leinster. The only trace
known to me in Irish tradition of a people similarly
named on the south-eastern seaboard is found in
the name of Forgall Monach, the father of Emer
who was wife of Cu Chulainn. Who were the Cauci ?
Their name, in the Germanic form Chauci, was that
of a people of the German seaboard bordering on
the North Sea, who are described in Smith's Ancient
Geography as " skilful navigators and much ad-
dicted to piracy." Tacitus praises them for their
love of justice and says that, though ready for war,
they do not provoke war. It must be remembered,
however, that Tacitus was an extreme " pro-Ger-
man." Elsewhere, he tells of incursions made by
them against neighbouring peoples. We find, then,
two peoples, the Menapii and the Chauci, on the
Belgic and German shores of the North Sea, and
also on the Leinster shores of the Irish Sea ; and this
shows that in Ireland as well as in Britain there
were Celto-Germanic settlements about the be-
ginning of the Christian era
Caesar is the earliest known writer to give the
name Brittania to the island of Britain and the
name Brittani to its people. In earlier writings the
THE CELTIC COLONISATION 59
name of the island is Albion. In Caesar's term
Brittani, there seems to be a confusion of two
existing names, one Brittani, the name of a small
local population, the other Pretani which is recog-
nised to be a British and probably Gaulish equivalent
of the Irish name for the Picts, Cruithin, more
anciently Qreteni. Caesar fixed the name Brittani
in Latin usage, but the form Pretanoi continued
after his time to be used by Greek writers. Polybius
and Ptolemy apply the adjective Pretanic to the
two islands, and a still later geographical tract in
Greek says, " the Pretanic islands are two in number
one called Albion and the other Ierne." The
Pretanic islands means the Pictish islands, and
this name for them must have been taken from the
Gauls. It points to a time before the Celtic occupa-
tion, when the Pretani or Picts were still regarded
as the principal people of both islands. Here we
have another indication of the relatively late period
of the Celtic occupation. Caesar learned that the
natives of Britain had some curious marital customs
which he did not observe among the Gauls, including
the Belgae, on the Continent. A later writer,
Solinus, in whose time the customs of the Britons
were more intimately known to the Romans, ascribes
a similar custom, not to the Britons but to the in-
habitants of the Hebrides. Both accounts are based
on a well-established fact, recorded also in Irish
writings, the custom of matriarchy which was
peculiar to the Picts. Caesar's statement is readily
explained, if we understand that the Gauls, from
whom his information was likely to have been de-
60 THE CELTIC COLONISATION
rived, still spoke of Britain and Ireland as the Pictish
islands, and regarded this social custom, which was
foreign to them, as a Pictish custom. In the time of
Solinus, the Romans knew that the Picts were
limited to the northern parts of Britain, and the
story is accordingly told of the people of the
Hebrides. If a custom peculiar to the Picts was
spoken of in Caesar's time as common to the in-
habitants of Britain, and if Britain and Ireland were
then still regarded in Gaul as Pictish islands, I sug-
gest that this was because the Celts of Gaul did not
look upon the two islands as having been mainly
occupied from any remote period by a people akin
to themselves.
The conclusions which I wish to draw in this
lecture are : that neither Britain nor Ireland was
colonised by the Celts until the Late Celtic period,
corresponding to the period which followed the
Bronze Age in these countries ; that the Belgic or
Celto-Germanic settlements were of still later date,
and extended to Ireland as well as Britain ; that the
Belgic settlements in England were not so wide-
spread as they are represented in modern British
writers ; and that the distinction between the
ancient Gaels and Britons does not correspond to
the distinction between the Celtae and Belgae of
Gaul in Caesar's time.
III. THE PRE-CELTIC
INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
IN the second lecture, I remarked how the name
Iberians has been adopted to fill a vacuum as
regards the naming of the population which
occupied Great Britain and Ireland before the Celtic
immigration. This kind of naming is unscientific
and misleading. It implies that the ancient popu-
lation thus artificially named can be identified as a
branch of the population which actually bore that
name in Greek and Latin literature. From this
implied identification other equally unwarranted
assumptions are likely to follow. Rhys expended a
vast amount of study, ingenuity, and argument in
the effort to show that very definite traces of a
language akin to modern Basque survived in ancient
Ireland and Scotland. On this point it may be re-
marked that we do not even know that the Basque
population was originally Iberian. Ethnologists are
agreed that, apart altogether from the Celtic migra-
tions, there must have been a mixture of very dis-
tinct races in south-western Europe in prehistoric
times. If there was a mixture of races, there was
also no doubt more than one language, and if the
Basque language has been able to survive the con-
quests of Celt and Roman and Goth, and last until
our own time it may also well have survived the
61
62 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
extinction of other languages in south western
Europe.
So far as the Iberian theory is not mere vacuum-
filling, it appears to rest on a single passage of
Tacitus. He is describing the Silures, a British
people whose territory was in the south of Wales,
and who offered a very fierce resistance to the
Romans. " The swarthy complexion of the Silures,"
he says, " the prevalence of curly hair among them,
and their position over against Spain, argue that
the ancient Iberians must have crossed over [from
Spain] and occupied their territory." We have
often heard the occurrence of similar physical traits
in the west of Ireland ascribed to a more recent
Spanish mixture. It all amounts to this, which Irish
tradition bears out, and which nobody questions,
that these western isles contain descendants of an
ancient dark-complexioned population, probably
already of mixed race, which existed in western
Europe before the arrival of the fair-complexioned
people, whose distinctive features appear by all in-
dications to have originated in the lands forming
the basin of the Baltic Sea.
If I am right in suggesting that the Greeks adopted
from the Gauls the name Pretanic Islands, as a joint
name for Britain and Ireland, it follows that the
Gauls themselves supposed the chief population of
both islands, before the Celtic occupation, to have
been the Pretani, i.e., the Picts. During the early
historical period, the Picts are chiefly known as the
people of the northern mainland of Scotland, north
of the Grampian mountains. The Venerable Bede
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 63
speaks of their language as still existing in his time,
the early part of the eighth century, and as being
distinct from the Irish and British languages.
We have abundant and clear evidence that the
Picts were at one time widely spread throughout
Ireland. Early Irish writings recognise the existence,
in their own time, of sections of the population
known to be Pictish. The Picts were especially
numerous in Ulster. They are described as a sub-
ject population, spread over the whole of ancient
Oriel, which at that time comprised the counties of
Armagh, Monaghan, Tyrone and the greater part
of Derry and Fermanagh. There was also a large
Pictish element in Connacht, and there were smaller
groups, traditionally known to be Pictish, in Munster,
Meath, and various parts of Leinster. In Ulster,
the ruling or dominant population of a large belt of
territory, extending from Carlingford Loch to the
mouth of the Bann, is named in the Annals both by
the Latin name Picti, and its Irish equivalent
Cruithni or Cruithin, which is the Irish form corre-
sponding to Pretani. They continue to be so named
until the eighth century, when apparently their
Pictish identity ceased to find favour among them-
selves. It may be observed, however, .that, while some
proper names which contain non-Gaelic elements
survived in ancient Ireland, no trace has been dis-
covered of any language other than Gaelic con-
tinuing to be spoken in any part of Ireland within
the traditional memory of the people. From this it
will appear that the Gaelic language had become
universal throughout Ireland some centuries before
6± PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
Irish history and traditions began to be written.
The earliest writing of Irish history still extant be-
longs to the closing years of the sixth century.
In the case of the Picts, we find an interesting
example of the method that recommended itself to
the learned folk of ancient Ireland when they desired
to fill the vacuum. In the Irish " Nennius," the
Picts are said to have come of the stock of the
Geloni, a people of Scythia mentioned by Herodotus.
The explanation of this curious piece of history is
found in a passage of Virgil, in which he speaks of the
picti Geloni, i.e., the painted Geloni. They were
supposed to dye their skin with some colouring
stuff. In one of the versions of the wanderings of
the Gaels before they reached Ireland, instead of
sailing the Mediterranean they marched from Scythia
across Europe. On their way they fraternised with
a people called the Agathyrsi, who dwelt in Thrace.
They made a compact with these people, with the
result that later on a body of the Agathyrsi, having
taken the name of Picts, followed in the track of the
Gaels and came to Ireland. On their way they
passed through a part of Gaul, where some of them
remained, and were afterwards known as Pictavi.
From these is named Poitou in France. Virgil is at
the back of this story also. In a verse of the JEneid,
he speaks of the picti Agathyrsi, " the painted
Agathyrsi."
From these instances, we can see how closely Virgil
was read in the ancient Irish schools. We can also
see from what materials our ancient scholars could
weave their legends of antiquity. And later on we
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 65
shall see how similar materials and a similar pro-
cess enabled the Latin scholars of ancient Ireland to
construct their accounts — for they have more than
one account — of the origin and early wanderings of
the Gaelic people.
Another considerable element of the ancient popu-
lation was the Iverni, as they were called by Ptolemy
in the second century. Ptolemy locates them in the
middle of southern Ireland. The Irish form of their
name in the time of our most ancient writings was
'Erainn, more familiar in later usage in the ac-
cusative form 'Erna. They have been sometimes
called Erneans in English. In the older heroic
literature, the Iverni or 'Erainn are the chief people
of Munster. In an important early tract, which
gives the names and distribution of the principal
subject communities throughout Ireland, the Sen-
Erainn are placed in the district of Luachair, i.e., in
the north of Kerry and the adjoining parts of the
counties of Limerick and Cork. The peoples
enumerated in this tract are regarded as being
not of Gaelic origin. Sen-Erainn means the old
or original Iverni, and the term is used to dis-
tinguish them from others also called Erainn, who
were of free status and are attached by the genealo-
gists to the Gaelic stock. My opinion is that the
dominant element in every part of Ireland during the
historical period, including the dynastic families and
higher nobility, was Celtic. Otherwise, if we suppose
that large communities of pre-Celtic inhabitants con-
tinued to exist under rulers and nobles of their own
stock down to medieval times, the universality of
5
66 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
the Gaelic language as far back as tradition reaches
would be hard to account for. I suppose that, when
a Celtic dynasty and nobility became established
over a non-Celtic commonalty, the old name of the
community became attached to them all. So we find
that Giraldus calls the nobles who invaded Ireland
in his time Angli, giving them the name of the
subject people over whom they had ruled in England,
though they had been barely a century in England
and some of them not nearly so long. I think the
same is probably true of the free and dominant
Picts in the north-east, i.e., that they consisted of a
common population of Pictish stock ruled by kings
and nobles of Celtic origin.
Not only in Munster but also in Connacht, Meath
and Ulster, our ancient genealogists recognise the
existence of Ivernian communities. Rhys put for-
ward the view that the Iverni were only a southern
division of the Picts, but this view cannot well be
reconciled with Irish tradition, which seems always
to distinguish between Picts and Iverni, and recog-
nises Picts in southern Ireland and Iverni in northern
Ireland. For example, in county Antrim, Dal Riada,
the north-eastern portion, was Ivernian, and the rest
of the county for the most part was Pictish. We
are on safer ground in regarding the Picts and the
Iverni as two fairly distinct peoples.
From the Iverni the whole island took the names
by which it was known to the ancient Irish, the
Britons, the Greeks, the Romans, and therefore no
doubt to the Celts in the neighbouring parts of the
Continent. But we have seen that the original
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 6y
Iverni, in Irish tradition, were a remnant of the
pre-Celtic population. Ireland therefore was named
by the Celts, as Britain and Ireland were jointly
named, from an older population which the invading
Celts found in possession. The Romans changed
Iverni into Hiberni, through a process known as
popular etymology. Hiberni suggested to them
the Latin word meaning " wintry." Though Ireland
was known to some Latin writers to be by no means
a wintry country, but quite the contrary, this
verbal resemblance naturally caught the imagination,
and one Latin poet actually speaks of " glacialis
Ierne," ice-cold Ireland.
The Irish and Welsh names of Ireland are not
directly taken from the name of the Iverni, but
evidently from an older form which must have
been Iveri. Both the Irish name 'Eire (formerly
'Eriu) and the Welsh Iwerddon go back to an older
name Iverio, and this older name is actually found
in the writings of Saint Patrick in the slightly dis-
guised Latin form Hiberio. The Irish genealogies
corroborate this view that the name Iverni is itself
a derivative from an older name Iveri. A common
feature in genealogical lore is the tracing of a
people's descent from an ancestor of the same
name. It is found in the Bible, in the genealogies
of the Arabs, in the legends of the Greeks, and in
our own legends, for example, when the Gaels are
said to have taken their name from an ancestor
named Gaedheal Glas. In like manner all the
pedigrees of the Erainn or Iverni in the Irish
genealogies are traced to an ancestor named Iar.
68 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
Iar is a word of two syllables, and represents an
older form Iveros. From this and from the Irish
and Welsh names of Ireland, I infer that the people
called Iverni were at a still earlier period called
Iveri. The change in the name of a people from a
simple to a derivative form is of very common
occurrence. Thus, instead of Angles, people now
say the English, instead of Scots, the Scotch ; in
Irish, the names for the English and the Welsh have
undergone a similar change ; and so with numerous
other names in many countries and languages.
Rhys derives the old Celtic name of Ireland, Iverio,
from a word cognate with the Greek piaira, meaning
" fat," and understands Iverio to mean the fat, i.e.,
the fertile country. This explanation, however,
will not hold good if, as I think, the name Iverio
means the country of the Iveri, unless we suppose
the name Iveri to be Celtic and to mean " the fat
people ! ' But we have seen that, in Irish tra-
dition, the original Iverni were a pre-Celtic people,
and we are under no necessity to discover a Celtic
origin for their name.
For my part, granted that this people bore the
name Iveri, changed afterwards into the adjectival
form Iverni, I see no serious difficulty in supposing
that this name was a local variant of Iberi, the name
by which the people of Spain were known to the
ancient Greeks and Romans.
Authorities on Irish archaeology are agreed that
the Early Stone Age is not exemplified in the most
ancient remains of human occupation that have been
discovered in Ireland. The explanation for this is
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 69
supplied by the geologists. Some thousands of
years ago, the conditions of perpetual snow and ice
that at present prevail in the Arctic regions ex-
tended much farther into the temperate zones. The
northern parts of Europe were covered with per-
petual ice. Ireland lay entirely within this glacial
zone. The southern limit of the ice ran through the
south of England and eastward across the Con-
tinent. The time during which this southward ex-
tension of ice lasted is called the Glacial Period.
Already before that time, Europe was inhabited by
man, and the Early Stone Age or Palaeolithic Age is
held to have preceded the Glacial Period.
The condition of Ireland during that period was
like the present condition of Greenland, under a
heavy covering of ice formed by the accumulation
of snow. By its own weight the ice kept moving
from the mountains into the valleys and plains, and
from the higher land level into the surrounding seas.
Under its moving action, the solid rock-formation of
the mountains was ground down and rounded off
and scooped into hollows, and great sheets and
ridges of stones, gravel, sand and boulder-clay were
accumulated on the slopes and low grounds. It is
evident that any traces of human life and habitation
that may have existed before this process were not
likely to be found after it.
The consequence is that the earliest traceable
population of Ireland was Neolithic, i.e., belonged to
the Late Stone Age. By the Stone Age is meant
that time in which the use of metals was still un-
known, and in which the most durable material of
;o PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
implements used by men was stone. Needless to
say, they also used wood, bone, and any other
material that came to hand. The Late Stone Age
is distinguished from the Early Stone Age by the
use of polished and finely shaped stone implements.
In England, according to eminent authorities
already quoted, the descendants of Palaeolithic Man
survived and are still the prevalent type. In Ire-
land, they did not survive, and whatever Palaeo-
lithic blood is in our veins to-day is due to immigra-
tion. Regarding the Neolithic population of Ireland,
whatever is to be said belongs rather to archaeology
than to history. In Britain, we are told, the Neo-
lithic population consisted of at least three distinct
races, one which had remained there from Palaeo-
lithic times, and two new races, or rather a mixture
of two races, which came in from the Continent.
One sees how futile it is to attempt to fix upon such
a population a name like Iberian. It is assuming a
knowledge which does not belong to us.
The Late Stone Age was followed by the Bronze
Age, but between the two came a transitional period
now generally recognised, in which copper replaced
stone as the most durable material of manufacture.
This Copper Period is well exemplified in Ireland.
Bronze, the distinctive material of the Bronze Age,
was made by adding a small proportion of tin to
copper, producing a metal very much superior to
pure copper for the manufacture of tools and
weapons. So far as I have been able to learn, the
presence of tin in quantities that could be worked
is unknown in Ireland. There seems to have been
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 71
no scarcity of bronze, and from this I conclude that
during the Bronze Age, Ireland had an import trade
in tin, and probably therefore an export trade in
copper or some other product. This is the earliest
evidence of Irish commerce. Bronze cannot have
been the material of ordinary industry, nor, unless
the inhabitants were very unwarlike, can bronze
have been the material of ordinary weapons of war.
It is a very durable material, almost unaffected by
the action of the elements during centuries.
Numerous as the finds of bronze tools and weapons
have been in Ireland, they should have been im-
measurably more numerous if tools and weapons of
bronze had been in every man's hands throughout
the Bronze Age, which, according to Coffey, lasted
from about i8co B.C. to about 3^0 b.c In fact,
Sir Robert Kane, in his work on " The Industrial
Resources of Ireland," in a footnote regarding the
once extensive copper mines of the Danes' Island on
the Waterford coast, supplies an interesting proof
of what otherwise we should reasonably expect to
be true, that the ordinary working population of the
Bronze Age continued to use the implements of the
preceding Stone Age.1 Weapons and tools of bronze
must therefore have been in the hands chiefly of a
more opulent class than the general population.
Gold was also used for ornaments, and Ireland is
noted for the abundance of its gold ornaments dating
from the Bronze Age. Native Irish gold was worked
from very remote times, but it is also certain that
1 "In the abandoned workings, antique tools have been found, stone
hammers and chisels and wooden shovels."
72 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
in the early Christian period gold was brought to
Ireland by Oriental merchants in exchange for other
products of the country. Sickles of bronze bear
witness to the tillage of the soil for corn during this
period. It will be seen that there was a mixture of
various peoples in Ireland at the time. From this
we might expect that there were various degrees
of civilisation, and so the remains of Bronze Age
sepulchres indicate. The simpler and ruder forms
of these are found all over the country. The highly
elaborate sepulchres of the region of the lower Boyne,
its tributary the Blackwater, and the lower Liffey,
are indicative of a relatively high civilisation in
those parts, the ancient territory of Bregia. Along
with these we may take into account an old Gaelic
tradition. It tells that when the Gaels came to
Ireland many of the fertile plains had still to be
cleared of forest, but there was one plain, Magh
n-Ealta, stretching northward from Dublin, which
was called the Ancient Plain and was already clear
of forest before they arrived. Its name is inter-
preted as meaning " the plain of the flocks of birds,"
by which we may understand that it was frequented
by the various kinds of gregarious birds which we
see in our own time hovering around the plough,
rooks, jackdaws, starlings and seagulls. It is worth
noting that towards the opposite border of the same
region of Bregia there is another plain of the same
name, still represented in the name of Moynalty
village, about four miles north of Kells and on the
Moynalty river, which is a tributary of the Meath
Blackwater.
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 73
I shall here mention an additional indication that
the Gaels were not in occupation of Ireland during
the Bronze Age. In ancient Gaelic tradition, the
great chambered tumuli of the Boyne are taken to
be the tombs or the dwellings of an earlier race.
We pass on now to consider some of the evidence
supplied by our ancient literature regarding the
population which inhabited Ireland before the coming
of the Gaels, that is, according to the conclusions I
have already drawn, before the Iron Age. The
Gaels occupied Ireland as a conquering and dominant
people. During the early centuries of their occupa-
tion, whatever language or languages had been
spoken in Ireland before them completely disap-
peared as languages, leaving no doubt some traces
behind in the names of places, etc., and probably
also influencing to some degree the Gaelic language
itself. But for a long time there was nothing like a
complete fusion of the old and the new population.
The older population remained, not as a mere pro-
miscuous swarm of subject folk, but preserving in
a large measure its ancient organisation and sub-
divisions. This state of things continued during the
early centuries of Christianity in Ireland.
Most of the manuscript evidence concerning these
ancient communities is still awaiting collection, pub-
lication, and study. Some of it is to be found here
and there in the old genealogical tracts, which are
still unpublished, and some in the annals. There is
a good deal of very ancient material on the subject
quoted in the introductory part of the great Book of
Genealogies by Dubhaltach Mac Fir-Bhisigh. There
74 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
is one particular tract dealing specially with the
names and topography of these ancient subject com-
munities. It exists in a number of MSS., and has
been printed by Craigie in the Revue Celtique from
a single MS. of the Edinburgh collection. From
internal evidence I think that this tract is of not
later date than the eighth century., I mention
these facts to show how much has still to be done
before we can claim a near approach to full and
accurate knowledge of the existing evidence.
There are, however, some larger divisions of the
ancient population, spread over wide areas and
comprising in each instance several of the smaller
named groups ; and about these larger divisions
there is sufficient information to warrant the essaying
of some account of them. Chief among these may
be reckoned the Picts. The tract just mentioned
shows that there were subject communities of the
Picts around Cruachain, the seat of the Connacht
kings, and all over Mid-Ulster, from Meath to Loch
Foyle.
Along the lower part of the Shannon, in the
counties of Galway, Tipperary and Limerick, there
was an ancient population known as Fir Iboth, or by
the adjectival name Ibdaig. These names contain
the Irish equivalent of the name by which the western
islands of Scotland were known to Greek and Latin
writers of the first and second centuries of the Chris-
tian era, i.e., Ebudae. The modern name Hebrides
originated in a mistaken writing of this name, and it
is curious that the most celebrated island of the
group got its English name, " Iona," in the same
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 75
way. Ptolemy makes these islands belong to Ire-
land not to Britain. Solinus says the inhabitants
in his time grow no crops and live on fish and milk.
It is possible that an ancient branch of this popula-
tion preserved their identity by forming, so to
speak, a fisherman caste on the banks of the Shannon.
There is evidence that something like the Hindu
caste system, in so far as it is linked with the occupa-
tions o: the people, existed among the descendants
of the Pre-Celtic population in Ireland. One of these
subject communities is known by the variant names
Tuath Semon, Semonrige, Semrige, and Semaine.
Each of these names contains the Irish word seim,
meaning a rivet, and may be translated the Rivet-
folk. This people dwelt in the Desi territory of
Munster, where those copper-mines are found which
were worked in the Bronze Age by miners using
tools of stone and wood. Taking the facts together,
it seems reasonable to infer that the Semonrige tribe
were the descendants of the ancient copper-smiths of
the district, and that they obtained their name from
the commodity in which they paid their tribute to
the dominant Celts, for the name is Celtic. It should
be well noted here that these Irish metal-workers are
presented to us in early Irish records as descendants
of the pre-Gaelic population ; whereas, as we have
seen, the current theory in British archaeology as-
sumes that the occupation of working bronze was
distinctive of the Gaels themselves and was intro-
duced by them.
Another copper-producing district is that of Bearra
in West Munster, bordering on Berehaven. Here in
76 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
ancient times dwelt another " rent-paying " com-
munity bearing the significant name of Ceardraighe,
" the Smith Folk." There was also either a branch
of this folk or another community of the same name
situate around the ancient seat of the Munster kings,
Teamhair Luachra, a suitable locality in which to find
constant employment for a caste of workers in bronze.
According to the tract on the Rent-paying Com-
munities, all over the parts of Munster which, in
historical time, were regarded as being specifically
Ivernian, including large districts in the present
counties of Tipperary, Limerick, Cork and Kerry,
there was distributed one of these subject com-
munities which bore the name Tuath Cathbarr, i.e.,
" the people of helmets." Since there is no record
and no likelihood that this subject people were a
fighting caste, as undoubtedly some of the subject-
communities were in other parts of Ireland, we may
infer that they got their name from being employed
in the manufacture of battle-gear.
I come now to the most celebrated of all the pre-
Celtic folks that inhabited Ireland, the Fir Bolg. In
including these among the industrial castes of ancient
Ireland, I claim the support of the oldest written
traditions, which clearly tell that the Fir Bolg, or
" Men of Bags," obtained that name from an in-
dustrial connection with leathern bags. The story
of the origin of the name, as found in the Book of
Invasions, Keating's History, etc., is no doubt well-
known. They migrated, we are told, from Ireland
to Greece (Greece in ancient Irish writings means
the Eastern Empire). There, being outlanders, ac-
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 77
cording to the ideas of our forefathers, they did not
obtain the local franchises and became a serf people.
Their occupation was to carry sand and earth in
leathern bags and spread a soil over rocky places,
as is still done in parts of Ireland, to make fertile
land. From this occupation, they were named Fir
Bolg. They afterwards used the hides in which
they worked to construct ships in the ancient fashion,
and in these ships they escaped back to Ireland and
liberty.
Quite a different version of the story is found in
the Book of Lecan, a book which contains a great
miscellany, awaiting most desirable publication, of
excerpts from older writings, especially excerpts of
material which does not accord with what one may
call the received teachings of later times on matters
of Irish legend and tradition. This particular passage
contains what is doubtless the oldest extant account
of the Fir Bolg. Its language, in my opinion, is of
not later date than the eighth century. Like the
accepted story, it says that they were a branch of the
race of Nemed, but unlike the accepted story, it does
not say that they left Ireland in a body and came
back to it in a body after many years. On the
contrary, it tells us that they continued to inhabit
Ireland all the time, but carried on a particular
trade with the eastern world. The manner of their
trade was this. They put Irish earth into leathern
bags and exported it to the east, where they sold it
to the Greeks to be spread on the ground around
their cities as a protection against venomous reptiles.
From this trade they got the name of Bagmen.
78 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
Dubhaltach Mac Fir Bhisigh, in the unpublished
introduction to his Book of Genealogies, tells us that
Fir Bolg was the specific name of a particular sec-
tion of the pre-Gaelic population, but became ex-
tended in common usage so as to be applied to the
whole of that population. Of this statement we
have abundant corroboration, with details enabling
us to locate the abode of various sections of the
Bag-folk properly , so called. One section, called
Bolgraighe, was the principal Rent-paying com-
munity of the ancient Tir Conaill, a territory of much
smaller extent than the Tir Conaill of later times.
Another section inhabited the district of Sliabh
Badbgna (Slieve Baune) in the east of County Ros-
common, where, I have been told, popular tradition
still recognises their descendants. Another section
dwelt in the district of Cong in the south of County
Mayo, another in Sliabh Eachtgha (Aughty) in the
south of County Galway.
The manufacture of bags from hide or leather was
no doubt not a highly esteemed occupation, and it
was probably out of contempt that the name Fir
Bolg was extended to the whole conquered popula-
tion by the Celtic ascendancy. The subject com-
munities produced not only skilled artisans but men
of great piety and learning in early Christian times.
Saint Mo-Chuarog, for example, who is called Sapiens,
" the Learned," and who introduced a reform into
the Irish chronography of his time, was a member
of the Rivet-folk, the Seamonraighe of the Deisi.
But the general attitude of the Gaels towards the
older population was undoubtedly disdainful. The
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 79
passage quoted by Dubhaltach from " an ancient
book " is familiar to many in O'Curry's translation :
" Every one who is black-haired, who is a tattler,
guileful, tale-telling, noisy, contemptible ; every
wretched, mean, strolling, unsteady, harsh and in-
hospitable person ; every slave, every mean thief,
every churl, every one who loves not to listen to
music and entertainment, the disturbers of every
council and every assembly, and the promoters of
discord among people — these are the descendants of
the Firbolgs, of the Galians, of the Liogairne, and of
the Fir Domhnann in Eirinn. But the descendants
of the Fir Bolg are the most numerous of all these."
This is fine old ascendancy talk, the sort of lan-
guage that has served in many ages to justify the
oppression of liberty ; and there is plenty of evidence
that the older population was in some instances
subjected to very harsh treatment — in some in-
stances, not in all, nor were the ancient communities
always spoken of in such terms of contempt.
Among them, besides industrial groups or castes,
there were also others which appear to have followed
the profession of arms. Cu Chulainn, according to
one tradition preserved by Dubhaltach, belonged to
a non-Gaelic tribe called Tuath Tabhairn, and it
will be remembered that he is once described as " a
small dark man." " Thou little elf ! " his charioteer
used to call him, to provoke him to do his utmost
in the fight. His rival, Fear Diadh, was a noble of
the Fir Domhnann from Connacht, and the Fir
Domhnann still existed as a subject community in
the times to which the tract on the Rent-paying
8o PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
Folks has relation. They are located in a stretch of
country comprising the greater part of the counties
of Mayo and Sligo. In the eastern Midlands, from
the Shannon to the Irish Sea, the same tract places
another of these ancient tribes named the Luaighni —
a name still preserved in that of the barony of Lune
in Meath. These are represented as forming the
chief fighting force of the kings of North Leinster in
the heroic period. When Conchobhar sets out to
exact reparation for the Tain and the invasion of
Ulster, he is met by the forces of the Luaighni at
Rosnaree on the Boyne, his heroes one after another
are worsted in the fight, his army almost routed, and
it is only when their king has fallen in single combat
that the Luaighni abandon the field. In the curious
story of the revolution brought about by the revolt
of the Rent-paying tribes against the oppressive rule
of the Gaelic nobility, it is the chief of the Luaighni,
Cairbre of the Cat's Head, who becomes king of
Ireland for twenty years.
Still more remarkable is the tribute of the ancient
saga to the valour and discipline of the Galians. In
the ninth century the Galians are still described by
the poet Mael Muru as one of the outstanding sections
of the population who are not Gaels. The tract on
the Rent-paying Folks divides them into three
tuatha and gives the location of each. They inhabited
the northern parts of old Leinster, in the present
counties of Wicklow, Kildare, and King's County.
The story of the Tain tells how the Galians ex-
celled all the other troops that joined Medb on her
march from Cruachain for the invasion of Ulster.
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND Si
" This enterprise," said the warlike queen, " will be
a barren one for all of us, except for one force alone,
the Galians of Leinster." " Why blamest thou
these men ? " said her consort. " Blame them we do
not," replied Medb. kt What good service then have
they done that they are praised above the rest ? "
said Ailill. " There is reason to praise them," said
Medb. " They are splendid soldiers. When the rest
are beginning to make their pens and pitch their
camps, the Galians have already finished setting up
their booths and huts. When the rest are still build-
ing booths and huts, the Galians have finished pre-
paring their food and drink. While the others are
getting ready their food and drink, the Galians have
done eating and feasting, and their harps are playing
for them. When all the others have finished eating
and feasting, by that time the Galians are asleep.
And even as their servants and thralls are dis-
tinguished above the servants and thralls of the Men
of Erin, so shall their heroes and champions be dis-
tinguished above the heroes and champions of the
men of Erin on this hosting. It is folly then for
the rest to go, for the Galians will enjoy the victory."
And in fear and jealousy the queen declared that
nothing would please her but to fall upon the Galians
and destroy them. Her husband expostulated.
" Shame on thy speech ! ' he said, " a woman's
counsel, for no better reason than because they
pitch their tents and make their pens so promptly
and unwearily." And Fergus interposing swore that
he and his Ulstcrmen would stand by the Galians to
the death. The Galians, he said, are but one division
82 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
in eighteen of our army. Even so, we shall take care
that they shall be no danger to us. And he took and
divided the forces of the Galians among the rest so
that not five of them were in one place together.
Of this Galian stock came Fionn and Oisin and
Oscar and all their kindred, according to some ac-
counts. They were of the sept Ui Tairsigh, one of
the three folks who, says Mael Muru, are not of the
Gaedhil. This sept dwelt at Drumcree in the barony
of Delvin in Westmeath. Their name and existence
as a sept is probably not so ancient as the time of
Fionn, but we may suppose that in their own time
they claimed descent from the family of Fionn, from
Clann Bhaoisgne.
Other possible instances of occupation-castes are
found in the names Cechtraighe " plough-folk," Cor-
braighe and Corbetrighe "chariot-folk' (Carbanto-
rigion, the name of a town of the Selgovae in southern
Scotland), Gruthraighe " curd-folk," Lusraighe
" herb-folk," Medraighe " weight or balance-folk,"
Rosraighe " linseed-folk," Rothraighe " wheel-folk,"
Sciathraighe " shield-folk."
The tinker clans of recent times in Ireland and
Scotland may well be survivals of some of these
ancient industrial communities.
It is certain that ancient tribes remained in every
part of Ireland after their conquest by the Gaels, and
retained in some measure during the early Christian
period in Ireland their ancient organisation, often
under their own ancient lines of chiefs. 'This is
matter of strictly historical record, and if any similar
records had existed and were still extant in Britain,
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 8
:>
we should hear less of the cheap and easy history of
successive populations, each of them completely ex-
terminating those that inhabited the land before
them. Writers on history would not find themselves
flatly contradicting ethnologists on the strength of
their own gratuitous assumptions, when ethnologists
say that the modern English race is largely composed
of descendants of the primitive inhabitants.
On this subject of primitive races, there is one
point which, in passing, I desire to bring out. One
of the founders of the modern study of ethnology,
Quatrefages, has given a good illustration of a sort
of scientific method akin to some that we have had
already under consideration. A glance at the map
showed him that Ireland represented a north-
western limit of the likely spread of the human
race in remote times. The migratory movements
of antiquity were thought to have, generally speak-
ing, a western trend in Europe. Ireland besides
was an island, which in the distant past must have
been reached through Britain. Conclusion : Ireland
was the place in which to look for primitive European
types, and in Ireland the surest place to find the
primitive types must be the extreme north-western
part. Accordingly, M. Quatrefages packed his port-
manteau in Paris and labelled it for Belmullet. This
kind of scientific quest is usually successful. It
succeeds after the manner of the schoolboy who,
before entering into the intricacies of a question in
algebra, takes the precaution of providing himself
with the answer from the end of the book. M.
Quatrefages found the Mayo seaboard swarming with
84 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
a primitive race of men. I do not propose to examine
his discoveries in detail. Anyone who is curious
about them is referred to the late Dr. Hogan's little
book on " The Irish People," which is the source of
my information. In a paper contributed by me to
the Royal Irish Academy's " Clare Island Survey,"
on the Place-names and Family-names of Clare
Island, I showed that nearly half of the families now
living there could be traced to an earlier home in
distant parts of Ireland. I pointed out that in
remote ages, the parts of the sea that adjoin the
land and the parts of the land that adjoin the sea
must have afforded the freest highway for movements
of population. It must have been so in the glacial
period and during its decline, when the scanty
population must have lived a life like that of the
modern Eskimos who travel long journeys in their
canoes and change their habitation at will. It must
have been so in the barren period that succeeded the
age of ice, when animal and vegetable food was
much more abundant on the sea-shore than inland.
And it must have been so in the succeeding forest
period, when the inland regions became difficult to
traverse. In fact, until men became tillers of the
ground and road-makers, the sea-edge was their
grand highway. Hence it is that the population of
the seaboard is always the most mixed and variable.
The place to look for the least movement and least
variation is inland, especially in deeply wooded,
swampy or mountain areas, which offer the least
attraction to newcomers and from which an older
population is hardest to dislodge. And this, I think,
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 85
is also the lesson of ethnological research conducted
without foregone conclusions. In all western Europe,
there is no region that contains a larger proportion
of a late-coming population than the Orkneys, Shet-
lands and Hebrides and distant Iceland, the utter-
most extremes of the north-west.
The ancient legends of Ireland tell of certain
peoples which are not represented by territorial
groups in the historical record. Most conspicuous
among these are the Tuatha De Danann and the
Fomori (" Fomorians ")• The late D'Arbois de
Jubainville showed very clearly that these two
peoples belonged to pagan mythology. His work on
the subject can be read in the English translation by
Mr. Best, " The Irish Mythological Cycle." I cannot
now attempt to go over the ground it covers, even in
summary, but shall content myself by adding a few
cogent proofs to those which it supplies. About the
year 1000 the poet Eochaidh O'Flainn wrote a poem
on the Tuatha de Danann. He began by setting
himself the question, w^ere these folks human or
were they demons. He answers that they were
mortal men of Adam's race, and we are even told
by what deaths they died. The very fact that the
question had to be asked is conclusive as to the
popular belief. But the poet was not satisfied with
having brushed this popular belief, a survival of
paganism, to one side. In his concluding verses
he protests " I do not worship them, I worship the
one true God." So that as late as the year 1000
people in Ireland still spoke of the Tuatha De Danann
as objects of heathen worship.
86 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
An older writer, quoted in the Book of Lecan, tells
a plainer tale. He does not admit the truth of the
ancient mythology, and says that the Tuatha De
Danann were a remnant of the fallen angels. They
assume, he says, bodies of airy substance so as to
become visible to men, the better to tempt them.
They come at the call of sorcerers and those who
practise malevolent incantations by walking in circles
lefthandwise. They used to be worshipped, and it
was they who invented the spells sung by smiths and
druids and wise-women and pilots and cupbearers.
From them druidism came in Ireland.
The poet-historians did not succeed in killing off
the Tuatha De Danann. In 1088 the annalist Tiger-
nach died, and in 1084, four years before his death,
his chronicle contains an account of a pestilence
which visited Ireland at that time. The cause of
this pestilence, says the chronicler, was revealed in
that year to a certain man, Gilla Lugan, who was in
the habit of frequenting a fairy mound at Hallow-
tide, the old heathen festival of Samhain. There in
the year 1084, Oengus appeared to him and told
him that the plague was brought to Ireland by
legions of evil spirits from the islands of the northern
ocean, who spread it over the country with their
fiery breath. And Gilla Lugan himself, says the
chronicler, afterwards saw one of these demon
legions on the rath of Mullaghmast, and in what-
soever direction their fiery breath came on the
land, there the plague broke out among the people.
In Agallamh na Seanorach, the rulers of the Tuatha
De Danann are still alive in St. Patrick's time, and
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 87
inhabit the hills associated with their memory. One
of them has recently come to life once more in
Dublin, Finnbheara of Cnoc Meadha. From the
hills at Tourmakeady you can see Cnoc Meadha, a
low round hill, on the eastern horizon. It was
pointed out to me by a man who knew all about it.
That is where Finn Bheara lives, he said. He is
the king of the Good People. He is not always
there. When Finn Bheara is living in Cnoc Meadha,
it is a good year for the country. When he goes
away, it is a bad year.
A poem in Duanaire Finn tells how Oengus aided
the Fiana in their hostilities with king Cormac, and,
like the gods in the Homeric poems, remained in-
visible while he fought on their behalf.
The passage already cited from the Book of Lecan
tells how the Tuatha De Danann arrived in Ireland.
They came, it says, without ships or boats and first
alighted on Sliabh an Iarainn, in the heart of the
country.
The mythology of the Irish Celts was not originally
shaped in Ireland. They brought it along with them
from central Europe, and just as the ancient scrip-
tures of the Hindus bear traces of having been
originally composed in a climate very different from
that of Hindustan, so I think the Irish mythology
shows some traces of its continental origin. The
Fomori of Irish tradition were not inhabitants of
Ireland. They always appear as invaders. They
come from the north, from the unknown places of
the northern ocean. The demons who brought
the pestilence to Ireland in 1084 were Fomorians.
88 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
They are always enemies of the people of Ireland.
They were enemies to Parthalon's people, and after
them to Nemed's people, the Fir Bolg, and after
them to the Gaels. They were a malevolent race of
immortals. In the popular view, among heathens,
a people expected to be defended by the gods of its
own worship. If a hostile people had other gods,
these were expected to fight on the other side.
Hence there was a natural tendency to regard a
double set of immortals, one party being foreign and
malevolent, the other domestic and benevolent. But
the Irish people, before the Norse invasions, knew no
human enemies in the northern ocean. Accordingly,
I think that the Fomorians originally belonged to
the continental geography of Celtic mythology, and
that the sea from Avhich they came was not the
ocean to the north of Ireland but the Baltic and the
North Sea, and that their islands were originally
perhaps Britain and Ireland and the islands of the
Baltic and the Scandinavian peninsula itself, which
was thought to be an island when it first became
known to the Greeks. The Fomorians would be
perhaps in part identical with, in part associated
with, the gods of the peoples dwelling on the shores
of those northern seas before the Celtic expansion
northward and north-westward.
We have glanced at the process by which one of
our poet-historians endeavoured to transform popu-
lar tradition into a kind of history more acceptable
to his own school. Christian learning brought into
Ireland a double stream of history, derived from
the Old Testament and from the Greek and Latin
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 89
historians. The two streams had already been
mingled in one by early Christian historians like
Eusebius and Orosius. The works of these writers
were well-known in early Christian Ireland. The
Chronicle of Eusebius, a history of the ancient king-
doms of the world, written in parallel columns, a
column to each kingdom, was known through the
Latin translation by St. Jerome and its continuation
by Prosper of Aquitaine in the fifth century. It be-
came the basis of the writing of Irish history, and
was continued in Ireland, with an Irish section
added, down to the early years of the seventh
century. By adopting this basis and model, the
early Christian historians of Ireland brought them-
selves inevitably face to face with the task of
linking and fitting the old Gaelic tradition to this
existing framework of Biblical and Greco-Latin
history.
We cannot doubt that the Celts, like the Greeks,
Persians, Egyptians, Northmen and other ancient
peoples, had what is called a cosmogony of their
own, an account of the beginning of the world.
Caesar tells us that the Druids expounded the nature
of the gods and also of the material universe. This
cosmogony could find no place in the new scheme,
and it disappeared, leaving perhaps a few traces in
the genealogies. In like manner, other parts of the
popular tradition and native lore required to be
transformed and recast to find a place in the ac-
cepted scheme of world history. That is why the
Tuatha De Danann became mortals in the teaching
of the learned while they remained and still remain
9o PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
immortal in the traditions that come down from
heathen times.
The native tradition had its own account of the
origin of the Celtic people. That account, as we
shall see, was not such as could be adopted into the
Christian world-history received from Eusebius and
St. Jerome. It was completely rejected by the
Irish historians, as completely as modern Irish
people reject the substituted account when they say
that their ancestors were Celtic. «
To provide a theory of the origin of the Gaels more
in keeping with the received world-history, a search
was made through the Latin historical and geo-
graphical writings that were used in the Christian
schools of Ireland and suitable discoveries were made.
The most serviceable material for the purpose was
found in the world-history of Orosius, a Spanish
historian who wrote in Latin about the year 400.
Quotations from Orosius by name and word for word
show that his book was well-known in the Irish
schools. It had the advantage of combining a
geography of the world with a history of the
world.
In those times, the ordinary Latin name for the
people of Ireland was Scotti, Scots. It is the name
used for them by Orosius, and also by St. Patrick,
and it was accepted by all the early Irish writers who
wrote in Latin. But this name Scotti does not
appear in Latin before the fourth century and gave
no direct clue to trace the origin of the Gaels. In
the historical and geographical Latin writings to
hand, the people's name that most nearly resembled
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 91
Scotti was Scythi, Scythians. Accordingly, we are
told that the Gaelic people were of Scythian origin.
There was an independent and evidently earlier
effort to account for their origin in a precisely similar
way. The man of learning who undertook this
effort fastened his attention not on the name Scotti
but on the older Latin name Hiberni, and searched
his Latin authorities for a corresponding name of
some ancient people. He found that there was
an ancient people in the region of the Caucasus
mountains who bore the name Iberi, and we
have the result in an old tract quoted in the Book
of Lecan :
" Question : what is the true origin of the Sons of
Mil [i.e. the Gaels] ? Answer : A race there is in
the mountains of Armenia, Hiberi they are named.
They had a famous king, Mil, son of Bile, son of
Nem. He was contesting the kingship with his
father's brother, Refellair son of Nem, and he went
into exile with the manning of four barks, and
twelve married couples to each bark, and a soldier
over and above without wife. . . ." And so the
story goes on until the descendants of these Iberi
come to Ireland.
It is not unlikely that this account was known
to Saint Columbanus of Bobbio. In letters written
about the year 600, he speaks of his own people not
as Scotti or Hiberni, but as Iberi.
The two accounts appear to have been blended
together by making the Scythians, before they
reached Ireland, sojourn for a time in Spain, the
country of the western Iberi. This gave a satis-
92 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
factory explanation of both names, Hiberni and
Scotti.
The story of their wanderings through the world
is itself a geographical description of the ancient
world, based in detail on the geographical chapters of
Orosius. Of this story also there are two distinct
versions. In one they travel overland through the
continent of Europe, passing through the various
peoples and territories named by Orosius. It was
on this journey that they fell in with the Picts, for
whom also a close scrutiny of Virgil provided two
distinct origins, as already told. In the other ac-
count they sailed round the world, and the names
of the various places they touched or passed in the
narrative are also taken from the geography of
Orosius. A noteworthy feature of that geography
is that it is based on the early writings of Eratosthenes
and Strabo and entirely ignores the much larger and
more accurate knowledge recorded by Ptolemy in
the second century. For example, according to
Orosius, the Caspian Sea opens by a strait directly
into the northern ocean, and the river Ganges flows
into the eastern ocean on the eastern side of Asia.
Accordingly we find in the Irish story that our
ancestors sailed right out of the Caspian into the
northern ocean, then turning eastward came round
by the eastern coast of Asia, and passed on that
coast the outlet of the Ganges.
This view of the world's geography continued to
be taught in the Irish schools for centuries. It may
be remarked here that the rotundity of the earth
was also the common teaching of these schools.
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 93
It is still more curious to note how the wording of
Orosius has supplied some remarkable details in the
Irish story. It will be remembered how Bregon,
chief of the Gaels in Spain, built a tower on the
northern Spanish coast, the Tower of Bregon, and
how, one fine evening in spring, his grandson went
up to the top of this tower and from it descried
the land of Ireland. When the Gaels afterwards
took ship and came to Ireland, the place where they
landed was Inbhear Sceine. All this comes from
the actual phraseology of Orosius.
" The second angle of Spain, he writes, points to
the northwest, where Brigantia, a city of Galicia, is
situated and rears its lofty lighthouse, of a structure
with which few can be compared, looking towards
Britain." The last words might also be taken to
mean " for a view of Britain," and it was in this
sense that they struck the imagination of the Irish
schoolman. He thought of a tower so tall that
Britain was actually visible from it. A few chapters
further on he read that " Hibernia is an island
situated between Britain and Spain," a notion of its
position due to the fact that ships sailing by the
old Atlantic trade route were accustomed to call
at some Irish harbour on their voyages between
Spain and Britain. If then Britain was visible from
the lofty tower of Brigantia, and Ireland lay be-
tween Britain and Spain, Ireland must also be
visible from the tower. Bregon or Breogan appears
to have been a real name in Irish tradition. It re-
sembled the name Brigantia. So we arc told that
Brigantia took its name from Bregon, the Gaelic
94 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
chief, and that the tower there was built by him.
This impression of Ireland lying within sight of Spain
was confirmed by other passages of Orosius. " The
ocean," he says, " has islands which they call
Britain and Ireland, which are situated over against
one side of Gaul and looking to Spain (ad prospectum
Hispaniae)." And again speaking of Ireland :
" The fore parts of this island, stretching towards
the Cantabrian ocean (i.e., the Cantabrian part of
the ocean, the Bay of Biscay) behold far away over
a wide intervening space Brigantia, the city of
Galicia, facing them towards the northwest, especially
from that promontory where the mouth of the
river Scena is, and where the Velabri and Luceni
inhabit." The tower of Brigantia " looked towards "
Ireland, and the south-western parts of Ireland
" beheld " Brigantia. It is quite possible that Orosius
himself used these expressions in their literal sense.
At all events they were so interpreted by his Irish
reader. The Irish legend tells us that the Sons of
Mil, who was grandson of Bregon, having learned
that a land was seen to the north-west from the
tower of Bregon, set sail for that land and, after
certain adventures, put into a haven called Inbhear
Sceine. Where was Inbhear Sceine ? Its locality
has been the subject of some discussion. If you
turn up the name in Dr. Hogan's Onomasticon, you
will find that there are no data to enable you to
decide which of the havens of south-western Ireland
bore that name, and for a very good reason. The
name Inbhear Sceine did not belong to Irish topo-
graphy. It belonged to this story, and is a transla-
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 95
tion of the words of Orosius, ostium Scenae. There
is no river of the name and no known record of the
name as that of any river in Ireland : nor is there
evidence that those who wrote and re-wrote the story
of the Gaelic invasion in ancient times had any more
definite notion of the locality of Inbhear Sceine than
you or I have.
The fact is that the whole story of the origin of
the Gaels in Scythia or in Armenia, their wanderings
by land and sea, their settlement in Spain, and their
landing in Ireland, is an artificial product of the
schools, and does not represent a primitive tradition.
It must have displaced the popular tradition. If
so, can we find any surviving traces of the older
native account of the origin of the Irish Celts ? I
think we can. We have seen that the Tuatha De
Danann were an immortal race. They were not all
gods. We are expressly told that they were gods
and non-gods. They were tuatha^ i.e., states or com-
munities like those of the ancient Irish people.
Their chiefs were gods. When they first came to
Ireland, their king was Nuadu Silverhand. As a
god, Nuadu was worshipped also in Britain, as
several inscriptions of the Roman period testify.
From him, according to several genealogical tracts,
the whole Gaelic population of Ireland was descended.
Other gods as well as Nuadu arc clearly named in the
ancient pedigrees.
We have seen how the divine race of the Tuatha
De Danann came to Ireland in the clouds of the
air, without ship or boat, and alighted on the Iron
Mountain in the heart of the country. I have
96 PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND
found nothing to show clearly whether their human
descendants, the Gaels, were thought to have
originated in Ireland or outside of it, except per-
haps one scrap of ancient tradition. It was from
the northern parts of Europe that the Tuatha De
Danann came. The Gaels, according to the learned
legend already discussed, came from Spain to south-
western Ireland. There is, however, a totally dis-
tinct version of their arrival, which says that they
first arrived at the opposite corner, in the north-
east, in the locality of Fair Head. If this is genuine
tradition, it would follow that the Gaels, the offspring
of the gods they worshipped, were thought to have
originated outside of Ireland, somewhere in northern
Europe.
The Book of Invasions, of which a convenient
summary is given by Keating, forming the first part
of his history, is in its true aspect a national epic
which took shape gradually in the early Christian
period and under the influence of Christian and
Latin learning. It treats the principal elements of
the ancient population, both Celtic and Pre-Celtic,
as offshoots of one stock, united in ancestry, and it
thus symbolises the effective national unity and
fusion which had come about. The land of Ireland
is the unifying principle, and all the children of the
land are joined into one genealogical tree. Some
recent writer, I think it is Mr. George Moore, has
remarked how Irish people, apparently quite
naturally and unconsciously, speak and think of
their country as a person. This they have been
accustomed to do through all the ages of their
PRE-CELTIC INHABITANTS OF IRELAND 97
literature. The first words spoken by a Gael on
Irish soil, in the ancient legend, were an invocation
addressed to Ireland herself by the druid Amorgen :
" I entreat the land of Eire," and the land itself,
under its three names, 'Eire, Fodla, and Banbha,
when the Gaels arrived, was reigning as queen over
the Men of Ireland. Thus we find the clearly formed
idea of one nation, composed of diverse peoples,
but made one by their affiliation to the land that
bore them — the clearest and most concrete concep-
tion of nationality to be found in all antiquity.
IV. THE FIVE FIFTHS
OF IRELAND
WE have seen how the poet-historians of early
Christian Ireland took over certain Latin
histories of the world, especially St.
Jerome's translation of Eusebius and the history of
Orosius, and adopted these as the established frame-
work of the world's history, thereby compelling
themselves to adjust their own accounts of the
Irish past to that framework. In the process of
adjustment they did not all work hand in hand,
and so we have different and sometimes contradictory
accounts and at least half-a-dozen distinct chrono-
logies. They found a mass of Irish traditions and
legends embodied in stories long and short. They
set to work on this material, endeavouring to arrange
it all in sequence and to provide it with dates — the
original matter being largely independent of date or
sequence. This task became in fact the principal
work of a certain school or class of poets, as we learn
from a passage which, though found in the Book of
Leinster, is held to date from about the eighth
century. It is headed : " Of the Qualification of
Poets." The word translated " qualification " by
O'Curry, and not inaptly so translated, is nemthigud,
derived from the word nemcd, the Old Celtic ad-
jective nemetos, meaning " sacred." A sacred place
was called nemed, and a sacred person was also called
9s
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 99
itemed. The old law tract which deals with the
privileges and rights of the poets is entitled Bretha
Nemed, i.e., decisions regarding sacred persons.
The tract in the Book of Leinster tells us that certain
kinds of knowledge were necessary qualifications
for certain classes of poets, in order that they might
be entitled to the privileges of their class and become
in that sense sacred persons, who, in virtue of the
reverence due to them, might enjoy special rights
and immunities. The knowledge required of them
was not a knowledge of prosody or grammar, nor of
chronology or geography, or any other science of
the times. It was a knowledge of the stories of
ancient Ireland, so thorough that they should be
able to recite these stories in the presence of kings
and chiefs, not a select few of the stories but scores
and fifties of them. A mere memorised knowledge
of the stories, however, was not sufficient, and some-
thing more than the ability to recite them to the
satisfaction of courtly patrons was deemed essential
to qualify the person as a poet, for the tract con-
cludes by saying : " He is no poet who does not
synchronise and adjust together all the stories."
This means clearly that it was, at the time, an
essential part of the poet's work to make a con-
secutive and dated history out of the sagas of an-
tiquity.
In this way was produced a history of Ireland
from the beginning down to Saint Patrick's time.
From that time onward the ancients, like ourselves,
relied on the written chronicles of Ireland.
Among the written stories of antiquity, the
ioo THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
primacy was accorded to those of the Ulster epic,
Tain Bo Cuailnge and the other tales that range
around it. Evidence of this primacy will be found
in the oldest known Irish chronicle, in poems as-
signed by Meyer to the seventh century, and
in the framework of the ancient genealogies. A
number of modern investigators assure us that the
antiquarian tradition of the Ulster sagas is mar-
vellously true to the facts established by archaeo-
logical research in regard of the age to which those
sagas relate, the beginning of the Christian era.
Their historical tradition was adopted without ques-
tion by our medieval historians. The main fact of
that historical tradition was that Ireland, in the
time of Cu Chulainn, was divided into five co-
ordinate chief kingdoms, whose kings were equal
in rank and were not subordinate to a central
monarchy. The old historians consequently call
this period Aimser na Coicedach (Aimsir na gCui-
geadhach), the Time of the Pentarchs (the five
equal kings), and leave the monarchy a blank at
that time, though they profess to be able to give
a list of kings of all Ireland for the earlier and later
periods. This list of the pagan Monarchs of Ire-
land is not historical. It is compiled in a very
artificial way from the pedigrees of various Irish
dynasties, in a way so artificial that one name, the
origin of which can be traced to the sleepy blunder-
ing of a copyist, a name which never belonged to any
man, is found as the name of a king of Ireland in
the list, with appropriate details telling how he
acquired the sovereignty and how he lost it, and
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 101
how many years he reigned. On the other hand, we
are told that the fivefold division of Ireland was
older than the Gaelic occupation. In fact, its
origin was prehistoric, and the Pentarchy is the
oldest certain fact in the political history of Ireland.
That it is a certain fact, nobody who is acquainted
with Irish literature and tradition will be disposed
to question. To this day the word cuigeadh, " a
fifth," is in general use among speakers of Irish as
the term to denote each of the principal subdivisions
of the country ; and cuig cuigidh na hEireann, " the
Five Fifths of Ireland," is an expression familiar
to all who speak the Irish language. This term
cuigeadh, in this sense, is found in every age and
generation of our written literature. And yet it is
certain that throughout the whole period of our
written literature, the political division of Ireland
represented by this word cuigeadh, " a fifth," and
" the Five Fifths of Ireland," had no existence.
Already in St. Patrick's time the Five Fifths were
only a memory of the past. Then and for centuries
afterwards, instead of five, there were seven co-
ordinate chief kingdoms and a monarchy over
them.
It is evident that a political fact which impressed
itself so permanently on the vocabulary, the litera-
ture, and the folk-memory of the people for at
least fifteen hundred years was not the transitory
thing that appears in the lists of Irish monarchs
before Christianity, a Pentarchy which lasted only
during a few years and interrupted for that time
the course of an earlier and later Monarchy. The
102 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
details of tradition, upon examination, indicate
that the Pentarchy preceded the Monarchy and
lasted for a long time, long enough to become the
chief outstanding fact in tradition as regards the
internal political state of Ireland in the early Celtic
period.
Now we come to the question, what were the
five principal divisions of Ireland under the Pen-
tarchy ? In my experience, the less erudite who
are interested in such matters usually answer,
Ulster, Leinster, Munster, Connacht and Meath.
Those who are better read in Irish history will
answer, as a rule, leaving out Meath and will say
that there were two Fifths comprised in Munster,
and this is the teaching of Irish historians for some
centuries back. In this case, it will be seen that the
less learned folk are nearer to the truth.
Let us first consider what our information is
regarding the Two Fifths comprised in Munster.
Keating gives two alternative divisions of Munster
to form the Two Fifths. In one division, the divid-
ing line runs north and south, from Limerick to
Cork Harbour. This delimitation seems to be based
on the ancient extent of Munster, which did not
include County Clare. The second partition of
Munster, according to Keating, is by a line running
from Tralee to Slieve Bloom, a very unlikely
boundary, as will be evident to anyone who tries
to place it on the map. The portion south of this
line, we are told, was the realm of Cu Raoi, and the
portion north of it was the realm of Eochaidh Mac-
Luchta. These two names belong to the Ulster
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 103
cycle, and we should expect the division connected
with them to hold good in the topography of the
Ulster tales, but we shall find that the Ulster tales
speak of Eochaidh MacLuchta as king of all Munster
and speak of Cu Raoi as a great Munster hero, but
not as king of half Munster. That is not the whole
story. Keating tells us that Tuathal Teachtmhar,
when he became king of Ireland, established a small
domestic realm for himself in the centre of Ireland,
around Uisneach, by cutting off a section from each
of the Five Great Fifths, and that the boundaries
of all five, until his time, met at one point, the rock
called Aill na Mireann, on the slope of Uisneach
hill. Look at the map of Ireland, bearing in mind
that the county Clare was not at that time and long
after it a part of Munster, and ask yourself what
possible dividing line between two kingdoms of
Munster could have terminated in the hill of
Uisneach, which stands ten or twelve miles west-
ward from Mullingar.
The Five Great Fifths of Ireland are a living
fact in the political framework of the stories of the
Ulster Cycle. Surely then it is in those stories
themselves and in the antiquity of their tradition
that we must seek the evidence about these divisions,
their location and extent, and not in the unrecon-
ciled statements of writers in a later age. The teach-
ing of the Ulster stories on this matter is clear and
unmistakable. It is the same throughout all of
them and will be found summarised in a few sen-
tences of the story of the Battle of Rosnaree. First
we arc told how this battle was caused. In the
104 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
great expedition of Tain Bo Cuailnge, four of the
Great Fifths had joined together for the invasion
of Ulster. The invasion was not a military success,
but it had secured its object, the carrying away of
the Brown Bull in spite of the Ulster king, and
Ulster had suffered from the ravages of war. Con-
chobhar, following up the retreating army of Con-
nacht, had overtaken and defeated it on the banks
of the Shannon, but he had not recovered the Brown
Bull, and the other three Fifths of Ireland had
got away without making any reparation for the
great raid. And Conchobhar vowed that he would
exact reparation or inflict punishment. He called
the forces of Ulster together. These things were
speedily reported to the other four Fifths of Ireland,
and without delay the king of each Fifth prepared
for resistance and summoned his forces to meet him
at his royal seat. Here follows a recitation of the
names of the four kings and their four capital places
in which their armies were mustered.
The king of Tara, Cairbre Nia Fear, called out
the Luaighni of Tara to meet him at Tara. It is to
be remembered that in these stories Tara is not
the royal seat of kings of all Ireland. There are no
kings of all Ireland.
The Galians of Leinster are summoned to meet
their king, Fionn File, at Dinn Riogh on the banks
of the Barrow.
The Clanna Deadhadh, which is another name
for the Iverni or 'Erainn of Munster, are summoned
to meet their king, Eochaidh Mac Luchta, at his
royal seat of Teamhair 'Erann.
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 105
The muster of Connacht is held by Ailill and
Meadhbh at Cruachain.
In this account of the five musters, there is no
room for misconception. The author of the story
was not in the slightest doubt as to the identity of
the Five Fifths. His account is in complete har-
mony with the whole tenour of the stories relative
to that age. In it, there is one Fifth of Munster,
and all possibility of another is precluded. There is
one Fifth of Connacht and one Fifth of Ulster.
How are the two remaining Fifths constituted ?
The capital of one of them is Tara, that of the
other is Dinn Riogh on the Barrow. We learn from
Keating and all other authorities and traditions that,
in the period of Cu Chulainn and the Ulster hero
tales, the river Boyne, in its lower course, separated
Ulster from Leinster. Tara, on the south side of the
Boyne, was in Leinster territory. Hence it is plain
that Leinster and not Munster comprised two of the
Five Great Fifths.
People sometimes say to me and have said to me
since these lectures began, " You are very ruthless
in tearing away from us some of our most cherished
traditions." Now, if I showed any contempt for
tradition, this reproach would be altogether too
mild. Tradition, if it is indeed tradition, is worthy
of all reverence. It is not infallible. Tradition is a
people's memory, and a people's memory, like yours
or mine, has its limitations. We are all agreed that
the Gaels are of Celtic origin and that their language
is a Celtic language, but there is no tradition for it.
From the earliest recorded traditions of Ireland and
io6 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
Britain down to the writing of the history of Scot-
land by Buchanan, not the faintest trace of such a
tradition has been found. Nevertheless there are
fields of historical inquiry in which tradition is the
most faithful witness, and one such field is the in-
ternal polity of Ireland during the centuries that
precede the written record. In that field, so far am
I from despising tradition, that my main effort is to
find tradition and establish its authority. We must
get away from the notion that everything that is
written by Keating or the Four Masters or in the
Book of Invasions about that early time is tradition.
The Scythian origin of the Gaels, the geographical
details of their wanderings, the tower of Bregon,
the landing at an unknown Inbhear Sceine — these
things do not belong to tradition, they are the in-
ventions of Latin scholars, suggested to them by-
ancient Latin writers.
The evidence on which I rely with regard to the
Five Fifths of ancient Ireland is unquestionably
traditional. The evidence that I have quoted on
the point does not stand alone. It is not singular
and inconsistent. On the contrary, it will be found
to fit in with the whole body of ancient tradition,
and taken along with the other evidences, it will
be found to give life and reality to the history of an
obscure yet most interesting period.
Following up the ancient testimony, we find that
Cairbre Nia Fear, the king of Tara in Cu Chulainn's
time, was brother to Fionn File, the king of Dinn
Riogh. Both were Leinstermen, Lagenians. Turning
to the genealogies we find that the descent of all
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 107
the Leinster kings in Christian times is traced from
Fionn File. Tara therefore was the capital or royal
seat of a Leinster kingdom, and that kingdom was
one of the Great Fifths. If we look up Father
Hogan's Onomasticon, we shall see that this fact was
otherwise clearly recognised. The kingdom of which
Tara was the capital was named in ancient writings
by the name " Cairbre's Fifth," Coiced Coirpri.
Further we find that in many old documents the
former existence of two Fifths belonging to the
Laighin, or ruling folk of Leinster, is definitely
recognised. One of these divisions is called Cuigeadh
Laighean Tuadh-Gabhair and the other Cuigeadh
Laighean Deas-Gabhair. These names mean that
one of the Fifths lay to the north and the other to
the south of a place or district called Gabhair. There
were a number of places so named in various parts
of Ireland, several of them in ancient Leinster.
The word gabhair was evidently a topographical
term having a definite meaning indicating some
physical feature of the country, but I have not
found it defined in any dictionary or glossary.
Examining the various instances of its use in place-
names and the conformation of the localities so
named, I have come to the conclusion that gabhair
most probably denoted a low broad ridge between
two river valleys. There were two localities so
named in the middle of Leinster. One was called
Gabhair Life, with reference to the river Liffey. In
the first poem of Duanaire Finn it is mentioned as
the place where dwelt the maiden Life from whom
the river, we are told, took its name : " In Gabhair
108 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
between two mountains, there the modest maid
abode." This probably refers to the district of
Donard in Co. Wicklow, between the waters of the
Lifrey and the Slaney. The two valleys are
separated by a low watershed, and bounded on their
outer sides by mountainous country. Westward from
this, in the south of County Kildare, is a district
which was anciently called Gabhair Laighean. This
means Gabhair of the Lagenians, and the name
suggests that it was the distinctive boundary be-
tween the two Fifths of the Lagenians. It is
situated between the valleys of the Barrow, the
Lifrey and the Slaney, and may be regarded as
the westward extension of Gabhair Life. Further
evidence on the point is supplied by two glosses in
the Book of Rights. One of these says that Laighin
Deas-Gabhair is Ui Ceinnsealaigh, the other says it
is Osraighe. I think we may take both together
and regard the southern Fifth of Leinster as com-
prising both territories, which are represented by the
dioceses of Ferns and Ossory. If O'Donovan is
right in identifying Dinn Riogh with a site near
Leighlin Bridge, on the bank of the Barrow, we
should add to the territories named the diocese of
Leighlin, which lies between Ossory and Ferns. But
there is good evidence that the ancient Fifth of
South Leinster was still more extensive. It ex-
tended over a considerable part of eastern Munster,
taking in almost the whole county of Tipperary and
a small part of County Limerick.
The territory of Ossory, we are told, stretched
from Gabhran to Grian, i.e., from the district of
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 109
Gowran in County Kilkenny to the district of
Pallasgreen in County Limerick.
There were several stories which explained how
and why this western part of Leinster was transferred
to Munster. According to one account
Osraige 6 Gabran co Grein
tucad i n-eiric Etersceil.
The territory of Ossory was forfeited to Munster in
consequence of the slaying of Ederscel, king of
Ireland, father of Conaire Mor. Ederscel was of
the Ivernian race. A second account is alluded to
by a poem in the Book of Rights, claiming that
Ossory was rightfully subject to the kings of Munster,
having been forfeited for the killing of Fergus
Scannal, king of Munster. The third account is
much more elaborate. It is found in the story of
the Migration of the Deisi, a story which in its extant
form dates from about the year 750. It tells how
the Desi were expelled from the region of Tara ;
how one part of them crossed the sea and settled in
Wales ; how another part sojourned for a long
time in Leinster, but at last entered the service
of the king of Munster and acquired a territorial
settlement by conquering and annexing to Munster
the western part of the territory of Ossory. The
story relates that the men of Ossory were first
driven eastward over the Suir ; they rallied near
Clonmel and were again defeated and driven across
the Anner ; were followed up by the Deisi and finally
forced over the Lingaun river, which to this day
forms part of the boundary between Ossory and
no THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
Munster. The baronies of IfTa and Offa took their
name and origin from a branch of the Deisi settled
in the conquered territory. West of the Suir in
County Tipperary are the baronies of Upper and
Lower Kilnamanagh. These were formerly
O'Dwyer's country, and the territory was ruled
by the ancestors of the O'Dwyers from time im-
memorial. But the line of the O'Dwyers and their
forefathers was an offshoot of the ruling people of
South Leinster. In the genealogies, Fionn File is
their ancestor, the same who was king of South
Leinster in Cu Chulainn's time. Of the same
Leinster stock came the sept Ui Cuanach, whose
name and territory is represented in the present
barony of Coonagh in County Limerick, adjoining
O'Dwyer's country. On the western side of this
territory was the district of Grian. the western
limit-point of ancient Ossory.
I have found no very decisive indication of the
westward extent of ancient Leinster along the
southern coast. However, the story of the Deisi
migration shows no distinction between the Deisi
settlements south of the Suir in County Waterford
and those north of the Suir in County Tipperary.
There is nothing to indicate that the Munster king
settled one portion of his allies on conquered territory
and another portion on territory already in his
possession, and the whole tenour of the story as-
sociates the settlement with the displacement and
dispossession of the Men of Ossory. Therefore, I
think it probable that the territory of Ossory in-
cluded the greater part of County Waterford, as
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND in
far west as Cappoquin and the Blackwater from
Cappoquin to the sea.
As in the case of the eastern parts of Munster so
in the case of the part beyond the Shannon, now
County Clare, there is more than one story to ac-
count for the annexation. When several stories
are given to explain a fact, though they contradict
each other in the manner of the explanation, they
form a strong corroboration of each other as to the
fact itself. That Clare was at one time part of
Connacht is the universal testimony of antiquity.
Ancient Munster, therefore, the Munster of the
heroic period, comprised the counties of Cork and
Kerry, the greater part of Limerick and some small
area of Tipperary and Waterford. It was the
smallest of the Five Great Fifths and there is no
need to bisect it to form two of them. The bisect-
ing lines mentioned by Keating, however, are not
likely to have been purely imaginary. They refer
in my opinion to political boundaries of a later age.
We have evidence of the division of Munster in
early Christian times into what may be called two
distinct spheres of influence. Besides the Eoghan-
acht dynasty which then ruled in Cashel, there
were other branches of the same dynasty ruling in
various parts of Munster. Of these the most power-
ful was the Eoghanacht of Loch Lein, also called
the Eoghanacht of Iarmuma, " West Munster."
Some of its kings are reckoned as kings of Munster,
and hostile to the kings of Cashel. The dividing
line from Limerick to Cork Harbour may indicate
the boundary between the groups of states which
ii2 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
acknowledged the eastern and the western authority.
As regards the other line from Tralee to Slieve Bloom,
I think it is founded on the fluctuating extent of
the rival authority of the Dalcassian and Eoghanacht
dynasties during the period between the battle of
Clontarf and the Norman invasion. During that
period we read of kings of the Eoghanacht lineage
who are called kings of Cashel and Desmond. They
are of the family of MacCarthaigh. North of the
line, the power of the kings of Thomond was pre-
dominant.
The boundaries of ancient Connacht are fairly
certain. The Shannon throughout its course formed
the principal limit. From the head of the Shannon
to the sea at Donegal Bay the boundary was nearly
the same as it still is.
Between Ulster and North Leinster, the boundary
ran from Loch Boderg on the Shannon through
the southern part of County Leitrim, and thence
in the direction of Granard ; thence by the present
boundary of Ulster eastward as far as the Black-
water, down along the Blackwater to Navan and
from Navan along the Boyne to the Irish Sea. On
the expedition of the Tain, Medb's army skirted this
boundary, keeping on the Leinster side, until they
reached the Blackwater ; and the story tells how
they looked across the Blackwater at " the foreign
territory " (in chrich aineoil).
Such was the division of Ireland under the Pent-
archy at the beginning of the Christian Era, as
disclosed by the oldest traditions.
When we come to St. Patrick's time, the fifth
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 113
century, we feel ourselves within the scope of clear
and definite written records. These ancient boun-
daries are for the most part only memories. There
is no longer a Pentarchy but a Heptarchy, which
remains substantially unchanged for several centuries
and is described in detail by the Book of Rights,
compiled about the year 900 and revised about a
century later.
In this new arrangement, Munster has its present
extent plus the southern angle of King's County.
Connacht has lost County Clare, but has annexed
territory east of the Shannon as far as Loch Erne
and Loch Ramor in County Cavan. This territory
has been taken from Ulster, which no longer exists
as a political unit, but is divided into three of the
seven chief kingdoms. These are the kingdom of
Ailech on the west, the kingdom of Ulaidh on the
east, and the kingdom of Airgialla or Oriel in the
middle. The Fifth of North Leinster has ceased to
be a kingdom. There is only one kingdom of
Leinster, which extends as far north as Dublin, the
river Liffey and its tributary the Rye, which runs
by Maynooth. This kingdom contains what remains
of North and South Leinster and is ruled by the
ancient dynasty of South Leinster.
The seventh chief realm is that of Meath which
has been formed from parts of North Leinster and of
Ulster. Its northern boundary is nearly but not
quite the same as the present northern boundary of
Leinster. It takes in part of County Cavan and
excludes the northern part of County Louth, north
of Ardee.
ii4 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
The strictly historical period in Ireland begins
with St. Patrick. The authentic writings of St.
Patrick are the earliest written documents of Irish
history. But I do not think it would be just to say
that all before that time is prehistoric. If all we
had for the first four centuries of the Christian Era
was a slender thread of narrative like Livy's story of
ancient Rome, we might wonder how much profit,
if any, could come from examining it. We are not
in so poor a case. We have a substantial mass of
traditions, connected and disconnected, which, I
think, enable us to supply the void of written docu-
ments in a manner that will carry conviction.
The period in question begins with the solid back-
ground of the Pentarchy. It ends with the solid
foreground of the Christian Heptarchy. The pro-
blem before the student is not merely to fill up the
intervening space with a random collection of tra-
ditional material, but to find out by what stages and
through what causes the transformation took place ;
how a central monarchy came into being ; how
Ulster was broken up into three distinct realms ;
how Leinster contracted from two great kingdoms
into one ; how the new and powerful kingdom of
Meath was established ; and how Munster grew to
about twice its ancient extent.
Our old native historians did not concern them-
selves with accounting for anything. Their chief
model was Eusebius, and Eusebius was content
to give lists of kings with the length of each
king's reign as the sole history of various realms of
antiquity throughout centuries. So the only con-
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 115
secutive history we find of Ireland before St.
Patrick's time consists in like manner of regnal
lists with little bits of anecdotal matter added here
and there. Even these regnal lists are not authentic.
They are made up artificially from pedigrees, and I
have already shown that the method was so reck-
lessly artificial as to make a king out of a misread
note to one of the pedigrees. Even the oldest
written history of Ireland extant follows this method.
It does not indeed extend the Irish monarchy back
to the Gaelic invasion. It declares the authentic
history of Ireland to begin with the foundation of
Emain Macha, dated 305 B.C., and it begins the Tara
monarchy in a.d. 46. But from this date onward
it gives the succession of the high-kings, and that
succession is one of a kind unknown in the historical
period. It is a succession from father to son, which
is contrary to the known custom of all the insular
Celts, in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. In other
words, it is again merely a pedigree converted into
a dynastic succession.
When a single pedigree is utilised in this way,
the fact is easily discovered. Later historians
adopted a less obvious artifice, and one at the same
time which made their account more widely ac-
ceptable. They shortened the reigns of the kings
in the earlier history so as to leave gaps between
them, and into these gaps they inserted names from
other pedigrees besides that of the Tara monarchs.
They took these names in turn from the genealogies
of the kings of Munster, Leinster, Oriel, etc., and
thus, by giving every part of Ireland a share in the
u6 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
monarchy, they produced a regnal history which was
flattering in an all-round way and which succeeded
in relegating the earlier device to comparative
oblivion.
I had become familiar with this plan of trans-
forming pedigrees into regnal lists before I first read
Buchanan's history of Scotland. In that book I
found a list of forty-three kings who reigned over
Scotland before Fergus of Dal Riada went over
from Ireland. All the names seemed strange. They
were apparently Latinised from some other language,
the history being written in Latin. Were they in-
vented, like the names in " Gulliver's Travels," or,
if not, where were they found ? Can it be, I asked
myself, that the Scottish historians, like the Irish,
filled the vacuum out of pedigrees ? And if so, out
of what pedigrees ? Now it is a matter of historical
record that, on the inauguration of a king of Scot-
land, a part of the ceremony consisted in the recita-
tion of his pedigree, and this custom was kept up
until the Dal Riada line died out with Alexander III
in 1285. Therefore, I argued, the pedigree most
familiar to an early Scottish historian was that of
the kings of Dal Riada. I turned up this pedigree
in the Irish genealogies and my conjecture was
confirmed. Scotland and Ireland are all along
agreed that Fergus MacEirc, an Irish prince, settled
in Scotland and founded there a new kingdom and
dynasty. But the forty-three kings of Scotland
named before Fergus are nevertheless the forty-three
ancestors of Fergus, from father to son, in the Irish
genealogy. The list comprises names so well known
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 117
in Irish story as Ederscel, that Munster king, whose
death is said to account for the forfeiture of Leinster
territory to Munster ; his son Conaire Mor, whose
tragic fate is told in the story of Da Derga's Hostel ;
and the younger Conaire, son of Mugh Lamha, who
also figures in the Irish hero-lore. All these and
their forefathers, up to the eponymous Iar, head of
the Ivernian stock, figure one after another in the
artificial history of the first Scottish dynasty beyond
the sea.
Let us get away then from such unprofitable
material and let us see what comes to us in the
guise of traditions of substance. We start off from
the Pentarchy and the Ulster cycle. The Ulster
stories have for their main basis the hostile rela-
tions between Ulster and Connacht. Being Ulster
stories, they do not prolong their scope beyond a
time in which Ulster has generally the best of it.
Ulster's mishaps merely serve to heighten the effect,
which is Ulster's heroism and victory. It was when
this time of glory was but a memory, when Emain
was a deserted site and the remnant of the Ulaidh
occupied only a tiny fraction of their former territory,
that these stories took their present shape and were
committed to writing. We have to turn to another
set of traditions, to those connected with the
monarchical kindred of historical time, to learn how
things developed from the stage depicted in the
Ulster tales.
The course ot development will be more clearly
followed if it is stated in summary beforehand. The
hostile relations between Ulster and Connacht con-
n8 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
tinued, but the kings of Connacht grew gradually-
more powerful. They extended their power step by
step over central-eastern Ireland, the ancient Fifth
of North Leinster, and then step by step over all
Ulster except what is now comprised in the counties
of Down and Antrim. Upon the increase of power
thus acquired they established a hegemony or
primacy over all Ireland. This primacy found its
definite expression in the institution of the high-
kingship or Monarchy.
The first stage in the process was the occupation
of Uisneach by Tuathal Teachtmhar. Who was this
Tuathal ? According to the genealogies he was
sixth in descent from Eochu Feidlech, who was the
father of Medb, queen of Connacht. Accepting
Medb's date as fixed or estimated by all our ancient
writers, she flourished just at the commencement of
the Christian Era. Tuathal was five generations
later, and from dated Irish pedigrees we can cal-
culate an average of almost exactly three genera-
tions to a century. Tuathal therefore would have
flourished in the third quarter of the second century,
say between a.d. 150 and a.d. 175. Exact dates
are assigned to him in the extant regnal lists, but
these lists do not agree with each other, and it is
safer to rely on the law of averages. Tuathal, we
are told, set up a new kingdom for himself around
Uisneach. The territory surrounding Uisneach was
part of the old Fifth of North Leinster. Conse-
quently the alliance of the Four Great Fifths against
Ulster was no longer operative. Tuathal was a
prince of the Connacht dynasty, and his occupation
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 119
of Uisneach was an invasion of North Leinster and
the first stage in the break-up of the Pentarchy.
With regard to Tuathal we are told that before
his birth the Rentpaying tribes throughout Ireland
revolted against the Gaelic ascendancy and over-
threw it. Tuathal's mother fled to Britain and in
Britain he was born. By the time he came of age
the revolution had spent its force and a reaction
set in. Tuathal returned to Ireland, by some he
was welcomed, others he overcame by force, and he
became the strongest king in Ireland. It was then
that he took possession of Uisneach.
It is difficult to know what exactly to make of
this story of a plebeian revolution. In its actual
terms, the story is full of improbabilities, and reads
like a fairy tale for children. Another difficulty
about it is that a similar story is told of Tuathal's
grandfather. There is no inherent improbability in
the main fact of the story, the occurrence of a
plebeian revolution which for a time displaced the
Gaelic ascendancy, and the occurrence of a subse-
quent complete reaction. Something like it hap-
pened in France little more than a century ago
and in England under Oliver Cromwell. The
occurrence of a revolution and the successful sur-
vival of the Connacht dynasty may help us to
understand how the kings of Connacht were able
afterwards to make such headway not only against
their ancient rivals in Ulster but against their
former allies in North Leinster ; that is, if we
understand that Connacht was less shaken and
weakened by the revolution than the other pro-*
120 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
vinces were. Again, in the Ulster stories, we hardly
hear of the existence of the Picts in Ulster ; they
are completely dominated by the Ulaidh. But
when Ireland emerges into the full light of written
history, we find the Picts a very powerful people
in east Ulster, Cuailnge itself, the home of the
Brown Bull, and the neighbouring plain of Muir-
theimhne, Cu Chulainn's patrimony, being now
Pictish territory. This may well have been the
consequence of some such revolution as the story
indicates.
The next stage is the occupation of Tara, the old
capital of North Leinster, by Cormac, who is fourth
in descent from Tuathal, and who should therefore
have flourished in the period a.d. 275-300, a time
corresponding closely enough with that to which the
regnal lists assign him. The fact of the annexation
of Tara and the surrounding region, the territory
of Brega, is always glossed over by our old historians.
This tacit treatment may perhaps be explained.
In their histories generally, the monarchy goes back
to the Gaelic invasion, and Tara is the seat of the
monarchs in remote antiquity, as it actually was
in the early Christian period. This location of the
monarchy in Tara from time immemorial, like the
assumed existence of such a monarchy, exemplifies
a very common tendency, the tendency to project
the known present into the unknown past.
The fact of the annexation of Tara and eastern
Meath underlies the story of the Battle of Crinna.
The cause of this battle, as stated, was the con-
tinued hostility of the Ulstermen to king Cormac's
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 121
line. One king after another of this line, which, be
it remembered, was the Connacht dynasty and still
ruled over Connacht, had fallen in fight with the
Ulster enemy. Cormac had forced Ulster to give
him hostages. Such hostages were by custom
honourably entertained according to their rank. The
Ulster hostages sat at Cormac's own table. So un-
subdued was their spirit that on one occasion they
did the king the gross affront of setting fire to his
beard. After this, Ulster again took up arms and
drove Cormac out of Meath, forcing him to take
refuge in his native realm of Connacht. There he
gathered his forces and took a Munster prince,
Tadhg, son of Cian, into alliance. This Tadhg figures
in the genealogies as being the ancestor of a group of
dynastic families which in later times ruled over
certain states of Connacht, Meath and Ulster, the
Luighni, Gaileanga, Cianachta, etc. These states,
when we trace them back as far as possible, are
native to Connacht ; their branches in Meath and
Ulster are frontier colonies planted to guard the
conquests of the Connacht kings. Tadhg macCein,
in the story, is the personification of these colonies.
Before going into battle, Tadhg made a compact
with Cormac the king. They agreed that, if Tadhg
came off victorious, Cormac would grant him as
much territory as he could ride around in his chariot
on the day of victory.
In the battle of Crinna, Tadhg engaged the
Ulstermen and completely defeated them. He him-
self was sorely wounded. He mounted his chariot
and set out to ride around the territory he desired
122 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
to win for himself and his descendants, and he
commanded the charioteer to take such a course
as to bring Tara within the circuit. Then, over-
come with loss of blood from his many wounds, he
fell into a swoon and lay unconscious in the chariot.
King Cormac had foreseen that Tadhg would
try to get possession of Tara. He desired Tara for
himself, and he bribed the charioteer to leave Tara
out of the circuit of the ride. At intervals during
the ride, Tadhg awoke from his swoon and on each
occasion he asked the charioteer " Have we brought
in Tara ? " and the charioteer answered " Not yet."
At nightfall, Tadhg came to his senses and saw that
they had reached the banks of the Liffey near Dublin.
" Have we brought in Tara ? " he asked again. The
charioteer could not answer yes. Tadhg saw that he
had been cheated, and he slew the charioteer.
Now the territory that fell to Tadhg's share in the
story extended along the coast from Ardee to Dublin
and inland along the northern frontier of Meath to
Loch Ramor — and these territories in later times
were occupied by the Connacht colonies whose
rulers claimed descent from Tadhg. Roughly speak-
ing the whole stretch of country forms an L inverted
and in the angle of this L stands Tara the ancient
capital of North Leinster, but henceforth the capital
of Cormac's kingdom.
Except this story of the Battle of Crinna, there
is no other story or even title of a story known to
me which explains how Tara ceased to be the seat
of the North Leinster kings and passed into the pos-
session of the kings of Connacht and Uisneach.
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 123
There is no other account which explains why or
how the Leinster frontier, which formerly lay along
the Boyne and the Blackwater, was afterwards
pushed back to the Liffey and the Rye. The terri-
tory which fell to Tadhg was partly Ulster territory
and partly Leinster territory. Yet in the story
itself, there is no mention of Leinster and Cormac's
only enemies were the Ulstermen. The story, which
in its extant form belongs to a very late period, is
evidently defective. It is written in conformity
with the theory that the Monarchy existed before
the Pentarchy and that Tara was the seat of the
Monarchy from time immemorial. Consequently it
ignores what we may call the Leinster aspect of the
matter, and the conflict seems to be altogether
between Cormac and Ulster. Ulster lost land on
the north side of the Boyne, and this conquered
territory, under the compact, fell to the share of
Tadhg. The underlying notion, in this episode of
the chariot-ride, is obviously that the victor is to
be rewarded with a share of the spoils. If, then,
the conquered part of Ulster formed part of his
reward, and if in the same bargain he gained part of
Leinster between the Boyne and the Liffey, and if
he expected to gain Tara, we must, I think, infer
that this part of Leinster and Tara likewise were no
less conquered territory than the piece of Ulster that
fell to Tadhg.
Therefore, there should have been an earlier
version of the story, now lost, which showed that
not Ulster alone but North Leinster also resisted
Cormac and suffered defeat from him and his ally.
124 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
Such an account would explain, what remains a
complete blank, so far as I know, in this traditional
history, how the dynasty of North Leinster came to
an end and how Tara and Bregia, south as well as
north of the Boyne, passed into the possession of
the kings of Connacht and Uisneach.
The reign of Cormac is regarded in our earliest
histories as an epoch in Irish history. This, I think,
was because it marked the end of the Pentarchy and
the rise of the Monarchy seated at Tara.
The next stage in the growth of the Connacht
power brings us to the overthrow of the Ulster
kingdom and the conquest of the greater part of
Ulster. In the century after Cormac, his descendant
Muiredach Tireach becomes king of Tara. Muire-
dach, we are told, in his youth took command for
his father, Fiacha Sroibhtine, king of Tara, and was
successful in establishing his father's authority in
southern Ireland. His uncles, the three Collas,
became jealous of his success. The young prince,
they said, will be chosen king when his father dies,
and we shall be shut out from the succession. They
then conspired to overthrow their brother and win
the kingship for one of themselves while Muiredach
was still absent in the South. They raised an army
against the king. Fiacha consulted his druid. The
druid answered : You have two alternatives. You
can be victorious. If you are, the kingship will
pass from your son and your descendants. But if
you are defeated and slain, your son and your
posterity will rule Ireland. It is the symbol in
Irish story of the Triumph of Failure. The king
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 125
said, Then I choose defeat and death. The three
Collas were victorious, the king fell in the fight.
Then all Ireland arose against the victors. Muire-
dach was chosen king, and the Collas were banished
over the sea. They dwelt in exile for some years in
Britain, but the guilt of their brother's blood op-
pressed their souls, and at last they said, We can
bear it no longer, we shall go back to Ireland and
lay down our lives for our crime. The young king
forgave them and took them to his favour. After
this, they spoke to him one day and said : Though
thou and we are at peace, our sons will grow up and
contend with thy sons for the kingship. Give us a
kingdom for ourselves and our posterity. It shall
be so, said the king. What part of Ireland will
you give us ? said they. The Ulstermen, said the
king, have ever been hostile towards me and towards
our fathers. Go and conquer their kingdom, and it
shall be yours.
The Collas then went to Connacht, which was
still the homeland of the new Tara dynasty, raised
an army there, invaded Ulster, were victorious, and
captured the Ulster capital. The conquered territory
comprised the present counties of Armagh, Monaghan,
Tyrone, and the greater part of Fermanagh and
Derry.
I wish to dwell on the fact that the conquerors
were princes of the Connacht dynasty, then ruling
also in Tara. Their army was drawn from Connacht.
In fact, all this chain of events is the direct sequel
of the old rivalry between Connacht and Ulster that
forms the basis of Tain B6 Cuailnge and the Ulster
126 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
cycle in general. The inhabitants of the conquered
parts of Ulster got the significant name of Airgialla,
Oirghialla, " the eastern subjects.'* In relation to
Meath and Tara, they were northern not eastern
subjects. The name Airgialla then is based on the
fact that the conquering power at the time when
the name came into use was still regarded as the
western power, its home was Connacht.
Thus ended the Fifth of Ulster. Let us see what
was happening meanwhile in southern Ireland. In
Munster, under the Pentarchy, the kings of the
Erainn or Iverni held rule. In St. Patrick's time,
these no longer ruled in Munster. The kings of
Munster belonged to a distinct line, called the
Eoghanachta. Their capital was no longer in the
west. It was Cashel, not far from the eastern
border of their kingdom and in territory formerly
part of Leinster. To the original extent of the
Munster Fifth had been added in the meantime
the counties of Clare and Tipperary, a small part
of Limerick, and the larger part of Waterford,
making the bounds of Munster almost but not
exactly what they are at present.
In face of the growing power of the kings of Con-
nacht, how it came about that Clare was detached
from Connacht and added to Munster, I cannot
explain to my own satisfaction, beyond saying that,
within a smaller scope, the Eoghanacht kings of
Munster became even more powerful than the kings
of Connacht and ruled over a more firmly consolidated
realm. During the early Christian centuries, before
the Norse invasions, Munster appears to have enjoyed
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 12
/
greater tranquillity than any other realm in Western
Europe. The genealogies show that there was an
early Eoghanacht settlement in the Clare area,
called Eoghanacht Ninuis, and another, still called
Eoghanacht, in the island of Arainn Mhor, to the
north of Clare.
There were at least two accounts in ancient story
of the transfer of Clare to Munster. The time of this
event differs by centuries in the two stories, and I
shall not endeavour to reconcile them or to choose
between them. There are three distinct accounts
of the eastern annexation from South Leinster. The
only one of these that is full and explanatory,
and that fits with the known later stage of things,
is the account connected with the Migration of the
Deisi.
Let it be noted that Cashel, the seat of the Munster
kings in Christian times, stands outside of ancient
Munster. Keating relates an ancient story telling
how Cashel was " discovered r in the time of Core,
king of Munster, i.e., about a.d. 400, and got a new
name. This new name was a Latin one, for Caiseal
is the Irish representative of the Latin word castellum,
" fortress." These things show how late was the use
of Cashel as the seat of Munster sovereignty.
What and whence was this new ruling power in
Munster, the Eoghanachta ? Their genealogies show
that at one time they were worshippers of a god
named Segomo — one of their ancestors is named
Nia Segomon, " Segomo's champion." This god
Segomo is unknown to Irish tradition, in which
his name is never found outside of the Eoghanacht
128 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
genealogy. He was known, however, and wor-
shipped in Gaul, where he is commemorated in
several inscriptions of the Roman period. He was
a war-god and is equated, according to the fashion
of Roman Gaul, with the Latin god Mars — " Deus
Mars Segomo." The descendants of Segomo's
Champion are named in three Ogham inscriptions,
all found in the district of Dungarvan and Ardmore,
on the southern seaboard. The indications therefore
are that the Eoghanachta represent a relatively-
late Gaulish settlement in that part of Ireland. The
story of the Deisi Migration mentions several bodies
of Gaulish settlers.
The Migration of the Deisi is an evident sequel of
the conquest of Tara and eastern Meath under
Cormac. Deisi means " vassal communities."
These particular vassal communities dwelt around
Tara, and were possibly identical with the Luaighni,
who formed the chief fighting force of North Leinster
in Cu Chulainn's time. They quarrelled with Cor-
mac, we are told, and he drove them, or a large
part of them, out of Meath. They migrated in two
bodies. One body crossed the sea and settled in
southern Wales where the descendants of their
princes still held sway in the eighth century. The
other body settled for a time in Leinster.
Later on this Leinster section entered into an
alliance with the Eoghanacht king, Oengus, whose
queen was the daughter of their chief. By their aid,
Oengus conquered what is now the south-eastern
part of Munster, and he settled the Deisi as frontier
colonists on the conquered territory. Oengus
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 129
flourished in St. Patrick's time, the second and
third quarter of the fifth century.
The loss of the large territories about the Boyne
and the Suir reduced Leinster to much smaller
dimensions. What remained of the two ancient
Fifths was now united in one kingdom, ruled over
by the line of the ancient kings of South Leinster.
This reduction and unification means the final passing
away of the Pentarchy described in the Ulster
tales. The seat of the Leinster kings is no longer
either Tara or Dinn Riogh, but Ailinn, which lies
between them, on the southern side of the Curragh
of Kildare.
The Connacht kings continued, however, to ex-
tend their conquests and their power. A grandson
of Muiredach Tirech was king of Tara at the
beginning of the fifth century (c. a.d. 400), Niall
of the Nine Hostages. His brother, Brion (or
Brian) took possession of a south-western section
of Ulster, comprising a large part of the counties
of Leitrim and Cavan, afterwards called Brian's
Land — Tir Briuin. Three sons of Niall took
possession of what remained of western Ulster,
now comprised in the county of Donegal.
Their names were Eoghan, Conall, and 'Enda, and
the territories occupied by them were called
Eoghan's Land, Conall's Land, and 'Enda's land.
Another son of Niall, named Coirbre, obtained a
piece of Leinster, now the barony of Carbury in Co.
Kildare.
The Connacht dynasty and its branches now
ruled over the northern half of Ireland, with the
1 3o THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
exception of the eastern seaboard region from
Ardee to the Giant's Causeway. It ruled in Tara,
and its chief kings were recognised also as Monarchs
of Ireland.
The Connacht power, after the time of Niall, was
regarded as comprising three chief divisions — the
kingdom of Connacht, the Airgialla, and the territory
of the descendants of Niall (Ui Neill). All Leinster
was laid under tribute to them, and a note in the
Book of Leinster says that this Leinster tribute
was divided equally among the three sections. This
subdivision of the Connacht power, in my opinion,
was what gave rise to the ancient term Teora Con-
nachta, " the Three Connachts " — a term which
seems to have caused some trouble for its explana-
tion to writers of a later age.
An unpublished tract in the Book of Lecan, also
found in the introductory part of the Book of
Genealogies by MacFir Bhisigh, tells us that during
this period, the succession to the Monarchy was
regulated in this way : On the death of the Ardri,
the king of Connacht took his place as king of
Tara. A new king of the same family was elected
in Connacht, and this process went on during
several generations. Niall was king of Connacht
first, of Tara afterwards. And so, in like
manner, the high kingship was filled from Connacht
until the death of Ailill Molt in a.d. 483 or there-
abouts.
The two facts, then, that explain the transforma-
tion of the Pentarchy at the beginning of the
Christian Era into the Monarchy and seven principal
THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND 131
kingdoms of St. Patrick's time, are these : In the
northern half of Ireland, the gradual conquest
achieved by the Connacht dynasty ; in southern
Ireland, the rise of a new power, that of the
Eoghanacht kings, centred in Cashel. Along with
the direct control of northern Ireland, the Connacht
dynasty obtained predominance over the country
in general, and this predominance found its natural
expression in the high kingship.
Between the establishment of the Connacht
dynasty in East Meath and in Tara, the ancient
seat of the North Leinster kings, and the overthrow
of the Ulster kingdom, there is a period of more
than half a century, during which the Ulster power
stood at bay. Of this state of things we have a
very remarkable record, not written on paper, but
graven on the face of the country. The Ulster kings
endeavoured to defend themselves against further
aggression by fortifying their entire frontier except
where it was already protected by strong natural
obstacles such as lakes, forests or broad rivers.
Linking these natural barriers they raised a massive
earthern rampart which, with these barriers, formed
a continuous line of defences from the Irish Sea on
the east to Donegal Bay on the west. Details of
the extant remains of this Great Wall of Ulster and
of the popular traditions connected with it will be
found in Mr. Kane's paper on the Black Pig's Dyke
in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy.
These details I am able to supplement with others,
but it would be out of place to go into particulars
in such a historical sketch as the present. What
132 THE FIVE FIFTHS OF IRELAND
I wish to bring under special notice is this —
that the Ulster frontier was fortified alike against
Meath and Connacht — a further illustration of
the fact that during that period Meath and
Connacht were politically united under one dynastic
power.
V. GREEK AND LATIN WRITERS
ON PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
THE earliest known mention of Ireland in
literature appears to be found in a passage
of the Greek writer Poseidonios which is
quoted by Strabo. Poseidonios flourished about
150 B.C.
His information about Ireland is vague, and he
says expressly and candidly that his authorities are
not trustworthy. Whereas later writers erred in
supposing that Ireland lay between Britain and
Spain, Poseidonios says that Ireland stretched
farther northward than Britain. We have nothing
definite to tell about Ireland, he continues, except
that the inhabitants are fiercer than those of Britain,
being man-eaters and eaters of many kinds of food
[we may understand perhaps that he supposed them
to eat various foods not eaten by the Greeks]. They
think it worthy to devour their own fathers who have
died. Their marital customs are of the most un-
restricted kind, disregarding even the closest ties of
kindred. " This, however, we state as having no
reliable testimony." For the custom of cannibalism,
he says, is also ascribed to the Scythians, and the
Celts and Iberians and many others are likewise
said to practise it when reduced to great straits by
a siege.
The name of Ireland, as quoted from Poseidonios,
133
134 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
is Ierne, representing an old name Iverna. In
Greek, as well as in the early Celtic language of Ire-
land, the sound of v or w had a tendency to dis-
appear from words. I think, however, that the
Greeks may have taken the name Ierne, without the
v, direct from a Celtic source, for the dropping of
the v or zv sound in Greek took place earlier than
the writing of the oldest extant Greek prose, and
if the name of Ireland had been known to the
Greeks at so early a time, we should expect to find
mention of Ireland in early prose writers like Hero-
dotus.
The next known writer who mentions Ireland is
Julius Caesar. The island Hibernia, he writes, is
half the size of Britain, and as far distant from
Britain as Britain is from Gaul. He calls Ireland
Hibernia.
Strabo, who wrote in Greek in the first years of
the Christian era, also thought that Ireland extended
farther north than Britain, and that Ireland had a
colder climate than Britain. This notion, I have
already suggested, originated in the Latin name
Hibernus, which as a Latin word meant " wintry,"
and was substituted for the Celtic adjective Ivernos.
The people of Ireland, says Strabo, are quite wild
and have a poor way of living owing to the cold
climate.
A somewhat later anonymous writer in Greek has
more accurate geographical information, perhaps
based on the brief statement by Caesar, placing
Ireland to the west of Britain.
Pomponius Mela, whose date is about a.d. 40,
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 135
calls Ireland Iuverna, a name also used about the
same time by Juvenal. It is a nearer approach to
the Celtic form as used in Britain, which at the
time was partly occupied by the Romans. Mela
says that Ireland is hardly equal in size to Britain,
but has an equal length of coastline opposite to
Britain. Apparently he supposed Ireland to be a
long narrow island, about as long as Britain from
north to south, but less in breadth. The climate,
he says, is unfavourable to the ripening of seeds,
but there is such an abundance of excellent pastur-
age that cattle get enough food by grazing for a short
part of the day and, if they are not restrained, they
eat until they burst.
This is fairly accurate. The Irish climate is less
favourable to the ripening of certain seeds, such as
wheat, than the climate of neighbouring countries.
It is not likely that any other seed but wheat is
referred to, and we may take the testimony of Mela
as evidence that wheat was known in his time to be
grown in Ireland, but not so successfully grown as
in other countries.
Mela adds : The inhabitants of Ireland are un-
civilised and beyond other nations are ignorant of
all the virtues, and extremely devoid of natural
affection.
A little later, in Pliny's time, the knowledge of
Ireland among the Romans was far from being
exact. Pliny, on the authority of Agrippa, gives the
length of Ireland as 600 Roman miles, its breadth
as 300. He thus doubles each dimension and multi-
plies the size of the island by four.
136 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
Tacitus writes that Agricola made special military-
dispositions on that side of Britain which faces
Ireland ; and this he did more through hope than
through fear, that is to say, rather in view of con-
quest than of protection. Ireland, he says, is situate
between Britain and Spain. It is of smaller area
than Britain. In soil and climate and in the
character of its inhabitants it differs little from
Britain. Its inland parts are little known, its ap-
proaches and harbours are better known through
commerce and merchants. Agricola received one of
its petty kings who had been expelled in a revolt
and kept him, under the guise of friendship, against
a suitable opportunity. From Agricola, I, says
Tacitus, have often heard that Ireland could be
conquered and held by a single legion with a
moderate force of auxiliaries, and that this would
be of advantage as regards Britain, if the Roman
military power were established everywhere and
freedom, as it were, were put out of sight. Later
he writes that Agricola had led his forces to a point
close to the Irish Sea when he was brought back
by an outbreak among the Brigantes and thought
it better to solidify the conquests he had already
made than to undertake a new conquest.
The next writer in point of date is Ptolemy the
Geographer, who flourished in the middle of the
second century. Ptolemy names sixteen peoples,
tribes or states, and gives their relative positions on
the Irish coast. He names no people or state away
from the coast. About half of the names can be
authenticated from other sources. The others have
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 137
been the subject of much fruitless conjecture. It is
noteworthy that all the authenticated names belong
to the eastern and southern coasts and that the
names on the northern and western coasts are still
names and nothing more. This shows that Ptolemy's
information came from sea-going traders. The
northern and western coasts of Ireland are among
the most stormy in the world and must have been
avoided in those days by ocean-going craft. Ptolemy
names several estuaries, and from Irish writings we
know that in early times estuaries were the favourite
havens. Ships could run in by the main channel
and could be grounded without injury on the sandy
tidal banks. Several " cities ' are likewise named
by Ptolemy. These, no doubt, were places of as-
sembly or royal towns — " oppida," like Tara and
Emania. None of them can be identified with any
approach to certainty. Two bear the name Regia
polis, and this I think is taken from Latin, meaning
" royal city."
On Ptolemy's description are based one or two
learned fancies which may almost be said to have
become popular. One of these is that the ancient
name of Dublin is Eblana. Ptolemy places a people
named Eblani on the eastern side of Ireland and
assigns them a city which he calls by their name,
Eblana polis. This cannot be Dublin, for no trace
has been found in Irish records or tradition of any-
thing approaching in character to a city on the
site occupied by Dublin until the Norsemen fortified
themselves here in 841. We cannot give the name
of either record or tradition to a fabulous poem
i38 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
appended to the Book of Rights, a poem which
relates how St. Patrick visited and blessed the Norse-
men of Dublin. The poem has this value historically,
that it shows how far some of our medieval writers
were ready to go in the audacity of their invention.
The location which Ptolemy indicates for the
Eblani and their city is certainly farther north than
Dublin, probably on the coast of Louth. As
Ptolemy's information was derived through traders,
it is not unlikely that some of the places which he
calls cities were ancient places of assembly. From
the poem on the Fair or Assembly of Carman, we
know that these were places of resort for traders
from the Mediterranean who brought with them
" gold and precious cloth " in exchange for pro-
ducts of the country. No doubt they timed their
visits for the periodical assemblies, and from the
same poem on the Fair of Carman and from other
documents we also know that during the time of
assembly the place of assembly bore the aspect of
a city. In it at those times there was a great con-
course of people of all orders ; there was a royal
court ; a kind of parliament ; many sorts of public
entertainment ; and a general market. Somewhere
about the middle of County Louth one of these
assemblies used to be held. It is called Oenach
Descirt Maige " the Assembly of the South of the
Plain " — probably the Plain of Muirtheimhne in the
district of Dundalk. This place of assembly may
have been the city of the Eblani named by Ptolemy,
but the name itself has not been traced in Irish
writings. Dublin lay almost certainly in the terri-
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 139
tory of the Manapii or of the Cauci, the two Ger-
mano-Belgic colonies about which I have spoken in
the second of these lectures.
Another place of note which has taken its modern
name straight out of Ptolemy's description is the
sweet Vale of Ovoca. A few years ago, a lively
controversy about the name Ovoca was carried on
by correspondence in a Dublin newspaper. One of
the disputants undertook to show that the name
consisted of two Gaelic words and meant " shadowy
river." The fact is that the river called Ovoca
received the name in quite modern times from some
resident or proprietor who had a moderate taste for
the classics. He found the name in Ptolemy "'OfioKa
nora/iov €KJ3okal," the mouth of the river Oboca. It
is one of the few river-mouths in Ireland named
by Ptolemy, and must have been known to
traders as a haven. The modern name Ovoca is
Ptolemy's Oboka mispronounced and does not belong
to Irish tradition.
Pliny names several islands between Ireland and
Britain, one of which he calls Andros. It seems to
be the same place that Ptolemy calls Adros. I
venture the suggestion that the proper form is
Antros or Antron. At the mouth of the Garonne
there was an island which bore the name Antros in
the time of Pomponius Mela. Its modern name has
become widely known as the name of its chief pro-
duct, Medoc. In the river Loire, there was also an
island named Antron, which became the site of a
monastery and is now called Indre. Antros or
Antron becomes 'Edar in Irish, and 'Edar is the
140 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
Irish name of the Howth peninsula. Our fore-
fathers use the terms for island as the names of
peninsulas also, for example, Inis Eoghain and Island-
magee, just as they applied the term loch indifferently
to an inland lake and to an inlet of the sea. In our
ancient tales, Howth harbour is one of the most
noted and most frequented of Irish havens, and so
it is not unlikely to have received notice in Ptolemy's
description.
Our next notice of Ireland is written by Solinus,
about a.d. 200. He begins by repeating in other
words what was already said by Mela : " Hibernia
is barbarous in the manner of living of its inhabitants,
but is so rich in pasture that the cattle, if they be
not kept now and then from grazing, are put in
danger from over-eating. There are no snakes."
So we see that Solinus, writing two centuries and a
half before St. Patrick's time, has robbed our
national saint of one of his traditional glories. He
is not the only one to blame. One of the Fenian
lays tells how Fionn mac Cumhaill cleared the
island of all serpents. Even Fionn cannot be
allowed the credit without question, for it is evident
there there were no snakes in Ireland when the Fir
Bolg supplied the Eastern World with Irish earth
to protect cities from these venomous reptiles.
Solinus goes on to say : " Birds are rare. The nation
is inhospitable and warlike. The victors in combat
smear their faces with the blood of their slain
enemies. They make no difference between things
lawful and unlawful. There is not a bee anywhere,
and if anyone scatters dust or gravel from Ireland
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 141
among beehives, the swarms will desert their combs."
Here we have another variety of the snake-story.
Possibly Solinus, in his reading, mistook the word
aspis, the name of a kind of snake, for apis, " a
bee," and adjusted the popular legend about the
virtue of Irish earth to suit his mistake. " The
sea," he continues, " which flows between this
island and Britain is billowy and restless and
throughout the whole year it is navigable only
during very few days." Here perhaps we have the
current explanation of Ireland's immunity from
invasion by the Romans. Ireland, at all events,
was still a country about which the Latin world
was ready to accept travellers' tales from the
untravelled.
The Irish appear in a new role, that of invaders of
Britain, in a panegyric of the emperor Constantius
Chlorus, written in a.d. 297. The same document
and passage contains the earliest known mention
of the Picts by that name. " The Britons," says the
panegyric, " even then an uncivilised nation and
accustomed to no enemies except the Picts and the
Irish [Hiberni], still half-naked, readily yielded to
the Roman arms and standards." In my last
lecture, I have suggested that the overthrow of the
old Ulster kingdom is the explanation of the later
prominence of the Picts in eastern Ulster. The
sudden emergence of the Picts of Britain as a war-
like and aggressive people at the close of the third
century is susceptible of a similar explanation.
Under the Ulster kingdom, the Picts were subject
to the Ulaidh. As the Ulaidh declined in power,
i42 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
the Picts became relatively prominent. So in Britain,
before the Roman conquests, the Picts, I suggest,
were subject to the Celts. The name Caledones or
Caledonii, belonging to the principal people of
southern Scotland during the early times of the
Roman occupation of Britain, is a Celtic name. It
is formed by adding a very usual termination to the
Celtic adjective caledos, meaning " hard " or " hardy."
Caledos was in fairly frequent use as a Celtic personal
name. Seven instances are quoted by Holder from
inscriptions. It is found in Irish, e.g., in the term
caladcholg, " a hard sword." It is the common Irish
word for a landing-place from boats, originally no
doubt having been applied to firm ground, as dis-
tinguished from swampy ground, on the banks of
a river, and in this sense it has passed into Anglo-
Irish vocabulary in the form " callow " — the " cal-
lows " of the Shannon. That the Caledonii did not
belong to the old dark-complexioned population is
the testimony of Tacitus, who says : " The reddish
hair of the inhabitants of Caledonia and their large
limbs indicate a Germanic origin." That this Celtic
people at one time held sway in a region afterwards
dominated by the Picts is witnessed by the place-
name Dunkeld in Perthshire. The older Gaelic
name is Dun Cailden, i.e., Dunon Caledonon, the
stronghold of the Caledones. The Celts, who natur-
ally would have been strongest in Lowland Scot-
land, were so weakened there, I suggest, by the
Roman power, that they could no longer maintain
their predominance over the Pictish population of
the Highlands, and so, towards the close of the third
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 143
century, the Picts emerge as new and formidable
adversaries of Roman Britain on its northern
frontier.
In the fourth century, the Irish are named by a
new name in Latin writings. The earliest known
instance of this name, Scotti, Scots, is found in a
passage of the historian Ammianus with reference
to the events of the year 360. " In that year," he
writes, " the raids of the Scots and Picts, wild
nations, had broken the agreed peace in the British
provinces and were devastating the places near
the frontier ; terror was involving the provinces worn
out by the accumulation of past defeats ; the
emperor, passing the winter at Paris and harassed
by anxieties from one side and another, was afraid
to go to the relief of his subjects across the sea.
lest he might leave Gaul without a ruler a prey to
the Alamanni, who were already stirred up to cruelty
and war." In this single passage a great deal is
implied. We see the Western Empire now beginning
to totter, its ruler's conduct shaped no longer by hope
of conquest but by fear of disaster. We learn that
on the British northern frontier some sort of terms
had previously been made with the Picts and Scots,
who were the aggressive party. We learn the
manner of their warfare, which is similar to that
of the Norsemen during the first half-century of
their wars in Ireland. They make plundering raids
across the frontier, not in small parties but in con-
siderable force, defeating again and again the local
defences, and no doubt carrying off booty and
captives. It was in one of these raids, a few years
144 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
after the date above referred to, that the boy Patrick
was carried off and sold into slavery in Ireland.
In the year 365, Ammianus further records that
" the Picts and Saxons and Scots and Atecotti
harassed the Britons with continual afflictions." In
368, " the Picts, divided into two nations, Dicaly-
dones and Verturiones, and also the Atecotti, a
warlike nation of men, and the Scots, roving here
and there, did many devastations." Later on, the
writer of a panegyric on the emperor Theodosius
asks, " shall I tell of the Scot driven back to his
swamps ? " And the poet Claudian, in a eulogy of
the emperor Honorius, sings : " He has tamed the
active Moors and the Picts, whose name is no nick-
name, and the Scot with wandering dagger he has
followed up, breaking the waves of the far north
with daring oars " ; and again, " Ice-cold Ireland
has mourned the heaped-up corpses of her Scots."
Praising the Roman general Stilicho, Claudian says :
" The Scot set all Ireland in motion " ; and later,
referring to Stilicho's muster against the Goths in the
year 416, he writes : " Came also the legion that
protected the furthest bounds of Britain, that
bridled the cruel Scot and scanned the lifeless face
of the dying Pict tattooed with iron point."
In all these writings, from the first mention of
the name Scots down to the fall of the Western
Empire in the fifth century, the Scots are Irish
raiders of Roman Britain. Whitley Stokes took
the name Scottus to be cognate with certain Slavonic
and Germanic words and to mean " master " or
" possessor." But why should a people who until
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 14$
the fourth century were named Iverni or Hiberni
acquire in the fourth century a new name meaning
" masters " or " possessors " ? It is not in the
quality of possessors that they appear in the records
of the time, but rather in the quality of dispossessors.
Raiding, fighting, wandering, wasting, these are the
occupations of the Scots in that age ; and if they
acquired a new name, it is to these occupations that
we might expect the new name to have reference.
Therefore, though it may appear audacious on my
part, I venture on a different explanation.
A gloss on the name of St. Scoithin in the Festilogy
of Oengus says that he was named Scoithin ar in
scothad imdechta dognid A. dul do Ruain i n-oenlo
ocus toidecht uathi i n-oenlo aile, " from the scothadh
of travelling that he practised, namely, going [from
Ireland] to Rome in a single day and returning
thence [to Ireland] in another single day." The
verb scothaim or scaithim has a group of meanings
all signifying a rapid cutting or striking movement.
Dictionaries give the meanings " I lop, prune, cut
off, strip, destroy disperse, scutch [flax], beat a
sheaf of corn to make it shed its grain." Scoth-
bhualadh means a light threshing ; scoithnedn, a sieve
for winnowing grain. Scottus, then, in this view, was
originally a common noun meaning a raider or reaver,
a depredator who worked by rapid incursions and
retirements. It was probably a Gaulish word, for
its earliest known use is in various inscriptions of
Roman Gaul, in which it is used as a personal name.
For example, an inscription of the year 224 records
a votive offering by Marcus Quintius Florentinus
10
I46 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
and others, the children of Caius Quintius Scottus.
Here Scottus is the distinctive byname of the father
and is not found in the names of his children.
The old story about promiscuous marriages, which
in Caesar's time was told of the Britons, and later
on, when Britain became better known to the
Romans, was told of the islands of western Scotland,
continued until the fifth century to be told of the
Irish, who, like the Hebrideans, dwelt beyond the
bounds of the Empire. St. Jerome writes that
" the Scotti and Atecotti, in the manner of Plato's
Republic, have wives promiscuously and children
in common " ; and again, " the nation of the Scotti
do not marry wives of their own ; as if they had
read Plato's Republic and adopted the example of
Cato, no wife among them belongs to a particular
husband ; but each according to his pleasure they
live without restraint, as cattle live." There is no
mention of these evil customs a half-century later
when Saint Patrick tells how he won over the Scots
and their children from Paganism, and the oldest
traditions show that the pagan Irish followed the
law of monogamy with as much fidelity as did
the ancient Greeks and Romans. St. Jerome tells
another story, this time on his own direct testimony :
" In my early youth in Gaul I have myself seen
the Scots, a Britannic nation, feeding on human
flesh, and, when they might find herds of swine and
cattle through the forests, [I have known them] to be
wont to cut off the hips of shepherds and the breasts
of women, and to regard these as the only delicacies
of their food." Instead of Scotti, some texts of
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 147
Saint Jerome have Atecotti in this place. It
matters little, for all agree in adding the words
gentem Britannicam "a Britannic nation." We have
seen that the Atecotti were associated with the
Scotti in raiding Roman Britain, and we must come
later to the question, who were the Atecotti. St.
Jerome's testimony is valuable on the point that
these invaders of Roman Britain, whether Scotti or
Atecotti, also roved about Gaul. We may take it
that there were bands of them in the woods, in which
he tells us they might have found swine and cattle
to provide them with food, had it not been for
their barbarous preference for special cuts of shep-
herd and shepherdess. He states that he was a
boy at the time (adolescentulus). He does not say
that he saw the barbarians in the act of catching
and killing a shepherd or a shepherdess, and we may
be certain that he did not, otherwise he would not
have stayed on to see the preparation and con-
sumption of the tit-bits. It has been suggested
that he was probably accompanied by a very wise
elderly woman who told him, as a precaution, the
sort of people these roving banditti were, and that
his childish imagination confirmed the tale. He
may have seen the wandering islanders feasting
round their fire in the forest, but how did he con-
trive to identify the viands ? Once more, let it be
said that tradition is old enough and history reaches
far enough back to assure us that cannibalism, like
promiscuous polygamy, was no custom of the in-
habitants of Ireland or of Britain in the fourth
century of the Christian era.
148 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
We have seen that Latin writers of this period
make mention of the Atecotti, usually in conjunction
with the Scotti. Some have assumed that the Ate-
cotti were a branch of the Picts. So far as positive
evidence goes, it is against this assumption. Am-
mianus speaks of the Picts, subdivided into two
nations, Dicalydones and Verturiones, and then
adds that " the Atecotti, a warlike nation," and
the Scotti, were engaged with these in the work of
devastation. This implies that the Atecotti, like the
Scotti, were distinct from the Picts.
A verbal resemblance in the names led some Irish
writers, from the close of the eighteenth century
down to O'Curry, to identify the Atecotti with the
Irish Aithech-thuatha, the ancient Rent-paying com-
munities referred to in my third lecture. I do not
think that the philologists will sanction the identi-
fication so far as it is based on verbal resemblance.
The name Atecotti has not been found in any form
in the native records of Ireland or Britain as the
name of any nation or sub-nation or in the topo-
graphy of either island. Nevertheless contemporary
evidence during the second half of the fourth century
shows that not only on the frontier of Roman Britain
but also on the Continent there was a numerous and
warlike collection of men known by this name. As
in the case of the name Scotti, the conclusion I
would draw is that Atecotti was a name for a general
class of men not for a particular nation, tribe, or
political community. The name, in its best authen-
ticated form, is a Celtic word, consisting of the ad-
jective cottos preceded by the prefix ate. Cottos
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 149
means " old," or " ancient." The prefix ate, which
becomes aith or atb in Irish of the MS. period, means
"back " or " again," like the Latin re, and like this,
too, it often has a strengthening or intensifying force.
Thus, Atecotti may be taken to mean the very
ancient, the primitive, the pristine folk ; and so it
is explained by Whitley Stokes. Who then were
these very ancient people who were associated with
the Scotti and were not identified with the Picts r
We are reminded at once of the Irish traditions of
non-Gaelic and pre-Gaelic communities which formed
the main fighting strength of the kings of North
Leinster and South Leinster, and of the non-Gaelic
origin ascribed to Cu Chulainn, Fear Diadh, and to
the kindred of Fionn mac Cumhaill and of Goll mac
Morna. Of course, on this point we are far from com-
plete certainty, but the probability, in my opinion, is
that, when the Irish went to war in the fourth cen-
tury, they still adhered to the politico-social dis-
tinction between the Gaelic ascendancy and the
conquered plebeian race, and that this was the
distinction between the Scotti and the Atecotti. The
adjective cottos does not appear to belong to the
vocabulary of Irish, but it is found in the various
Brittanic dialects and was a frequent element in
Gaulish nomenclature. The Atecotti, therefore, pro-
bably received their name not in Ireland but in
Britain or Gaul. The view I put forward reaches,
but by a different path, a similar conclusion to that
adopted by the Irish writers who sought to identify
the Atecotti by name with the plebeian communities
of ancient Ireland, the Aitheach-thuatha.
ISO PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
Contact with the Roman military system reacted
on the domestic condition of Ireland. To this
cause we may ascribe the origin of the Fiana as a
definite military organisation at a definite period.
The word fian is collective, signifying a band of
fighting men, not merely a band of men called out
upon occasion for military service, but a permanent
fighting force. From it is derived feindid, feinnidb,
a professional soldier. Normally, the ancient nations
depended in warfare on their citizen soldiers who in
time of peace were engaged in the works of peace.
The great imperial states, for their plans of conquest
and dominion, or for the protection of their artificial
realms, relied on standing armies. In the stories of
the Ulster cycle, though, as we have seen, there are
certain castes or communities with a special tra-
dition of warlike service and efficiency, there does
not seem to be any permanent military organisation.
The cycle of the Fiana, on the contrary, is concerned
with fighting men whose principal occupation is
warfare. The two epic traditions are quite distinct.
Chariot-fighting is characteristic of the Ulster tales.
The Fiana fight on foot. The time to which the
Fiana belong is the time of the conquests made by
the Connacht kings in North Leinster, the time of
Conn, Art, Cormac, and Cairbre Lifeachar — roughly
speaking, the third century of the Christian era.
During that century, the Britons were " accustomed
to war with Irish enemies," and the Irish therefore
had opportunities of learning something of the Roman
manner of warfare and military organisation. Again,
to the third century and later belong those great
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 151
earthen frontier walls in Ireland spoken of in the
foregoing lecture. The erection of these walls, we
may well believe, was inspired by acquaintance with
the Roman frontier fortifications in northern Britain,
constructed in the second century and in the early
part of the third century.
Accustomed to military life, numbers of the
Scotti and Atecotti took service under Roman
commanders, especially under Stilicho, who enlisted
troops wherever he could raise them to defend the
Empire against the Goths. The time was during
the last years of the fourth century and the opening
years of the fifth. A number of Latin inscriptions
on the Continent bear witness to the existence, in
the later days of the Western Empire, of a military
force in the Imperial service under the name of
Primi Scotti — " the First Scots." The majority of
these inscriptions are found near the ancient frontier
between the Roman Empire and western Germany,
showing that the Scots or Irish were engaged to
defend the line of the Rhine against the Germans.
A few of the inscriptions are found in the interior of
Roman Gaul.
About the same time, under the emperor Honorius
and his general Stilicho, a number of distinct bodies
— cohorts or regiments — of the Atecotti served in the
Imperial armies. The military records known as
Notitiae Dignitatum have mention of the following
forces : Atecotti seniores ; Atecotti juniores ; Ate-
cotti Honoriani seniores ; Atecotti Honoriani juniores;
and Atecotti Gallicani juniores ; to which by implica-
tion we must add Atecotti Gallicani seniores. All
1 52 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
these were serving in the Western Empire, and in
addition to these there was a body called simply
Atecotti serving in the Eastern Empire. Those in
the west formed part of a force which included also
Moors, Germans, and others drawn from countries
outside of the Empire. The general name for these
troops appears to have been Honoriani, from the
emperor Honorius in whose service they were enlisted.
The chief military task of the Roman armies under
Honorius was to resist the Goths who were threaten-
ing to overrun his dominions. The Spanish historian
Orosius, who lived in Spain at that time, calls the
barbarian forces of Honorius the Honoriaci, i.e., he
substitutes a Celtic form for the Latin Honoriani.
(St. Patrick, a little later, uses a similar Celtic form
Hiberionaci, instead of the usual Latin name Hiberni,
for the Irish.) In 409, the year before the capture of
Rome by the Goths under Alaric, the German nations
of the Suevi, Vandals, and Alans overran southern
Gaul as far as the Spanish borders. The passes of
the Pyrenees were held at this time by the Honoriani.
Orosius says that, on the approach of the Germans,
the Honoriani in the Pyrenees made common cause
with them, and shared with them in the invasion of
Spain and the partition of the conquered territory
He adds that the Honorians were more clement
than the Germans towards the conquered people,
and extended some degree of protection and as-
sistance to them. This conquest was of short dura-
tion. A few years later the Goths in turn invaded
Spain and established a Gothic kingdom over it.
These events belong to a period for which Ireland
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 153
has no contemporary documents of history, but for
which, as it borders on the more strictly historical
period, Irish traditions have their highest validity in
evidence. The testimony of native tradition, as we
might expect, is in accord with that of external
history.
The third and fourth centuries of the Christian era
were a time in which nearly all the peoples of Europe
outside of the Roman Empire were, so to speak, on
the march with arms in their hands. At the be-
ginning of the Christian era and before it, we have
seen that this state of unrest already pervaded the
Celts and Germans of Mid-Europe. A few centuries
earlier still, the Celts almost alone are found in this
condition of warlike mobility ; for the radiation of
the Celtic migratory movements in every direction —
southward into Italy, westward into Gaul, Spain,
Britain, and Ireland, northward into the Baltic
basin, and eastward along the Danube valley and
into Asia Minor — is evidence that, unlike the move-
ments which led to the break-up of the Western
Empire, the earlier Celtic migrations were not accom-
panied by pressure from other moving populations
on their borders.
I have ascribed the early expansion of the Celts
to iron. The possession of iron had a two-fold effect.
The natural condition of the greater part of Europe
is forest. If man were absent or idle-handed, nearly
all Europe in a few generations would revert to the
forest state. To clear the land of woods, or even to
prevent the fresh growth of woods after clearance,
the implements of the Stone Age, Early and Late,
154 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
cannot have been effective. Even let us suppose
that large clearances could have been made by burn-
ing, at once the thickets would again spring up, and
under their protection the forest trees. Nor can
the possession of bronze have sufficed to subdue
the natural tendency towards forest. Bronze, in
the Bronze Age, was not the industrial material of
the many ; it belonged to the privileged few who
were not hewers of wood. Iron, when it came, intro-
duced an industrial revolution relatively greater than
that which has been introduced in modern times by
the steam-engine. Once people knew how to work
it, iron was abundant enough to be in the hands of
every worker. Iron became and has ever since
remained the sole master of growing wood. With
the conquest of the forests came a great extension
of tillage. Iron not only cleared fertile tracts but
tilled them more rapidly and deeply than was possible
with the wooden spade which, as the old Irish copper-
mines have taught us, was the digging implement of
the Bronze Age. Thus food became abundant, and
with it a density of population which, before iron,
was possible only in fertile and forestless regions like
the flood areas of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Road-
making, too, progressed, and the use of vehicles.
As iron furnished the many with better implements
of work, it furnished them also with better imple-
ments of war. An overflowing population and war-
like arms for all — here we have the conditions for
migratory conquest. On these conditions the Celtic
migrations were based. The spread of these con-
ditions to the Germans led to the later Germanic
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 155
expansion, and their further spread brought about
the Slavonic and Turanian migrations which drove
the Germans down upon the subject peoples of Rome,
peoples whose power of resistance and will to defend
themselves had been already broken by that Roman
policy so frankly described by Tacitus.
Just as the universal subjection of science and
invention to the purposes of warfare has reduced
Europe to its present condition, so the universal
possession of iron made Europe in the third and
fourth centuries a scene of universal war. Though
Ireland was fortunately untouched by the great
migratory movements of the Continent in that age,
these movements reacted on Ireland by weakening
the neighbouring provinces of the Empire.
The raids on Britain and Gaul for booty and cap-
tives— raids from which, as I have argued, the Irish
got their new name of Scots — were followed by Irish
settlements on various points of the British coast.
The conquest of eastern Meath or Bregia by the
kings of Connacht and Uisneach forced a part of
the population to migrate, and one body of the
migrants settled in Demetia, in the south of Wales.
We can safely place the conquest of Bregia in the
second half of the third century, but it does not
follow that the settlement in Wales was made at the
same time, for the story of the Deisi migration makes
it appear that the expelled population remained for
many years in Leinster before the settlement in
Munster. There may have been a similar delay
before their kindred crossed over to Wales.
In south-western Britain, there was also an Irish
156 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
colony, apparently from Munster and headed by
princes of the Eoghanacht dynasty which displaced
the earlier line of the Iverni. Cormac's Glossary
mentions in the Cornish region a stronghold named
Dinn Map Lethan. This name, a mixture of Cymric
and Gaelic, means the fortress of the Sons of Lethan.
The Ui Liathain, or descendants of Liathan, were one
of the principal septs of the Eoghanachta, and their
territory adjoined the Munster coast in the district
immediately to the west of the Deisi.
The most noted and most permanent of the Irish
settlements in Britain was that of Argyleshire and
the adjoining islands. The kings of Dal Riada,
according to the Annals of Tigernach, did not take
up their abode in that region until far on in the
fifth century, a.d. 470. This, however, does not
imply that the Irish migration to Scotland began at
that time. It rather means that the Irish colonies
of Argyleshire and the islands became subject at
that time to the kings of the nearest territory in
Ireland. There is no record known to me of the
Irish migration to Galloway, the south-western angle
of the Scottish mainland, a region formerly occupied
by the Picts. Though the Norsemen settled in.
Galloway in a later age, a glance at the map will
show that the place-names of Galloway are almost
as purely Gaelic as those of any part of Ireland.
Gaelic was the prevalent language of Galloway in
the sixteenth century and continued to be spoken
there in the eighteenth century.
These Gaelic settlements on the western seaboard
of Britain appeared to Sir John Rhys to be the
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 157
remnants of a Gaelic population which, he thought,
preceded the British or Brythonic conquest.
There are stories of the Fiana and even of the
heroes of the earlier Ulster cycle that reflect in
tradition those raids on Britain which are recorded
in Latin writings. As we approach the borderland
of documentary history, the evidences are still more
definite. The death of Niall of the Nine Hostages,
king of Ireland, is assigned to the year 404. At
the time of his death, he was at the head of an
expedition in the English Channel, and he was slain
on board ship by a Leinster prince. He was suc-
ceeded by his brother's son Nath-'I, commonly
called Dathi in later writings. Nath-'I in turn met
his death at the head of an oversea expedition in the
year 429. He is said to have been killed by light-
ning in the Alps. At this time, the Roman Empire
was making its final struggle in Gaul under Aetius
" the last of the Romans," against the Visigoths
who held all the southern parts from Italy to the
Bay of Biscay, and the Franks and Burgundians
who had occupied the parts along the Rhine. It
does not seem likely that an Irish raid, in these cir-
cumstances, could reach the Alps, nor can we well
imagine what it could expect to gain by such an
inroad. The Alps are probably a circumstantial
ornament to the story, and we may content our-
selves with the main point that this Irish king,
three years before St. Patrick's mission Degan, led a
raiding expedition to Gaul and met his death there.
The story contains an additional proof that the
kings of Ireland, who reigned in Tara in those days,
1 58 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
represented the ancient dynasty of Connacht. The
remains of Nath-'I were brought back to Ireland
and laid to rest in the ancient pagan cemetery of
Cruachain, beside the royal burg of the Connacht
kings. It was the old line of the kings of Cruachain
that had now become kings of Ireland seated in
Tara. There is another interesting piece of evidence
on this point which did not escape the notice of the
late Father Hogan. Loeguire, son of Niall, suc-
ceeded his cousin Nath-'I as king of Ireland, and
was reigning at Tara when St. Patrick began his
missionary work. But it was at Cruachain and not
at Tara that St. Patrick met and baptised the
daughters of Loeguire. Tara, in fact, was the
official seat of the monarchy, but Cruachain in
Connacht was still the real home of the kings of
Tara.
The condition of Europe at this time, the first
half of the fifth century, is terrible to contemplate,
and many must have thought that the ancient
civilisation was at an end. The R.oman legions
had abandoned Britain a prey to the Picts, the
Scots, and the north-western Germans. Gaul and
Spain were in the hands of the Franks, Burgundians,
Visigoths, Alans, Suevi, and Vandals. Genseric, king
of the Vandals, had overrun the opulent Roman
province of Africa, which never afterwards re-
covered its ancient prosperity, and the greatest in-
tellect of the time, St. Augustine, passed away in
his episcopal city while the Vandals were besieging
it. Rome itself was twice captured and sacked,
first by the Goths and afterwards by the Vandals.
PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND 159
Attila, the Scourge of God, led immense armies from
one end of Europe to the other, and boasted that
where his horse had trodden the grass grew no more.
St. Patrick, in his Confession, relates that after his
escape from captivity in Ireland he and his com-
panions travelled for thirty days on the Continent
through an unpeopled wilderness. It seems a miracle
that hope and courage could have survived in any
mind. Yet the spirit of peace and gentleness and
mercy was stronger than all the violence and blood-
thirst of all the nations. Some have complained
that St. Patrick, in his simple narrative, tells
little but his own heart, but his Confession is one
of the great documents of history, and explains to
us better than all the historians how barbarism was
tamed and civilisation saved. Imagine a young lad
of tender years, son of a Roman citizen, torn away
by fierce raiders from his parents and people, no
doubt amid scenes of bloodshed and ruin, and sold
into slavery among strangers ; kept for years, the
despised chattel of a petty chieftain, herding flocks
in a bleak land of bog and forest. Think that the
ruling sentiment that grew out of this pitiful ex-
perience was one of boundless love and devotion
towards the people that had done him such terrible
wrongs, so that when he had regained his freedom
by flight, in nightly visions he heard their voices
calling him back to them and freely and eagerly
made up his mind to spend himself altogether in
their service. It was this spirit that subdued the
ferocity of fierce plundering rulers and warlike
peoples. The Irish ceased from that time to be a
160 PRE-CHRISTIAN IRELAND
predatory nation. Two centuries later, the king of
the Northumbrian Angles invaded and devastated a
part of eastern Ireland. His own subject, the
Venerable Bede, denounces this violence done to
" a harmless people who have never injured the
English," and finds a just retribution in the misfor-
tunes that afterwards befel the king and the North-
umbrian power.
In St. Patrick's time, the headship of Tara was
not yet firmly fixed in the national tradition. He
founded various churches in the neighbourhood of
Tara. Tirechan names eight of them. To none o:
these he attached the primacy, but to the church
he founded close by the ancient capital of Ulster.
The story of this foundation illustrates another
trait of Patrick's character besides his wonderful
charity. The nobleman, Daire, from whom he
asked the land for his church, refused the site that
Patrick wished and gave another instead. He after-
wards presented Patrick with a fine vessel of bronze.
Patrick said simply " Gratias agimus." This curtness
displeased the magnate, so that he sent again and
took away the gift. Patrick again said, " Gratias
agimus." Hearing this, Daire came in person and
restored the vessel to Patrick and said : " Thou
must have thy vessel of bronze, for thou art a stead-
fast and unchangeable man. And moreover that
piece of land for which thou once didst ask me, I
give to thee with all my rights in it, and dwell thou
in it." And that, says the ancient life, is the city
which now is named Armagh.
VI. INTRODUCTION OF
CHRISTIANITY AND LETTERS
IN our early literature there are many traces of
an abiding tradition that already before St.
Patrick's mission there were Christians and
small Christian communities here and there in
Ireland. Some of the statements, especially as to
the founders of certain sees, have been discredited,
being imputed to a desire to make out that these
sees, alleged to have been founded before St.
Patrick's time, were therefore independent of the
jurisdiction and claims of Armagh, especially of
the temporal claims for revenue. It was claimed
in particular for St. Ailbhe and St. Iubhar, of the
see of Emly, St. Declan of Ardmore, and St. Ciaran
of Saighir that they were already bishops in St.
Patrick's time. These things are stated in docu-
ments in which other things are said that cannot
be reconciled with historical fact. The date of St.
Iubhar's death, according to the Annals of Ulster,
was 500, 501, or 504; of St. Ailbhe's, 534, or 542;
and SS. Ciaran and Declan are both said to have
lived into the sixth century. Saint Iubhar ap-
pears to have been the earliest of them and there
is evidence that he received episcopal consecration
at the hands of St. Patrick. The case, however,
does not rest whollv or mainlv on such unstable
premises.
11 161
i6z INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
The genealogists of Corcu Loegdae, or Dairine,
claim that the people of that state were the first in
Ireland to receive Christianity ; and the claim at
all events cannot be dismissed on the ground of
improbability. The diocese of Ross appears to repre-
sent the extent of this little state in the twelfth
century, but in earlier times its territory covered a
much larger area. Dwelling around several good
havens, which were most favourably situated in
relation to the old Atlantic trade route, the people
were always a sea-going people. We read of an
O'Driscoll at the head of his fleet attacking the
English of Waterford. One of their chiefs takes
his distinctive byname from Gascony, another from
Bordeaux. Thomas Davis's spirited ballad on the
Sack of Baltimore brings home to our minds how
direct hostile relation could exist between this
region and the Mediterranean ; and where such
hostile relations were possible, trade relations may
be taken as normal. It is by no means unlikely,
then, that where the Crescent could come on pirate
galleys from Algiers, the Cross might well have
come in some early merchant ship from the Loire
or the Garonne.
St. Patrick himself, in his Confession, seems to
testify by implication to the existence not merely
of individual Christians but of Christian com-
munities with their clergy in and before his time
in Ireland. " For your sake," he writes, " I have
faced many dangers, going even to the limits of
the land where no one was before me, and whither
no one had yet come to baptise or ordain clergy
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 163
or confirm the faithful." This surely implies that
there were places in Ireland, not in the remoter
parts, places where some had come before Patrick
and had performed the purely episcopal functions of
ordination and confirmation.
More definite still is the evidence of Prosper's
Chronicle — direct testimony, for the chronicler was
in Rome at the time. Under the year 431, the
chronicle has this entry : " To the Scots believing
in Christ, having been ordained by Pope Celestine,
Palladius is sent as first bishop." The natural
interpretation of this statement, I think, is that
some Irish Christians sent a request to Rome to
have a bishop sent to them. The mission was con-
sidered an important one, for Palladius, before his
consecration as bishop, held a high ecclesiastical
office at Rome. He had also interested himself in
the religious concerns of Britain, having induced
Pope Celestine two years earlier to send a special
mission to Britain to counteract the teachings of a
Pelagian bishop. In another work, St. Prosper
refers to these two missions together. Pope Celes-
tine, he writes, " while he laboured to keep the
Roman island (i.e. Britain) Catholic, also, by ordain-
ing a bishop for the Scots, made the barbarous island
Christian " — barbarous meaning external to the
Roman Empire. Even this does not necessarily
imply that before Palladius there were no bishops
in Ireland, but it does imply that these particular
" Irish believing in Christ," to whom Palladius was
sent, had no bishop in communion with Rome.
Pelagius, the author of the Pelagian heresy, was,
i6x INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
according to St. Jerome, a man " of the Irish nation,
from the vicinity of the Britons," and St. Jerome
again, in his vigorous style, speaks of Pelagius as
one " swelled out with the porridge of the Irish."
Other contemporary witnesses say that Pelagius
was a Briton. This leaves us in doubt, for, on the
one hand, these may have applied the term Briton
to anyone from any part of the Pretanic islands,
and on the other hand, St. Jerome's language about
Pelagius is the language of rhetorical depreciation,
and from what I have quoted from him in the fore-
going lecture, we may perhaps judge that by calling
Pelagius a Scot, he thought the more effectually to
discredit him. The known career of Pelagius lies
between the years 398 and 418. One thing comes
out clearly enough from the contemptuous phrase —
the Irish were known abroad in St. Jerome's time
as eaters of porridge.
The late Professor Zimmer, finding a somewhat
obscure early reference to the flight of learned people
from Gaul during the Gothic and Frankish invasions
and to their finding a place of refuge in another
country, founded on this an interesting theory re-
garding the early stages of Christianity and letters
in Ireland. It was in Ireland, he contends, that
the refugees found a home, for Ireland was the only
land in Western Europe that escaped the Germanic
invasions. To Ireland they brought with them a
certain devotion to the ancient literatures of Greece
and Rome. The limits of date for this learned
migration, according to Zimmer, are the years 419
and 507, and he holds that it actually took place
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 165
about midway between those dates, i.e., about the
middle of the fifth century.
To make this theory of a learned migration from
Western Gaul to Ireland more easily accepted,
Zimmer gives a valuable collection of facts in his-
torical evidence, showing that there was a regular
course of trade between the two countries at this
time and for centuries before and after it.
Zimmer applies his theory to the explanation of
certain remarkable facts. In the first place, he
explains by it the pre-eminence in the knowledge of
Latin and Greek that belonged in the following age
to Irishmen and the pupils of Irishmen. Secondly,
he explains by it the reference made by St. Patrick
in his Confession to certain critics who despised his
rusticity, i.e., his want of a classical grounding in
Latin. St. Patrick calls these critics " rhetoricians,"
a term which certainly seems to imply that they
belonged to a professional academic set. Zimmer
thinks that these " rhetoricians " were some of the
learned refugees from Western Gaul. A third fact
which Zimmer explains by his migration theory is
the fondness of the early Irish poets and grammarians
for certain artificial super-refinements of language and
grammar, and in particular for the production of a
learned jargon in Irish by making deliberate changes
in the form of words, substituting one letter for
another, and adding, transforming or removing
letters or syllables. This trait, he argues, was
adopted from a certain learned school of Aquitaine,
who played similar tricks with Latin, and produced
by such means not one but a dozen Latin jargons ;
1 66 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
and Zimmer goes so far as to insist that the supposed
Irish poet-grammarian who is named " Fercertne
the Poet ' was actually and personally identical
with one of the chief exponents of this artificial
Latinity, Virgilius Grammaticus.
The difficulties I find in accepting this theory of
Zimmer are chiefly two. The first is that Zimmer,
when he set out to establish a novel theory, was
quite as ingenious in weaving an argument as
Virgilius Grammaticus could be in concocting a
Latin jargon. My second difficulty is that, if such
a school of foreign Latinists existed in Ireland in
St. Patrick's time, I cannot understand why neither
the school itself nor any individual belonging to it
is mentioned in any Irish document. St. Patrick
does not say that his critics lived in Ireland.
On the other hand, in a passage which Zimmer
has not noted, there is reference to a high degree of
Christian learning in Ireland possibly as early as
St. Patrick's time. It is in a letter on the Paschal
controversy written by St. Columbanus of Bobblo
within the years 595 to 600. It may be remarked
that St. Columbanus writes in a remarkably pure
Latin style, founded on good sound Latin teaching,
and in no way reflecting the ingenuities and puerilities
of the Aquitanian school. He is speaking expressly
in this letter about the chronological system devised
by Victorius of Aquitaine, who flourished in the
middle of the fifth century. " Victorius," he writes,
" was regarded with indulgence, not to say con-
tempt, by our masters and by the ancient Irish
philosophers." Here, in the last years of the sixth
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 167
century, we find an Irishman placing a higher value
on the Christian learning of " ancient Irish philoso-
phers " than on that of a noted Aquitanian scholar.
I do not propose here to deal with the life and
work of St. Patrick. Let me escape with the
apology made by the writer of the Irish Nennius :
" It would be carrying water to a lake, to relate
the wonders of Patrick to the Men of Ireland."
Let the beginnings of letters and literature in
Ireland now occupy our attention. Caesar's testi-
mony will be remembered in regard of the Celts
in Gaul : " They make use of Greek letters in
almost all their affairs, both public and private."
This use of the Greek alphabet is corroborated
by the fact that the oldest Celtic inscriptions in
Gaul are in Greek characters. The accompanying
sculptures also demonstrate Greek influence. This
influence radiated, no doubt, from the early Greek
colony of Massilia or Massalia (Marseille) and its
daughter colonies along the Mediterranean coast.
It extended as far as to the Helvetii in the modern
Switzerland, among whose spoils Caesar captured
a census of the entire people written out in Greek
characters. On the other hand, the Cisalpine Gauls
in Northern Italy used the Etruscan alphabet, from
which the Roman alphabet was also in part derived,
and a number of their inscriptions in the Etruscan
characters have been discovered.
We can trace no such early use of the alphabet
in Britain or Ireland. The earliest known use of
letters in Britain appears to be in the coinage of
the sons of Commius.
i68 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
Tacitus has told us that the states of Britain
were governed, not by kings, but by nobles and
factions — just as Rome was governed in the later
centuries of the Republic. In Gaul also there were
no kings. It is interesting to examine how, in
the period between the temporary invasions of
Britain by Julius Caesar and the permanent Roman
conquest of southern Britain about a century later,
a people of the southern seaboard happen to have
kings, and these kings happen to have a coinage
inscribed after the Roman fashion.
One of the Belgic States that had an offshoot in
Britain was that of the Atrebates close to the
Straits of Dover. The town of Arras preserves their
name. In Britain, they were settled in the valley of
the Thames and their chief place was Calleva, now
Silchester in the north of Hampshire. Caesar took
a special interest in the Atrebates, perhaps for the
two reasons, that their territory was so near to
Britain and that a part of their people were settled
in Britain. In the early and insecure stages of his
conquest of Gaul, he did not find it practicable to
establish at once the Roman form of government.
Instead he adopted a device which had already
succeeded in the case of the Galatian republic in
Asia. The Romans changed Galatia into a monarchy
under a Galatian king Deiotaros, believing that they
would secure their own authority more effectually by
making one of the Galatians, so to speak, their
chief policeman. A son and grandson of Deiotaros
succeeded him as kings, and after these Augustus
abolished this appearance of autonomy and made
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 169
Galatia a Roman province under Roman governors.
Caesar, having overcome the resistance of the Atre-
bates on the Continent, appointed one of themselves,
Commius, a noble of great influence, to be their
king. Commius, he tells us, was a man both
courageous and politic, and he considered him
loyal. He afterwards used Commius as his inter-
mediary in treating with the Britons, and through
him received the submission of Cassivellaunus, whom
the Britons had chosen to command their forces.
After this service, Caesar freed Commius from tribute,
restored the rights and laws of his people and gave
him sovereignty also over the Morini, a neighbour-
ing state on the Belgic seaboard. In the sixth
year of Caesar's command, b.c. 53, a wide revolt of
the Gallic states took place, and this time Commius
took the side of his fellow-countrymen and was one
of the four chiefs to whom they committed the
principal charge of the war. In the suppression of
the revolt, Commius was one of the last to hold out.
He called in the help of the Germans, and when all
failed, he took refuge among the Germans. Hirtius,
the continuator of Caesar's narrative, relates how
Labienus, one of Caesar's generals, considered that,
in view of the disloyalty of Commius and his enter-
ing into conspiracy to revolt, it would be no perfidy
to have him done away. Accordingly he sent one
Volusenus to him in the guise of an envoy but with
private instructions to have Commius murdered. The
plot failed, and Commius declared that he would
never again consent to speak to any Roman. He
continued the war, and had the satisfaction of once
170 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
meeting and wounding the treacherous envoy Volu-
senus in single combat. At last he was forced to
submit upon terms and to give hostages, but even
in his submission he made it a condition that he
would not be required to hold direct intercourse
with any Roman. He seems to have taken refuge
finally in Britain.
Under the rule of Commius over the Atrebates,
coins were struck bearing his name in its Celtic
spelling Commios, but in Roman lettering, pro-
bably about the earliest examples of the use of
the Roman alphabet in northern Gaul. Three of
his sons appear to have reigned as kings in southern
Britain, where, as already said, a colony of their
people the Atrebates was settled. Their names,
Tincius (or Tincommius), Eppillus, and Verica or
Virica, are on numerous coins found in the south-
east and middle south of England. One of these
coins bears the name of Calleva, chief place of the
Atrebates in Britain, now Silchester. The coins
are inscribed with Roman letters, the name of
Eppillus has already exchanged a Celtic for a Latin
ending in the nominative, and the letters R and F,
abbreviations for the Latin rex and jilius, appear on
most of the coins. In this way the Latin alphabet
found a foothold in Britain about the beginning of
the Christian era.
No use of letters nearly so early can be traced in
Ireland. When Irish traditions began to be written,
the Ogham alphabet was thought to be of remote
antiquity, its invention being ascribed to the epony-
mous god Ogma. This god is apparently identical
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 171
with the Gaulish Ogmios, a god of eloquence, about
whom there is a remarkable passage in the Greek
writer Lucian. In the story of Tain Bo Cuailngi,
Cu Chulainn cuts a message in Ogham on a branch
and sets it up in the middle of a ford for his ap-
proaching enemies to read. Nevertheless, I think
that the use of Ogham characters cannot be quite as
old as the Cu Chulainn period. I see two reasons
for thinking so. The first is that the Ogham alpha-
bet is based on the Latin alphabet. The second is
that, if the Irish god Ogma mac Eladan (" son of
science ") is to be identified in any way with the
Gaulish Ogmios, god of eloquence, — and it seems im-
possible to dissociate them — then the name of the
god must have come into the Irish language at a
very late date before the use of writing. Philologists
tell us that, when g was followed by m in the early
unrecorded stage of the Irish language, g disap-
peared, and the preceding vowel, if short, was
lengthened " by compensation," as it is called.
Accordingly, an ancient name Ogmios would be
represented in early MS. Irish by 'Ome not Ogme,
and in later Irish by Uama or Uaime not Oghma.
At first sight, it may appear too much to say
that the Ogham alphabet was founded on the Latin
alphabet. Why, let us ask, might it not have
been a quite independent invention ? A little re-
flection will convince us that it could not have
been an independent invention. There is no limit,
practically, to the possible varieties of alphabet,
i.e., of graved or written symbols used to represent
words. There are pictorial systems, and derived
i>-2 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
from these the so-called hieroglyphics, systems in
which every word has a distinct syllable, systems in
which each character stands for a symbol, systems
in which no vowels are written, and systems which
have distinct symbols for vowels and consonants.
To the last class belong the Greek and Latin alpha-
bets. There are systems in which the long and
short vowels are distinguished, for example, in
Pitman's shorthand alphabet ; and this is partly
the case in the Greek alphabet. The Ogham alpha-
bet belongs to the class in which there are distinct
symbols for vowels and consonants. All its con-
sonants but one are found in the Latin alphabet.
Except for this one, representing the sound of ng
in song or sing, it is content with the Latin con-
sonants, though each of them has to express two
very distinct sounds in Irish, the mute or stop
sound and the spirant or " aspirate " as it is popu-
larly called. Lastly, it has the five Latin vowels,
without distinction of long or short. Hence its
Latin origin is hardly open to question. Until
Caesar's time, the Greek, not the Latin, alphabet was
in use among the Gauls, the nearest people to Ireland
by whom writing was then used. The Ogham
alphabet and the Latin alphabet differ, generally
speaking, in the same respects from the Greek
alphabet. The latter therefore cannot have furnished
the Irish model. The conclusion is that the Ogham
alphabet, based on the Latin, was devised at some
time later than the introduction of the Latin alpha-
bet into neighbouring countries, that is to say,
about the beginning of the Christian era or some-
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 173
what later. It was suitable only to the purposes
for which it is known or related to have been used,
i.e., for brief inscriptions or brief messages or state-
ments. It was not suitable for the ordinary ex-
pression of written thought, for literature in the
wide sense.
The range of the use of Ogham in inscriptions
outside of Ireland corresponds to the range of Irish
settlements and of Irish influence, at the time of
the collapse of the Western Empire. In general the
range is that of the Irish language at the time, but
a number of Ogham inscriptions are also found in
parts of Scotland which at that time were inhabited
and ruled by the Picts. Apart from the Pictish
instances, the farthest outlying Ogham that has
been discovered is curiously enough found at Sil-
chester, the ancient Calleva, the capital of the Atre-
bates in Britain, and the place in which the coins
of the sons of Commius were struck, the coins that
exhibit the earliest known use of the Roman alpha-
bet or of any alphabet in Britain.
The dating of the extant Ogham inscriptions is a
matter of very great difficulty, and the more closely
I have attempted to examine them, the greater the
difficulty has become. I shall only say that the
latest forms of Irish names that they contain appear
to be about identical in their stage of phonetic
change with the earliest forms found in Irish writers,
for example in the Life of St. Columba by Adamnanus
who quotes from older documents — probably forms
of the latter part of the sixth century. The weight
of evidence, in my opinion, goes to show that the
174 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
cult of the Ogham inscriptions was mainly associated
with Paganism.
The manuscript literature of Irish does not come
in a line of continuity from the Ogham writing.
The system of spelling in the oldest specimens of
MS. Irish has its basis in a British pronunciation of
Latin — that is, in Latin modified and changed as a
spoken language among the Britons during the
centuries of the Roman occupation. One of the
tasks incidental to the work of St. Patrick and his
helpers in missionary work in Ireland was to give
lessons in Latin to those who were to be the future
clergy of the country. Thus we read again and
again that St. Patrick wrote an alphabet for this
and that convert — alphabet in this case meaning a
primer or possibly a book of psalms — at all events a
set of lessons in Latin. It is easy to show that a
similar pronunciation of Latin prevailed in the early
Christian schools of Ireland and in Britain at the
same time ; that this pronunciation differed
systematically from the Italian pronunciation ; that
the differences represent changes which had taken
place also in the British language, though not in
Irish ; and that the orthography of Old and Middle
Welsh and also of Old and Middle Irish was moulded
by this modified British pronunciation of Latin.
The peculiarities of spelling produced in this way
do not appear at all in the Ogham inscriptions ;
and on the other hand, there are peculiarities in the
orthographic system of the Ogham inscriptions
which leave no trace in Irish MS. writing. The
oldest Irish grammarians speak of the Ogham
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 175
method of writing as the Irish method and
of the MS. method as the Latin method ; and
they report current sayings which show that among
the early Irish Christians the use of the Irish method
was regarded as profane and even tainted with
impiety — meaning, beyond doubt, that it was closely
associated in their minds with heathenism. On the
other hand the earliest specimens of written Irish
are distinctively Christian. The oldest known piece
of Irish MS. writing is, or was until recently, pre-
served in Cambrai and is ascribed to the seventh
century — but pieces as old or older exist in various
transcripts.
In a paper on the Annals of Tigernach, I have
shown that a chronicle of the world, written in
continuation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, Jerome,
and Prosper, and embodying a skeleton of Irish
history, was brought to conclusion in Ireland in the
year 609. From certain indications this chronicle
would appear to have been commenced in the closing
years of the sixth century — say between 590 and 600.
Part of this chronicle is embodied in the Annals of
Tigernach and in the Annals of Ulster, and extracts
from it in the Annals of Innisfallen. What survives
of it with relation to Ireland is the oldest known
history of Ireland. From its manner of dealing with
Irish affairs, I think we must conclude that even
before its time, a certain body of Irish heroic litera-
ture existed in MS. and consequently that the writing
of this literature had already begun in the course of
the sixth century. There are other evidences that
during the sixth century a blending of the old
176 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
heathen lore and learned tradition with the new
Christian learning was taking place — the native
schools of poets, originally druids, becoming Christian
and adopting the apparatus of Christian learning.
St. Columba, we are told, had a poet named
Gemman for tutor, and we may be quite certain that
the friendship which Columba is said to have shown
to the poets as a body in the Assembly of Druim
Ceata in 575 was not extended to a class which he
associated with heathenism.
Nevertheless, a good deal of specifically heathen
practice and teaching was preserved, more or less
covertly, among the secular poets, of Ireland for
centuries after St. Columba's time.
In the seventh century, writing in Irish appears
to become very common, but Adamnanus, about
the beginning of the eighth century, writing from
the standpoint of Latin and Christian learning, still
speaks of his native tongue in depreciation. This
sentiment did not extend to the Irish secular school
of literati. An old grammar of Irish, dating in part
from the seventh century, speaks of Irish as a
" choice language," and proclaims its superiority
over other languages. In the seventh century, too,
new metrical forms in Irish poetry, based on Latin
hymns, make their appearance, and afterwards
develop into a varied and elaborate system of
metric.
Let us now return to the political side of Irish
history. I have endeavoured to trace the stages
by which the Pentarchy of the old heroic tales
became broken up and transformed into a quite
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 17;'
different state of things when the early Christian
period is reached. The chief agencies in this trans-
formation were the extension of the power of the
Connacht dynasty and its branches over northern
Ireland, and the rise of the Eoghanacht dynasty in
southern Ireland, with its seat at Cashel. The
growth in power of the two ascendant dynasties,
those of Tara and Cashel, is marked by a sort of
colonising process. Offshoots from each dynasty
are planted in authority over petty kingdoms, dis-
placing or rather depressing the rulers previously in
possession.
Something similar took place in later times under
the Feudal system. In virtue of the supposed
Donation of Constantine, now long recognised to
have been fabulous, but accepted as genuine in the
Middle Ages, the Popes claimed temporal dominion
over all the islands of the ocean. In exercise of
this temporal claim, Adrian IV conferred the lord-
ship of Ireland on Henry of Anjou. But in virtue
of the same supposed right, Adrian had already an
immediate feudatory for Ireland in the person of the
king of Ireland — Ruaidhri. Henry thus took the
place of a - " mean lord " or intermediate feudatory
between the existing lord and the overlord. Henry
himself repeated this process. He granted the lord-
ship of Ireland to his son John, and this grant was
confirmed by the Pope then reigning, Alexander III.
Sir John Gilbert has pointed out that, had the issue
of John's elder brothers survived, John would not
have become king, and the lordship of Ireland would
have been separate from and independent of the
12
178 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
Crown of England, and subject only to the feudal
overlordship of the Pope while it lasted. The result
of granting the lordship of Ireland to Henry II was
that the existing possessor was depressed in rank,
not dispossessed — this apart from the cession of
rights which Ruaidhri made to Henry by the short-
lived Treaty of Windsor.
An almost identical process was a staple part of
the policy of Irish kings from the beginning of the
fourth century until the middle of the sixteenth.
Such lordships can be shown to have been created
either by Shane O'Neill or his father Conn, acting
as king of Ulster. During the whole intervening
period, we can trace the same process, the creation
of mean lords, in every part of Ireland under Irish
kings. In most cases the new lord was a member of
the king's family, a brother, a son, or other near
relative. A number of very clear and noteworthy
instances of this exercise of royal dominion by Irish
kings took place in consequence of the Norman
conquest.
Events of this kind are not recorded in the Irish
annals, except in a few instances when the exercise
of power was somewhat abnormal. Since we have
now reached a point at which the annals begin to
figure as chief witnesses, some notice of the general
character of the annals will be in place. At first
sight, the pages of our native chronicles appear as
a sort of trackless morass to the inquirer after Irish
history. The reason is this — the chroniclers hardly
ever tell us anything that an Irish reader of their
times could be expected to know as a matter of
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 179
course. They say almost nothing about institutions
or about anything that is normal. Just as they
record earthquakes, comets, eclipses, excessive frosts
or floods or droughts, but say nothing about the
normal course of the stars or the seasons, so, in
regard of human affairs, they are silent about all
that is regular or institutional, about matters of
common knowledge in their time, and they are
silent also, as a rule, about the institutional aspect,
so to speak, of events which they relate. We are
told, for example, that a certain king puts a prince
of his own house to death — and that is all. From
some subsidiary document we may learn that the
act was a judicial act, done after trial and sentence.
Or we are told that a certain king leads his forces
against another king and how the battle went — but
we have to consult some other source to find that
the action was taken in consequence of the refusal
to pay tribute according to ancient claim and
precedent.
Among the subsidiary material which helps to
explain the annals, and to give their events a place
in historical sequence, the genealogies have the
highest importance. In particular, they throw a
great deal of light on the process above-mentioned,
the extension of the power of dynastic families by
the creation of lordships over the head of existing
feudatories — to use a borrowed term.
An early instance of the process in question is
found in an account quoted by O'Donovan from a
MS. life of St. Greallan. Maine, he tells us, from
whom the sept of Ui Maine took its name and
i8o INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
descent, was settled in the territory of Ui Maine
by a king of Connacht in the fifth century, dis-
possessing the " Firbolg " king of that district. (This
instance, by the way, further exemplifies the unity
still subsisting at that time between the different
branches of the Connacht dynasty. Maine, to whom
a kingdom in Connacht was thus granted by the
king of Connacht, belonged to the Oriel branch of
the royal house, a branch which had settled in
Ulster early in the preceding century.) When
O'Donovan, or the narrative which he quotes, says
that the dispossessed king was of the Fir Bolg stock,
he uses the term Fir Bolg in its late and wide appli-
cation. The older possessors of the territory were
Picts. Moreover, they were depressed rather than
dispossessed, for the descendants of the ancient
rulers continued to dwell as subordinate chiefs in
their old territory. The family of 'O Mainnin, called
Manning in English, is one of those descended from
the ancient Pictish rulers of this district, which
comprised the southern part of County Roscommon
and the south-eastern part of County Galway. Still
earlier appropriations of this kind can be traced to
the time of Niall of the Nine Hostages, his brothers
and sons. The old territory of the Fir Domhnann
in northern Connacht became Tir Fiachrach,
" Fiachra's Land," being appropriated to Fiachra,
brother of Niall, and his descendants. Another
branch of Fiachra's sept become possessors of the
kingdom of Aidhne, lying between Galway Bay and
the old Pictish territory before-mentioned. From
Brion or Brian, another brother of Niall, is named
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 1S1
Tir Briuin or Brion's Land, extending over parts of
the counties Roscommon, Leitrim and Cavan.
Brion's sept, the Ui Briuin also obtained a territory
in the district of Tuam and another territory called
Umhall, around Clew Bay. From a third brother
of Niall named Ailill is named Tir Ailello, " AililPs
Land," represented by the barony of Tirerrill in
Co. Sligo. In like manner, various territories were
appropriated to sons of Niall of the Nine Hostages.
The western part of Ulster, which was not brought
under conquest by the settlement of the Airghialla,
and which is now represented by Donegal county,
was partitioned among three sons of Niall, Conall,
'Enda, and Eoghan, and bore afterwards their names
Tir Conaill, " Conall's Land"; Tir 'Enda, " Enda's
Land " ; and Tir Eoghain, " Eoghan's Land." It
should be noted that the original Tir Eoghain was
the peninsula now called Inis Eoghain. The country
now called Tyrone was then a part of Oriel. This
settlement of the sons of Niall in western Ulster was,
however, rather by way of conquest than of grant.
No element of conquest enters into the settlements
of the other sons of Niall or of the septs descended
from them.
Cairbre, or his sept, for we have no record by
which the grant can be dated, obtained that territory
in the north-eastern corner of Connacht, bordering
on Ulster, which still retains his name in that of
the barony of Carbury in Co. Sligo. A second
territory appropriated to Cairbre or his sept was
around Granard in Co. Longford. A third was on
the Leinster border, and it still preserves the name
y
182 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
in that of the barony of Carbury in the north of Co.
Kildare.
Loeguire, son of Niall, who became king of Ireland,
obtained, or his near descendants obtained, a terri-
tory on the Connacht side of Loch Erne, another in
Westmeath, another in East Meath or Bregia.
Maine, son of Niall, obtained a territory on the
east side of the Shannon ; Fiachu, son of Niall, a
territory in Westmeath ; Ardgal, a grandson of
Niall, a territory in East Meath.
It seems quite clear that no appropriations of
this kind took place before the time of Niall, the
close of the fourth century. Had there been earlier
appropriations in Connacht or Meath, then there
must have been royal septs, offshoots of the Con-
nacht-Meath dynasty, in possession of the appro-
priated territories and claiming descent from earlier
kings of Connacht or Meath. Nor was this claim of
descent likely to be forgotten, for, as the Book of
Rights shows, in each of the principal group-king-
doms, the kings whose kinship to the principal
dynasty was acknowledged, were free of tribute to
the principal king. The Book of Rights shows that,
except the descendants of Niall and of his brothers,
all the petty kingdoms of Connacht and Meath
were tributary to the overkings ; and the genea-
logies show that the ruling families of the tributary
kingdoms were as a rule of quite distinct lineage
from that of the overkings. The natural inference
from these facts is that this process of super-
imposing new lords of the dominant dynastic
blood over old rulers of a different lineage begins
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 183
in the time of Niall of the Nine Hostages, about
a.d. 400.
Some of the petty dynasties thus created were
themselves in later times subjected to the same
process and reduced to a lower degree. Thus when
the O'Conor family, which was itself a branch of
the sept of Brion above-mentioned, acquired ex-
clusive succession to the kingdom of Connacht, one
of its branches, bearing the distinctive name of
O'Conchubhair Ruadh, obtained the lordship of
Cairbre in north-eastern Connacht, over the heads of
the ancient lords descended from Cairbre son of
Niall. In like manner, AililPs land, Tirerrill, after
having been ruled for centuries by his descendants,
passed under the lordship of the families of Mac-
Donnchadha and MacDiarmada, descendants of his
brother Brion, whose line held the kingship of all
Connacht. The sept of Ailill, reduced in degree,
gradually passes into obscurity. About the thir-
teenth century, even the genealogists cease to be
interested in them ; and in the seventeenth century,
the last genealogist of the old school, Dubhaltach
Mac FirBhisigh, says that those who then remained
of Ailill's race are no longer reckoned among the
nobles of the territory. Let me repeat that, with
the help of the genealogies, it is possible to trace
this process at work in various parts of Ireland from
the fifth century until the abolition of Irish law in
the sixteenth century. I shall have to recur to
these facts when I come to deal with the so-called
" clan-system " or " tribal system," convenient terms
with which some modern writers contrive to fill up
1 84 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
the vacuum of their knowledge in regard to the
general political condition of ancient and medieval
Ireland.
Breifne, under the rule of Brion's sept, was re-
garded as permanently annexed to Connacht. In
its early extent Breifne comprised about the northern
half of Co. Leitrim and the western half of Co.
Cavan ; these territories having been annexed from
the ancient Ulster. In later times, when the
O'Ruairc and O'Raghallaigh chiefs extended their
power, Breifne comprised the whole of the present
counties of Leitrim and Cavan.
The territories of the sons of Niall were separated
by Breifne and Oriel into two groups, a north-
western group and a Meath group. The north-
western group of Niall's descendants are called the
Northern Ui Neill, the Meath group the Southern
Ui Neill. One frequently meets with the error of
supposing Ui Neill to mean the O'Neills — I find it
in a paper of Zimmer's published after his death.
It is true that Ui Neill, as a matter of grammar, is
the plural of 'O'Neill, but it is not the plural of the
surname 'O'Neill in Irish usage. The sept-names
with Ui prefixed belong to an earlier age than sur-
names like O'Neill. The surname O'Neill belongs
to the descendants of Niall Glundubh, king of Ire-
land, who was reigning a thousand years ago. The
sept-name Ui Neill includes all the descendants in
the male line of Niall of the Nine Hostages who
reigned 500 years earlier.
The chief king of the Northern Ui Neill was called
king of Aileach, from the prehistoric stone fortress
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 185
of Aileach near Deny, which was occupied by kings
of that line as late as the tenth century. They are
sometimes called kings of the Fochla, fochla being
an old Irish word meaning the North. Their terri-
tory in the fifth century comprised the county of
Donegal and possibly also Cairbre's country, the
northern limb of Co. Sligo.
The eastern side of Ulster nominally constituted
another chief kingdom, which was regarded as the
remnant of the ancient Ulster, and so is sometimes
called by chroniclers " the Fifth " or " Conchubhar's
Fifth." It seems, however, to have consisted of
four practically independent kingdoms, no one of
which held any permanent authority over the others.
These were Dal Riada in the North-East, on the
Antrim seaboard ; Ulaidh, on the Down seaboard —
retaining the name of the ancient dominant people
of Ulster ; Dal Araidhe, at the head of a Pictish
people, occupying the inland parts of Down and
Antrim and also the Derry side of the Bann valley
from Loch Neagh northward to the sea ; and Conaille,
likewise a Pictish kingdom, in the north of Co.
Louth.
The remainder of Ulster, excluding Breifne, the
kingdom of Aileach. and the eastern group, formed
the kingdom of Airghialla or " Oriel." It should
be borne in mind that this ancient Oriel of the fifth
century extended northward to the mouth of Loch
Foyle, and included the present Tyrone and most
of Co. Derry, which were afterwards annexed to the
kingdom of Aileach.
The territories of the Southern Ui Neill lav in
1 86 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
the counties of Meath, Westmeath, Longford, King's
County, and Kildare ; they were not continuous,
being merely appropriated portions of the kingdom
of Tara.
Connacht extended eastward to the Erne and its
lakes and to Loch Ramor in Co. Cavan.
Munster comprised its present extent and also
the two southern baronies of King's County.
The northern boundary of Leinster ran by the
LifTey, its tributary the Rye, south of the barony of
Carbury in Co. Kildare, and included part of King's
County bordering on Queen's County and Kildare.
There were then seven chief kingdoms in Ireland,
each of them containing a number of minor king-
doms. The seven chief kingdoms were (i) the
kingdom of Tara, the midlands east of the Shannon ;
(2) the kingdom of Leinster ; (3) the kingdom of
Cashel or of Munster ; (4) the kingdom of Cruachain
or of Connacht ; (5) the kingdom of Aileach, the
Fochla, or the Northern Ui Neill ; (6) the kingdom
of Ulaidh or the lesser Ulster ; (7) the kingdom of
Oriel.
In Munster, a sort of partitioning or appropriation
was effected by the ruling Eoghanacht dynasty,
similar to what has been described as taking place
in Connacht and Meath. At the head of all was the
Eoghanacht of Cashel. Cashel was surrounded by
a zone of tributary States, whose rulers were not
of the Eoghanacht lineage. Westward of these was
a belt of Eoghanacht States extending across
Munster from the Shannon to the southern coast.
These comprised the Ui Fidhgheinte in County
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 187
Limerick, the Eoghanacht of Aine, in the middle,
and the Ui Liathain to the south in parts of Cork
and Waterford counties. There was another Eoghan-
acht kingdom in the region of Bandon. Finally
there was the Eoghanacht of Loch Lein in the region
of Killarney, called also the Eoghanacht of West
Munster. I have already shown reason to think
that the Eoghanachta represented a relatively late
immigration from Gaul ; that their original settle-
ment was probably in the west of County Waterford ;
and that their conquest of south-western Leinster
and occupation of Cashel may have taken place
about the beginning of the fifth century. I have no
means of fixing the date of their occupation of other
parts of Munster, but these settlements are not likely
to have been later than the fifth century.
In like manner, we find located in various parts
of Leinster the septs that branch out from the
royal line. I shall not cumber your attention with
the details, which can be found in O'Donovan's
notes to the Book of Rights. A much larger pro-
portion of Leinster was appropriated in this way
than of any of the other chief kingdoms, except
Oriel. Oriel, being the main part of Ulster con-
quered by the Connacht-Meath princes in the fourth
century, was treated entirely as a land of conquest,
no portion of it remaining under the rule of its earlier
dynasts.
In the case of Leinster, the relative lateness of
these appropriations is proved by one fact. The
septs that became possessed of territories in this
way all belonged to the old ruling house of South
1 88 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
Leinster, but the territories appropriated to them
are very largely situate within the bounds of the
old kingdom of North Leinster. Hence the re-
settlement of these territories took place after the
extinction of the North Leinster kingdom and the
unification of what remained under the South
Leinster dynasty. This shows that the process
belongs to the same period in Leinster as in Con-
nacht, and Meath, and Munster.
Though the annexation of Tara and Bregia was
a fully accomplished fact long before St. Patrick's
time, and though in his time the monarchy of
Connacht origin was securely seated in Tara, the
annals, whose details of history begin with St.
Patrick, show that the claim to their northern
territories was not yet relinquished by the Leinster-
men. Time after time they invaded the lost land,
and battle after battle was fought by them on its
borders and even far within its borders. This con-
tinued struggle to recover possession is perhaps most
clearly seen in a list of the battles from the year
432 onward — before that year we have no details.
a.d. 452. A great slaughter of the Leinstermen.
a.d. 453. The Leinstermen defeated in battle by Loeguire
son of Niall [i.e. by the King of Tara].
a.d. 458. The battle of 'Ath Dara. Loeguire, king of Tara,
is defeated by the Leinstermen and taken prisoner.
a.d. 464. Leinstermen win the battle of Ard Corann.
a.d. 473. Ailill Molt defeats the Leinstermen at Bri 'Eile.
Ailill was king of Tara at this time. Bri 'Eile was in the
kingdom of Meath.
a.d. 474. The Leinstermen defeat Ailill Molt at Dumha
Aichir.
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 189
a.d. 486. Battle of Granard. Finchath, a Leinster king,
was defeated and slain. The sept of Cairbre, son of
Niall of the Nine Hostages, was victorious. This sept
held territory around Granard, and they were therefore
resisting invasion by the Leinster king.
a.d. 487. Battle of Graine in Kildare. Muirchertach, king of
the Northern Ui Neill, defeats the Leinstermen.
a.d. 494. Battle of Tailltiu (=Teltown, near Navan). The
Leinstermen are defeated by the sept of Cairbre, son of
Niall.
a.d. 498. Battle of Inne Mor in Kildare. Leinstermen de-
feated by Muirchertach, king of the Northern Ui Neill.
a.d. 499. Battle of Slemain, in Westmeath. Leinstermen
defeated by the sept of Cairbre, son of Niall.
a.d. 501. Battle of Cenn Ailbe in Kildare. Leinstermen
defeated by the sept of Cairbre.
a.d. 503. Battle of Druim Lochmhuidhe. The Ui Neill
defeated by the Leinstermen.
a.d. 510. Battle of Fremu, in Westmeath. The Leinstermen
are victorious over the sept of Fiacha, son of Niall.
a.d. 517. Battle of Druim Derge. The Leinstermen are
defeated by the sept of Fiacha. This was regarded
as the final and decisive battle, which forced the Leinster-
men to relinquish their attempts to recover the lost
territory in Meath. " By it the plain of Meath was lost
and won," says the poet-historian Cenn Faelad in the
following century.
Thus we see that the Leinstermen maintained a
prolonged struggle to recover possession of the mid-
land country that belonged to them under the
Pentarchy when a Leinster king reigned in Tara.
There are no recorded particulars of this struggle
before the year 452, but from that date onward,
during two-thirds of a century, fourteen battles were
fought on one side or other of the border. In four
I9o INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
of these battles, the Leinstermen were victorious.
The septs of Cairbre and Fiacha, which appear so
prominently in the defence of the conquered terri-
tory, were among those descendants of Niall who
were settled in the lordship of lands in Meath.
One Leinster dynastic sept continued to hold its
territory in Meath, in submission to the new rulers.
It is known by the name of Fir Tulach, " Men of the
Mounds," and the name is perpetuated in that of
the barony of Fartullagh in Westmeath.
While this struggle was going on, another event
took place, which is marked as an epoch in Irish
history by the ancient annals. The event is thus
related :
a.d. 483. The battle of Ocha, in which Ailill Molt fell, was
won by Luguid son of Loeguire and Muirchertach
MacErca. From Conchobhar MacNessa to Cormac son
of Art, 308 years. From Cormac to this battle, 206
years."
This summing of years in the old chronicle is in
direct imitation of the Chronicle of Eusebius, upon
which the Irish chronicle was founded. In Eusebius,
or at all events in St. Jerome's Latin translation — for
the original Greek chronicle now exists only in frag-
ments— it is customary to divide the course of
history by epochs connected with great events.
As each of these epochs is reached, a summary of
the years between all the preceding epochs is set
out. Hence we see that the chronicler from whom
this entry is taken — his name is Cuanu — had in his
mind three principal epochs of Irish history. The
first was the reign of Conchobhar MacNessa, the
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 191
celebrated king of Ulster. The second was the
reign of Cormac. The third was the battle of Ocha.
The epoch of Conchobhar MacNessa in the
chronicle is interesting as a further proof of the
primacy, so to speak, which the Ulster hero-tales
acquired in the earliest age of our written literature.
The reign of Cormac is an epoch, because, as I
have shown in the fourth lecture, it is associated
with the dissolution of the Pentarchy, the annexa-
tion of Tara to the realm of Connacht and Uisneach,
and the definite beginnings of the Monarchy.
What then is the epochal significance of the
battle of Ocha, in which Ailill Molt, king of Ireland,
is defeated and slain, and Luguid son of Loeguire
and his cousin MacErca, king of the Northern Ui
Neill, are the victors ?
Ailill Molt was son of Nath-T, that king of Ire-
land who died somewhere on the Continent, whither
he had led an expedition in 429, and whose body
was brought back to Ireland by his men and buried
at Cruachain in the ancient cemetery of the kings
of Connacht. Nath-T, who succeeded Niall of the
Nine Hostages, was the son of Niall's brother
Fiachra, whose descendants were settled in Fiachra's
Lands in the north-west and south-west of Con-
nacht. The line of Fiachra was closely associated
with Connacht and had no settlement elsewhere.
At this period, the line of Fiachra alternated with
the line of his brother Brion in the succession to the
kingship of Connacht, until, by the operation of a
law of succession which I shall have to describe in
a later lecture, the descendants of Brion obtained
192 INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY
exclusive possession of the kingship. Thus, Ailill
Molt, who was cut off in the battle of Ocha, in 483,
may be described as a king of Ireland from Connacht.
Who were the victors in the Battle of Ocha ?
They were Luguid, son of Loeguire, son of Niall, and
Muirchertach, grandson of Eoghan, son of Niall.
Luguid, son of Loeguire, thereupon became king of
Ireland. His ally in the battle, Muirchertach, ap-
pears from this time forth at the head of the Northern
Ui Neill, he is king of Aileach. Luguid, since he
succeeded to the monarchy, must have been at the
time recognised head of the Southern Ui Neill, his
patrimony being in Meath. Consequently, this battle
is the outcome of a combination of the Ui Neill, north
and south, whose lands are outside of Connacht,
against their kinsfolk, whose lands are in Connacht.
From this date, 483, until the eleventh century, no
king from Connacht became monarch of Ireland, and
the monarchy remained in the exclusive possession
of the Northern and Southern Ui Neill. That is
why the battle of Ocha is marked as an epoch
by the ancient chronicler.
The line of Niall in like manner is excluded from
the kingship of Connacht, which had been held by
Niall himself and by his son Loeguire, before they
became kings of Tara. Henceforth there is no longer
a joint dynasty of Connacht and Meath.
The clue to the main path of Irish history during
the partly obscure period of the first five centuries
of the Christian era is the gradual expansion of the
power of the Connacht dynasty over northern Ire-
land from the occupation of Uisneach until this year
INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY 193
483, when expansion reached the point of rupture.
To trace this process and the concurrent or partly
concurrent growth of the Eoghanacht power in
Munster, has been the matter of my fourth, fifth,
and sixth lectures. It is evident that the chronicler
Cuanu, who wrote early in the eighth century, had
some such general view before his mind of the
history of this period based on the traditions and
records known to him. His three epochs stand
good as bearings for our guidance — first, the Pent-
archy at the height of its traditional celebrity ;
second, the extension of the Connacht power to
Tara, and the rise of the monarchy ; and third,
the disconnection of Connacht from Tara and the
monarchy, and the dominant position acquired by
the line of Niall. The old chronicler, with his three
epochs, saw something more in the dim morning
twilight of those centuries than a procession of names
and dates and disconnected anecdotes. He saw
something of a story with its sequence, a drama in
three acts ; and we are entitled to share in his
satisfaction.
GENEALOGY OF MONARCHY (5th CENTURY).
Eochu, K.I.
I I
Fiachra Niall, K.I.
I I I
Nath-i, K.I. Loigmre, K.I. Eogan
I I I
Ailill K.I. Luguid, K.I. Muiredach
I
Niall
Muirchertach, K.I.
1 ^ ' I I
Loiguire, K. Eogan Coirpre Conall Cremthainni
I 1,1 I
Luguid, K. Muiredach Cormac I'ergus Cerrbel
13
Muirchertach, K. Tuathal, K. Diarmait, K,
VII. THE IRISH KINGDOM
IN SCOTLAND
IT was about the year 470 when the sons of Ere,
Fergus and his brothers went from Ireland to
Scotland. Fergus was king of Dal Riada in
the north-eastern corner of Ireland. We are not
to understand that the main Irish migration to
Scotland took place at that time. There are no
data to show when the earliest Irish settlements
were made in Argyleshire and the adjoining islands,
but we have seen that, at the close of the third
century, when Constantius Chlorus commanded the
Roman power in Britain, the Britons were already
" accustomed " to Irish enemies. If the Irish were
then strong enough to raid the Roman frontier,
they were probably in possession of the Cantire
peninsula. The crossing over of the Sons of Ere
means that these princes established their rule
over the Irish settlements in that region. It is a
common mistake of histories to suppose that Fergus,
when he became king on the other side, established
there a new dynasty. Editors of the Irish annals,
taking this for granted, actually undertake to tell
us that certain men whom the annals style kings of
Dal Riada were kings of the Scottish Dal Riada,
and certain others who are also entitled kings of
Dal Riada, were kings of the Irish Dal Riada.
Here again the genealogies supplement the annals
194
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 195
and show clearly that all these kings belonged to one
undivided dynasty. Dal Riada in Ireland and the
Irish settlers in Scotland were ruled by the same
kings from the time of Fergus macEirc until the
Norsemen occupied Cantire and the neighbouring
islands, and thus cut off the Irish territory of these
kings from the Scottish territory in which the kings
of Dal Riada had become resident. When this
separation took place, the title " king of Dal Riada '
was abandoned. The last king who bears that
title in the Irish annals is Donn Coirci, who died
in 792 ; and in 794 the same annals record " the
devastation of all the islands of Britain by the
heathens."
The account of the Irish migration given by the
Venerable Bede has often been repeated. It is true
in so far as it indicates that the migration did not
begin under the Sons of Ere. In other respects it
is a fictitious legend. " In process of time," writes
Bede, " besides the Britons and Picts, Britain re-
ceived a third nation, the Scots, who, migrating
from Ireland under their leader Reuda, either by
fair means or by force of arms, secured to them-
selves those settlements among the Picts which thev
still possess. From the name of their commander
they are to this day called Dalreudini ; for in their
language dal signifies a part.
" Ireland," he goes on to say, " in breadth and
for wholesomeness and serenity of climate far sur-
passes Britain ; for the snow scarcely ever lies
there above three days ; no man makes hay in
the summer for winter's provision or builds stables
196 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
for his beasts of burden. No reptiles are found
there and no snake can live there ; for, though
often carried thither out of Britain, as soon as the
ship comes near the shore, and the scent of the air
reaches them, they die. On the contrary, almost
all things in the island are good against poison. In
short, we have known that when some persons have
been bitten by serpents, the scrapings of leaves of
books that were brought out of Ireland, being put
into water and given to them to drink, have im-
mediately expelled the spreading poison and as-
suaged the swelling." (We see that when people
in Britain in those days wanted something that
came from Ireland, the first thing and the sure
thing was a book.) " The island," he continues,
" abounds in milk and honey ; nor is there any
want of vines, fish or fowl ; and it is remarkable for
deer and goats." (But vines were not cultivated
in Ireland, and if Bede supposed they were, it must
have been because wine was abundant, as an article
of continental trade imported in exchange for Irish
products.) " It is properly," he adds, " the country
of the Scots, who migrating from thence, as has been
said, added a third nation in Britain to the Britons
and the Picts. There is a very large gulf of the
sea [he refers to the Firth of Clyde] which formerly
divided the nation of the Picts from the Britons.
It runs from the west very far into the land, where
to this day stands the strong city of the Britons
called Alcluith [Dumbarton]. The Scots arriving on
the north side of this bay, settled themselves there."
Bede gives no date for this event, but relates it
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 197
before the invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar
(b.c. 54). No Irish leader Reuda headed an Irish
migration to Scotland. The Irish genealogists tell
us that Dal Riada takes its name from Cairbre
Riada, an ancestor of Fergus and nine generations
(i.e. about three centuries) earlier than Fergus ; and
they agree with the annals in saying that the first
of Cairbre Riada's line who settled in Scotland
were Fergus and his brethren.
In 563, Conall, great-grandson of Fergus, granted
the island of Iona to St. Columba. Conall was
succeeded in the kingship by Aedan, with whom
St. Columba lived on most friendly terms. It was
in Aedan's reign, in 575, that the relations between
his kingdom and the kingdom of Ireland were de-
cided at the assembly of Druim Ceata, St. Columba
being present. A great deal of fanciful comment
has been made on this decision. One writer after
another assures us that St. Columba secured a
declaration of independence for the kingdom beyond
the sea. The sole ancient authority on the subject
is the commentary on Dalian's Eulogy of St.
Columba. It says nothing about independence, nor
docs it suggest that the independence of the Irish
kingdom in Scotland was ever called in question.
The problem that demanded adjudication was this :
the old territory of Dal Riada in Ireland had be-
come attached to two independent jurisdictions.
Being part of Ireland, it was subject to the suzerain
claims of the kings of Ireland. But its kings, as
we have seen, were kings also of a realm beyond
the sea over which the Irish monarch had no
198 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
authority. A conflict of rights and claims was
possible. The decision at Druim Ceata, pronounced
by a lawyer of celebrity and accepted by the as-
sembly, was in the nature of a compromise : Dal
Riada was to serve the Irish monarch with its land
forces, and to serve the king who reigned in Scot-
land with its sea forces. Obviously it is the services
of the Irish territory that are the subject of this
judgment. It would be absurd to lay down that
the Irish colony in Scotland was to serve the king of
Ireland with land forces and not with ships.
Scottish writers look upon the Life of St. Columba
by Adamnanus as the oldest native document of
Scottish history. It was written about the year
692. If I am not mistaken, we have a document
about twenty years older, written in Scotland, pro-
bably in Iona, and now preserved in the preface to
the genealogy of the Scottish kings in the Books of
Lecan and Ballymote. At the time when it was
written, the realm of the Scots in Scotland did not
extend beyond Argyleshire and the adjacent islands.
That was about the year 670. Northwards of
Argyleshire, the Picts held sway. On the eastern
side, the Pictish territory extended southward to the
Firth of Forth. From the Firth of Forth to the
Tweed, along the eastern coast, the country now
comprised in the Lothians and Berwickshire was
occupied by the Angles under the king of North-
umbria. The south-western portion was held by
the Britons, who, in Bede's time, half a century
later, possessed the strong fortress of Dumbarton on
the Clyde. The frontier between the Britons and
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 199
the Angles was probably no certain line. In the
south-western corner, in Galloway, there was an
isolated Pictish population. The borders separating
these four nations, Scots, Picts, Angles, and Britons,
speaking four distinct languages, were a land of
constant war.
St. Columba, we are told by his biographer,
warned the king of Dal Riada to refrain from making
war in Ireland on the king of Ireland, and foretold
that, if this warning were disregarded, disaster
would befall the line of Aedan. Adamnanus goes
on to say that this prophecy was fulfilled many
years after St. Columba's death. This was written
by Adamnanus about fifty years after the event to
which he alludes, which was therefore within the
memory of many who read his words. Domhnall
Breac, king of Dal Riada, he relates, invaded the
realm of the king of Ireland. And now, he says,
the fulfilment of the warning is visible in the
miserable condition to which the kings of Dal Riada
are reduced, humiliated by their triumphant enemies.
He refers to the events connected with the battle
of Moira in 637. The king of Ireland at the time
was Domhnall son of Aedh, that is, son of the king
who presided over the Assembly of Druim Ceata.
Taking advantage of a quarrel between the Irish
monarch and a prince of the north-eastern Picts of
Ireland, the Scottish king, as we may call him, put
himself at the head of a combination of the north-
eastern province and took the field in Ireland. The
battle between the two Domhnalls took place at
Moira, near Lisburn, and the king of Ireland was
200 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
victorious. Here we have an instance of the method
of contemporary Irish chroniclers. To the chron-
icler's mind, everybody knew everything that
was to be known about this battle and its circum-
stances, and his record of the event is a mere
memorandum in two words. But what were the
disastrous results, which, on the testimony of
Adamnanus, were notorious when he wrote, i.e.
about the year 690 ? The Irish kingdom in Scot-
land seems as strong as ever, and is on the eve of a
great increase of its power and territory. Once
more, as in the instance of the judgment of Druim
Ceata, the reference must be particularly to the
old Irish kingdom of Dal Riada, which drops into
obscurity in the Irish records about that time,
possibly becoming tributary either to the neigh-
bouring Picts or to the Northern Ui Neill, whose
territory had then extended to the banks of the
Bann.
Bede, writing about forty years after Adamnanus
wrote, tells about certain things that happened in
the lifetime of both, and shows how great an ex-
pansion was made by the Irish kingdom of Scotland
in the meantime. In the year 684, he relates, his
own sovereign, " Egfrid, king of the Northumbrians,
sending Beorht, his general, with an army into
Ireland, miserably wasted that harmless nation,
which had always been most friendly to the English."
This statement shows that the power of the North-
umbrian Angles extended at the time to the Irish
Sea. " In their hostile rage," says Bede, " they
spared not even the churches or monasteries." The
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 201
contemporary Irish chronicler says briefly : " The
English devastate the plain of Bregia and many
churches in the month of June." Bede continues :
" Those islanders, to the utmost of their power
repelled force with force, and imploring the as-
sistance of the Divine mercy prayed long and fer-
vently for vengeance ; and, though such as curse
cannot possess the kingdom of God, it is believed
that those who were justly cursed on account of
their impiety did soon suffer the penalty of their
guilt from the avenging hand of God ; for the very
next year, that king, rashly leading his army to
ravage the province of the Picts, much against the
advice of his friends and particularly of Cuthbert of
blessed memory who had been lately ordained
bishop, the enemy made show as if they fled, and
the king was drawn into the straits of inaccessible
mountains, and slain, with the greatest part of his
forces, on the 20th of May." The Irish chronicle
says : " On the 20th of May, on Saturday, the battle
of Dun Nechtain was fought, in which Ecgferth,
king of the English, was slain together with a great
multitude of his soldiers."
Bede, writing forty-six years later, says that
from the time of this overthrow the power of the
Northumbrian Angles began to decline, and the
Picts recovered some of their territory which had
been in the possession of the Angles, as well as some
which had been taken from them by the Scots.
The ancient territory of Northumbria extended to
the Firth of Forth. Skene identifies the scene of the
battle with a narrow pass in the Sidlaw Hills, north
202 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
of the Firth of Tay. The territory which the Picts
recovered from the Angles must have been between
these two firths, corresponding to the modern Fife-
shire ; and this is apparent from a further state-
ment by Bede. Among the English fugitives from
the lost territory, he says, was Bishop Trumwine,
who had been made bishop over the English settlers,
and who withdrew along with his people who were
in the monastery of Abercorn. Abercorn is near
the Forth Bridge, about ten miles west of Edin-
burgh. If the Anglian bishop and his people were
forced to abandon this place, it is clear that the
recovered Pictish territory reached the Firth of
Forth on the opposite side, the north side. But,
writing forty-six years after these events, Bede
calls the Firth of Forth " the arm of the sea which
parts the lands of the Angles and the Scots," not the
lands of the Angles and the Picts. Consequently,
within those forty-six years, the Scots, who a little
earlier appear to have held little or nothing of the
mainland outside of Argyleshire, must have extended
their power eastward into Fifeshire, occupying that
district from which the Picts had expelled the en-
croaching Angles.
The Britons of south-western Scotland appear to
have been hard pressed by this eastward expansion
of the Scots and by the Angles of Northumbria,
and modern Welsh historians trace an extensive
southward migration of Britons through Cumber-
land and Lancashire into Wales. These migratory
Britons, headed by the sons of Cunedda, became
thenceforward the dominant people in Wales. They
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 203
completely displaced the power of the Irish settlers
in North Wales, and the descendants of the Irish in
South Wales became subordinate to them. About
this time, too, many of the displaced Britons took
service in Ireland under Irish kings. In 682, a
victory was won near Antrim, we are not told by
whom, over a combination of Britons and Ulster
Picts. In 697, the district of Dundalk was de-
vastated by Britons in alliance with the Ulidians.
In 702, 'Irgalach, king of Bregia, was killed on
Ireland's Eye by a party of raiding Britons. In
703, the Ulidians defeated a body of Britons near
Newry. In 709, Britons are found fighting in the
service of a king of Leinster. In 711 and again in
717, forces of Britons were defeated by Dal Riada.
These events all occur within a period of thirty years,
about the year 700, and after this time the British
incursions are no longer heard of. The movements
of the Britons thus chronicled correspond in time
with the eastward and perhaps southward expan-
sion of the Scots from Argyle.
Some of the Venerable Bede's pupils must have
lived to witness the first appearance of the swarming
fleets of heathen Norsemen, towards the close of the
eighth century. Within a few decades, the Norse-
men held possession of nearly all the islands of
Scotland. They also settled on the mainland in
Caithness, Argyle, Cunningham and Galloway — at
what dates does not appear to be recorded. By
thus infesting the entire coast of Scotland, they
weakened the power of the Picts in the North and
the Angles in the South-east. That there is no sign
204 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
of any concurrent weakening of the Scots may be
taken as proof that the Scots by this time, the early
part of the ninth century, had a firm grip of the
interior. It may well have been, indeed, that their
displacement from Argyle and the islands — their
sole possessions in Scotland in the seventh century —
may have strengthened the hand of Cinaedh, son of
Ailpin (called " Kenneth MacAlpin " in English
writings). As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so
are the sons of them that have been beaten out.
Cinaedh died in 858 after a reign of sixteen years,
during which he overthrew the kingdom of the
Picts and became ruler of the main part of the
country afterwards called Scotland. In recording
the death of Cinaedh the Annals of Ulster style him
" king of the Picts," meaning that he had brought
the Picts under his authority. According to later
histories he also obtained the submission of the
Britons and Angles of southern Scotland ; they
certainly ceased to have any considerable power
after his time. The Britons held out in their fortress
at Dumbarton until 870, when, after a siege of four
months, the place was taken by Olaf and Imar, the
joint-reigning Norse kings of Dublin. These kings,
with a fleet of 200 ships, returned next year to
Dublin, " bringing a great spoil of men, Angles and
Britons and Picts, in captivity." The Northum-
brian kingdom, even south of the Tweed, was crumb-
ling away. In 867, the Norsemen occupied York
and defeated the Angles who came against them ;
and in 876, Halfdene, a Norse commander, parcelled
out the remnant of Northumbria among his followers,
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 205
who settled upon the lands, says the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle, and thenceforth set about ploughing and
tilling them. In the same year, 876, Rolf the
Ganger, of the line of the Norse earls of the Orkneys,
took possession of Normandy.
Here it is well to consider the various fortunes of
the Norsemen in different countries. About this
period, they became masters of a large part of Russia.
In France, they were able to wrest the northern sea-
board, between Flanders and Brittany, from the
powerful Frankish kings. Over England they effec-
ted a gradual conquest, which was only checked,
not overcome bv the stout resistance of Athelstan
and Alfred. In 10 J 3, the year before the battle of
Clontarf, all England submitted to Sveinn, king of
Denmark. The Normans mastered southern Italy
and Sicily. But the Celtic countries, Ireland, Scot-
land, Wales and Brittany, though particularly ex-
posed to conquest by a people who were then un-
disputed rulers of the seas on every side, yielded them
only a small fraction of their mainland territories.
The resistance of Scotland is especially noteworthy.
From Norway and Denmark, Scotland was then two
days' sail. All the islands and forelands of Scotland
were occupied by the Norsemen — the Orkney and
Shetland Islands, the Hebrides, Arran and Bute,
Caithness, and the peninsulas of Argyle and Gallo-
way ; as well as the Isle of Man. But the recently
established Scottish monarchy checked all further
attempts at conquest, and ultimately recovered the
whole country, both mainland and islands.
Another noteworthy fact about this new kingdom
206 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
was its adoption of a polity quite distinct from that
of the older established Britons and Irish in their
own countries. In Ireland, the population ranged
itself around local places of assembly, according to
the traditional habit and convenience of comin<?
o
together ; and the chiefs who presided over these
local assemblies took the rank and title of kings.
Each of these assemblies was a court of law as well
as a court of state. For modern convenience, there
are about 150 places in Ireland in which courts of
quarter sessions are held. In ancient Ireland, in
the ninth century, there were a little more than 100
courts, and the president of each was a king. Every-
where, there was a strong sentiment of local autonomy
and the strongest and most ambitious of the superior
kings could only maintain a limited degree of cen-
tralised power. Probably the Celts came into Ire-
land in small separate bodies, each colony having its
own government, and so no tradition of centralisa-
tion ever grew up. In Scotland, on the contrary,
from the fifth century onward there was but one
kingdom of the Scots, and this one kingdom effected
a gradual conquest of the whole country. Thus the
Irish system of petty states was not transplanted to
Scotland. The highest magnates under the Scottish
monarchy bore the title of mor-mkaor, " great
steward," which in later times was regarded as
the equivalent of ' earl." This title is mentioned
in the Annals of Ulster under the year 918 and in
such a way as to show that it was then a recognised
and customary dignity among the oversea Scots. In
that year, just 1,000 years ago, Raghnall or " Regi-
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 207
nald," founder and king of the Norse colony of
Waterford, carried his forces into Britain, finding a
small part of Ireland large enough for him. On the
banks of the Tyne, in Northumbria, he was met by
the army of the Scots — the place indicates how far
the power of the Scots at that time extended. An
indecisive battle took place, in which, says the
annalist, the Scots " lost neither king nor mor-
mhaor."
That the conquest of the mainland was followed
by a very extensive Gaelic colonisation is evident
from the abundance of Gaelic place-names in almost
every part of Scotland. They are least numerous in
the old Anglian territory of the Lothians and Ber-
wickshire, and from this it is evident that the
Anglian population was left for the most part un-
disturbed. The surname Scott indicates that, among
their Anglian neighbours, the great border sept that
bore the name was recognised to be of Irish origin.
Even in Galloway, a region of Picts and Britons and
Norsemen, the Gaelic language became prevalent and
the Gaelic people abundant — for in the twelfth
century the population of Galloway was known to
the Irish and also to the Norsemen as Gall-Ghaedhil,
i.e., " Noroc-Irish." Though Alan, the Norse earl
of Galloway, set himself up as an independent
sovereign about the year 1200 and formed an
alliance with the English under King John, his
language was Irish, for he gave his daughter a
name that bespeaks an Irish-speaking household —
Dearbhorgaill. The Irish annals call him " king
of the Gall-Ghaedhil."
208 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
The Scots opposed a successful resistance to
William the Conqueror and his successors, whenever
they attempted a conquest. To the Conqueror they
were especially obnoxious, for Maol Choluim Ceann-
mhor (' Malcolm Canmore ") took under his pro-
tection the refugee royal family of England, the
Athelings. In 1067, Malcolm married a princess of
this line, Margaret, grand-daughter of the Saxon
king Edmund — St. Margaret of Scotland, for she
was canonised after her death. This queen exer-
cised great influence over her husband, and brought
about a partial feudalisation of the Gaelic system
in Scotland. From her time onward, the small
Anglian population not merely acquired a favourable
status but gradually took on the appearance of
being the most considerable element in the kingdom.
Various causes contributed to this end. The North-
umbrian dialect of English, now chiefly represented
by the Lowland Scotch dialect, became the most
convenient medium of intercourse not only with
England but also with the Norsemen and the people
of the Low Countries. To this day Lowland Scotch
bears a close resemblance to Dutch and Flemish,
and we have it on the ancient testimony of the
Norsemen themselves that they were able to hold
speech with the Angles, each people using their
own language. In consequence, the Anglian dialect
of Scotland spread westward across the Lowlands
and northward along the coast of the North Sea.
There is, however, one little fact which shows us
how effectively Margaret's influence operated against
the Gaelic tradition of the Scottish court and its
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 209
outlook. Before her time, the kings of the Dal
Riada line bore Irish names. Only two names that
are not Irish are found in their list — Constantine
and Gregory, the names of a celebrated Emperor and
a celebrated Pope. The names of the six sons of
Malcolm and Margaret were : Edward, Edmund,
Edgar, Ethelred, Alexander, and David ; of their
two daughters, Maud and Mary — not one of them
Gaelic ; and with the exception of Malcolm's im-
mediate successor, Domhnall, and another Malcolm,
no king of the Scots after his time bore a Gaelic
name.
Malcolm's kingdom, though it did not extend over
the Norse settlements in the north and west of Scot-
land, included a territory roughly corresponding to
Cumberland and Northumberland in the north of
England.
A frequent effect of the feudal law of succession by
primogeniture was the breach of succession owing
to the failure of heirs in the male line. Under the
Irish (and also Welsh) law of succession, by election
from a family group, this difficulty was avoided.
After Malcolm's death in 1093, his brother, Domhnall
Ban, secured the kingship and, we are told, ex-
pelled all the foreigners who had come to Scotland
under the protection of Malcolm and Margaret. In
effect, the reign of Domhnall represents a brief Gaelic
reaction against the new-come feudalism. In 1097,
Domhnall was overthrown by Malcolm's eldest sur-
viving son Edgar, with the assistance of the English,
and thenceforward the feudal system took hold and
the Irish kingdom may be said to have come to an
210 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
end. Nevertheless, the Irish tradition was not
wholly abandoned. The last of the Dalriadic kings
was Alexander III who reigned from 1249 until
1285. In his reign, all the Norse possessions formerly
subject to the suzerainty of the kings of Norway,
comprising the Orkney and Shetland islands, Caith-
ness, the Hebrides and Argyleshire, became subject
to the kingdom of Scotland. The failure of the
direct line, upon Alexander's death without male
heir, brought about the wars of the Scottish suc-
cession, terminated by the battle of Bannockburn
in 1314. An interesting account has been pre-
served of the coronation ceremony as exemplified
at the accession of this last king of the direct Irish
line in Scotland, Alexander III. " The ceremony
was performed by the bishop of St. Andrews, who
girded the king with a military belt. He then ex-
plained in Latin, and afterwards in Gaelic, the laws
and oaths relating to the king. . . . After the cere-
mony was performed, a Highlander " — we may under-
stand that he was the official seanchaidh — " repeated
on his knees before the throne, in his own language,
the genealogy of Alexander and his ancestors, up to
the first king of Scotland." Gaelic, therefore, con-
tinued to be the language of the Scottish court, of
king, bishop, and courtier, until 1285, when the
direct line of Fergus son of Ere .became extinct.
Having endeavoured to trace the principal phases
in the history of an Irish kingdom which, established
in Argyle and the western islands of Scotland, be-
came gradually more and more alienated from the
mother country, let us now glance through the history
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 211
of another kingdom, a foreign kingdom established
in the same forelands and islands, a realm which
became gaelicised as the Scots kingdom became
feudalised and anglicised, and which drew closer
and closer to Ireland, so as to bring a decisive element
into the affairs of this nation during a critical period
in its history.
I have already shown how, while the Scots were
becoming masters of the mainland in northern
Britain, the Norsemen took possession of the old
Dalriadic territory of Argyle and the islands. On
the mainland, the Norsemen also occupied Cunning-
ham in Ayrshire, Galloway to the north of the
Solway Firth, and Caithness in the far north. In
the Gaelic of Scotland, both Galloway and Caithness
are named Gallaibh, i.e. the Foreigners' territory,
and the Irish name of the Hebrides after they passed
into Norse hands is Innse Gall, " the Foreigners'
islands."
We have no records to show the precise date at
which these colonies were established, but in view of
the Norse supremacy on the seas from the close of
the eighth century, their establishment is not likely
to have been later than the foundation of the first
Norse colony on the Irish mainland, namely, the
colony of Dublin, in 84,1. The year after this, 842,
Cinaedh, the future conqueror of the Picts and
Britons and Angles, became king of the Scots.
The first clearly defined authority found among
these Norse settlements is that of the Orkney earls,
dating from before 880. Before that time, a mixed
Norse and Gaelic population, called Gall-Ghaedhil,
212 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
is seen taking part in the Norse wars in Ireland, some
on the Norse and some on the Irish side, as may be
seen from the annals of the years 856 and 857. These
people doubtless came from Scotland, perhaps also
from the Isle of Man, also occupied by the Norse-
men. Their language was broken Irish, as may be
judged from the words of an Irish tract which, in
praising the accurate utterance of a speaker, says
" it is not the giog-gog of a Gall-Ghaedheal." But
they must also have used the Norse language.
About the year 880, Harold the Fair, king of
Norway, came over and established the supremacy
of Norway over the settlements in the Orkneys, the
Hebrides, Argyle and the Isle of Man.
A century later, in 980, we find the Hebrides used
as a recruiting ground by the Norse king of Dublin.
In that year Mael Sechnaill, king of Ireland, won
the battle of Tara against " the Foreigners of Dublin
and the Islands." After this defeat, Olaf, king of
Dublin, laid down his kingship and retired into
religious life in lona, where he died not long later.
The incident shows that the Norse islanders had by
this time accepted Christianity, and that lona,
which they had barbarously ravaged again and
again, had regained among them the religious prestige
that it held before among the people of Ireland and
Scotland.
About this time, the Danes, who first appear on
our coasts in hostility to the Norwegians, established
a kingdom of the Hebrides, under Godred, son of
Harold. Godred invaded Dal Riada in Ulster in
989, and was killed there. His son Rognvald became
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 213
king of the Hebrides and died in 1005. With his
death, the Danish kingdom in the islands appears to
cease.
In 1014, the chief magnate of the Hebrides was
Earl Gilli. He held aloof from the great muster of
Norsemen from many regions that came to Clontarf
to win the sovereignty of Ireland for Earl Sigurd
of the Orkneys. From 1041 till 1064, the Hebrides
appear subject to the Orkney earl Thorfinn. During
this time, the islands supplied forces to Harald
Hardrada, king of Norway, for an invasion of Eng-
land. After this time, there are indications that
the predominance of the Orkney earls was replaced
in the Hebrides by that of the kings of the Isle of
Man. Later on, the kings of Man are seen to occupy
a middle position of authority between the kings of
Norway and the local rulers of the Hebrides. In
the title of the bishops of Sodor and Man, the name
Sodor is an abbreviation for Sudreyar, " the southern
isles," this being the ordinary Norse name for the
Hebrides, in contradistinction to the northern isles
of Orkney and Shetland.
In 1098, Magnus Barefoot, king of Norway, came
with a fleet and re-established the somewhat shaky
Norwegian sovereignty over the Orkneys, the
Hebrides, Cantire, and the Isle of Man. Four years
later, in 1102, he again visited these dominions and
was received without opposition. The following
year, 1103, king Magnus landed in eastern Ulster
and was cut off and slain.
In 1 1 34, a young Hebridean named Gilla Crist,
claiming to be a son of Magnus, became king of
214 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
Norway under the name of Harald Gilli. About this
time, the most prominent magnate in the Hebrides
was named Holdbodi, who lived in the island of
Tiree. The Norse documents dealing with these
times and with the succeeding century never suggest
that the masters of the Hebrides use any language
but Norse, though some of them bear Gaelic names ;
and the same documents apply the name Scots to
the mainlanders only, never to the people of the
islands.
In 1 157, we find the first mention of a ruler named
Sumarlidi, who dwelt on the mainland of Argyle-
shire. In Irish he is called Somhairlidh, and in
recording his death in 1164, the Annals of Tighernach
entitle him " king of the Hebrides and Cantire."
Fordun's Chronicle calls him " king of Argyle."
Sumarlidi was in fact the founder of a new Norse
kingdom of the Hebrides and Argyle, which lasted
from his time, about 1150, until 1499, when the last
king of his line was captured by the king of Scot-
land and hanged, along with his son and grandsons,
on the Boroughmuir at Edinburgh. Sumarlidi was
killed in 1164, in an attempt to invade the mainland
south of the Clyde.
This Sumarlidi was the ancestor of the families
of MacDomhnaill (MacDonnell, MacDonald), Mac
Dubhghaill (MacDugall, MacDowell, etc.), and Mac
Ruaidhri (MacRory). More than two centuries after
his time, when many of his descendants had settled
in Ireland, a pedigree was forthcoming to trace his
descent from one of the Three Collas who overthrew
the ancient kingdom of Ulster in the fourth century.
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 215
In Scotland, his descendants seem to have been pro-
vided with another pedigree, which established their
descent from Fergus, son of Ere, who founded the
Irish kingdom in Scotland. Ultimately a blend of
the two pedigrees found acceptance, and no doubt
there are many MacDonnells and MacDugalds and
MacRorys who believe in it. Apart from its other
weak points, this genealogy of the race of Sumarlidi
is too short by about nine generations or three
centuries.
Scottish writers in general show a remarkable
shyness in dealing with this kingdom of Argyle and
the Hebrides, and the highest title they are accus-
tomed to accord to its rulers is that of " Lords of
the Isles." In contemporary Norwegian and Irish
records, the title is always " king."
Internal dissensions in Norway left the Hebrides
practically independent for half a century after the
rise of Sumarlidi. In 12 10, when these dissensions
were composed, the kings of the Hebrides and the
Isle of Man made haste to Norway and renewed their
fealty to King Ingi. On the death of this king
without heir in 121 7, and the renewal of the disorders
of Norway, the Hebrides again fell away from their
allegiance. In 1224, Hakon, of doubtful paternity,
was accepted as king of Norway. At this time
Alan of Galloway threatened to extend his dominion
over the Hebrides and the Isle of Man. King Hakon
found a Hebridcan adventurer named Ospak, who
had long lived in Norway and had taken part in the
wars of the factions. He appointed this Ospak king
over the. Hebrides. For greater prestige he re-named
216 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
Ospak after himself, Hakon, and sent him with a
small fleet in 1230 to bring the Hebrides under his
authority. i\iter a partial success, Ospak fell sick
and died. Fresh troubles breaking out in Norway
prevented Hakon from following up his Hebridean
policy and encouraged the king of Scotland, Alex-
ander II, to aim at the recovery or annexation of
the islands. To this end, in 1242, Alexander sent
an embassy to Norway offering to buy out the
Norwegian claims. This proposal was rejected by
Hakon. It was afterwards renewed and again re-
jected.
In the meantime, Alexander, stronger by land
than by sea, made war on the Hebridean kings for
the possession of Argyle, Arran, and Bute, and
appears to have gained a strong foothold in those
parts. In 1248 a dispute arose between two of
Sumarlidi's descendants over the kingship. Both
went to Norway to seek a decision from King Hakon.
Hakon disliked decisions, and was content to keep
the claimants for a year in Norway. Next year
Alexander of Scotland renewed his efforts. He sent
a third offer of purchase to Hakon and at the same
time made open preparations for conquest. He also
endeavoured to win over Jon, king of the Hebrides,
from his allegiance to Norway. Jon held out, and
in the midst of the preparations for invasion,
Alexander died (1249).
He was succeeded by his son, Alexander III,
already spoken of in this lecture, last of the Dalriadic
kings in the direct line. When that interesting
coronation ceremony in Latin and Gaelic was per-
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 217
formed, Alexander III was only nine years of age.
During his minority, the connection between Norway
and the Hebrides was maintained. In 1252, Arch-
bishop Sorli of Drontheim in Norway, being then at
Rome, assisted in the consecration of a bishop named
Rikard for the Hebrides. In 1253, Jon and Dubh-
ghall, joint kings of the Hebrides, went again to
Norway to assist king Hakon in a war against
Denmark.
In 1 261, Alexander III, having come of age,
took up his father's policy of annexing the Norse
dominions adjoining Scotland, and sent a fresh
embassy to Norway. Failing to make terms, he
began next year the invasion of the islands. He
reoccupied Bute and Cantire, and sent a marauding
expedition under the Earl of Ross into the island
of Skye. King Jon of the Hebrides wrote informing
Hakon of what was going on, and from the sequel
we may judge that he held out no hope of being able
to resist Alexander. Hakon called together his
council, some of whom proposed to relinquish the
islands to Scotland, but the king ordered that an
expedition at full strength should be raised next
year. It was always the next opportunity with
King Hakon. Next year, 1263, he spent the time
until the end of July in making ready. In the
meantime, King Jon made terms for himself with
Alexander and transferred his allegiance to Scot-
land. Hakon made a slow progress with his fleet
through the islands and reoccupied part of Cantire
and also Arran and Bute. Alexander, relying on
the approach of winter, re-opened negotiations and
218 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
kept them going till the arrival of the equinoctial
gales. On October I, Hakon's fleet was partly
scattered by a violent storm. Some ships were
driven on the coast of Ayrshire. Here a trifling
encounter took place with the Scottish forces. It
has been magnified in Scottish histories into the
battle of Largs, in which, we are told, 16,000-
Norwegians were slain.
The misadventures of his fleet and the defection
of Jon convinced Hakon that he could only hold the
Hebrides by main force, and he decided to return
to Norway and come again next year with a still
stronger expedition. When he reached the Orkneys,
he fell sick and died.
In the meantime, he had received an embassy
from the Irish offering him the kingdom of Ireland
on condition of expelling the English power. I
propose to deal with this occurrence in a later
lecture.
With the death of Hakon in 1263 the Norwegian
sovereignty over the Hebrides and Argyle came to
an end ; and in 1265 his son Magnus made a formal
cession of the territory to Alexander.
During all this time, the chief power in the
Hebrides belonged to the MacDubhghaill line, the
sons and grandsons of Dubhghall son of Sumarlidi.
In the wars of the Scottish succession, these kings
supported the side of John Balliol and the English.
Their kinsfolk, the MacDomhnaill and MacRuaidhri
chiefs took the side of Robert Bruce. After Bruce's
triumph at Bannockburn in 13 14, MacDomhnaill
became king of Argyle and MacRuaidhri became
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 219
king of the islands. These two kings joined Edward
Bruce in Ireland and along with him fell fighting in
the battle of Fochairt in 13 18.
In 1387, Domhnall of Isla, head of the MacDomh-
naill line, became king of the Hebrides, and through
his mother inherited also the great earldom of Ross
on the mainland, his power becoming thus a menace
to the kingdom of Scotland. The regent Albany
sought by legal chicane to deprive him of Ross.
Domhnall took up arms and engaged the regent's
army in the bloody battle of Harlaw near Aberdeen
in 141 1. The battle was not decisive in the military
sense, but Domhnall succeeded in keeping the
earldom of Ross.
His brother Eoin Mor, about the year 1400,
by marriage with the heiress of Biset, lord of the
Glens in Ireland, came into possession of that
lordship, extending from the Giants' Causeway
to a line a little south of Larne. In 1431,
James I of Scotland sent an army into Argyle.
This army was defeated in the. battle of Inver-
lochy by Domhnall Ballach, son of Eoin and at
that time king of Argyle and the Islands. In
1462, Eoin son of Domhnall entered into a secret
treaty to assist Edward IV of England in the
conquest of Scotland. This pact was discovered
by James III of Scotland in 1475. An expe-
dition was prepared against Eoin by land and
sea, but he obtained peace by a timely submission
and by relinquishing the lordships of Ross, Knap-
dale and Cantire. In 1493, Eoin again became
obnoxious. He was attainted in the Scottish par-
220 THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND
liament and his feudatories were forced to swear
direct allegiance to the Scottish crown. James IV
made a new grant of Cantire to a son of Eoin Mor,
named Eoin Cathanach from his having been fostered
by O'Cathain in Ulster. The Scottish king came in
person to Cantire in 1499 and placed a garrison in
the castle of Dunaverty which he had reserved to
the crown. James had only put out to sea from
Dunaverty when, still in his sight, Eoin Cathanach
attacked and captured the castle and hanged the
governor from the wall. This time there was no
forgiveness. Before the year was out, Eoin Cathan-
ach and his aged father, the king of the Hebrides,
fell into the hands of Giolla Easpuig, the new earl
of Argyle, head of the house of Campbell which the
Scottish kings aggrandised as a check on the power
of the MacDonnells. The captives were handed
over to King James. The sequel is recorded by a
contemporary Irish chronicler in the Annals of
Ulster :
" A sad deed was done in this year (1499) by
the king of Scotland, James Stewart. Eoin Mac
Domhnaill, king of the Foreigners' Isles, and Eoin
Cathanach his son, and Raghnall the Red and
Domhnall the Freckled, sons of Eoin Cathanach,
were executed on one gallows the month before
Lammas."
So ended the kingdom of the Hebrides, which
the line of Sumarlidi had held for three centuries
and a half.
Another son of Eoin Cathanach escaped, and
retained the lordship of the Glens. This was
THE IRISH KINGDOM IN SCOTLAND 221
Alasdair Carrach, father of the celebrated Somh-
airle Buidhe and ancestor of the Earls of Antrim.
A grand-daughter of Alasdair Carrach was the
Inghean Dubh, mother of Aodh Ruadh O'Domhnaill.
VIII. IRELAND'S
GOLDEN AGE
AS the conversion of Ireland to Christianity did
not begin with Saint Patrick, so also he did
not live to complete it. To say this is not
to belittle his work or to deprive him of the honour
that has been accorded to him by every generation
of Irishmen since his death. No one man has ever
left so strong and permanent impression of his
personality on a people, with the single and eminent
exception of Moses, the deliverer and lawgiver of
Israel. It is curious to note that the comparison
between these two men was present to the minds of
our forefathers. Both had lived in captivity. Both
had led the people from bondage. Some of the
legends of St. Patrick were perhaps based on this
comparison, especially the account of his competition
with the Druids. Some of his lives go so far as to
give him the years of Moses, six score years, making
him live till the year 492, sixty years after the be-
ginning of his mission. There is good evidence,
however, that the earlier date of his death, 461,
found in our oldest chronicle, and also in the Welsh
chronicle, is the authentic date. Father Hogan, in
his " Documenta Vitae S. Patricii," has drawn up a
table of the acts of St. Patrick, and after this date,
461, the table is a blank. I have already alluded to
the feature adopted by our early chroniclers from St.
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 223
Jerome's version of Eusebius — the marking of cer-
tain epochs by giving the sum of years from a pre-
ceding epoch. We must remember that in those
days the custom so familiar to us of giving an arith-
metical name to every year, all in one series, was
quite unknown. The first historian to use this
method consistently was Bede, and it did not obtain
general vogue until long after his time. In Ireland,
though Bede's writings were intimately known, his
method of dating by the year of the Christian era
does not appear to have been taken up until the
eleventh century — nearly three centuries after his
time. What then was the ordinary method of
dating ? It was by regnal years. For example,
the beginning of St. Patrick's mission is thus dated
in the ancient chronicle :
" Patrick came to Ireland in the ninth year of
Theodosius the younger, in the first year of the
episcopate of Sixtus, forty-second bishop of the
Roman Church." The Irish Nennius gives an Irish
regnal date for this event — " the fifth year of King
Loiguire."
It may be noted that this manner of dating lasted
until our own time in the dating of the statutes of
the English parliament.
Our present method of dating by a continuous
era, giving each year its number in the series as
its ordinary name, has this great convenience that
we can calculate the space of years between two
dated events by a simple subtraction. But if we
find, to take an actual example from our oldest
chronicle, that a certain event is dated in the ninth
224 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
year of the emperor Theodosius II, and another
event in the second year of the emperor Phocas,
then in order to calculate the distance of years
between, we must first know the length of each
imperial reign from Theodosius to Phocas. The old
chroniclers were constantly at the trouble of making
calculations of this kind, calculations to which certain
errors were incidental. Small errors accumulating
become great errors, and so as a safeguard and cor-
rective, here and there in the chronicle, at the record
of some important event, we find these summaries of
years. In the year 664, a very destructive plague
broke out in Ireland. To the record of the event,
the chronicler adds : " From the death of Patrick,
203 years." So the seventh-century chronicler knew
461 as the year of Patrick's death.
There are various things that indicate that pro-
fessed paganism continued to exist in Ireland in the
second half of the sixth century, i.e. for a century
at least after Saint Patrick's death. By that time,
however, as I have shown in the sixth lecture, a
blending of the old native culture and the newly
introduced Christian learning had taken place. And
just as two elements in the chemical sense unite to
form something that seems to have a nature and
virtue all its own and not derived from the quality
of either component, so this blending of two traditions
in Ireland brought forth almost a new nation, with a
character and an individuality that gave it distinc-
tion in that age and in the after ages.
Mr. Romilly Allen, in his book on " Celtic Art,"
has something to the purpose. " The great dim-
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 225
culty," he writes, " in understanding trie evolution
of Celtic art lies in the fact that, although the Celts
never seem to have invented any new ideas, they
professed an extraordinary aptitude for picking up
ideas from the different peoples with whom war or
commerce brought them into contact. And once
the Celt had borrowed an idea from his neighbour,
he was able to give it such a strong Celtic tinge
that it soon became something so different from
what it was originally as to be almost unrecog-
nisable."
There is a mixture of truth and error in this
statement that is characteristic of a great deal of
modern scientific comment. For the explanation of
a fact, something is offered which, upon close ex-
amination, is seen to be no more than the unex-
plained thing stated again in different terms. Why
do masses of matter tend to approach each other ?
Because of the law of gravity. What do we mean
by the law of gravity ? We mean that masses of
matter tend to approach each other.
It is to be seen from the quotation I have made
that Mr. Romilly Allen starts with the idea of evolu-
tion. So does Professor Bury. His " Life of St.
Patrick r is a sustained effort to prove that the
singular chapter in the world's history opened by
Saint Patrick's work in Ireland finds its explanation
in this, that Saint Patrick was an evolved product,
a resultant, a force naturally generated by the
Roman Empire, of which Professor Bury is a dis-
tinguished historian. His " Life of St. Patrick " is
designed to bring the singular and outstanding
15
226 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
phenomenon of Ireland in the sixth, seventh, and
eighth centuries, into the direct series of cause and
effect with which the historian's greater work has
dealt. He writes, he tells us, as one of " the children
of reason." But the children of reason cannot ex-
plain water as the resultant of its known physical
components, oxygen and hydrogen, or salt as the
resultant of chlorine and sodium. The properties of
water and salt, so long as these substances remain
water and salt, are not the properties of their com-
ponent substances or any combination thereof. In
like manner the historian or the archaeologist will
set himself an impossible task if he undertakes to
explain every fact of history or archaeology as a
sort of mechanical resultant of pre-existing forces.
What Romilly Allen says about the Celts is true
of every people that has developed and maintained
a distinctive nationality. The Romans themselves
borrowed from Greece and from Etruria — but the
resultant was neither Greece nor Etruria nor Greece
plus Etruria nor any permutation or combination of
Greek and Etruscan factors. The Greeks borrowed
from Crete and Phoenicia, but no mere adding to-
gether of Cretan and Phoenician elements produced
the Attic salt.
Herein lies the justification of nationality, of
intense, distinctive and highly developed nationality.
In it resides the elemental power of transformation.
To it belongs the philosopher's stone. If the Greek
people had possessed but a feeble individuality as a
people, if they had resembled Cretans and Phoe-
nicians and Persians, if they had not felt instinctively
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 227
that they had something precious in themselves,
something that was worth Thermopylae, then it
would never have been written in a later age that :
Greece and her foundations are
Built beneath the tide of war,
Throned on the crystalline sea
Of thought and its eternity.
In every intense and distinctive development of a
nation, there dwells the actuality or the potentiality
of some great gift to the common good of mankind ;
and I rejoice, I am sure we all rejoice, to see, in
these days of clashing and crashing empires, that
the clear idea of nationality, as if by the wonderful
recreative power that is in nature, is rising in the
esteem of good men all over the world, above and
beyond the specious and seductive appeal of what
has been called " the wider patriotism." In this
regard, too, our own country in that most remark-
able period of its history may furnish something of
a model. With all the singularity of its insular
character, it maintained the fullest intercourse with
other countries, and its written mind exhibits no
trace of those international prejudices and hatreds
which, for whatever ends stimulated, are the disgrace
of our modern civilisation.
We must not pretend that Ireland in that age
was in a condition approaching ideal perfection.
Far from it — the country was ruled by a patrician
class to whom war was a sort of noble pastime.
When we read of war in ancient Ireland, however,
we must bear one thing in mind : a prolonged con-
test like that of the Leinster kings for the recovery
228 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
of Meath was altogether singular, and is not heard
of from that time until the Norse invasions, three
centuries later. A war, as a rule, meant a single
battle, and in the early annals, which were written
in Latin, the word bellum, which in Latin means a
war, is always used to mean a single battle.
Though Christianity did not make the Irish desist
from this kind of warfare, it certainly changed their
outlook on warfare in general. Men who had taken
part in bloodshed were excluded from the immediate
precincts of the churches. In the wars carried on
by the heathen Irish in other countries, the principal
gain was in captives who were sold, like St. Patrick,
into slavery. In his epistle to the soldiers of the
British ruler Coroticus, St. Patrick condemns this
practice along with the killing of non-combatants.
" These soldiers," he writes, " live in death, the
associates of Scots and Picts who have fallen away
from the Faith, the slayers of innocent Christians. . .
It is the custom of the Christians in Roman Gaul,"
he adds, " to send chosen men of piety with so much
money to the Franks and other heathens, to ransom
baptized captives. Thou slayest all, or sellest them
to a foreign nation that knows not God. I know not
what to say about the dead of the children of God
upon whom the sword has fallen beyond measure.
The Church deplores and bewails her sons and
daughters whom the sword as yet hath not slain but
who are carried far away and transported into
distant lands, reduced to slavery, especially to
slavery under the degraded and unworthy apostate
Picts."
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 229
This, therefore, was also St. Patrick's teaching to
the Irish ; and in and after his time, not a single
raiding expedition goes forth from Ireland. Kuno
Meyer has shown that the military organisation of
the Fiana still existed to some degree in early
Christian Ireland ; but it gradually disappears,
and in the seventh century the Irish kings cease to
dwell, surrounded by their fighting men, in great
permanent encampments like Tara and Ailinn. In
the eighth century, we hear the testimony of Bede,
that the Irish are " a harmless nation, ever most
friendly to the English."
Another change that came about, not suddenly,
but gradually during this period, is the extinction of
the old lines of racial demarcation in Ireland. The
Church did not recognise these boundaries. Many
noted ecclesiastics belonged to the old plebeian
tribes.
In this connection, we may note one feature of the
Irish secular law, not traceable to the influence of
Christianity. The word soer, used as a noun, has
two special meanings ; it means a freeman and it
means a craftsman. The contrary term doer means
unfree — in the sense of serfdom rather than of
slavery ; .there is a distinct term for " slave," viz.,
mugh. The plebeian communities are called doer-
thuatha. The inference, therefore, is that a skilled
craftsman of unfree race became by virtue of his
craft a freeman.
Let us now take a cursory view of the course
of political events during the sixth, seventh and
eighth centuries, or rather, from the battle of
230 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
Ocha, which secured the monarchy for the de-
scendants of Niall in 483, till the coming of the
Norsemen in 793.
We have seen that the effect of the battle of
Ocha was to exclude the Connacht branches of
the monarchical family from the succession. The
successful princes were a grandson and a great-
grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages ; and these
two princes, one of the Southern, the other of the
Northern Ui Neill, became the next two kings of
Ireland.
To understand this event more clearly, it is neces-
sary to take a view of the Irish law of succession or
inheritance. Under this law, a man's heirs were a
family group called the derbfinc or true family. At
the head of this group was the great-grandfather of
its youngest members, whether he happened to be
dead or alive. The derbjine consisted of this family
head, his sons, grandsons and great-grandsons — four
generations. When the fifth generation came for-
ward, the derbjine subdivided itself, forming a new
set of similar groups, the head of each being one of
the sons of the man who was head of the older
group.
When a man died, all the living members of the
derbfi?ie to which he belonged became his heirs,
and the inheritance, if capable of division, was
divided among them in proportions fixed by law.
Thus, if the deceased belonged to the third genera-
tion of the four which formed the derbjine, his heirs
comprised all his grandfather's living descendants —
i.e. his own children, his brothers and their children,
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 231
and his uncles and their children and grandchildren.
In each case, the derbfine or group of heirs was
ascertained by counting back to the great-grandfather
of the youngest member and comprised all his
descendants.
Kingship was not divisible, though it was a herit-
able property. When a man became king, then all
male members of his derbfine became potential heirs
to the kingship. Each member became capable of
succession. For a man who thus came into the
line of succession, there was a legal name — he was
called rigdamna, " king-material," or in homely
phrase, " the makings of a king." When a vacancy
occurred, it was filled up by election from among
those in this way qualified.
A glance at the genealogical tree (p. 193) will show
how this law of succession influenced the action of
the principals in the battle of Ocha. Muirchertach,
king of Ailech, as the annals show, was the most
active and daring of the Irish princes in his time.
But neither his father nor his grandfather had held
the high-kingship. If he himself failed to secure it,
then the whole branch of the Northern Ui Neill
ceased to have any lawful claim to the monarchy.
He did not belong to the same derbfine as the reign-
ing monarch Ailill Molt, but he was eligible to the
monarchy because his great-grandfather, Niall, had
held it. It was therefore his interest, and that of
his kinsfolk in the north-west, to strike in, cut out the
Connacht branch, and secure the potential succession
for himself and his posterity. Not relying on his
own power to effect this, he came to an understand-
232 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
ing with Luguid, king of the Southern Ui Neill, who
belonged to his own derbfine. From the sequel, we
may judge that the price of Luguid's adhesion was
immediate succession to the monarchy. He became
king of Ireland after the battle of Ocha, and Muir-
chertach became king of Ireland after him.
It is evident that this law of succession, a part
of the ordinary law of inheritance, was, from the
point of view of the public peace, a bad law. There
were always branches of the ruling lines which, like
the Northern Ui Neill in this instance, were on the
point of falling outside of the group of eligibles ; and
the chiefs of these branches were always under the
temptation to use violent measures, if they felt them-
selves strong enough, to retain the legal qualification
in their own line.
In 534, Muirchertach died and was succeeded
peacefully by Tuathal Maelgarb, another great-
grandson of Niall. Contemporary with him, there
was another of Niall's great-grandsons, Diarmait,
whose father and grandfather had not reigned, and
whose line therefore was in danger of exclusion from
the monarchy. In 544, Tuathal was assassinated
by a foster-brother of Diarmait, and Diarmait secured
the monarchy. He is the last of the great-grandsons
of Niall of whom we hear, and consequently the
family of Niall ceases in his time to preserve its
legal unity. From his death in 565 until the year
734, though the power and prestige acquired by the
Ui Neill enabled them to keep the high-kingship
among themselves, there is no regularity of succes-
sion. The Ui Neill held a number of small kingdoms
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 233
in Meath and western Ulster, and whatever king of
them showed himself to be the strongest is recognised
as king of Ireland.
The Northern Ui Neill, occupying a compact
territory side by side, continued to hold together in
political unity until the seventh century, their chief
king being at one time of the line of Conall Gulban,
at another time of the line of Eogan. In 563 they
conquered from the Picts a belt of territory on the
western side of the Bann, between Loch Neagh and
the sea. This territory came into the possession of
a branch of Eogan's line, represented in later times
by the family of O'Cathain (O'Kane). In 615, we
see the first appearance of a break in the unity of
the Northern Ui Neill. Mael Chobo, of the line of
Conall, was then their king and king of Ireland. He
was overthrown in battle by Suibne Menn, king of
Cenel Eogain, who then became king of Ireland.
Thenceforward, Cenel Conaill and Cenel Eogain be-
come rival powers in the North. Their rivalry
lasted, with intervals, for a thousand years, until
the battle of Kinsale in i6ot, where it was a con-
tributary cause of the final overthrow of both their
houses. Cenel Eogain, from the position of its
territory, held the advantage, and gradually ex-
tended its power eastward and southward over
Ulster. Cenel Conaill on the other hand, holding
the natural fastness of the Donegal Highlands,
was never forced to take a permanently subordinate
position.
Most modern writers on Irish history have ac-
cepted as historical the romantic story of the cursing
234 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
of Tara and its desertion during the reign of Diar-
mait. There is not a word about it in the ancient
annals, though our earliest known chronicler wrote
within half a century of the supposed event. A son
of Diarmait, Aed Slane, became king of Ireland, and
died in 604, within the chronicler's time of writing
which ends in 610. Aed Slane shared the high-king-
ship with Colman, king of the Northern Ui Neill,
and the chronicle says expressly that " they ruled
Tara in equal power." As late as the year 780,
Tara was neither an accursed nor a deserted place,
for in that year an ecclesiastical synod was held
" in the town of Tara ' (in oppido Ternro). The
extant stories of the cursing of Tara are all writings
of the Middle Irish period, written centuries later
than the supposed event. They tell us that the
trouble began with the outlawry of Aedh Guaire,
king of Ui Maine, who refused to submit to a quite
unprecedented exercise of authority on the part of
the monarch Diarmait. I have not been able to find
this Aedh Guaire's name either in the annals or in the
genealogy of Ui Maine, or anywhere except in this
story. Aedh Guaire sought sanctuary. Diarmait
violated the sanctuary. Twelve saints, called " the
twelve apostles of Ireland," thereupon laid siege to
Tara with fastings and curses, and Tara ceased to be
the home of the monarchy. The annals show that
some of these saints were dead at the time and
others of them were still in their childhood. These
so-called historical tales are seldom troubled about
anachronisms. The celebrated " Colloquy with the
Ancients " brings St. Patrick and Oisin into conversa-
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 235
tion with the same Diarmait. Apart from anachron-
isms, the story of the cursing has other features
which should suffice to warn any reader from taking
it for serious history.
The desertion of Tara does not stand alone, and
can be explained without resort to imaginative tales
of a later age. Cruachain, the ancient seat of the
Connacht kings, and Ailinn, the ancient seat of the
Leinster kings, were also abandoned during this
period. It was military kings who ruled from these
strongholds, surrounded by strong permanent mili-
tary forces. My first visit to Tara convinced me
that what we see there is the remains of a great
military encampment. So it appeared or was known
to the tenth-century poet Cinaed Ua h-Artacain,
whose poem on Tara begins with the words Temair
Breg, baile na fian, " Tara of Bregia, home of the
warrior-bands." When the booty and captives of
Britain and Gaul ceased to tempt and recompense
a professional soldiery, and when the old fighting
castes became gradually merged in the general
population, military organisation died out in Ireland,
not to reappear until the introduction of the Gallo-
glasses in the thirteenth century. That is one
reason why Tara was deserted.
There is another and perhaps more cogent reason.
Diarmait left his son, Colman the Little, king over
Midhe proper, i.e. Westmeath and most of King's
County and County Longford ; and another son,
Aedh Slane, before mentioned, king over Bregia, i.e.
County Meath and parts of Louth and Dublin
counties. This is a further instance of that process,
236 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
described in a former lecture, of creating mean lords.
From these two kings sprang two distinct dynasties.
Colman's line, Clann Cholmain, dominated the
western territory ; Aed Slane's line, Siol Aeda Slane,
the eastern territory. The process of appropriation
was continued in detail by their descendants.
" Clann Cholmain," says an ancient genealogist,
" were distributed throughout Midhe so as to possess
the lordship of every tuath and perpetual sovereignty
over them." In like manner, an old genealogical
poem relates the distribution of Aedh Slane's
descendants in lordship over various territories of
Bregia.
The annals show that, between these two families
so closely related, a fierce and bloody feud broke
out, with continual reprisals, lasting for many years.
Tara was in the possession of Aed Slane's line. After
the year 734, the kings of this line were excluded
from the high-kingship, but nevertheless continued
to hold undisputed authority over all Bregia, in-
cluding Tara, until the close of the tenth century,
when their dynasty was suppressed by the high-
king Mael Sechnaill, who was also the chief of Clann
Cholmain. These facts quite sufficiently explain
why, after 734, no king of Ireland could occupy Tara
without an army.
The political affairs of southern Ireland during this
period are remarkably tranquil and undiversified.
In Munster, there was probably more abiding peace
than in any equal extent of country in western
Europe. The kings of Cashel appear to have steadily
consolidated their authority and to have been con-
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 237
tent to do so without seeking to extend it beyond
the bounds fixed in the fifth century. In the Book
of Rights, the tributes payable to the king of Cashel
far exceed those to which any of the other six
principal kings in Ireland laid claim. There is an
allegory related in the genealogies which indicates
that at one time the supremacy of Cashel was
challenged by the Eoghanacht kings of West Munster.
This may have particular reference to one of these,
Aedh Bennan, who died in 619, and who seems to
have grouped under his own authority the western
states in opposition to the king of Cashel. It is
doubtful whether this ambition outlived him. His
daughter, Mor Mhumhan (" Mor of Munster," as she
is called), figures in ancient story. She became the
wife of Finghen, king of Cashel, and the ancestress of
the most numerous family in Ireland, the O'Sullivans.
The most powerful of the kings of Cashel during
this period was Cathal, who died in 742. The annals
indicate that he held virtually equal authority with
the contemporary high-kings. One of the preroga-
tives of the high-king was to preside over the As-
sembly of Taillte (" Teltown," near Navan). In
733, Cathal seems to have attempted to preside
over this assembly, in the absence of the high-
king Flaithbcrtach, who was engaged at the time
in a losing struggle to preserve his own authority in
the north-west. Cathal's attempt to preside over
the high king's assembly was forcibly prevented by
Domhnall, king of Midhe. In 734, Cathal appears to
have secured the adherence or submission of the
king of Ossory in an effort to extend his power over
238 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
Leinster ; and a fierce battle ensued, in which the
king of Ossory was killed and the king of Cashel
escaped alive. In 737, a convention was held be-
tween Cathal and the high-king, Aedh Allan, at
Terryglass in Ormond, and apparently an agree-
ment was made between them securing the claim
of the church of Armagh to revenue from all Ireland.
In 738, Cathal again invaded Leinster and exacted
hostages and a heavy contribution from the king of
Naas. In view of all this, the name of Cathal was
afterwards included by some southern writers in the
list of monarchs of Ireland.
In Leinster, a factor against peace was the ancient
claim of the high-kings to tribute from the Leinster
kings. The origin of this tribute, called the Boramha
or " kine-counting," is explained by two different
stories. Possibly it originated in the conquest of
northern Leinster. The tribute was seldom con-
ceded but to main force. To exact it at least once
in a reign was a point of honour, a test of the
monarch's authority ; and an invasion of Leinster
for that purpose is an almost regular item in the
annals under the first or second year of each high-
king.
The irregular succession to the monarchy ends in
the year 734. In that year the high-king Flaithber-
tach, who was king of Tir Conaill, was compelled to
abdicate by Aedh Allan, king of Cenel Eogain, who
then became high-king. Flaithbertach retired into
religious life at Armagh where he died thirty-one
years later. From the year 734 until 1022, except
for two interruptions, the succession to the high-
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 239
kingship was reserved to two dynasties, one at the
head of the Northern Ui Neill, the other at the
head of the Southern Ui Neill, to the kings of Ailech
and Midhe ; and these succeeded each other in the
monarchy in regular alternation. There is no
record of any express constitutional pact to secure
the succession in this manner, but the alternation
was a well recognised fact ; and on this fact the
medieval reconstructors of Irish history for the
prehistoric period modelled part of their work — so
that we read of an alternate sovereignty over Munster
in remote antiquity, and of another alternate
sovereignty, in which the Eoghanacht and the
Dalcassians were the partners, at a later period ;
and the history of the monarchy is projected back
to the first arrival of the Gaels in Ireland, by a
device already alluded to, that is, by selecting
names in turn out of the pedigrees of the principal
dynasties.
It is not my purpose in these lectures to give a
complete scheme of Irish history, allotting to each
set of facts its due proportion of the discourse. My
aim is rather to supplement what appears defective
and correct what appears misleading in the treatment
of early Irish history as the public has been accus-
tomed to it. In regard of the great activity of
religion and learning during the period between St.
Patrick and the Norsemen, I shall not attempt to
give even in summary what has been so eloquently
described in detail by others, for example, by Arch-
bishop Healy in his valuable work on ' Ireland's
Ancient Schools and Scholars," and, in the con-
240 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
tinental and missionary aspect, by Margaret Stokes.
We have noted that the Irish civilisation of this
period stands out so brightly from what are called
the Dark Ages that it has commanded the special
attention of an eminent historian of the Roman
Empire, and evoked the resources of German scholar-
ship. When I see the eulogist of Anglo-Norman
feudalism in Ireland sitting in judgment upon the
political institutions of a people which he has never
studied and does not at all understand, I call to
mind the estimate formed by " the ancient philoso-
phers of Ireland " about Victorius of Aquitaine —
that he was deserving of compassion rather than
of ridicule. A barbarous people in " the tribal
stage " — every item culled out that might suggest
comparison with the head-hunters of New Guinea
and the Hottentot — and beside this and in the
midst of it schools everywhere, not schools but
universities — books everywhere, " the countless multi-
tude of the books of 'Eire," — yes, we can still use the
scrapings of our Irish vellum as a cure for the foreign
snake-bite — and on the other hand, the pomp and
circumstance of Feudalism, with its archiepiscopal
viceroys, its incastellations and its subinfeudations,
its charters and its statutes, its registers and its
inquisitions, but during four centuries not one
school of note, not even one, and one abortive uni-
versity, no literature except the melancholy records
of anti-national statecraft, and whatever learning
there was for the most part suborned to the pur-
poses of a dominating officialdom, just as in our
own day we have seen the highest achievements of
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 24!
«
science and invention suborned to the service of
the war departments.
As regards the actual scope of Irish learning, at
that period, our data are not sufficient to determine
it. I do not know whether anyone has yet at-
tempted to draw up a complete conspectus of the
Latin literature that has been preserved in MSS.
copied by Irish scribes, and of Latin authors quoted
in ancient Irish books. In my opinion, the forma-
tion of a sane estimate of the Latin learning of that
age, in the case of Ireland as of other countries, has
been hindered by what I will call the intellectual
snobbery of the Renaissance — an attitude of mind
in which scholars think to dignify themselves by
despising everything in Latin that was not written
in the time of the first twelve Caesars. It should
not be ignored that for centuries after the fall of
the Western Empire, though Latin existed among
the common people only in the form of broken and
breaking dialects, the Latin of the grammarians
continued to be the language of thought and of
education throughout the western half of Europe,
and remained for the educated a truly living lan-
guage. If it did not retain its classical elegance, it
still had an unbroken vital tradition. Above all,
the later Latin writings contain the contempor-
ary record of the most progressive section of the
human race in those times. I have often thought
that I should like to see our universities break away
from that sentiment of intellectual snobbery and
open up opportunities for their students to become
familiar with the late Latin literature. There can
16
242 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
be no doubt that it was this late Latin literature that
was chiefly read in the ancient Christian schools of
Ireland, and properly so, for its content was of
more vital interest to their teachers and scholars
than the matter of producing elegant yet artificial
imitations of the Latin classics. In that later Latin
and through its medium, Western Christendom was
joined in an international common-wealth of mind.
The Irish schools were familiar with works written
in Spain like those of Orosius and St. Isidore, or in
Gaul like those of St. Jerome and Victorius. Per-
haps the intimacy and frequency of this intellectual
intercourse is best illustrated in a letter written by
the celebrated Alcuin no doubt from the palace
school of Charlemagne, to Colgu, a professor in
Clonmacnois, just before the ravages of the Norse-
men began. " The writer complains that for some
time past he was not deemed worthy to receive any
of those letters ' so precious in my sight from your
fatherhood,' but he daily feels the benefit of his
absent father's prayers." Here we have clear
testimony that, for personal correspondence, there
existed a way of sending letters from Ireland to the
Rhineland and receiving replies, approaching as near
to a regular postal service as we could expect to
find in that age. The sequence of the letter shows
that the medium of this correspondence was merchant
shipping engaged in trade between the two countries.
Alcuin adds " that he sends by the same messenger
an alms of fifty sides of silver from the bounty of
King Charles {i.e. Charlemagne) and fifty more from
his own resources for the brotherhood. He also
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 243
sends a quantity of olive oil . . . and asks that it
may be distributed amongst the Bishops in God's
honour for sacramental purposes."
And what about Greek ? Much has been written
about the singular knowledge of Greek possessed by
Irish scholars and their pupils of other nationalities
in the time of Charlemagne and thereabouts. Zimmer
in particular has laid great stress on this proposition.
Some years ago, I went one day to look for help from
Professor Corcoran in something I was trying to
work out. I found him in his room, busy with his
students. I retreated, but he called me back. " We
are discussing," he said, " the question of the know-
ledge of Greek in the ancient Irish schools. You
have come in a good time to let us know your view
about it." " Well," I said, " I cannot claim to have
examined the matter at all. I know that some
remarkable things have been said about it. I can
only claim to have formed a general impression from
what I have observed." " Will you let us know
what impression you have formed ? " " Certainly,"
I said. " My impression is that such evidences of
a knowledge of Greek as have been found are well
enough explained as the outcome of the teaching of
Greek in Canterbury by Archbishop Theodore."
Since that time, Mr. Mario Esposito has discussed
the matter at length in " Studies," and his con-
clusion is that the knowledge of Greek in those Irish
schools was very meagre indeed and mainly or
wholly based on mere vocabularies. Kuno Meyer, I
think, disagreed with this conclusion. I can remem-
ber that Mr. Esposito's treatment of the question
244 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
jarred on me to some extent — I thought his argu-
ment was too sharp in some places and too flat in
others. Nevertheless, I think he was in the right
on the main point. Knowledge of a language means
either conversational knowledge or textual know-
ledge or both together. I certainly could not name
a single Greek author who was textually known in
the Irish schools — on the evidence ; and I know no
evidence of the conversational use of Greek in those
schools. It may have been in them for a time.
Bede, a contemporary, says that Theodore's pupils
learned to speak Greek with fluency. Theodore was
in Canterbury from 664 till 690, and it is very likely
that Irishmen would go there to learn from him.
But notwithstanding Bede's testimony, it does not
appear that Theodore's teaching had the effect of
establishing the study of Greek on any permanent
basis in England, not to say in Ireland.
Without making any claim that does not rest on
unquestionable evidence, there is enough to show
that during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries,
Ireland, enjoying freedom from external danger and
holding peaceful intercourse with the other nations,
made no inglorious use of her opportunity. The
native learning and the Latin learning throve side
by side. The ardent spirit of the people sent mis-
sionary streams into Britain and Gaul, western
Germany and Italy, even to farthest Iceland. And
among all this world-intercourse there grew up the
most intense national consciousness. It pleases me
to see a certain school of writers say certain things,
so that the truth may be established by its opposite.
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 245
" The Irishman's country," I read, " was the tuath
or territory belonging to his tribe. . . The clansman,
while ready to lay down his life for his chief, felt
no enthusiasm for a national cause. The sentiment
for ' country ' in any sense more extended than that
of his own tribal territory, was alike to him and to
his chief unknown." The implication is that, in the
twelfth century, to which these words refer, the
statement made in them is, in the first place, true of
the Irishman, and in the second place, especially and
peculiarly true of the Irishman. If it be peculiarly
or especially true of the Irishman, then the writer,
Mr. Orpen, has in mind other nationalities about
which the same could not be stated. What and
where were they ? Suppose we read instead, " The
feudal vassal's country was the fief or territory
belonging to his lord. . . . The vassal, while ready
to lay down his life for his lord, felt no enthusiasm
for a national cause. The sentiment for ' country '
in any sense more extended than that of his own
feudal territory, was alike to him and to his lord
unknown." Would this be untrue of England,
France, Germany, or Italy in the twelfth century ?
If quite applicable to all these countries, why is it
so particularly and specially said about the Irish-
man ? For what purpose ? To what end ? Is it
to bring out historical truth ? What is the motive ?
What is the objective ?
The fact is that, while the statement is true in a
limited sense about Ireland, it is not especially and
peculiarly true, as its writer would have himself
believe, about Ireland, and it is less true about Ire-
2.\.6 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
land than about any country in western Europe at
that period — the twelfth century. You will not find
anywhere in Europe during that age any approach
towards the definite and concrete sense of nationality
— of country and people in one — which is the com-
mon expression of the Irish mind in that age. Be-
ginning with the sixth century chronicle, every Irish
history is a history of Ireland — there is not one
history of a tribal territory or of any grouping of
tribal territories. Every Irish law-book is a book
of the laws of Ireland — there are no territorial laws
and no provincial laws. The whole literature is
pervaded by the notion of one country common to
all Irishmen. So far as Mr. Orpen's statement is
concerned with the expression of historical truth, it
has this much of truth — that neither in Ireland nor
in any other country was the modern sentiment of
political nationality fully formed in the popular
mind. Mr. Orpen goes on to contrast Irish localism
with the centralised monarchies of Europe. Let us
hope he does not imagine that any one of those
centralised monarchies was the expression of the
sentiment of country in the popular mind or in the
mind of the ruler. It is true that the sentiment of
country sometimes obtained its delimitation from
centralised power — but the sentiments which found
expression in centralised power were those of fear
on the one side and domination on the other ; and
students who study medieval history with a map will
quickly apprehend that these two sentiments, fear
and domination, shaped the boundaries of country
in defiance of the sentiments connected with country,
IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE 247
race, language, nationality. In Ireland, on the
other hand, we find the clear development of the
national consciousness, associated with the country,
to a degree that is found nowhere else. Just as we
must reject the ridiculous notion that the Irish
were a perverse people, with a double dose of original
sin, and therefore a people about whom the more
incredible are the things said the more worthy they
are of belief ; so, too, we must avoid the contrary
extreme and refrain from insisting that everything in
ancient Ireland was perfect, deriving this perfection
from the aneelic virtue of the national character.
In Ireland it was impossible to escape the sentiment
of country. So an ancient poet figured to himself
that the first poem in the Irish language began thus :
" I invoke the land of Ireland." Another poet puts
this sentiment in the mouth of Columba —
Here is a grey eye
that looks back to Ireland
an eye that never more shall see
Ireland's men nor her women.
Now, Columba's " tribal territory " was Tir Conaill.
Again, Columba is supposed to say —
Gaedheal ! Gaedheal ! beloved name —
My one joy of memory is to utter it.
But Columba's clan was the Ui Neill — not the
Gaedhil. Shall we be told that national sentiment
was an esoteric doctrine of the poets ; that in lines
like these, they were not appealing to the sense of
country which they knew to be in the minds of their
audience, but were seeking subtly to indoctrinate
248 IRELAND'S GOLDEN AGE
with a nationalism peculiar to themselves a public
which could only think of tribal chiefs and tribal
territories ? Well and good. In what other country
of that age was there even a small class of the people
who held and expressed this definite sentiment of
country ? A Leinster poet sings the glories of the
Curragh of Kildare and the royal fortress of Ailinn
— seat of the Leinster kings ; but in the middle of
this theme, he says, " Greater than telling at every
time hath been God's design for Ireland " ; can this
expression be paralleled in the literature of any
other country in that age ? Or let us look at the
words with which Gilla Coemain begins a metrical
list of the Irish monarchs :
High 'Eire, island of the kings,
illustrious scene of mighty deeds —
These are only casual examples that rise to the
mind. The plain truth is this — and the writer who
denies it does so because he has set out to write a
political pamphlet in the guise of history — that,
notwithstanding an extensive intercourse with neigh-
bouring and distant peoples, and notwithstanding
an extremely decentralised native polity, the Irish
people stand singular and eminent in those times,
from the fifth century forward, as the possessors of
an intense national consciousness.
IX. THE STRUGGLE WITH
THE NORSEMEN
THE Norsemen or Northmen were the people
of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. They
always call themselves Northmen. This im-
plies that they regarded themselves as being the
northern branch of a larger people — and that larger
people can only have been the Germans. North-
men means North Germans. On their first ap-
pearance on the Irish and Scottish coasts, the Irish
called them simply " the Heathens " — Genti : all
the other peoples with whom the Irish came in
contact at that time being Christians. Afterwards
they were called in Irish Locblannaigh. The origin
of this name is unknown. Professor Marstrander
thinks it must mean the men of Rogaland, an old
division of Scandinavia.
The Norse invasions are seen to go through several
phases. In the first phase, the islands and coasts
are fiercely devastated, and the Northmen make
away again with their booty and captives, or hold
the captives to ransom. In the second phase, they
occupy islands and outlying forelands. They are
thus able to gather strong bands and plan out incur-
sions into the interior. These two phases cover
about half a century, from 790 to 840. Gradually
the leaders are learning the geography of Ireland,
especially of its harbours and navigable rivers.
249
250 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
The rapid development of these raiding enter-
prises has been explained as caused by political
changes in Norway. But these changes did not
take place until about eighty years after the Norse
raids began. They amounted to a strong centralisa-
tion under king Harald the Fairhaired and a diminu-
tion of the power of the nobles ; and they were
perhaps rather a consequence than a cause of the
raiding movement. We have seen how, some five
centuries earlier, an almost similar outbreak of
raiding activity brought the Irish into touch with
Roman Britain and Gaul, and how the rewards of
plunder enabled Irish kings to maintain a permanent
military organisation and to acquire thereby much
greater power, leading to a depression of the old
nobility. I think it likely that the chief cause of
the Norse movement of invasion was the develop-
ment of a particularly suitable style of ship-building ;
the building of long undecked ships of light draft
and very strong construction, very seaworthy ; in
which, during a sea-fight, every man could take a
hand.
The third phase was the occupation of inland
waters. The invaders ran their ships, which were
propelled by oars as well as by sails, up the navigable
rivers, if necessary dragging them overland where
the navigable parts were interrupted by shallow
rapids, for example on the Bann and the Shannon.
Thus they could place a whole fleet on a lake like
Loch Neagh or Loch Ree. There they were safe
from attack and were in a position to choose the
place on a large shoreline for their incursions. It
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 251
is to be borne in mind that, during the period of the
Norse wars in Ireland and for some centuries before
and after it, the Irish had no permanent military
organisation. Their largest military operations never
extended beyond a few weeks. Their fighting men
were called out for the purpose from their ordinary
peaceful occupations, and could not lawfully be held
to military service for more than a few weeks in
any year. Thus there was no effective means of
fighting down a hostile force encamped on its ships
in a large inland water. It was by a crafty lure,
we are told, that Turgesius, commander of the
Norse fleet on the Shannon, was captured.
The fourth phase was the occupation of a fortified
station on some haven, so that the ships, drawn up
on land, were secure from attack. The earliest of
these Norse stations in Ireland were at Dublin and
at Annagassan in Co. Louth. Annagassan, now a
mere hamlet, was a port of note in ancient times.
Its sandy estuary suited the shipping of that age.
Irish folk-tales still describe the old way of bringing
ships to land in such places. The ships were of very
light draft. Those made in Ireland had the strong
framework covered with hides not planks. They
were run ashore in a sandy rivermouth and dragged
up on land beyond the reach of the tide. What
gave Annagassan importance was that at this point
the old great northern highway, the Slighe Midh-
luachra, touched the coast. It is in describing the
fortified stations of the Norsemen at Dublin and
Annagassan, in the annals under the year 841, that
we first find the Irish term long-pbort. This word,
252 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
about seventy years afterwards, has come to mean
an entrenched or stockaded position for an army, a
fortified camp ; and its use in this sense shews us
what was the character of these first Norse stations
on the Irish mainland.
The occupation of these fortified stations enabled
the invaders to accumulate force for strong ex-
peditions overland. Such expeditions were soon
undertaken with success.
Dublin was well chosen. The Liffey here was the
boundary between two of the greater kingdoms —
Leinster and Bregia. The Norsemen of Dublin were
thus in a position to take advantage of the ancient
hostility between the Leinstermen and the Ui Neill
who had wrested the plain of Meath from Leinster
and imposed a hated tribute on the Leinster kings.
So, as a rule, we find the Norse of Dublin and the
kings of Leinster in close alliance.
The Irish annals indicate an earlier date for the
centralising policy of the kings of Norway than
Norwegian historians seem to accept. In 849, they
tell us, eight years after the occupation of Dublin,
the king of Norway (Lochlainn) sent a fleet to estab-
lish his authority over the Norse settlers in Ireland ;
and four years later, in 853, they say that Olaf,
whom they call son of the king of Lochlainn, assumed
kingship over the Norsemen in Ireland. He became
joint king of Dublin with Ivar.
Soon after this, in 856 and 857, the Gall-Ghaedhil
or Norse-Irish, make their appearance in various
parts of the island — in Meath and Ulster and Munster.
These were the people of the generation following the
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 253
Norse occupation of the Scottish islands and the
Isle of Man. They spoke a broken Irish and no doubt
also a broken Norse dialect.
In 851, a new variety of Norsemen arrives on the
Irish coast. They are called the Black Heathens,
the Black Foreigners, the Black Lochlannachs, in
contradistinction to the Fair Heathens, Fair
Foreigners, or Fair Lochlannachs who had been
here before them. The Welsh chronicle, the Annales
Cambriae, makes it fairly clear that these Black
Heathens were the Danes. They came in hostility
to the Norwegians, with whom they fought fierce
battles ; and we have already seen that for a number
of years the Danes held the chief power in the
Hebrides.
At this point of time, about the middle of the
ninth century, the Norsemen must have seemed to
be about to become masters of all northern Europe
from the west of Ireland to the banks of the Volga.
England was crumbling under their attacks. The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle tells how Norse armies
marched up and down through the country without
resistance, then moved off to the Continent. They
occupied Ghent in Flanders for a year. They
defeated the Franks in battle and supplied them-
selves with horses from their captures, pushed up
the Meuse into France, excamped there for another
year ; went up the Scheldt to Conde and sat there
for a year ; up the Somme to Amiens, and sat there
for a year. Then up the Seine, and took up their
winter quarters beside Paris. Then the c army
went up through the bridge at Paris, and thence up
254 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
along the Seine as far as the Marne, and thence up
the Marne to Cheny, and then sat down, there and
on the Yonne, two winters in the two places." Then
they crossed from the Seine to the borders of Brit-
tany, where the Bretons attacked and defeated
them, driving thern into their ships, which apparently
had been sent round by sea to co-operate with them.
Turning again eastward they were defeated next year
in Germany, but held together in France for two
years more, when they came down to Boulogne, and
finding shipping for their whole force, including horses,
crossed over to England in two hundred and fifty
ships, Alfred being then king in England. After-
wards they crossed England, passing up the Thames
and then up the Severn. Alfred, assisted by the
Welsh, defeated them. They fell back on Essex,
mustered fresh forces there, once more crossed
England and laid siege to Chester, invaded Wales
and were driven out of it. Some settled down in the
conquered lands of East Anglia and Northumbria,
the rest made a fresh expedition into France.
Though Alfred was a great and admirable king, and
justly held up to renown in English history, he
could do no more than hold a minor part of England
against these invaders, and at his death in 901 they
were undisputed masters of about two thirds of that
country.
Several causes operated in checking the growth of
Norse power. One was the rivalry between the
Danes and the Norwegians. Another was the con-
solidation of Scotland under Cinaeth Mac Ailpin.
A third cause undoubtedly was the tenacious resist-
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 255
ance of the " Celts." Had the Norsemen been as
successful in Scotland and Ireland, Wales and Brit-
tany, as they were in England and Normandy, Harald
the Fair might have been the head of a new empire.
The annals give a long list of pitched battles in
Ireland, in some of which the invaders were vic-
torious but for the most part they were defeated.
Mr. Orpen ascribes their failure to the fact that
the Irish were not politically centralised and were
therefore harder to break down ; yet he goes on to
censure this defect in the Irish polity. Are we to
conclude that it was a misfortune for Ireland and
other countries that Ireland was not subjugated by
the Scandinavian Heathens ?
As a matter of fact, it was under the personal
command of the high-king, Aedh Finnliath, that
the Irish resistance took a definitely successful turn.
In 866, this king captured all the strongholds of
the Norsemen in the northern half of Ireland ;
and from this time on, they made no settlements
to the north of Dublin and Limerick. Olaf and
Ivar, the two kings of Dublin, turned their arms
against Britain. In 870, as already related, after a
siege of four months, they captured the last strong-
hold of the northern Britons at Dumbarton. In
recording the death of Ivar in 873, the Irish annals
entitled him " king of the Norsemen of Ireland and
Britain."
Ireland, however, was not at peace from the
invaders. Under the same year, 873, we find a
characteristic entry in the annals. I have already
said that those who resort to these chronicles for a
256 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
record of the normal affairs of Ireland mistake the
character of the record and expose themselves to
deception. One of the institutions connected with
the Irish monarchy was the " Fair " or Assembly
of Taillte near Navan. This was considered to be
the principal assembly in Ireland, and to preside
over it was a function of the king of Ireland. Yet
during more than four centuries before this year
873, the Assembly is only five times mentioned, and
in each instance it is not the normal fact but an
abnormal incident that is recorded. In the year
717, the Assembly was disturbed by Foghartach,
king of Bregia. Foghartach was a claimant to the
high-kingship. In 714, he was deposed and exiled
to Britain. In 716, he is recorded as reigning again.
His disturbance of the Assembly of Taillte in the
following year marks therefore an attempt on his
part to assert his position as monarch. The ef-
fective high-king at the time was Fergal, king of
Ailech. In 733, Cathal, king of Munster, made a
similar attempt to preside, and was prevented by the
king of Meath. After this event, there is no men-
tion of the Assembly until 811. In that year, the
Ui Neill having done something in violation of the
sanctuary rights of the monastery of Tallaght near
Dublin, the monastic authorities placed the Assembly
under an interdict. The high-king nevertheless pro-
ceeded to hold it. He was Aedh Oirdnidhe, king of
Ailech ; and so we see that whether the monarch
had his domestic realm in Meath or in the far North,
it was equally his custom to- preside over this Assem-
bly. He failed to hold the Assembly. In face of
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 257
the ban " neither horse nor chariot came thither."
And the violated sanctuary of Tallaght received
reparation after this in the form of many gifts.
In 827, the Assembly was broken up " against the
Gailings ' by the high-king Conchobor. The ex-
planation of this event is possibly that the high-
king failed to hold the Assembly, being preoccupied
with the hostile activities of the Norsemen who in
that year were plundering, burning and wasting the
Bregian seaboard, not far from Taillte ; also with
the equally troublesome activities of Feidlimid, king
of Cashel, about whom there is more to be said.
The Gailings, whose territory lay close by, were
loth to be deprived of the customary celebration,
and attempted to hold the Assembly on their own
account, but were forcibly prevented by the high-
king.
In 831, the annals record a disturbance in the
courts of the Assembly, owing to some dispute re-
garding reliquaries of St. Patrick and St. MacCuilinn
of Lusk, the reliquaries no doubt being brought
there for the purpose of administering oaths in
litigation.
Let it not be thought that the silence of the
annals in other years is compatible with the absence
of the unrecorded event. The entry of the year
873 puts this possibility out of question. It says :
" The Assembly of Taillte is not held, in the absence
of just and worthy cause, a thing which we have not
heard to have befallen from ancient times." Never-
theless, that there was sufficient cause in the dis-
turbed condition of the country owing to the Norse
17
258 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
wars is made evident, for the chronicler has to record
the abandonment of the Assembly three years later,
in 876, when again he denies a just and worthy
cause ; and again in the second year after that, in
878, without just and worthy cause. When we
come to 888, we are told only that the Assembly
fell through. This is repeated in 889, and then,
when the failure to hold the Assembly becomes
annual and, so to speak, normal, the annalist ceases
to record it. The next we hear of this institution
is in 916, and once more it is the unwonted thing
that is chronicled. In that year, the Assembly of
Taillte was restored by the high-king, Niall Glun-
dubh. Hence it would appear that the half-century
preceding 916 was the period during which the
disturbance of normal conditions in Ireland reached
its maximum ; and this is also the period of maxi-
mum activity for the Norsemen in neighbouring
countries.
Aedh Finnliath died in the monastery of Dro-
miskin in 879. Dromiskin is in Co. Louth, near
the seacoast, and the fact that it was there the
high-king " fell asleep," i.e. died a peaceful death
in religious retirement, testifies to his success in
checking the menace of the Norsemen in northern
Ireland. He was succeeded in the monarchy, ac-
cording to the custom of alternation, by Flann Sinna,
king of Meath.
In the meantime, the power of the kings of Cashel
continued to increase. It is a remarkable thing that
at least four kings of Cashel during this period
were ecclesiastics. These were 'Olchobor, who died
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 259
in 796, a scribe and a bishop ; Feidlimid, who
reigned from 820 to 847, described in his obit as
" scribe and anchorite," but in an earlier annal he is
mentioned as carrying his crozier to battle ; Cormac,
the learned bishop, who fell in battle in 908 ; and
Flaithbertach, the chief cause of Cormac's tragedy,
who was abbot of Inis Cathaigh, afterwards became
king of Cashel, abdicated or was deposed, and died
in 944. The career of Feidlimid reads like that of a
Heathen king of Norsemen. There are some church-
men who stand upon the letter of the law, and con-
sider themselves thereby entitled to do things that
are hard to reconcile with the spirit. Feidlimid
began his reign by proclaiming the Law of Patrick
over Munster, i.e. by enforcing there the primatial
claims of Armagh. In the same year he burned the
monastery of Gallen, a foundation of the Britons in
the west of Meath, destroying all its dwelling places
and its oratory. Three years later, in 826, he led
the army of Munster into the same district and
wasted it. In 827 the king of Ireland, Conchobor,
met him in convention at Birr ; this indicating that
the two kings were on terms of equality. In 830,
he was again burning and wasting over his borders
in Meath and Connacht. In 831, he appeared at
the head of an army of Munster and Leinster
in Bregia. In 833, he attacked Clonmacnois,
slaughtered its monks and burned its termon-lands
up to the church gates ; then handled the mon-
astery of Durrow in the same fashion. In 836, he
attacked Kildare, then a purely ecclesiastical and
monastic settlement, and finding the abbot and
26o THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
other dignitaries of Armagh there on visitation, he
carried them off as captives, no doubt holding them
to ransom. Next year he again invaded Connacht,
and in 838 another king of Ireland met him in con-
vention at Cloncurry, and doubtless came to terms
with him ; in 840 he attacked Meath, Bregia, and
Connacht, and exacted the hostages of Connacht ;
in 841, the year in which the Norsemen established
themselves at Dublin, Feidlimid with his army
encamped on Tara. This, along with his taking the
hostages of Connacht, shows that his aim was to
secure the high-kingship. In the same year he
marched to Carman, near Mullaghmast ; Carman was
the assembly-place of the kings of Leinster, and
Feidlimid no doubt wished to preside and so assert
his sovereignty over Leinster. This time, however,
he overstretched his power. The reigning high-king,
Niall, came in force against him and drove him out,
and a poem on this event says that in his flight the
vigil-keeping Feidlimid left his crozier behind. After
this check, he is not further heard of until his death
in 847. In his obit he is called by the northern
chronicler " optimus Scottorum," the best man of
the Irish. His reign exhibits the high-water mark
of the power of the Eoghanacht kings of Munster.
After 500 years of undisputed sovereignty in
Munster, the Eoghanacht dynasty of Cashel reached
a turning point in the battle of Belach Mugna in 908.
In that year, urged on by Flaithbertach, abbot of
Inis Cathaigh, an eligible prince and afterwards king
of Cashel, king Cormac, the bishop, invaded Leinster.
The high-kings of the line of Niall regarded the
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 261
Leinster kings as their own choice vassals and
jealously reserved to themselves the privilege of
exacting homage and tribute from Leinster. We
have seen how a high-king allowed a king of Cashel
to plunder and harry in Connacht and Meath, and
interfered with effect only when the Assembly of
Carman and the sovereignty of Leinster were involved.
So it befel with Cormac. Advancing through Ossory
he compelled the king of Ossory to join forces with
him, and crossing the Barrow they were confronted
by the Leinster king and his army. They encamped
for the night, prepared to do battle on the morrow.
Flann Sinna, the high-king, must have been well
warned, for when the morning came, the Munster
army found not only the Leinstermen against thern
in front, but the high-king and the king of Connacht
coming upon their left flank. The king of Ossory
attempted to retreat but was cut off and killed.
The battle became a rout. King Cormac was un-
horsed and beheaded. Two Munster abbots fell in
the slaughter. The abbot of Inis Cathaigh escaped.
A graphic account of this expedition, with all the
appearance of authentic detail, is found in a book of
annals apparently compiled at Durrow in Ossory.
The memory of King Cormac was held afterwards
in great veneration. To him is ascribed the com-
pilation of the Irish glossary that bears his name,
also of the Psalter of Cashel and the Book of Rights.
The Psalter of Cashel survives only in excerpts and
quotations, and to judge from these it was a collec-
tion of historical and genealogical matter. Of the
Book of Rights, Professor Ridgeway once said to
262 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
me that it was the most remarkable state document
produced by any European country outside of the
Byzantime empire in that age. We must consider
its character and content on a later occasion.
This tragic battle, fought in the year 908, ended
the long-established prestige of the Cashel dynasty.
Six years afterwards, in 914, the Norsemen took
possession of Waterford without opposition ; and
still six years later, in 920, they took possession of
Limerick. Until these years, they had gained no
foothold on the land of Munster. Another result of
the weakening of the Eoghanacht power was the
rapid rise of the Dalcassian kings.
Closely connected with the events of this time, a
thousand years ago, was the remarkable story of
Queen Gormlaith. She was daughter of the king
of Ireland, Flann Sinna. Apparently she had been
betrothed to Cormac, king of Cashel. He having
become an ecclesiastic, Gormlaith was given in
marriage to Cearbhall, king of Leinster, the same
Cearbhall, victor over Cormac at Belach Mugna, to
whose sword an ode written by a Leinster poet is
preserved in the Book of Leinster. The Ossory
collection of annals, which differs from the ordinary
chronicles in expanding into narrative, tells that
Cearbhall, wounded in the battle, lay long a-healing,
and that once, as the queen sat on the couch at his
feet, he boasted rudely over the death of Cormac.
Gormlaith reproached him for his disrespect to the
memory of so good a king. Her husband, remember-
ing that she had been promised wife to Cormac,
became enraged, and with his foot cast the queen
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 263
from the couch to the floor. Thus affronted in the
presence of others, Gormlaith left her husband and
went back to her father. Flann refused to receive
her, not desiring a quarrel with the king of Leinster.
Gormlaith then sought protection from Niall Glun-
dubh, king of Ailech. Cearbhall died of his wounds
the year after the battle, and Niall married Gorm-
laith. On the death of Flann in 916, Niall became
king of Ireland.
I have shown that the annals are a record of ab-
normal rather than of normal matters. Another
character of the annals is that they are in the main
an aristocratic and personal record, having chief
regard to great personages in Church and State and
to the personal aspect of events as they concerned
these magnates. A good exemplification of this
feature of the annals is shown in the record of king
Flann's death. It says : " Flann, son of Mael
Sechnaill, king of Tara, who reigned thirty-six years,
six months, and five days, died in the sixty-eighth
year of his age, on Saturday, the 25th of May, about
the hour of 1 p.m." So Gormlaith, daughter of a
king of Ireland, chosen to be queen of Munster,
became queen of Leinster, then queen of Ailech, and
lastly queen of Ireland. There is an old poem which
represents her standing by the grave of her husband
Niall and commanding a monk not to set his foot
upon that clay. She died in religious retirement in
948, forty years after the battle of Belach Mugna.
In the first year of his reign as king of Ireland,
916, Niall Glundubh, as already told, restored the
Assembly of Taillte. In the following year, 917, he
264 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
marched against the Norsemen of Waterford. They
came out to meet him. An indecisive action was
fought. Then both armies fortified themselves in
the field, anticipating the modern manner of warfare,
and remained thus face to face for three weeks.
Niall meanwhile sent to the king of Leinster request-
ing him to attack the Norsemen from that side. The
Norsemen, however, did not wait for this attack.
Keeping enough force to hold their position against
Niall, they sent their main body to meet the Leinster-
men, whom they completely defeated. The place of
this encounter is named Cenn Fuait, and was ab-
surdly identified by O'Donovan with Confey in Co.
Kildare, apparently on the principle that there is
an M in Macedon and also in Monmouth. The battle
must have taken place close to Waterford Harbour
on the Leinster side. Other editors of the annals
content themselves with repeating O'Donovan's con-
jecture as authentic. After this failure, Niall with-
drew, and the Norsemen held Waterford from that
time until the Norman invasion.
Next year 918, Niall opened war on the Norsemen
of Dublin. That is just 1000 years ago. The follow-
ing year, 919, he led an army against Dublin. The
Norsemen met him on the north bank of the Liffey
at Islandbridge. Niall was defeated and mortally
wounded. This battle is sometimes called the battle
of Dublin, sometimes the battle of Cell-mo-Shamhog,
from a church in the vicinity The latter name
furnished O'Donovan with the occasion for another
conjectural identification, which other editors have
blindly followed. He made Cell-mo-Shamhog to be
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 265
the same as Kilmashogue, six or seven miles from
Dublin on the south side and among the hills. A
little reflection would have assured these editors
that, just as a Leinster army coming to the relief of
an army near Waterford was not likely to encounter
the Norse of Waterford in the north of Leinster, so
also an army from northern Ireland was not likely
to meet the Norsemen of Dublin in the mountains
to the south of Dublin. For the full identification
of the battle site, the student may refer to the name
Cell Mo Shamoc in Father Hogan's Onomasticon.
From Niall Glundubh the O'Neills of Tyrone de-
rive their surname and descent.
The Norsemen were now no longer the ferocious
heathens of their earlier record. Most of them had
adopted Christianity. Intermarriages between them
and the Irish were quite frequent. Their towns
soon developed into trading communities, though it
is clear enough from Norse documents that a Norse
trading ship went to sea well prepared to make
gains by less patient methods than buying and
selling. Wexford seems to have been pre-eminently
a trading settlement, and the first part taken by
the Wexford Norsemen in Irish wars was apparently
the defence of their town against the Anglo-Normans.
With their Irish neighbours they lived in peace and
security. In the tenth century the Norse settle-
ments in Ireland became part of the Irish body
politic, and if they went to war in Ireland, as often
as not, it was in alliance with one Irish king against
another. There were still incursions of the Norse-
men of outlying parts, the Isle of Man, Galloway,
266 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
the Hebrides, etc., and in Ireland the struggle takes
the form of resistance to these invaders, under a
number of leaders of note. One of these leaders,
Cellachan of Cashel, king of Munster, has a saga all
to himself, but I think the story contains more
than history. Some of its striking events, which we
might expect to find recorded in the chronicles, find
no place in them. However that may be, Cellachan's
activity against the Norsemen is the last glory of the
Cashel dynasty, the flame that shoots up from the
candlestick before the candle goes out. Already the
Dalcassian line was preparing to take the place of
the declining Eoghanacht power in Munster. In
the year 944, the father of Brian Boramha, Cennetig,
king of Dal gCais, with the title of king of Thomond
or North Munster, gave battle to Cellachan, but was
defeated. Brian was born in 941, three years before
this battle. Cellachan died in 954.
In northern Ireland at this time the head of
resistance to the Norsemen was Muirchertach, son of
the high-king Niall Glundubh who fell in the battle
of Dublin. A list of his victories is given, a century
after his time, by the poet-historian Flann of
Monasterboice. Among them is mentioned an ex-
pedition by sea against the Norsemen of the Hebrides
— it is also mentioned in the genealogies but not in
the contemporary annals. The annals on the other
hand record that in 939 Muirchertach was captured
in Ailech and carried off by the Norsemen to their
ships but was immediately ransomed. The event
shows that Ailech, one of the great prehistoric stone
fortresses, was still occupied in the tenth century by
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 267
the kings who took their title from it. Especially
interesting in Muirchertach's career are his relations
with the high king Donnchadh. In the ordinary-
course of the alternate succession, Muirchertach, as
king of Ailech, was the designated successor in the
high-kingship to Donnchadh, who was king of Meath.
At times he appears prepared to dispute the authority
of Donnchadh, at other times he is active in up-
holding it. His most remarkable action is what is
known as his Circuit of Ireland, in 941, briefly noticed
in the Annals but described at length in a poem by
Cormacan 'Eces, who accompanied the expedition.
With a picked force, said to number 1000, Muircher-
tach marched through all the principal kingdoms of
Ireland, and exacted hostages from each king. In
Cashel, he took the king himself, Cellachan, as a
hostage. The Dalcassians alone stood off, and after
four days marching here and there in their territory,
Muirchertach passed on to Connacht without the
hostages of Dal gCais.
The fact of this expedition illustrates what I have
already said, that, from the sixth to the thirteenth
century, there was no military organisation in Ire-
land. The hostages were brought to Ailech and
there hospitably entertained by the king and queen
for some weeks, after which Muirchertach, so to
speak, regularised his position in the matter by
handing over all the hostages to the high king
Donnchadh.
Two years later, in 943, Muirchertach fell in battle
with the Norsemen near Dundalk. The high king
Donnchadh died in the following year, 944. In the
268 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
ordinary course of the alternate succession, he should
have been succeeded by the king of Ailech, but
Muirchertach's death left this kingship either dis-
puted or divided, and the high-kingship was assumed
by Congalach, king of Bregia, who reigned for twelve
years and fell in battle with the Norsemen. This
reign of Congalach is the only breach in the alternate
monarchy between the years 734 and 1002.
The kingdom of Dal gCais occupied the eastern
half of the present county of Clare. Its prominence
dates from the time of Lorcan, grandfather of Brian.
Being a border state, it was able to form relations
of mutual advantage with the border states of
Connacht, with Aidne, Ui Maine, and the Delbna.
In the wars between Mathgamain and the Limerick
Norsemen, the Delbna were his allies. The kings of
Aidne and Ui Maine, Connacht states, were allies
of Brian, and gave their lives, as he did, on the great
day of Clontarf.
The killing of Mathgamain in 976 appears in later
writings in a more odious light than it could have
appeared to contemporaries. We can recognise that
the ancient Eoghanacht dynasty of Cashel, which
Mathgamain overthrew, had already lost its prestige
and was no longer able to rule and protect Munster.
It has always happened in the world's history, and
is probably happening to-day, that institutions and
established powers appear to contemporary people to
be full of vigour and likely to last, whereas to people
of a later time it is clear that they resembled the
hollow tree awaiting the blast that was to lay it
low. To the Eoghanacht princes who compassed the
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 269
death of Mathgamain, he was the successful usurper
who had broken into the ancient right of their
kindred and held it by the strong hand.
With regard to Brian, there are some noteworthy
things to be said which even enthusiastic eulogists
have ignored. Brian had one or two ideas which,
in the Ireland of his time, were revolutionary. He
had the idea of a more centralised authority than
any Irish king in history before him had attempted
to create. To this end, he designed holding in
permanent garrison a number of fortified places in
various parts of Munster. This design is clearly
expressed in a poem added in his time, and no doubt
under his direction, to the Book of Rights ; and the
annals show that he endeavoured to give effect
to it.
Brian had also definite notions on the subject of
what in our time is called sovereign independence.
This is one of many matters about which we must
be on our guard against thinking the present back
into the past — an obvious precaution yet one which
many writers on Irish history have neglected. It
can be shown, and it would have interested Professor
Bury had he known it, that from the earliest Irish
chronicle, from the sixth century, down to the
eleventh or twelfth century, the dominant idea in
Ireland with regard to international relations was
this — that as in Ireland there were many little States
and over them all, in primacy rather than in operative
authority, there was a chief king, the monarch of
Ireland, so in the world there were many kingdoms
and over all these a chief king whom Irish writers
270 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
called the king of the world. This idea was adopted
from Latin historians, especially from St. Jerome
and Orosius. In our earliest histories, the emperor
reigning at Constantinople was regarded as king of
the world. A metrical list of the kings of the world
from Noah's Flood down to the eighth century was
written by the poet-historian Flann of Monasterboice,
who died in 1056. The prevalence of this idea pro-
bably facilitated Henry of Anjou in obtaining the
submission of the Irish princes. The annals, in
relating Henry's arrival in Ireland in 1171 and his
departure in 1172, say nothing about the papal
grant, but describe Henry as " the son of the Em-
press." The same idea lingered in western Europe
down to the time of the emperor Charles V, and was
the cause of no small anxiety to the mind of Henry
VIII, with all his bluffness. Nevertheless, it was
very much shaken and confused by the creation
of the Western Empire under Charlemagne. That
made two kings of the world. If two why not more ?
About the year 1000, under Brian, that portion of
the Book of Rights which concerns Munster was re-
written, and we have now the new version side by
side with the old one. The new poem on the rights
of the king of Cashel asserts that Cashel is subject to
no king in Ireland but its own. But what about the
king of the world ? On that point the old idea still
holds. This is what the poem says :
Cashel overheadeth every head
Except Patrick and the King of the Stars,
The high-king of the world and the Son of God
To these alone is due its homage.
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 271
But a few years later when Brian was king, not only
of Cashel but of all Ireland, his view about the high-
king of the world, the Emperor — eastern or western
— had undergone a change. He recognised the
spiritual primacy of Armagh, and when he visited
Armagh, which now holds his dust, he offered a
tribute of twenty ounces of gold. The Book of
Armagh was displayed to him, and in his presence
his official historian wrote in Latin these words,
which are still upon the page :
" I Mael Suthain write this in the presence of
Brian, Emperor of the Irish."
This title, " emperor of the Irish," is not a mere
high-sounding epithet. It means that, as Basil was
then supreme temporal ruler in the East and
Henry of Bavaria in the West, so was Brian in
this island.
Another trait in Brian's policy was his avoidance
of battle when, by delay or otherwise, he could
hope to establish his authority. In 1001, when
Brian's aim at supremacy was clear to the high
king Mael Sechlainn, the latter prepared to resist
with the effective co-operation of the king of Con-
nacht, and to this end built a new causeway of
stone across the Shannon at Athlone. Brian's first
move the following year was to occupy Athlone
and prevent co-operation ; and it was at Athlone
that he received the submission of both kings. Year
after year he led his army into the North to obtain
the submission of the northern states ; and when
he was opposed in force he retired without battle,
until at length it became evident that he had the
272 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN
power to enforce submission and the northern
hostages were yielded to him in peace.
Some writers have been at pains to argue that
the popular view of the battle of Clontarf as a
national victory over foreigners is a delusion ; and
would have it that this battle was either a mere
incident in the domestic wars of Ireland or was
rather a struggle between the forces of Christianity
and Heathendom. It is enough to say that the
Norse sagas regard the battle as the Irish popular
view regards it — a contest between Irishmen and
Norsemen about the sovereignty of Ireland. The
kingdom of Ireland was the prize which king Sigtrygg
of Dublin offered to Earl Sigurd of the Orkneys. It
was to win Ireland that the Norsemen came from
distant Iceland and from Normandy ; and the Norse
poet who tells of the event says, " Brian fell but
saved his kingdom." " This Brian," too, says the
Norse account, " was the best of kings."
If the battle of Clontarf ended the prospect of a
Norse conquest, it brought no advantage to the
internal peace of Ireland. The effect of Brian's
assumption of the monarchy is visible. The year
after the battle, Flaithbertach Ua Neill, king of
Ailech, came southward with his hosting, plainly
with the aim of restoring the alternate succession,
under which he would become next king of Ireland
after Mael Sechnaill. Mael Sechnaill resumed the
high-kingship and held it until his death in 1022.
The king of Ailech seems then to have made no at-
tempt to assert his claim to the high-kingship ; and
for half a century afterwards no high-king is recog-
THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NORSEMEN 273
nised. Towards the end of the century, the monarchy-
is restored, going now always to the strong hand —
two O'Briens from Thomond, two O'Conors from
Connacht, and two O'Lochlainns from Tyrone ; an
irregular hegemony, without even the semblance of
an institution.
The Icelandic saga of Burnt Njal shows us in
the most vivid possible way how great a shock
Clontarf sent through the Norse world. The battle,
it tells us, was accompanied or followed by ap-
paritions and dreadful portents seen in the Hebrides,
in the Orkneys, in the Faroe islands, and in distant
Iceland. In truth a victory for Earl Sigurd might
have been, as his defeat must have been, a decisive
event in European history. The Norse of Dublin
were comparatively not much affected. They main-
tained their alliance with Leinster. Three years
after the battle, these confederates are again seen
on the offensive, invading Bregia, and their joint
forces sustain a heavy defeat from Mael Sechnaill.
Though a close intercourse was maintained with
Norsemen in other countries, the colonies of Dublin,
Wexford, Waterford and Limerick became a domestic
factor in the life of Ireland. Intermarriage with the
Irish was quite common. We find Norse names in
Irish families and Irish names in Norse families, and
a considerable vocabulary of Norse words became at
home in the Irish language. A new element, the
commercial life of towns, was introduced by these
colonies.
is
X. MEDIEVAL IRISH
INSTITUTIONS .
THE Book of Rights divides Ireland into a little
more than a hundred petty states (owing to
certain peculiarities of treatment, the number
cannot be stated definitely.) These are arranged in
seven groups, with an over-king at the head of each
group. The principal matter of the book is to
define certain relations between the over-king of
each group and the petty kings under him. All
this is told in verse. The plan of the book is to
allot two poems to each of the over-kingdoms or
groups of states. One of the two poems relates the
tributes payable by the petty states to the over-king
at the head of the group. The other poem relates
the customary gifts given by the over-king to the
petty kings. Great importance was attached to this
giving and receiving of gifts, and the significance of
the gifts is clearly expressed in their Irish name,
tuarastal. The meaning of this word, which is still
in familiar use, is wages. The gifts then were not
favours. The acceptance of them was an act of
homage. The king who accepted tuarastal from
another king acknowledged himself to be that other
king's man, to be, so to speak, in his pay — if only
in a figurative or ceremonial sense.
Not all the petty states were subject to tribute.
When the dynasty of a petty state was a branch of
274
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 275
the over-king's dynasty, no tribute was due. In
Munster, for example, there were various petty
states whose rulers were of the Eoghanacht lineage.
These paid no tribute to the king of Cashel, who
was also of Eoghanacht lineage. The other states
were tributary. This exemption from tribute and
liability to tribute goes back to an ancient state of
conquest, but of conquest during the Celtic period.
The citizens of the tributary states were freemen,
whereas the people of the older communities of pre-
Celtic origin were, at least in theory, unfree. This
does not mean that they were slaves. The status
of the unfree communities, roundly speaking, was
similar to that of the natives of British India at
present ; and the status of a tributary state would
be comparable to that of a country possessing self-
government but subject to what is called an im-
perial contribution;, The non-tributary states might
be compared to the existing autonomous dominions
of the British Empire. There were distinct names
for each class. Non-tributary states were called
saor-tkuatha, " free states " ; tributary states were
called fortuatha, which means " alien states " ; un-
free communities were called daor-tbuatha, which
we might translate " vassal-states " — and they were
also called aithech-thuatha, " rent paying states."
Each free or tributary state had a distinct territory,
but the unfree communities were not bounded by the
territorial bounds of the others. They might over-
lap the bounds of two or more States, and some of
them were broken into separate groups distributed
here and there over a very wide area.
276 MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
The compilation of the Book of Rights is ascribed
to two writers, Selbach and Oengus, acting under
the authority of Cormac mac Cuilennain, king of
Munster. Cormac reigned from 901 to 908. As
O'Donovan has shown, the Book received certain
amplifications under a king of Munster who claimed
to be, or aimed to make himself, king of Ireland ;
and O'Donovan properly argues that this king could
only be Brian Boramha. Moreover I think that
there are fairly clear indications of the year 1000
or 1001 as the date of these amplifications.
The Book of Rights was edited by O'Donovan
and published in 1847 by the Celtic Society. The
Council and officers of this society, whose names
follow the title page, form a list which shows a
greater interest in Irish historical studies at that time
than in our time among Irishmen of high standing
in learning and politics. The names include those
of Sir Aubrey de Vere, Sir Robert Kane, William
Monsell, William Smith O'Brien, Daniel O'Connell,
Dr. Renehan, president of Maynooth College, Thomas
Hutton, Sir Colman O'Loghlen, Michael Joseph
Barry, Dr. Crolly, Charles Gavan Duffy, Samuel
Ferguson, Dr. Graves, James Hardiman, William
Elliott Hudson, Dr. Matthew Kelly, Joseph Sheridan
Le Fanu, William Torrens McCullagh, John Mitchel,
Thomas O'Hagan, John Edward Pigot, Sir William
Wilde, Dr. Madden, and Thomas Francis Meagher.
The edition belongs to O'Donovan's early work. A
new edition is very much to be desired, with a
critical treatment of the text and more accurate
notes, taking advantage of the great increase of
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
-i i
philological, historical and topographical knowledge
accumulated during the seventy years that have
passed since this first and only edition was brought
out.
I think it likely that only the section relating to
Munster was drawn up in Cashel ; that this section
was circulated as a model ; and that each of the
other sections was drawn up on this model by writers
on behalf of the other principal kings. For example,
in the Connacht section, the tributes are said to be
brought " hither," a fairly definite indication that
the writer belonged to the personal surrounding of
the king of Connacht.
The over-kings in the Book of Rights are the
kings of (i) Cashel, (2) Cruachain, (3) Ailech, (4)
Oriel, (5) Ulaidh, (6) Tara, (7) Leinster. In the
section for Oriel, the statement of tributes is wanting.
Its absence is probably not accidental. The kings
of Ailech from the fifth century onward kept steadily
extending their power eastward and southward, en-
croaching on the domain of the kings of Oriel.
Armagh, the ecclesiastical capital, was in Oriel, and
one can clearly trace throughout a long period of
time a definite policy, on the part of the Ailech
dynasty, of bringing and keeping Armagh within
their sphere of influence. The natural resistance of
the kings of Oriel appears to have been broken down
by their defeat in 827, in the battle of Leth Camm,
at the hands of Niall Caillc, king of Ailech and
afterwards king of Ireland. According to an old
tract, from this time forward, the kings of Oriel
became tributary to Ailech. This would explain
278 MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
the omission from the Book of Rights, drawn up
about eighty years later, of a list of tributes payable
to the over-kings of Oriel.
In the tenth century we find the kings of Ailech
still inhabiting Ailech. In the eleventh century, the
name of their domestic territory, Tir Eoghain, has
been transferred from the district of Ailech to that
which now bears the name, " Tyrone," which was
formerly the central part of the kingdom of Oriel.
I have not been able to determine how or at what
time the old Tir Eoghain, now called Inis Eoghain,
containing the fortress of Ailech, passed into the
dominion of the kings of Tir Conaill. With regard
to Oriel, there is one point to be carefully noted.
In the early documents of the Anglo-Norman regime,
we find the name Oriel used to comprise the present
county of Louth, which is called the English Oriel,
being occupied by feudal grantees. Only a very
small fraction of the county belonged to the Irish
kingdom of Oriel ; but a few years before Strong-
bow's invasion, Donnchadh O'Cearbhaill, king of
Oriel, extended his dominion southward to the
Boyne. It was he who, in exercise of this extended
dominion, granted the lands of Mellifont to the
Cistercians. This recent occupation caused the
feudal newcomers to extend the name Oriel to the
whole region between Oriel and the Boyne. This
nomenclature may well hold good for documents
of the feudal regime — but we find it used to import
error and confusion into quite a different class of
documents. For example, the editor of the Annals
of Ulster, in his index, says that Oirghialla comprises
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 279
the county of Louth, though the name is not used in
that sense before the fifteenth century ; and he
omits to say that in the early annals Oriel com-
prises Tyrone and the larger part of County Derry.
This method of treatment is unfortunately typical
of the manner in which the sources of Irish history
have been presented in publication. It is not mere
anachronism. The underlying principle is that what
is true of one period is true of the whole range of
time covered by Irish records. When we find sym-
pathetic editors of these records obsessed by such a
view, we are still more inclined, in the case of anti-
pathetic writers, to content ourselves with the judg-
ment recorded by Columbanus — to deem them
worthy of indulgence rather than of ridicule.
The tenth and eleventh centuries produced a
school of Irish historians whose chief work was to
reduce the old miscellaneous matter of tradition to
unity and sequence. It would have been well if
they had been satisfied with so much, but they went
farther. In dealing with the pre-Christian period,
they tampered with tradition in two ways. Where
they found definite elements of heathenism, they
either cut these out or furbished them in a guise
which they considered consonant with Christian
belief ; and this can be shown to have been done
consciously and deliberately. They also took a free
hand in devising a system of chronology for events
that had no chronology. On this point, they did not
all act together, and so, for such epochs as the Gaelic
invasion, we have six or seven different dates varying
from the fourth to the eighteenth century b.c. Not-
28o MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
withstanding these defects in their work, the
historians of this period acquired in later times a
degree of authority that stood up as a barrier in
front of the past. Their highly artificial treatment
was vested with all the sanctity of veritable tra-
dition. The main work that has now to be done by
students of Irish antiquity is to get behind this
barrier and bring into the light the abundant remains
of older tradition that are extant.
I have said that, in the minds of the scattered
Norse community, the battle of Clontarf broke the
victorious prestige of their race. It happened at a
critical moment, for in the year before it, in 1013,
the Danish conquest of England had been com-
pleted, and all England had submitted to the rule of
Sveinn, king of Denmark. Nearly a century later,
king Magnus of Norway endeavoured to restore the
empire of the Norsemen. He succeeded in bringing
under his authority all the Scottish islands, Caithness,
part of Argyle, and the Isle of Man. Once more,
Ireland shaped the course of history. In 1102,
Magnus, then in the Isle of Man, sent an embassy
to Ireland threatening war, and no doubt demand-
ing tribute. Muirchertach O'Briain, then king of
Ireland, obtained a year's truce. About the same
time, Muirchertach made peace for a year with
Domhnall MacLochlainn, king of Tyrone, who op-
posed his claim to the high-kingship. Next year,
1 103, Muirchertach marched against Domhnall, but
was defeated in the neighbourhood of Banbridge.
About the same time, and probably taking ad-
vantage of this internal conflict. Magnus made a
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 281
landing on the Ulster coast, but was cut off and fell
in the fight. With his fall, the prospect of a Norse
empire came to an end.
The weakening of the Norse power at Clontarf
restored in some measure the freedom of the seas.
During the Norse wars, the old missionary movement
from Ireland to the Continent became a refugee
movement. Afterwards we see abundant evidence
of a freer intercourse. For example, the annals
record frequent pilgrimages of Irish kings to Rome,
beginning with the pilgrimage of Flaithbertach O'Neill
in 1028. During the Norse wars, the condition of
the Church in Ireland had not improved. We read
strange things in newspapers, and no doubt Provi-
dence works in strange ways, but the fact remains
that war in itself is the negation of moral and spiritual
force. St. Bernard tells us something about the con-
dition of part of Ireland, as described to him by St.
Malachy and his companions who visited him at
Clairvaux in 1 1 39. The description refers to my
native district, the diocese of Connor, the time 11 24,
when St. Malachy was sent there as bishop. " He
discovered," says St. Bernard, " that it was not to
men but to beasts he had been sent ; in all the
barbarism which he had yet encountered, he had
never met such a people, so profligate in their morals,
so uncouth in their ceremonies, so impious in faith,
so barbarous in laws, so rebellious to discipline, so
filthy in their life, Christians in name but Pagans in
reality. They neither paid first fruits nor tithes,
nor contracted marriage legitimately, nor made their
confessions." There were few clergy and those few
282 MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
but little employed. In the churches neither preach-
ing nor chanting was heard. All this is the language
of pious reprobation. In that age, adherence to
local custom as against the general practice of the
Church was often denounced as impious. And we
are told that within eight years, before St. Malachy
was transferred from Connor to Armagh, ' their
obduracy yielded, their barbarism was softened, and
the exasperating family began to be more tractable,
to receive correction by degrees, and to embrace
discipline. Barbarous laws were abrogated, the
Roman laws (i.e. of the Church) were introduced, the
customs of the Church were everywhere admitted
and contrary customs abolished. Churches were
rebuilt and supplied with priests. The rites of the
sacraments were duly administered, confession was
practised, the people attended the church, and
concubinage was suppressed by the solemnisation of
marriage. In a word, so completely were all things
changed for the better that you can apply to that
people now what the Lord said by his prophet —
' They who were not my people are now my people.'
The writer of these words, Bernard of Clairvaux,
was the most outstanding figure in Christendom at
that time. Popes and emperors, kings and peoples,
waited upon his word. His abbey of Clairvaux
became in his time alone the parent of a hundred
and sixty Cistercian foundations in many lands,
among the rest in Ireland. Bernard gloried in the
acquaintance and friendship of the Irishman Malachy.
" To me also in this life," he writes, " it was given
to see this man. In his look and word I was re-
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 283
freshed, and I rejoiced as in all manner of riches."
After some years, Malachy once more visited Bernard
at Clairvaux and died there peacefully in the presence
of Bernard on All Souls' Day, 1148. St. Bernard
wrote afterwards a life of his Irish friend, partly
from what he learned from him and his companions
and partly from an account sent to him from Ireland
by the abbot Comgan. This life is extant, as also
are two discourses by St. Bernard, one delivered at
St. Malachy's funeral, the other at a later anniversary
celebration. There are also extant two letters written
by St. Bernard to St. Malachy regarding the founda-
tion of Mellifont, in which both had part, and a letter
from St. Bernard to the Cistercians of Mellifont giving
them an account of St. Malachy's death. I mention
these details to exemplify the close and frequent
intercourse between Ireland and the Continent in the
period preceding the Norman invasion of Ireland.
Many other evidences could be cited to the same
effect.
From this intercourse, there arose a strong desire
to bring about a closer conformity between the
Church in Ireland and on the Continent and to
reform the abuses in morality and discipline that
resulted from a long period of warfare and partial
isolation. This movement for reform, it should be
noted, came mainly from within, and the leading
part in it was taken by Irishmen. One reforming
synod succeeded another. The details may be found
in works on Irish ecclesiastical history. Besides St.
Malachy, may be noted the names of Cellach or
Celsus, who came before him, and Gilla Maic Liac or
284 MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
Gelasius who came after him in the primacy ; of
Gillebert, bishop of Limerick, whose work, " De
Statu Ecclesiae," was written in the cause of ecclesi-
astical reform ; of Flaithbertach O'Brolchain, abbot
of Derry ; and Lorcan, St. Laurence, archbishop of
Dublin.
Following the introduction of the Cistercian Order
by St. Malachy, the Synod of Bri Maic Thaidg in
1 158 undertook to reorganise the old Columban
monasteries, uniting them in a single order, over
which O'Brolchain, abbot of Derry, was appointed
abbot-general. This abbot was a great builder. In
rebuilding his monastery in Derry, he removed
eighty houses — from this and from various items
regarding Armagh, Kildare, etc., in the annals, we
gather that these monastic and scholastic towns had
a considerable population. The new buildings were
of stone, for the abbot had an immense lime-kiln
built, eighty feet square, to provide lime for their
construction.
In the year 11 64, Sumarlidi, king of Argyle and
the Hebrides, and the community of Iona sent an
embassy to Derry to offer the abbacy of Iona to
O'Brolchain, but the king of Ireland, O'Lochlainn,
and his nobles, would not consent to his leaving
Derry. The Norman invasion made an end of the
attempt to organise the Columban monasteries.
The Synod of Clane in 1162 ordered that in future
only pupils, or as we should now say, graduates of
Armagh, were to obtain the position of fer leiginn
or chief professor in a school attached to any church
in Ireland. This decree then was equivalent to a
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 285
recognition of the school of Armagh as a national
university for all Ireland. I recommend the fact
to the notice of those writers who cherish the de-
lusion that Irishmen in that age had no conception
of nationality. In 11 69, the year of the Norman
invasion, the king of Ireland, Ruaidhri O'Conchu-
bhair, who lived in Connacht, established and en-
dowed in Armagh a new professorship for the
benefit of students from Ireland and Scotland.
The position of fer leiginn is first noticed in the
annals in the tenth century. This points to a new
development in the schools of Ireland at that time.
Four men holding this position are named in that
century by the Annals of Ulster, and three of the
four are in the school of Armagh. The fourth is in
Slane. In the eleventh century, Kells and Monaster-
boice have their fer leiginn. In Monasterboice that
position was held by the poet-historian Flann, who
belonged to the ruling family in that region, the
Cianachta. In the twelfth century, there are notices
of the fer leiginn in Kildare, Derry, Clonmacnois,
Killaloe, Emly and Iona. The Norman Invasion
brought ruin to all these schools. The last notice
of the school or rather university of Armagh is in
1 1 88. Three years before this, Philip of Worcester,
king Henry's Justiciary, at the head of a great
army, occupied Armagh for a week and plundered
the clergy ; and Giraldus, who denounces this ex-
ploit, says with a jibe, " he returned to Dublin
without loss."
We have seen how St. Bernard reports the strong
terms used by the Irish reformers themselves in
286 MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
condemnation of the abuses they laboured to remove.
It was this very language of pious reprobation that
Henry II seized upon as furnishing the pretext for
the commission he sought and obtained from his
friend Pope Adrian to reform the Irish Church and
people. I take it that the Laudabiliter is genuine.
Without discussing all the arguments against its
authenticity, but admitting that the heads of those
arguments are made good, in my opinion neither any
one of them nor all of them together suffice at all to
discredit the document. In it, the Pope replies to
a ■proposal made by Henry and states that proposal
in these terms : " Laudably and profitably hath
your magnificence conceived the design . . . you
are intent on enlarging the borders of the Church,
teaching the truth of the Christian faith to the
ignorant and rude, exterminating the roots of vice
from the field of the Lord, and, for the more con-
venient execution of this purpose, requiring the
counsel and favour of the Apostolic See. . . . You
then, most dear son in Christ, have signified to us
your desire, in order to reduce the people to obedience
unto laws, and to extirpate the plants of vice . ."
and so forth. The terms in which these good pur-
poses are stated are merely an echo in brief of such
words as those in which St. Bernard describes the
reforms already effected by St. Malachy.
Now let us compare what may be called the " war
aims " of Henry, thus stated by him to Pope Adrian
and approved by the Pope, with the actual measures
adopted. The Synod of Cashel was convened at
Henry's instance by Gilla Crist, bishop of Lismore
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 287
and papal legate, and attended by most of the Irish
prelates. Henry was represented by several high
ecclesiastics whom he brought to Ireland. The
decrees of the Synod were confirmed by Henry.
They are therefore of the highest importance as de-
termining what had to be done to " enlarge the
bounds of the Church, to teach the truth of Christian
faith to the ignorant and rude, and to extirpate the
roots of vice from the field of the Lord." The
provisions of the Synod number eight as related by
Giraldus Cambrensis :
The first decree forbids marriage within the degrees
of kindred fixed by the law of the Church. The
second requires children to receive catechetical in-
struction outside of churches and to be baptised at
fonts duly provided in the churches. The third
commands all to pay tithes to their own parish
churches. The fourth exempts Church property from
temporal exactions. The fifth exempts the clergy
from paying a share in the compensation for homi-
cide, though of kindred to the guilty person. The
sixth regulates the making of wills. The seventh
prescribes the religious rites to be performed for
those who die in peace with God. The eighth orders
that the Church ritual in Ireland shall be the same
as in England.
That is all. Giraldus adds : " Indeed both the
realm and Church of Ireland are indebted to this
mighty king for whatever they enjoy of the blessings
of peace and the growth of religion ; as before his
coming to Ireland all sorts of wickedness had pre-
vailed among this people for a long series of years,
288 MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
which now, by his authority and care of administra-
tion, are abolished." No wonder indeed that our
historian Keating names Giraldus the tarbh tana,
the leading bull of the herd, of the long-stretched
herd of historians, journalists, and zealous reformers
of " all sorts of wickedness." Giraldus, however, was
not entirely a partisan of false pretences. Years
afterwards, when Henry was dead, he addresses his
successor John, reminding him of his father's pledge
to Pope Adrian, then also dead — the first pledge
made by an English ruler in regard of Ireland,
whereby, he says, Henry " secured the sanction of
the highest earthly authority to an enterprise of
such magnitude, involving the shedding of Christian
blood." This pledge, he says, has not been kept.
On the contrary, " the poor clergy in the island are
reduced to beggary ; the cathedral churches, which
were richly endowed with broad lands by the piety
of the faithful in the olden times," and which, we
may add, supported on these endowments the schools
already mentioned, " now echo with lamentations for
the loss of their possessions, of which they have been
robbed by these men and others who came over
with them or after them ; so that to uphold the
Church is turned into spoiling and robbing it."
Even the revenue, the Peter's Pence, promised by
Henry to the Pope was not paid, and Giraldus pleads
that it should be paid in future, " in order that some
acknowledgment and propitiation may be made to
God for this bloody conquest and the profits of it."
And now, before considering further the character
and effects of the Feudal conquests in Ireland,
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 289
let us take a general view of the domestic polity
of Ireland.
In recent times, and only, I think, in recent times
we find the whole of this domestic polity, or nearly
the whole of it, summed up in one convenient phrase
— the Clan System. This phrase is used by the
ultra-patriotic just as freely and confidently as by
those on the opposite edge — whatever we are to
call them — those people who perform for Irish
history the not unfruitful function of devil's advo-
cate. The word system imparts a notion of some-
thing arranged in a definite and perceptible order,
and those who speak or write about the Clan System
indicate thereby that they have some perception of
this detailed and co-ordinated arrangement. But
I do not know where any one of them has success-
fully undertaken to reduce his mental view of the
system to plain words. I think, however, most of
us have gathered in a vague way the underlying
notions. They amount to this :
The Irish population was divided into a large
number of groups, each of which was a " clan." At
the head of each clan was a chief. The clan and the
chief considered themselves to be of one blood, a
great family. Each clan occupied a definite stretch
of country and was in fact the population of its
territory. The clan was a miniature nation. That,
I think, is a fair summary of the prevailing notions
as to the basis of what is called the clan system.
Some writers prefer to say " tribal system." I
have been reproached with avoiding the word
" tribe." I have avoided it, and for two reasons ;
19
290 MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
first, because some have used it in so loose a sense
as to make it meaningless ; and second, because
others have used it with the deliberate intent to
create the • impression that the structure of society
in Ireland down to the twelfth century, and in parts
of Ireland down to the seventeenth century, finds
its modern parallel among the Australian or Central
African aborigines. Already, in reference to the
law of succession, I have mentioned the deirbfine,
the Irish legal family of four generations, a man, his
sons, grandsons, and great grandsons. O'Donovan
calls this family a tribe. I told how, in the battle
of Caimeirghe in 1241, Brian O'Neill secured the
kingship of Tyrone for himself and his line by cutting
off his rival MagLochlainn and ten men of MagLoch-
lainn's deirbfine. Here the word deirbfine has a very
special and technical importance ; but the student
who has to rely on the official editorial translation
misses the whole significance of the Irish term. The
translator of the Annals of Ulster renders the passage
thus : " The battle of Caimeirghe was given by
Brian O'Neill and Mael-Sechlainn O'Domnaill, king of
Cenel Conaill, to Domnall MagLochlainn, to the
king of Tir-Eogain, so that Domnall MagLochlainn
was killed therein and ten of his own tribe around
him ; and all the chiefs of Cenel-Eogain and many
other good persons likewise. And the kingship was
taken by Brian O'Neill after him."
It is certain that in the beginnings of Irish history
we find the tradition of the tribal group, just as we
find it in the history of the Hebrews, the Greeks, the
Romans, the Germans, and their offshoots the Anglo-
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 291
Saxons. It is also certain that Ireland, not having
been overrun and shaken up by any of the great
migrations after the migration of the Celts, and not
having been steam-rolled by the levelling weight of
Roman imperialism, preserved a great deal of the
old tradition. Our old books are full of it. My
third lecture dealt very much with the evidences of
ancient tribal communities which survived in some
shape into historical time. It is, however, perfectly
clear to any student of the materials that already in
early Christian Ireland the old tribal distinctions
are waning and disappearing under various influences.
All Irish people, Ebudeans, Ivernians, Picts, Fir
Bolg, Galians, are known to each other by the
common name of Gaedhil, itself once the name of
the dominant Celtic element ; to others they are all
known as Scotti. So complete is the fusion that,
when by ancient custom this or that portion of the
community remains liable to pay tributes or taxes
in virtue of their being the successor of some old
conquered tribe, our old historians or archivists are
careful again and again to say that the people them-
selves are free and that these imposts are attached
only to the lands on which they dwell.
I think that the popular notion of a Gaelic clan is
derived from Scottish writers like Thomas Campbell
and Sir Walter Scott. " False wizard, avaunt ! I
have marshalled my clan. Their swords are a
thousand, their bosoms are one." Here we have
the picture of the men of Lochiel's country, Camcrons
to a man, headed by their Cameron chief. I do not
know how far such pen-pictures are true of Scotland
292 MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
and the time to which they relate. I do know that
you will find nothing of the kind in historical Ireland.
Ask for a similar instance of an Irish clan. I suppose
the O'Neills of Tyrone will do. The O'Neills were
never more than a small fraction of the people of
Tyrone or of any part of Tyrone. Take the period
preceding the confiscation of Tyrone. Shane O'Neill,
in order to convince certain persons of the futility
of trying to poison him, said that if the hundred best
men of the name of O'Neill were cut off, there would
still be O'Neills to succeed him. That seems to
justify Mr. Bigger when he says that there are as
many O'Neills in Tyrone to-day as there were then.
The fullest lists of the followers of Irish chiefs are
to be found in the Elizabethan fiants ; and these
documents effectually dispel the illusion of an O'Neill
at the head of a thousand O'Neills or an O'Brien
leading a host of O'Briens. It is quite true, as I
have shown in a previous lecture, that by the pro-
cess of creating mean lords and in other ways, the
ruling families provided for their own kinsfolk at the
expense of their other subjects, and thus acquired a
disproportionate increase. The extension of great
families in this manner is the one fact that comes
nearest to substantiating the illusion of a clan
system.
From the popular I pass on to the learned view.
Ireland in the twelfth century, says Mr. Orpen, was
still in the tribal state. This is written to justify
the Norman invasion. The Normans were not in
the tribal state. Mr. Orpen relies strongly on Giraldus
as a witness in other matters. Giraldus omitted
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 293
nothing that occurred to him to say that could justify
the invasion, in which his friends and kinsfolk
took a prominent part. From first to last it did not
occur to Giraldus to say that the Irish were in a
tribal state. He knew the facts. If there were
outstanding clans in Ireland, i.e., noble kindreds,
so were there among the invaders. Giraldus him-
self belonged to the same clan as Milo de Cogan,
Gerald FitzGerald, Raymond le Gros, and others
of those bold adventurers. He is not ashamed of it,
and being half a Welshman, he is under no delusions
about the social structure of the Irish nation.
When we read on to learn what is Mr. Orpen's
idea of an Irish tribe, we are gradually enlightened.
We find that the tribe of king Diarmaid is the Ui
Ceinnsealaigh. Here is the main authentic basis of
the illusion. It is a peculiarity of Irish nomenclature
that a territory is called by the name of its ruling
family. Ui Ceinnsealaigh thus has two meanings.
It means the descendants of Ceinnsealach and it also
means the territory over which the chiefs of that
lineage ruled as kings, namely the diocese of Ferns.
But the Ui Ceinnsealaigh were never at any time
more than a tiny fraction of the population of that
territory. 'Enna Ceinsealach, their ancestor, lived
in the fifth century ; and however well his posterity
may have looked after themselves, they certainly
did not displace from the region that got their name
any large proportion of its inhabitants descended
from other ancestors. The territory called Clann
Aodha Buidhe covered a large part of the present
counties of Down and Antrim. The tribe named
29f MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
Clann Aodha Buidhe were the descendants of Aodh
Buidhe O'Neill, who died in the year 1280. They
never at any time amounted to a territorial popula-
tion. There were clans of Norman origin in Ireland,
too, and territories named from them. There were
the De Burghs of Clann Ricaird in Connacht, and
their country named from them ; the De Burghs of
Clann William in Munster, and their country still so
named ; FitzGeralds of Clann Mhuiris in Munster
and in Connacht, and the districts still keep their
name ; there are Power's country, and Roche's
country, and Joyce's country, and Condon's, and
Barrymore, and Clann Ghiobuin, the Fitzgibbons —
family and country bearing the same name after the
Irish manner. Every one of these great families
was precisely as much and as little a tribe as any
Irish tribe that Mr. Orpen has in contemplation ;
as much and as little a tribe as the Plantagenets or
the Bourbons or the Hapsburgs or the Hohenzollerns.
Undoubtedly in these great families there was a
good deal of what we call clannishness — of devotion
to their particular interest to the detriment of the
public or the national interest. On the other hand,
it is quite a mistake to suppose that the hostility of
clan to clan, as is often said, was the principal
element of harm to peace. The Irish chronicles
show clearly that domestic wars arose far more
frequently from disputes and rivalries between
members of a ruling family. It was the same
among the Welsh, and a recent Welsh historian has
justly traced this evil to the law of succession which
was similar in the two countries — the choice of sue-
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 295
cessor to king or lord being open between a number
of claimants. A doubtful succession was the fruit-
ful source of disorder in other countries also.
Readers of history will remember its effects in the
Roman empire, the wars of the Scottish succession
before Bannockburn, the Wars of the Roses in
England, the war of the Spanish succession. The
feudal law of primogeniture tended to minimise this
danger.
Here we find another instance of the ignoring of
time and change in books on Irish history. I think
I am right in saying that most readers gather from
these books the impression that the Irish institution
of Tanistry dates from time immemorial. There is
no mention of a tanist in the Annals until the
thirteenth century, after feudal institutions had
been established in many parts of Ireland ; and we
can trace the gradual spread of the custom in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It seems right
then to infer that those who lived under Irish law
were impressed by the greater stability afforded by
Feudal law in this matter of succession, perhaps
also by the aggravation of their own plight owing
to the opportunities that a disputed succession gave
■ for the interference of the enemy in their midst;
and that they sought to remove this evil and danger
by determining the succession beforehand, choosing
in the ruler's lifetime the man who was to succeed
him, the tanist.
Another notion which has accompanied the
modern illusion of the " clan system," is that of the
communal holding of land by the tribe or clan. This
296 MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
view, like that of the " clan system," has had its
enthusiastic eulogists and its self-complacent censors.
On one side we are asked to admire our forefathers
for anticipating Sir Horace Plunkett. On the other
side we are told that progress and even temporary
well-doing in agriculture were rendered impossible
by a system under which all the land belonged to
everybody at once and to nobody for long. Once
more we are faced with that canon of Irish history,
" Credo quia impossible." We are seriously asked
to believe that the lands of a tribe, meaning the
population under a territorial chief or even under a
king, was held in common by all ; and more than
that, was periodically thrown into hotch-potch,
taken from everybody and redistributed among all.
Now we can imagine what an event that would be,
taking place all over a district as large as the diocese
of Ferns ; or even as large as the barony of Forth ;
what a feature it would have been in the simple life
of a large countryside. Strange, is it not ? that no
account of any such resettlement of a district appears
in any Irish writing, even in the form of an incidental
allusion. The fact is that no such communal system
existed on any scale approaching to the territorial.
I have described the constitution of the deirbjine,
the legal unit of succession. There were larger
family groups, based on the kinship of five, six and
seven generations. It was among such groups that
property was held in common, when it was property
of a kind that did not lend itself to subdivision in
accurate proportions — just as succession to the king-
ship, being indivisible, was common to a family
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 297
group until its determination became necessary.
But as new generations came forward, existing
family groups were of necessity dissolved and recon-
stituted. When this happened, a redistribution of
the family property was necessitated. Moreover,
there were certain kinds of land — mountain, bog,
forest, and marsh, which were not divided by fences
or mearings into individual or family holdings — and
these were held in common both in ancient and in
modern times. And that, I think, is the foundation
of prevalent notions about communal land tenure
in ancient Ireland.
Those who desire a studied account of ancient
land tenures in Ireland — in preference to their own
or other people's imaginings — should read the little
book on Irish Land Tenures by Dr. Sigerson.
Connected again with the notion of communal
ownership is the denial of proprietary rights of kings
and lords. It must not be a question whether the
ahum dominium, the extreme form of proprietorship
in land, was a good thing or a bad thing. We want
to know the facts first, before we pass a valuation
on them. Mr. Orpen is obsessed with the notion
that the Irish order and the Feudal order were as
the poles apart. Accordingly he says that the
Irish political structure nowise depended on grants
of land. I do not know and I do not inquire what
may be the peculiar virtue of a polity depending
upon grants of land ; but I do know that the
structure of Irish political society in the twelfth
century was mainly based on that foundation.
Documentary proofs, referring to various dates from
298 MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS
the travels of St. Patrick down to the eve of the
Norman invasion, show that every lord in his degree,
from the local chief of a small territory up to the
king of Ireland held and exercised the power of
granting ownership in land over the heads of all
occupiers. If the king of Tyrone was also king of
Ireland his power of making grants was not con-
fined to his domestic territory of Tyrone. So the
Annals tell us that Muirchertach O'Lochlainn, king
of Tyrone and monarch of Ireland, granted a town-
land at Drogheda to the Cistercians of Mellifont,
and a charter of the same king is extant granting
lands at Newry to another religious house. Diarmait
MacMurchadha was king of Leinster, his domestic
realm, or as Mr. Orpen would say his tribal territory,
being Ui Ceinnsealaigh. He was also recognised
over-king of the Norse kingdom of Dublin, which
included a stretch of country northward from Dublin
and outside of the kingdom of Leinster. In virtue
of this extended kingship, Diarmait granted lands
at Baldoyle to a religious community, and the charter
of his grant is still extant. In truth, the granting
and regranting of lordship over lands is the keynote
of the Irish dynastic polity from the fifth to the
sixteenth century.
What then of the objections that were raised to
the introduction of feudal law under Henry VIII.
and afterwards ? Was it not contended on the Irish
side that the chief or king had no more than a life-
tenure of the territory he ruled, and that in accept-
ing feudal tenure he wras disposing of what did not
belong to him ? That is so. In accepting feudal
MEDIEVAL IRISH INSTITUTIONS 299
tenure, he disposed of the succession, which he had
no legal power to determine : the determination of
which, within limits fixed by law, belonged to his
people. It was theirs, not by virtue of communal
ownership of the land, but by virtue of the right of
election to the principality. Of this right they were
deprived by the introduction of feudal law. The
law of tanistry was a reasonable provision which
preserved the right of election and yet determined
the succession in advance.
XI. THE NORMAN
CONQUEST
THERE was one advantage incidental to the
feudal law of primogeniture, which did not
belong to the Irish law of succession before or
after the institution of tanistry. In feudal law, the
lawful successor might be a child, an invalid, a
demented person, and in some countries a woman.
In feudal law, as in Irish law, and in ancient law
generally, the ruler was also chief judge and chief
military commander for his people and territory.
Each of Henry's feudal grantees in Ireland held and
exercised these functions. The kings of England
themselves, from William the Conqueror to Henry II.
and the Saxon and Danish kings before them, were
judges and generals as well as chiefs of State. The
Irish law contemplated a ruler who was fitted in
mind and body to exercise these functions. The
law of primogeniture often failed to secure such
fitness. At first sight, the Irish law seems to have
the advantage, but on closer consideration the case
will appear otherwise.
If the ruler of the state combines in his own person
the offices of judge and military commander and
performs these offices in person, as well as the presi-
dency of the public assembly, it follows that there
must be as many states and rulers as there are
presidents of assembly, judges of law, military com-
300
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 301
manders. And this is what we actually find in
ancient Ireland. Most of the modern baronies, so-
called, take the place of ancient kingdoms. The
ruler being in the people's mind fit to judge in liti-
gation and to lead in war and to preside over the
assembly, and being unfit to rule as king when he
could not perform these functions, there was no
place in so simple a polity for ministers of State, and
there was no regular delegation of these important
duties. I think it will be admitted that the de-
velopment of ministerial offices is one of the greatest
phases in political progress.
On the other hand, the feudal law of primo-
geniture, under which the ruler at times might be a
child, an idiot, or a weakling, rendered ministers of
State a necessity. When Norman feudalism came to
Ireland, it was just emerging from a condition
similar to what it found in Ireland, and so the
domestic polity of Ireland called for no remark from
Giraldus, who was ready to find fault with anything,
even with the fact that the Irish reared their children
in a natural way, and succeeded admirably with it,
instead of shaping their limbs and bodies with
swathings and bandages. In southern Italy, the
Normans found the civil service of the Byzantine
emperors in operation ; adopted it, and from them
it spread to Normandy and England. This trans-
formation was just taking place at the time of their
invasion of Ireland, and was providing them with
an apparatus of statecraft which the Irish did not
possess.
The Feudal system, thus augmented, tended
3o2 THE NORMAN CONQUEST
towards centralisation. The Irish system had an
opposite tendency. I notice that Mr. Orpen, in his
comparison of the two systems, shows himself a
whole-hearted worshipper of centralisation. His
book, however, was written before the rulers and
ministers of great states had begun to discover and
formulate the objects of a righteous war. To my
mind, European civilisation has suffered very much
from undue centralisation — from the domination of
courts and capitals over large regions and the conse-
quent disrepute of what is called provincial life.
We see the effect in countries like England and
France, each of which consists of two parts — the
capital and the provinces — the capital draining the
provinces of all that is best in them, so that they
are held and hold themselves in low esteem. I have
often hoped that the Ireland of the future will not
be unduly centralised, and that full scope will be
given to ' the highest possible development of social
life and art and education in every part of the
country.
The Normans so-called, when they came to Ireland,
had ceased to be Northmen. The contemporary
Anglo-Saxon, Welsh and Irish chronicles call them
by the same name, Franks. Franks they were in
language, customs and institutions. If they some-
times called themselves Angli, this meant no more
than that they were subjects of the rex Anglorum,
the king of the English, and not of the king of the
French. Their ordinary language was French.
When Giraldus Cambrensis expresses the wish that
his works should be translated into the vulgar
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 303
tongue, he makes it clear that he means French.
In another part of his writings, he shows himself
an enthusiastic adherent of the Welsh language, and
voices a prophecy that his countrymen of Wales will
speak Welsh till the day of Judgment. The rank
and file of the invaders were Welshmen and Flemings.
There was a large Flemish colony settled under the
Normans in Pembrokeshire, and when the first in-
vaders reached Ireland in 11 69, an Irish chronicler
recorded the arrival of the fleet of the Flemings. A
Flemish colony was established after that in South
Leinster, and their dialect continued in use there
until well on in the nineteenth century. Many of
the so-called Norman settlers in other parts of
Ireland were Flemish and Welsh. Norman French
continued to be used in Ireland for many generations.
It was the language in which the colonists petitioned
the lord Edward, as they called the king of England,
for aid against Edward Bruce in 1 3 1 5. I notice in
Father Dinneen's Irish dictionary many of the words
marked with the letter A, signifying of English
origin, which I am sure came directly from the
French of these invaders. Mr. Orpen's history is
largely a laboured attempt to prove that the back-
ward state of Ireland was the cause and justification
of the invasion. This search after causes and
justifications does not conduce to sound historical
writing. One wonders how the method would be
applied to the history of the Norman invasion and
conquest of Sicily and southern Italy, possessing at
the time the most highly developed political civilisa-
tion west of Constantinople. Among the French,
304 THE NORMAN CONQUEST
the Normans shared with the Gascons a reputation
for extreme craftiness. They were also great
fortress-builders. Giraldus recognises that in the
open field the Irish were their superiors in fighting.
They especially feared the Irish use of the battle-axe,
learned from the old Norsemen. He recommends
them to keep to the plan of conquest by what he
calls incastellation — the building of strong castles at
frequent strategic points. Against this method,
well organised permanent forces could alone be
effective, and the Irish in that age had no such
military organisation. If the testimony of Giraldus
is not biassed on the point, the only effective field
forces which the invaders commanded consisted of
Welshmen. Withal, it is to be said that the chiefs
of the invasion were in general men of great valour,
enterprise, and coolness. They brought with them
a tradition of conquest and adventure.
Mr. Orpen says again and again that the Irish
were turbulent. The Normans, he would have us
believe, were all for law and order. It is again
strange that this contrast did not occur at all to
Giraldus, their comrade and kinsman and partisan.
No one need wonder if a band of hardy adventurers
should hold solidly together in their common interest
for at least a generation. Yet the first generation
of feudalism in Ireland witnessed a series of wars
among the invaders themselves, quite as much war-
fare, in fact, as you will find on an average in an
equal space of time among an equal number of
chiefs of the turbulent Irish. But it was not in
Ireland only that the Normans were turbulent.
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 30$
Henry himself spent much of his great power in
quelling the rebellions of his own sons and their
partisans. If Giraldus Cambrensis says nothing
about the particular turbulency and anarchy of
Ireland in the twelfth century, it was probably
because he and his readers did not know where in
western Europe to look for anything else. Let me
quote here from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle a picture
of England under the Normans in the generation
preceding the invasion of Ireland :
" a.d. 1 1 37. When King Stephen came to England ....
when the traitors [i.e. the nobles of England] perceived that
he was a mild man, and a soft, and a good, and that he did
not enforce justice, they did all wonder. They had done
homage to him, and sworn oaths, but they no faith kept ;
all became forsworn and broke their allegiance ; for every
rich man built his castles and defended them against him,
and they filled the land full of castles. They greatly op-
pressed the wretched people by making them work at these
castles, and when the castles were finished they filled them
with devils and evil men. Then they took those whom they
suspected to have any goods, by night and by day, seizing
both men and women, and they put them in prison for their
gold and silver and tortured them with pains unspeakable ;
for never were any martyrs tortured as these were. They
hung some up by their feet and smoked them with foul
smoke ; some by their thumbs or by the head, and they
hung burning things on their feet. They put a knotted
string about their heads and twisted it till it went into the
brain. They put them into dungeons wherein were adders
and snakes and toads, and thus wore them out. Some they
put into a crucet-house, that is, into a chest that was short
and narrow and not deep, and they put sharp stones in it and
crushed the man therein so that they broke all his limbs.
There were hateful and grim things called Sachenteges in
20
306 THE NORMAN CONQUEST
many of the castles, which two or three men had enough
to do to carry. The Sachentege was made thus : it was
fastened to a beam, having a sharp iron to go around a man's
throat and neck, so that he might nowise sit nor lie nor sleep
but that he must bear all the iron. Many thousands they
exhausted with hunger. I cannot and I may not tell of all
the wounds and all the tortures that they inflicted upon the
wretched men of this land. And this state of things lasted
the nineteen years that Stephen was king [1135-1154] and
ever grew worse and worse. They were continually levying
an exaction from the towns, which they called Tenserie, and
when the miserable inhabitants had no more to give, then
plundered they and burnt all the towns, so that well mightest
thou walk a whole day's journey, or ever shouldest thou find
a man seated in a town or its lands tilled. Then was corn
dear, and flesh and cheese and butter, for there was none
in the land. Wretched men starved with hunger. Some
lived on alms who had been erewhile rich. Some fled the
country. Never was there more misery, and never acted
heathen worse than these. At length they spared neither
church nor churchyard, but they took all that was valuable
therein and then burned the church and all together. Neither
did they spare the lands of bishops, of abbots, or of priests,
but they robbed the monks and the clergy ; and every man
plundered his neighbour as much as he could. If two or
three men came riding to a town, all the township fled before
them and thought that they were robbers. The bishops and
clergy were ever cursing them, but this to them was nothing,
for they were all accurst and forsworn and reprobate. The
earth bare no corn, you might as well have tilled the sea ;
for the land was all ruined by such deeds, and it was said
openly that Christ and his saints slept. These things, and
more than we can say, did we suffer during nineteen years
because of our sins."
It was in the very year that followed these nine-
teen years that Henry, in his council of barons at
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 307
Winchester, first announced his intention of invading
Ireland. The barons who formed the council were
the castle-builders of the foregoing account written
by their contemporary. From them and their sons
were drawn the men who, we are to believe, came
to establish law and order in the place of anarchy
in Ireland ; who were " to enter that island and
execute whatsoever may tend to the honour of God
and the welfare of the land " ; who were " to restrain
the downward course of vice, to correct evil customs,
to implant virtue and extend the Christian religion "
— these being the pious and laudable designs which
Henry Plantagenet, who could not rule his own
household or his own person, proposed at that time
to his friend Pope Adrian.
I have already adverted to Mr. Orpen's doctrine
that the Irishman had no nation but his tribe. In
all these things, a comparison and a contrast is
studiously suggested. To what nation did the
leaders of the invasion belong ? Mr. Orpen calls
them Normans, but they themselves knew nothing
of Norman nationality. They knew that their lord
was duke of Normandy and as such a vassal of
France. Among themselves they knew no distinc-
tion of Norman, Angevin, Poitevin, or Aquitanian.
The most English of them came of three generations
of residence in England as a foreign element — as
Franks. These were only a few. The majority had
lived in Wales or the Welsh marches. At a very
early stage in the invasion, one leader, Maurice de
Prendergast, went right over to the Irish. Another,
De Courci, set himself up as an independent prince
3o8 THE NORMAN CONQUEST
in that region of intractable folk, eastern Ulster.
The chief feature of Henry's Irish policy, continued
by his son John, was not the subjugation of the
Irish but the keeping of the Feudal lords of Ireland
from becoming independent. Mr. Orpen does not
like this policy. He calls it interference with the
colony, and draws the moral of all his history by
severely remarking that the same objectionable
interference with the colony has been continued
down to an indefinitely modern time. The lesson
is meant to be taken to heart by somebody. The
fact remains, that the colonists had no nationality
until in the course of time they became Irelandmen,
and ultimately more Irish than the Irish.
There is another feature of the invasion policy to
which Mr. Orpen does no justice. Pope Adrian's
successor had not the same personal interest in the
invasion that Pope Adrian had. A papal legate
was sent to Ireland. On his way through England,
he was laid hold of and compelled to swear to do
nothing in Ireland contrary to the king's interest.
Evidently there was something to be apprehended.
From England he went to the Isle of Man, where the
Norse king was father-in-law and ally of de Courci,
Prince of Ulster. As a policeman would say, in
consequence of information received, the legate on
his landing on the Irish coast was arrested by de
Courci's men and carried captive to Downpatrick.
De Courci, though a valiant knight, had done some
things in Downpatrick, which a legate under arrest
might be induced to regard more leniently than a
legate at large. Downpatrick was a monastic and
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 309
ecclesiastical centre. De Courci had made it into a
fortress. He had made the bishop of Down a
prisoner and put some of the inferior clergy to
death. Apparently he had taken complete posses-
sion of all the Church property. The captive bishop
appears as witness to de Courci's grants of Irish
Church possessions to foreign religious. The legate
seems to have reached Dublin in a chastened temper.
In Dublin, he granted formal authority to the in-
vaders to make forcibly entry into Church property
anywhere in Ireland. The plea is that the Irish
stored their food in ecclesiastical places, and Mr.
Orpen says it was a military necessity, and therefore
justifiable, to get at these stores of food. All this
was written before the conscience of so many had
been awakened to the evils of militarism. However,
the food pretext does not fit the fact. The fact was
that before the legate came, as well as afterwards,
it was the settled military policy of the invasion to
occupy Irish churches and monasteries and turn
them into fortresses. These places had something
quite as useful as food, they had strong stone build-
ings, which could be held as they stood or pulled to
pieces and used for the rapid erection of fortresses,
of which process the following instance from the
annals may be cited as an example :
a.d. 1214. The castle of Coleraine is built by
Thomas son of Uhtred and by the Foreigners of
East Ulster, and for that purpose were pulled to
pieces the cemeteries and pavements and buildings
of the whole town, save the church alone. (Coleraine
until this time was a Columban monastery.)
3io THE NORMAN CONQUEST
From this we may see the full force of the extra-
ordinary general permit extorted from the Pope's
legate. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, already quoted,
shows how earlier experience in Britain had pre-
pared the fate of the Irish monasteries and schools.
A long list could be drawn up of the churches
and monasteries occupied by the invaders, some
permanently, others until evacuation was compelled.
This method of warfare reached parts of Ireland
far remote from effective occupation by the invaders,
and one of its results was the complete reversal of
all the efforts towards reconstruction and progress
which, as I have shown in the foregoing lecture, the
Irish themselves had undertaken in the grounds of
religion and education. The unconquered parts of
Ireland were thrown back into the condition of the
Norse war period. In the conquered parts, the Irish
were excluded from education and ecclesiastical pre-
ferment. There was much building and much
writing of official documents, but no progress in
learning or the arts, not one school of note, and in
an age when universities were springing up all over
Christendom, there arose in Ireland only one Uni-
versity, which was stillborn.
On the other hand, the feudal invasion reached
Ireland on a wave of developing town life, and its
regime was able to monopolise this development in
Ireland.
That the particular pledges, on the faith of which
Henry obtained from Adrian the grant of the feudal
lordship of Ireland, were not at all fulfilled by Henry,
we know from general evidence and from the par-
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 311
ticular testimony of Giraldus, who implores John to
fulfil them for the sake of his father's soul. John
had other things to think about, and these pledges
were not fulfilled by John or by any of his successors.
A memorial on this subject was addressed, at the
time of Edward Bruce's invasion, to the contem-
porary Pope by Domhnall O'Neill, king of Tyrone,
and the document still exists, charging the Plan-
tagenet rule in Ireland with general injury to
religion and civilisation.
Among the barbarities of Ireland in the twelfth
century, we are told by Mr. Orpen that the Irish
had no legislature and no proper judicature. One
wonders what sort of legislature Mr. Orpen imagines
to have existed in England at that time, and whether
he is aware that the English judicature was then
only beginning to exist.
There is one feature of the Feudal settlement — if
we may so call it — which is hard to place in its
proper category — that is, to say whether it comes
from systematic bad faith or merely from incapacity
to act according to ordered notions of law. The
Irish kings in general outside of Ulster made formal
submission to Henry as their liege lord, and were
received, as Giraldus says, into the protection of the
most merciful king. This submission and reception
constituted a solemn contract — the submitting kings
became Henry's vassals and he became bound to
defend and maintain them in their rights. In not a
single instance was this contract observed for a
moment longer than the opportunity to violate it
was delayed. The rights and possessions of the
312 THE NORMAN CONQUEST
Irish vassal kings were straightway granted afresh
to one or another of the new adventurers — and the
new grants were not preceded or accompanied by
the pretence of any escheatment or invalidation of
the existing contract — so little importance was
attached by Henry and John and their filibustering
captains even to the outward appearances of law and
order.
Let me give here an illustration of Mr. Orpen's
historical temper. He admits his difficulty in ascer-
taining the name of the king of the Ulaidh at the
time of de Courci's seizure of Downpatrick. What
does it matter ? he suggests. The surname, at all
events, was MacDunlevy, and — these are his actual
words — " the kings of this family were always
killing one another." It seems a strange manner of
existence, but then, you understand, they were
Irish and could manage it. There is just one
instance of it in the annals, where one of the
MacDunlevy kings, a man of evil life, was deposed
and put to death by his kinsman. Possibly Mr.
Orpen has confused the MacDunlevys with the
Plantagenets.
Mr. Orpen gives an extended account of Irish
law, with footnotes, references, and all the ap-
paratus of learned exposition, compelling the respect
and acquiescence of the less learned reader. Irish
law, he tells us, was merely consecrated custom ;
implying by contrast that England and Normandy
were at that time in the enjoyment of codes and
statute books. In Irish law, we are told, there were
no crimes. No breach of the law was regarded as
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 313
an offence against the commonwealth, to be punished
by the executive power of the State. The State did
not interfere to enforce the law among the subjects.
There were, in fact, no penalties. Every offence,
from homicide down to the smallest breach of the
peace was, in Irish law, merely a tort, a matter for
civil litigation between the offended and the offender,
and capable of being settled by an assessment of
damages. But what was worse still was this, that
when judgment was given and the damages assessed,
there was no machinery for enforcing obedience to
the decree ; in legal phraseology, the law had no
sanction. Unpopularity, the pressure of public
opinion, some sort of boycotting, furnished the only
resource of making men amenable to the law and the
decrees of the courts. Credo quia impossibile !
It was not merely in twelfth-century Ireland that
this wildly absurd legal system might be discovered
by Alice from Wonderland, even though Giraldus
Cambrensis completely failed to make a note of it.
The thing was an essential vice of Celtic barbarism,
and could be found in full bloom among the Gauls
of Caesar's time. Celts are impossible people, and
therefore quite capable of keeping an impossible and
utterly negative system of law in full operation for
twelve centuries and upwards. The child's game of
playing at law-courts which Irish brehons enjoyed
in the twelfth century and afterwards had amused
the druids of Gaul before the Christian era ; and
Caesar himself is called into the witness-box. Certain
forms of mental aberration are known to be infectious,
and this may explain why all the great feudal lords
3i4 THE NORMAN CONQUEST
of Ireland were fain in time to adopt this preposterous
system of Celtic law with all its apparatus. Here is
what Caesar says about the druids and their judi-
cature :
" Whosoever, be it a private individual or a people,
does not obey their decree, is excluded from the
sacred rites. This among them is a penalty of ex-
treme severity. Those who are under this ban are
classed among the impious and the criminal. All
men abandon their society and shun their approach
and conversation, lest they may suffer harm from
contagion with them. When such men seek their
legal right it is not rendered to them. When they
seek any public office, it is not conferred on them."
Mr. Orpen's comment on this passage is concise.
" It was," he says, " the primitive boycott." The
analogy which he thus brings down to date appears
incomplete. If a man having a credit balance at
the bank draws a cheque within the amount, he seeks
a legal right. If that right is not rendered to him,
there is something more than a boycott. Complete
divestment of legal rights is not boycotting, it is
attainder. It goes a long way beyond the greatest
excesses of social ostracism that have been charged
against the Land League or the Primrose League.
Mr. Orpen is not satisfied with this exposure of
Celtic law at long and at large in his first volume.
He repeats it in somewhat varied phrases in the
second. Now mark how plain a tale shall put him
down. In his search for this particular plum of the
Celtophobe, he has travelled to the sixth book and
thirteenth chapter of Caesar's history. Mr. Orpen's
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 315
historical method is identical with one of which I
have had later experience, when I have seen the
file of a periodical presented to the tribunal with a
sentence here and a paragraph there marked by the
blue pencil of a Crown Prosecutor. There is a
first book in Caesar's Gallic War. It comes before the
sixth book. The first episode related in the first
book is doubtless familiar to Mr. Orpen since his
school days, if the exigencies of the historical indict-
ment of a nation have not compelled him to forget
it. Let us recall that first episode of the Gallic
War, bearing in mind all the time the doctrine that
under Celtic law there were no crimes against the
State, no sanction or penalty for breaches of the
law except payments in composition, and no
machinery for enforcing obedience.
The first episode in the Gallic War is the migra-
tion of the Helvetii. Caesar tells us that this enter-
prise was undertaken by the Helvetian state at
the instance of a great noble named Orgetorix, and
that Orgetorix was commissioned to take charge of
the preparations. Before all was ready, an accusa-
tion was brought forward against him of aiming at
the subversion of the republican constitution of the
state and at the usurpation of supreme power.
This was not a tort, a matter for private litigation.
The Helvetii, says Caesar, according to their custom
(it was, therefore, no exceptional proceeding) sought
to compel Orgetorix to stand his trial under arrest
[ex vinculis]. If found guilty, Caesar adds, the
penalty which he must duly incur was death by
burning. Here we have the crime, the State tribunal,
3i6 THE NORMAN CONQUEST
the executive authority, and the penalty fore-
ordained ; not exactly features of " the primitive
boycott." Orgetorix, we are told, was by far the
greatest and wealthiest noble of his people. He
stood in no fear of a boycott. Caesar continues :
" On the day fixed for the trial, Orgetorix gathered
from every side and brought with him to the place
of judgment all his slaves to the number of ten
thousand, and all his dependents and rent-payers,
of whom he had a great number. By this array, he
extricated himself from being placed on trial." Here
was a crucial test of the question, whether there
was or was not what Mr. Orpen calls " machinery '!
for enforcing the law. The State, says Caesar,
(civitas is his word) was provoked by this conduct
and set about the enforcement of its law by force of
arms. The magistrates, meaning in the Roman
sense the principal officers of State, collected from
the land a large body of men. But while this was
going on, Orgetorix died ; and it was suspected, so
the Helvetii believe, that he committed suicide.
All this is related in the first four chapters of the
first book of Caesar's Gallic War. It is not to the
purpose, and so we are invited to judge the case from
a blue-pencilled extract from book vi., chapter 13.
The notion of a system of Celtic law from which
all cognisance of crimes as crimes, all State authority,
all power of enforcement was absent, which had no
sanction except public opinion exercised through boy-
cotting, is borrowed from Sir Henry Maine's " Early
History of Institutions." Sir Henry Maine, however
eminent his authority, acquired this notion from an
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 317
inspection of a portion of the Ancient Laws of Ire-
land. The sort of judicature which he happened to
find there was that which was administered by the
Irish brehons in courts of arbitration. Mr. Orpen
shows familiarity with a much wider range of Irish
literature in English translations. When he wrote
his history, in which he claims expressly for himself
the title of historian, he knew certain things, but the
necessities of the case compelled him to forget he
knew them. He knew quite well that the ancient
literature in general ascribes the judicial function to
every Irish king, the head of every Irish state, great
or small. He knew that a hundred and a hundred
times the good king is said to be a just judge, and
the unjust judge is said to be a bad king. But when
he assumes the r6le of historian, he puts the micro-
scope to the blind eye, and, though he knows the
facts are before it, he is unable to see and describe
them. In the very chapter which contains his in-
dictment of Irish law, he quotes Standish Hayes
O'Grady's fine collection of pieces of Irish medieval
literature, the Silva Gadelica. I observe that his
footnote refers the reader to the Irish text, not to
the English translation, and the reader may con-
clude, if it please him, that Mr. Orpen is most at his
ease among Irish originals. Since most of those for
whom Mr. Orpen's work is intended are not familiar
readers of Middle Irish, I would refer them to the
volume of the English translations, where they will
be able to understand and verify. On page 288 we
find how Cormac, a stripling, came to Tara, where in
his father's house the usurper MacCon held rule.
318 THE NORMAN CONQUEST
When he arrived in the royal house, a lawsuit was
in progress. The story proceeds thus :
" There was in Tara a she-hospitaller, Bennaid,
whose roaming sheep came and ate up the queen's
crop of woad. The case was referred to Lughaidh
[MacCon the king] for judgment, and his award
was : the queen to have the sheep in lieu of the
woad. ' Nay,' Cormac said, ' the shearing of the
sheep is a sufficient offset to the cropping of the
woad ; for both the one and the other will grow
again.' ' That is the true judgment,' all exclaimed :
' a very prince's son it is that has pronounced it ! '
.... MacCon's rule in sooth was not good : the
men of Ireland warned him off therefore and bestowed
it on Cormac."
Here, quite as a matter of course, we find a king
sitting in judgment, without even a brehon for
assessor, on a civil case of no great importance, a
case of damage done by straying sheep. The king
judged unfairly, not indeed because it was in his
wife's lawsuit, but because he made an award of
excessive damages. His people deposed him and
gave the kingship to the youth who proposed the
fair award. And so intimately was the judicial
office combined with the kingly office in the
medieval Irish mind, that the capacity of judging
rightly was thought to be hereditary in the royal
blood : "A true judgment, he who pronounced it
is in truth the son of a king ! "
From this same work, cited by Mr. Orpen, I could
quote example after example of the same fact, quite
well known to Mr. Orpen, but " in the heat of
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 319
hatching, the hen does not know an egg from a
stone." I could also cite a bookful of instances
from the annals, the historical poems, the ancient
stories, and other sources, showing that the ancient
and medieval Irish were quite as familiar as were the
magistrates of the Helvetian State with criminal
jurisdiction and with penalties in every degree, in-
cluding the death penalty, as the sanction of their
laws.
The normal court of law in ancient Ireland was
the king's court, as the normal court in a Gaulish
republic was the court of the magistrates of the
republic. The druids' tribunal in Gaul and the
brehons', also originally the druids' tribunal, in
Ireland, was a subsidiary institution. It did not
carry with it the plenary powers of the regular
tribunal, and therefore relied in part on the reverence
of the people for justice — with regard to which we
have the most remarkable testimony borne by
Englishmen in Ireland at the time when Irish law
was on the verge of total abolition. And one of
these writers aptly says that nothing that the Irish-
man does, however praiseworthy, finds favour with
a set of men who are his professional traducers.
The brehons were primarily jurists, and in their
hands Irish law was elaborated and refined, its de-
velopment in this respect being similar to the de-
velopment of Roman law. They acted also as
legal advisers to litigants, safeguarding the proper
legal form of their proceedings. They acted also
as assessors and advisers to the kings in court.
When they sat as judges by themselves, their courts
320 THE NORMAN CONQUEST
were at least theoretically tribunals of arbitration,
but differed from the casual arbitrations of our
time in having more of the character of institutions.
It is probably true that after the Feudal invasion,
and especially when Irish law was adopted by Feudal
lords, the brehon's court tended to supersede the
court of king or lord as the normal instrument of
judicature.
The story of Cormac introduces us to a king's
court held at the king's place of abode and in his
house. A higher and more ceremonial court was
held by the king in the periodical assembly. This
court of assembly was called by the name airecht,
oireacht ; the word is used to translate the Latin
curia. " Suit of court " was an Irish no less than a
Feudal institution. The kings or lords subject to a
presiding king were expected to attend his airecht ;
and from this it comes that these subject lords are
collectively called the king's airecht, and by a further
extension the name is given occasionally to their
lands collectively. The whole of O'Cathain's terri-
tory is called Airecht Ui Chatham, and the territory
of O'Connor Kerry still bears the name of Oireacht
Ui Chonchobhuir, the barony of Iraghticonnor in
Kerry.
The assembly was the focus of the people's life.
Kuno Meyer has published and translated into
English an ancient tract called Tecosc Cormaic,
" King Cormac's Instruction to his Son." Every
student of early Irish institutions ought to read it.
Many who read it will be surprised to find how
modern was the mind of antiquity. One of the
THE NORMAN CONQUEST 321
maxims which the king gives to his son is this:
Vested interests are shameless. There is a truth in
that for all peoples of all times, that has never
elsewhere been so pithily expressed. The tract con-
sists of a collection of maxims and counsels for a
prince in his private and public conduct, and is
cast in the form of a colloquy between the king
and his son. Reading it, one comes to realise the
importance held by the assembly and particularly
the court of assembly, the airecht, in the minds of
our ancestors. Those who wish to study the art of
public speaking will find excellent canons of oratory
and advocacy in Tecosc Cormaic ; but they may be
forewarned that the ancient standard has no mercy
for rhetorical bombast, bounce, or any other device
to obscure and mislead the exercise of right judg-
ment by the audience.
The last effort of the people to maintain its
assemblies can be seen in those " paries upon hills "
which were so obnoxious to the Dublin govern-
ment under Elizabeth. In place-names and other
traditions we can still trace the old assembly places
in most parts of the country. Not long ago, in the
southern part of County Armagh, a man pointed
out to me a smooth green rising ground, and said
" The old people say there used to be a parliament
there." The old people are not far wrong. In these
assemblies, laws were enacted, modified or con-
firmed, taxes and tributes were regulated. The men
of lore came there with their poems in praise of the
living and their stories of the olden times and their
genealogies. Musicians came, and clowns with their
21
322 THE NORMAN CONQUEST
antics, and sleight-of-hand men. The men of military
age came with their arms for weapon-show and then
laid their arms aside till the assembly ended. Traders
from distant countries came to sell and buy. Horse
races and other games were held. The general
public, at least in the larger assemblies, were ranged
and classed in divisions, and wooden galleries were
set up to seat them. Streets of booths were set up
for sleeping and eating, giving the place of assembly
the temporary aspect of a town, and such towns
were, I think, the cities named and placed in
Ptolemy's description of Ireland. The detailed ac-
count that is extant of the Leinster assembly at
Carman, and the rare references in the annals to
disturbance of assemblies show that order and peace
were in general characteristic of these occasions.
XII. THE IRISH
RALLY
THE most casual reader of Irish history knows
that within a few centuries of the Norman
invasion, the authority of the kings of
England had shrunk to within a day's easy ride
of Dublin and the outskirts of a few other towns.
Standish O'Grady has noted the constant alliance
between town and crown in the Middle Ages. It
was not peculiar to Ireland. The merchants and
the sovereign had a common interest in resisting
the encroachments of the great nobles. Even
despotic kings, as a rule, governed better in the
interest of the burgesses than any powerful oligarchy
was likely to govern.
Why did the Norman conquest fail to be a con-
quest ? Giraldus Cambrensis gave to his story the
title Hibernia Expugnata — " Ireland fought to a
finish." Four centuries later comes another historian,
telling of another conquest, and he calls his story
Hibernia Pacaia — " Ireland pacified." Why was the
second conquest necessary ?
There are two factors that make for the com-
pleteness and permanence of conquest — namely,
physical superiority and moral superiority. In the
art of war and in the apparatus of centralised
government, the invaders, we have seen, were
superior to the Irish. They could even use the
Church as an instrument of the State, and Mr. Orpen
323
3H
THE IRISH RALLY
boasts that, whereas the Irish bishop of Dublin,
Lorcan O'Tuathail, was only a saint, the English
bishops who succeeded him were statesmen. War-
fare by incastellation, carried on for seventy years,
brought three-fourths of the country under control.
If to this physical superiority we must add the
moral superiority claimed for the Feudal regime by
modern admirers — if not by its contemporary cham-
pion in letters, Giraldus — there is left only one
possible explanation of the failure, the perversity of
the Irish mind, afflicted with a double dose of original
sin, refusing to recognise either physical superiority
in the arts of war or moral superiority in the arts
of peace.
Another factor must not be forgotten. The
second generation of Feudalism in Ireland was in
full possession of all the military resources of the
greater part of the country. Just as, in the be-
ginning of the invasion, they had led armies of
conquered Flemings and conquered Welshmen, and
as a few years later they led a force of conquered
Norsemen from Dublin to the battle of Thurles,
where they were defeated by Domhnall O'Briain, so
in their later wars they led armies of conquered Irish-
men for the completion of the conquest. And even
conquered Irishmen were not bad fighting material.
Two causes have been assigned by modern writers
for the failure of the conquest. One cause alleged
is the invasion by Edward Bruce in the years 131 5
to 1 3 18. In view of the fact that Bruce's under-
taking was itself an ignominious failure, another
cause assigned is the transference of the Feudal
THE IRISH RALLY 325
lordship of Connacht and Ulster from the De Burghs,
resident in Ireland, to the Plantagenets, who were
absentees. This happened after 1333.
It will be shown that neither of these causes
can be held to explain the failure. The conquest
was brought to a standstill and the tide was turned
more than half a century before the Bruce invasion.
The principal factor was national sentiment, in-
tensified and supplied with a more definite political
form under a sense of national oppression. Hardly
had the sentiment of nationalism acquired this form
when a new and unexpected force came to its aid.
The value of this new force was crystallised into a
proverb by one of the Feudal lords, Sir Robert
Savage of the Ards in East Ulster : " Better is a
castle of bones than a castle of stones."' The policy
of conquest by incastellation crumbled away before
the castles of bones built up first under the Irish
princes of Ulster, afterwards in Connacht, and in
time all over Ireland. By a castle of bones, Sir
Robert Savage meant a well organised, well armed,
and well trained permanent field force. From the
days of the Fiana down to the thirteenth century,
there had been no such force under the command of
an Irish king. Irish law and custom were un-
favourable to soldiering as a profession. The new
force was not supplied by Irishmen. It came from
the Norse kingdom of Argyle and the Hebrides.
Already before 1263, when the rulers of this kingdom
ceased to be subject to Norway, we find Hebridean
leaders helping the Irish of Ulster. Before the
close of the thirteenth century, we find organised
326 THE IRISH RALLY
bodies of Hebridean fighting men on the Irish side,
and a eommon name for them already in use, Gallo-
glaich, a word which was afterwards transplanted into
English in the form " galloglasses." It means
" foreign soldiers." You may learn from a number
of books that the galloglasses were heavy-armed
Irish soldiers. They were men of Argyle and the
Hebrides who came over to Ireland for military
service, or descendants of such men who were
settled in Ireland and held on to the profession of
soldiers. It may possibly be too much to say that
no Irish were admitted to their ranks ; but with
one very doubtful instance every officer of gallo-
glasses that I find named from the thirteenth century,
when they are first heard of, until the seventeenth
century, when they are last heard of, bears a
Hebridean surname ; and the surnames of the
majority of their commanders indicate descent from
Sumarlidi, who established the kingdom of the
Hebrides and Argyle in the twelfth century.
A century or so after the introduction of the
galloglasses, we find native Irish troops established
in imitation of them. These, however, bear a
distinct name, buannadha, " buonies," meaning men
on permanent service.
It was this reintroduction of permanent military
organisation that ultimately broke down the force
of feudal conquest. But as this preceded the Bruce
invasion, so also it will be seen that it was itself pre-
ceded by a very definite national rally of the free
Irish. Let us trace the course of events in greater
detail.
THE IRISH RALLY 327
In violation of the Treaty of Windsor, the lordship
of all Connacht, still unconquered, had been granted
to William de Burgh. Marriage with De Lacy's
heiress had added the lordship of all Ulster, like-
wise unconquered, and the Earls of Ulster, chiefs of
the great house of De Burgh, thus became titular
lords of two-fifths of Ireland. To make their
dominion a reality was a great incentive to the
completion of the conquest. Half a century after
the invasion, the conquest extended to about two-
thirds of the country. In Leinster, the mountainous
parts southward from Dublin were unsubdued ; and
in the midlands a group of the old Irish states, side
by side, had resisted penetration, under the O'Connors
of western Offaly, the O'Mores of Leix, the Fitz-
Patricks of Upper Ossory, and the O'Carrolls of Ely.
In Munster, MacCarthy More held out in Muskerry
and kept the title of king of Desmond. The kings
of Thomond preserved more real power, though
part of their territory was occupied by the Norman
de Clares. In Connacht, the O'Connor kings were
still recognised by the Foreigners, and the kings of
Breifne were intact. Along the western seaboard,
too, the conquest had not taken effect. The De
Burghs were established in the fortress of Galway
and in the middle plain of Connacht. In the other
parts of Leinster and Munster, and all over the old
kingdom of Meath, the Irish states had either been
altogether subverted or reduced to subjection.
In Ulster, the Earls of Ulster held effective
dominion over so much territory as is now com-
prised in the counties of Down and Antrim.
328 THE IRISH RALLY
The Irish rally may be dated from the year 1241.
In that year Maeleachlainn O'Domhnaill became
king of Tir Conaill, and by his aid Brian O'Neill
became king of Tir Eoghain, defeating in battle the
last king of the MagLochlainn line, one who was
favourable to the Foreigners and no doubt acknow-
ledged the dominion of the Earl of Ulster. The
viceroy, or, as he was then called, justiciar, of the
English king as lord of Ireland, was Maurice Fitz-
Gerald. He was the most active and enterprising
of the new rulers since the first generation of bold
adventurers had passed away, and he set himself
the task of completing the conquest of Ireland by
making the Earl de Burgh effective ruler of his
titular lordships of Connacht and Ulster. In Con-
nacht, he succeeded so far as to make the king of
Connacht, Feidhlimidh O'Connor, his subject ally,
allowing him to retain the title of king. In 1242,
Fitzgerald took the first step towards the reduction
of Ulster by leading an army from Connacht against
Tir Conaill and compelling the king, Maeleachlainn
O'Domhnaill, to give him hostages. As yet, no
fresh occupation of Ulster territory was attempted.
From the earliest times until the Confiscation of
Ulster, the southern frontier of that province made
invasion difficult. It was protected by broad lakes
and rivers and deep woods, and probably also by the
remains of that great ancient line of earthworks of
which I have spoken in an earlier lecture. When
Ulster was invaded by land, the approach was
almost always on the eastern side from Dundalk or
Ardee towards Armagh, or on the western side
THE IRISH RALLY 329
between Lower Loch Erne and the sea-coast.
Maurice FitzGerald planned to invade it, building
castles as he gained ground, both on east and
west. In 1244 we read of a new castle built at
Donaghmoyne, near Carrickmacross.
Next year, 1245, FitzGerald was summoned by
Henry III. to aid him in an invasion of Wales.
He went across with an Irish army and his subject
king of Connacht. The enterprise did not answer
expectation, and Henry sent FitzGerald back de-
prived of the viceroyship. FitzGerald nevertheless
resumed his plan of conquest, the new viceroy,
FitzGeoffroi, seconding him. In 1247 he built a
castle at Sligo, as a basis of operations towards the
Erne. This done, the next step was to seize and
fortify the passage of the Erne at Ballyshannon ;
but he found the king of Tir Conaill there on guard.
FitzGerald ordered his Connacht auxiliaries to pre-
tend a retirement and to make a circuit crossing the
Erne some miles further up. The stratagem suc-
ceeded. The king of Tir Conaill, attacked in front
and flank, was defeated and fell in the fight. At his
side fell a chief named MacSomhairlidh, " the son of
Sumarlidi." This name is the first sign of the
Hebridean Galloglach element in Irish wars.
Next year, 1248, the justiciar FitzGeoffroi co-
operated in the campaign against Ulster. He led
an army to Coleraine, where already there was a
castle on the eastern side of the Bann. He built
a bridge and built a second castle on the western side,
thus securing a new way for invasion. Brian O'Neill
did not remain inactive. He brought ships over
330 THE IRISH RALLY
land from Loch Foyle to Loch Erne, and attacked
and demolished a castle at Belleek, newly built by
FitzGerald. Fast upon this followed a revolt of
Feidhlimidh O'Connor. The viceroy marched to
FitzGerald's aid and Feidhlimidh was driven out,
but returned next year and continued to hold his
own.
In 1250, taking advantage of a dispute about the
succession, FitzGerald invaded Tir Conaill but did
not remain there. In 1252, he renewed the attack,
building a new castle near Belleek and another on
the eastern frontier near Banbridge. The viceroy
also came on with a strong army, penetrating into
Tir Eoghain by way of Armagh. O'Neill bent before
the storm and made submission. This was the
culminating point. Next year, 1253, hoping to en-
force his advantage, the viceroy once more invaded
Tir Eoghain, but this time he obtained no submission
and was forced to retreat with heavy loss. O'Neill
forthwith took the offensive, invaded the Earl of
Ulster's territory, and destroyed a number of castles
including the new castle near Banbridge. There is
a lull at the turning of the tide. For several years,
hostilities cease on both sides. Then in 1257, Godfrey
O'Domhnaill, king of Tir Conaill, destroys again the
castle of Caoluisce near Belleek and attacks Sligo,
burning the town. Retiring, he fights a rearguard
action, and both he and Maurice FitzGerald receive
wounds of which they afterwards die.
Under the following year, 1258, is chronicled an
event in itself of the greatest significance and also
an index of the significance of foregoing events. Of
THE IRISH RALLY 331
the unsubdued Irish outside of Ulster, the chief
potentates at this time were Tadhg O'Briain, king
of Thomond, and Aodh O'Connor, king of Connacht,
son of Feidhlimidh who had cast off the authority
of FitzGerald and De Burgh. These two kings as-
sembled their nobles and their forces and marched
together to Caoluisce on the Erne, the site of the
demolished fort. They met there Brian O'Neill,
king of Tyrone, " and," says the annalist, " all those
nobles gave the supreme authority to Brian O'Neill."
That is to say, so far as lay in their power, by a
spontaneous act, they restored the monarchy of
Ireland.
Therefore, when I say that Brian O'Neill's defence
of Ulster, with the co-operation of the kings of Tir-
Conaill, marks the definite rallying point against
the Norman conquest, I give something more than
a private opinion or a modern inference. It is a
fact to which, in the year 1258 on the banks of the
Erne, the kings and nobles and fighting men of
Thomond and Connacht, as well as of Tyrone, render
the clearest and most solemn testimony possible.
Never before in Irish history had the chief provincial
kings thus spontaneously and peacefully awarded the
high-kingship to one of their number. The act im-
plied a repudiation of the authority that set up feudal
lords over Irish kings, and amounted to a declaration
of national independence. Half a century later,
Brian O'Neill's son, in a letter to the Pope, again
declares the Plantagcnet lordship of Ireland to be
null and void and asserts the right of the Irish to
determine their own sovereignty.
332 THE IRISH RALLY
These facts prove that the first factor in the Irish
rally of the thirteenth century was the sense of
nationality, intensified by adversity. Of this we
shall see new and striking proofs.
About this time, the Irish began to strengthen
their domestic polity by adopting the custom of
tanistry.
In 1260, Brian O'Neill led an army of Ulstermen
and Connachtmen against the Earl of Ulster's strong-
hold, Downpatrick. The viceroy, warned of his
movements, was there to meet him. Brian was
defeated and killed, and, as though his death were
a greater glory than his life, he is known to his
countrymen of later times as Brian Catha an Duin,
" Brian of the Battle of Down."
Three years later, in 1263, when king Hakon of
Norway came with his fleet to the Hebrides, he re-
ceived a message from Ireland. Sir George Dasent,
the English editor of the history of king Hakon,
undertakes to say quite gratuitously and quite as
absurdly that this embassy in 1263 came from the
Ostmen of Dublin. The facts are related by Sturla,
a contemporary, a councillor of king Hakon, and no
doubt on the testimony of eye-witnesses. Sturla and
his informants knew the difference between Ostmen
and Irishmen. Sturla says that, after Hakon's first
arrival in the Hebrides, " there came these messages
to him from Ireland, that the Irishmen offered to
come into his power, and said they needed much
that he should free them from that thraldom which
the English had laid on them, for that they held
then all the best towns along the sea. But when
THE IRISH RALLY 333
king Hakon lay at Gigha (off Cantire) he sent men
out to Ireland in a light cutter, and that man with
them who was called Sigurd the South-Islander
{i.e. the Hebridean, no doubt as interpreter). They
were to find out in what way the Irish invited them
to come thither." Before their return, Hakon's
expedition had proved unsuccessful. As he lay at
Lamlash, in the Firth of Clyde, " thither came to
him those men that he had sent to Ireland, and
told him that the Irish would keep the whole host
that winter, on the understanding that king Hakon
would free them from the sway of the English. King
Hakon was very much inclined to sail to Ireland,
but that was much against the mind of all his
people. And so, because the wind was not fair, then
the king held a thing {i.e. an assembly) with his force,
and gave it out that he would give them all leave
to sail to the Hebrides as soon as the wind was fair ;
for the host had fallen short of victuals."
It is not unlikely that Hakon gave the Irish to
understand that he would come to them later.
The entry of his death in the Annals of Ulster shows
that at that time, two months after he left Lamlash,
he was expected in Ireland. The annalist says :
" Ebdonn, king of Norway, dies in the Orkney
Islands on his way to Ireland."
Here we have the second attempt within fifteen
years on the part of the Irish to determine the
sovereignty under which they were to live. There
was a third attempt, in 13 14, after the battle of
Bannockburn, when Domhnall, son of Brian O'Neill,
with other Irish princes, offered the sovereignty of
334 THE IRISH RALLY
Ireland to Robert Bruce, and, at his instance, chose
his brother Edward to be king of Ireland.
A rapid survey of events will enable us to trace
the development of the Irish resistance from these
beginnings. We shall see the extension of Irish rule
over territories once in Feudal occupation, the
destruction or reduction of Feudal castles, the
building of castles by the Irish, the spread of the
galloglass organisation, the renewal of distinctive
elements of national life.
Since the immigration of Hebridean soldiers was
continuous for about three centuries, so as to form
a considerable new element in the population of
Ireland, and since their descendants are numerous
among us to-day, I shall put in a word here about
the principal families that reached Ireland in this
way.
In Tir Conaill, the leaders of galloglasses belonged
to the family of MacSuibhne, englished MacSweeny
or Sweeny.
In Tir Eoghain, MacDomhnaill (englished Mac-
Donnell and MacConnell), MacRuaidhri (englished
MacRory and Rogers), and MacDubhghaill (englished
MacDugall in Scotland, MacDowell and Doyle and
Coyle in Ireland). These three families are descended
from Sumarlidi, first king of Argyle and the Hebrides.
In Connacht, MacDomhnaill, MacRuaidhri and
MacSuibhne. In Munster, MacSuibhne and Mac
Sithigh (englished MacSheehy, Sheehy, and Shee).
This family is a branch of the MacDonnell family.
In Leinster, MacDomhnaill. In Oriel, MacCaba,
" MacCabe."
THE IRISH RALLY 335
Of galloglass commanders on record, those of
the race of Sumarlidi far outnumber all the rest
together.
The galloglass chiefs obtained grants of land for
their support. About a fourth of the whole territory
of Tir Conaill was held by the three MacSuibhnes.
Besides these principal names, many less prominent
surnames, especially in Ulster, are of galloglass origin.
The events hereinafter related are drawn from
the Annals of Ulster mainly.
In 1264, the year after Hakon's death, Aodh
Buidhe O'Neill, who succeeded Brian as king of
Tir Eoghain, extended his sovereignty over Oriel.
After his time, the kings of Tir Eoghain take the
title of kings of Ulster.
1265. The kings of Connacht and Tir Conaill join
forces and destroy the castle of Sligo.
1267. Murchadh MacSuibhne is captured by the
Earl of Ulster and dies in prison. He is the first of
his surname in the Irish record.
1269. Roscommon castle built b\ the viceroy
D'Ufford, and Sligo Castle rebuilt.
1270. The king of Connacht defeats the Earl of
Ulster (lord of Connacht), and next year destroys
the castles of Teach Teampla, Roscommon, Sligo,
and 'Ath Liag ; and the year after, 1272, he destroys
the castle of Rinndown. This king of Connacht was
the same who joined in offering the sovereignty of
Ireland to Brian O'Neill in 1258.
In 1278, Donnchadh O'Briain, king of Thomond,
defeated the Earl of Clare at Quin. His father had
been taken three years earlier by the same Earl of
336 THE IRISH RALLY
Clare and put to death by being drawn asunder by
four horses.
In 1286, Ricard de Burgh, the Red Earl of Ulster,
comes to the front with a sustained effort to recover
power in Ulster and Connacht. Several times he
forced a king of his own choosing on Tir Eoghain in
place of Domhnall O'Neill, son of Brian of the Battle
of Down. Domhnall, however, time after time
recovered the kingship, and held it until his death
in 1325.
1289. De Birmingham is defeated by the Irish
of Offaly, under their king, Calbhach O'Conor.
1290. Toirdhealbach O'Domhnaill, "with the help
of his mother's kindred, the MacDonnells of Scotland,
and many other galloglasses," deposes his brother
and makes himself king of Tir Conaill. This is the
first mention of galloglasses by name and also of
the MacDonnells as galloglass chiefs, in the Annals
of Ulster, but the context indicates that the word
was already in established use.
1291. The Red Earl exacts the hostages of Con-
nacht and harries Tir Conaill.
1292. FitzGerald of Offaly rebuilds the castle of
Sligo and takes the king of Connacht prisoner. Next
year, this king, having got free, destroys the castle
of Sligo.
1295. Geoffrey O'Farrell destroys three border
castles of Meath. The O'Farrell territory was at
this time a small part of the present county of
Leitrim. It was gradually extended after this until
it comprised the county of Longford in addition.
Longford takes its name from Longphort Ui Fhear-
THE IRISH RALLY 537
ghail, " O'Farrell's camp," a name significant of the
new military organisation.
1305. Sir Piers de Bermingham caused three of
the Irish ruling family of Offaly and twenty-nine
nobles of their people to be murdered at a banquet
to which he had invited them in his own castle.
For this he received a reward in money from the
Viceroy and Council, with the consent of Ricard de
Burgh, Earl of Ulster.
In the same year, the Earl of Ulster built a castle
in Inishowen, no doubt with a view to commanding
Loch Foyle and hindering the landing of galloglasses.
It may be noted that the Irish name of Milford
Haven, a little farther west, is Port na nGalloglach,
" the port of the galloglasses." This year we find
a MacSuibhne in command of galloglasses in Breifne.
1307. Donnchadh O'Ceallaigh, king of Ui Maine,
in retaliation for the burning of his town of Ath
Eascrach, attacks Roscommon, kills a great part of
the defenders, and captures the Sheriff.
1308. The Foreigners of North Connacht are de-
feated by the Irish at Ballysodare.
1 3 10. Geoffrey O'Farrell marches against Donore
Castle in Westmeath, and Ruaidhri, king of Con-
nacht, attacks the De Burgh castle of Bun Finne.
1 31 5. At the instance of the northern Irish, Robert
Bruce, having himself declined to accept the
sovereignty of Ireland, sends his brother Edward
to Ireland at the head of a strong expedition.
Now that wc have reached this point, it is fairly
evident that the Bruce invasion, so far from being
the origin or cause of the Irish reaction against
338 THE IRISH RALLY
Feudalism and the English sovereignty, was itself
a consequence of that reaction. Notwithstanding
several great victories and successful marches through
the country, Edward Bruce showed himself incapable
of any constructive policy. His victories were more
than counterbalanced by the crushing defeat of the
western Irish at Athenry and by his own defeat and
death at Fochairt, near Dundalk, in 1318. The
northern annalist, in chronicling this event, makes it
plain that the Irish of Ulster who suffered least
during the invasion, knew no reason to grieve over
its ending. This is his record of the event :
1 3 18. " Edward Bruce, the destroyer of Ireland
in general, of Irish as well as Foreigners, is killed
by the Foreigners of Ireland through strength of
fighting at Dundalk, and along with him are killed
MacRuaidhri, king of the Hebrides, and MacDomh-
naill, king of Argyle." In the previous year, the
same annalist tells that Robert Bruce came to Ireland
to aid his brother in expelling the Foreigners, and
brought with him many galloglasses. It may be
noted that the purpose, " to expel the Foreigners,"
is identical with that proposed half a century earlier
by the Irish embassy to King Hakon. The failure
of Edward Bruce, after a campaign of four years,
must have restored some of the lost prestige of the
Feudal colonists. On the other hand, the Irish of
Thomond, by the defeat and death of Ricard de
Clare, rid themselves of invasion.
We come now to the next event which has been
described as the turning point in the fortunes of
the great struggle. In 1326, the Red Earl died,
THE IRISH RALLY 339
having recovered all that he had lost in East Ulster
from Bruce's occupation, but not all in the same
condition as before. He was succeeded by his son,
the Brown Earl, William de Burgh. A feud arose
among the De Burghs, and the young earl captured
his kinsman Walter de Burgh, and starved him to
death in the Red Earl's new castle of Inishowen.
Death by starvation in prison is so frequent an
incident of the Feudal regime as to suggest that these
magnates obeyed the commandment, " Thou shalt
not kill," by allowing God to allow their enemy to
die, themselves not interfering. The event shows
that, despite the Bruce invasion, the old earl held
on to his isolated fortress among his Ulster enemies.
The kinsmen and friends of Walter de Burgh avenged
his death by assassinating the young earl near
Carrickfergus. He died without male heir, his sole
child, an infant daughter, became by law the ward
of the king of England, who made her over in
marriage, with the titular lordships of Connacht and
Ulster, to his son Lionel, duke of Clarence.
Sir John Gilbert, in his history of the Viceroys of
Ireland, writes soberly and judiciously. He has one
weakness. Just as Mr. Orpen revels in grants of
land, which he takes to be the bedrock of civilisation,
and therefore declares to have been no structural
element in the Irish polity, attaching to them a
sacred efficacy of which neither Henry II. nor John
nor their grantees in Ireland appear to have been
fully sensible ; so Gilbert revels in details of court
procedure, and overloads his book with them : to
be excused, perhaps, on the ground that he is writing
340 THE IRISH RALLY
the history of a court not of a country and people.
Gilbert does not regard the Bruce invasion as a
deciding factor in the attempted conquest ; but he
does attach this character to the demise of the
Feudal lordships of Connacht and Ulster from the
great house of De Burgh, resident in Ireland, upon a
branch of the Plantagenets, absentees in England.
He pictures to us the De Burgh chiefs forthwith
abandoning their allegiance to the English sovereign
as lord of Ireland and at the same time suddenly
adopting the language, laws, customs and manners
of the Irish ; and the other Feudal lords infected by
their example. We may readily believe that the
titular dominion of the De Burgh earls over Connacht
and Ulster had been a strong incentive to urge them
to complete the conquest of those provinces, and the
Feudal authority exercised by the earls, backed up
by the power of the viceroys, furnished military
resources which might conceivably have sufficed for
such a conquest. It is further probable that Feudal
law, so far as it could subject the De Burghs to the
dominion of an absent prince, found little favour with
them. There is no evidence forthcoming that the
De Burghs in the fourteenth century were more
reverent than De Prendergast, De Courci, or the
De Lascis of the invasion period in their interpreta-
tion of the obligations of Feudal allegiance. Their
loyalty was measured by the power and prestige of
their overlord, so far as he could make it felt. The
decline of the Feudal regime was as much cause as
effect of the estrangement of the De Burghs from
the English interest. As for any sudden change of
THE IRISH RALLY 341
language, we must bear in mind that the " Anglo-
Normans ' of the invasion did not speak English.
So far as their language was not French, it was
Welsh, with a mixture of Flemish. There was not
much use for any of these languages in Connacht,
where the De Burghs and other Feudal settlers led
Irish armies and intermarried with Irish families.
In short, the sudden and deliberate turning Irish of
the De Burghs, after they had killed ofl their last
earl, seems to be no better than a fantastic inference.
Instead of adopting any common counsel or common
policy, the De Burgh chiefs, after the Earl's assassina-
tion, engaged in violent warfare against each other.
From this time on we can trace the gradual and
rapid spread of the galloglass organisation in various
parts of Ireland ; and this continues until the time
of Elizabeth who employed galloglasses on her
own side and rewarded their chiefs with grants of
Irish land. Meanwhile resurgent Ireland began to
assimilate her "Old Foreigners." In 1374, the
annalist, recording the death of Jenkin Savage, says
that " he leaves poetry an orphan." This foster-
father of Irish poetry was of the family of old Sir
Robert Savage who said " a castle of bones is better
than a castle of stones," Feudal lord of the Ards in
East Ulster.
The year after his death, 1375, a second battle
of Downpatrick was fought. The Irish were com-
manded by Niall O'Neill, great-grandson of " Brian
of the battle of Down," so little were the Irish of
that age daunted by the apparent disasters of their
forefathers. The Foreigners were commanded by
342
THE IRISH RALLY
Sir James Talbot of Malahide. O'Neill was
victorious. Talbot fell in the fight. The battle
put an end to the Feudal dominion established over
East Ulster by the valiant de Courci. Of this fact
we have a striking proof in the succession of bishops
to the sees, then separate, of Down and Connor.
From De Courci's time until the second battle of
Down, during two centuries, no man of the Irish
nation had been allowed to hold either bishopric.
Soon after this, we find appointed bishop of Connor
a man named O'Lucharain, and Irish surnames
become very frequent in the clergy of both Down and
Connor.
In 1384, Niall O'Neill attacked and destroyed
the fortress of Carrickfergus, and (says the annalist)
" obtained great power over the Foreigners." In
1392, the Feudal colonists of Dundalk submitted to
him. In the record of his death in 1397, he is
entitled " king of Ulster."
About this time, Eoin MacDomhnaill, brother to
Domhnall of Harlaw, king of Argyle and the Islands,
acquired the Feudal title to the Glens of Antrim
through marriage to the heiress of Biset. Having
taken possession, the MacDonnells did not concern
themselves about Feudal duties to an overlord, an
Earl of Mortimer or an Earl of March. Afterwards,
in the official language of the Elizabethan govern-
ment, the MacDonnells of the Glens were intruding
Scots : a point of view which their chief, Somhairle
Buidhe, countered bluntly by proclaiming that
" plainly the English have no right to be in
Ireland."
THE IRISH RALLY 343
In the fourteenth century and still more in the
fifteenth, the Irish built castles for themselves and
took possession of many castles built for their sub-
jugation. They turned the policy of incastellation
against its proprietors and patentees. In this they
were facilitated by the galloglass organisation,
always ready for military service. The principal
family of galloglass chiefs, the MacDonnells, had
for their heraldic motto " Toujours prets " — " always
ready." In this period, too, a number of the old
petty kingdoms, after long abeyance under Feudal
lords, once more emerge into prominence.
In 1423, the Irish of Tir Eoghain and Tir Conaill,
aided now by the Irish of East Ulster, defeat the
viceroy, the Earl of Ormond, at Dundalk. In 1425,
the Earl of March, heir to the lordship of Ulster and
Connacht, is sent to Ireland as viceroy and receives
the formal submission of the Ulster princes. This
does not count for much, for in five years time
Eoghan O'Neill, son of the king of Ulster, received
in his father's name the allegiance of O'Farrell,
king of Annaly, O'Connor, king of Offaly, O'Molloy,
king of Fir Ceall, O'Melaghlin, titular king of Mcath,
and other Irish rulers in the midlands ; also of
Nugent, Baron of Delvin, the Plunkcts, the Herberts,
and the Foreigners of Wcstmeath in general. This,
in the year 1430, marks the highest point of power
reached by the kings of Tir Eoghain at any time.
On his father's death in 1432, Eoghan O'Neill, says
the annalist, " went to Tulach 'Og, and was there
inaugurated king on the stone of the kings by the
will of God and men, of bishops and chief poets,"
344 THE IRISH RALLY
In the year following, 1433, Margaret, daughter
of O'Carroll, king of Eile, and wife of O'Connor,
king of Offaly, held those two festivals for the
learned of Ireland that have been justly described
as national events of high and singular importance,
proving that the Irish of that time acted on a clear
and definite consciousness of nationality. It should
however, be made plain that Margaret's achieve-
ment marked no new expression of the national
consciousness, either in conception or execution.
Eighty- two years earlier, in 135 1, what we may
call a fair of Irish learning was held by William
O'Kelly, king of Ui Maine, in his own territory.
A contemporary account of O'Kelly's assemblage
has been left us by one of his guests, Gofraidh
Fionn 'O Dalaigh, official poet to MacCarthy, king
of Desmond. Miss Knott, who has edited the
poem in 'Eriu,1 says properly that these assemblies
of the learned under Irish rulers had a political
import : the poets fulfilling in that age a function
proper to the journalists of our time.
The poet makes the occasion clear. O'Kelly had
regained power in his ancestral territory, long under
the control of the Foreigners, whom he had expelled,
and was about to divide it again among his own
people. In celebration of his good fortune, he offers
a Christmas feast to all the men of learning and art
of his nation : to the seven orders of poets, to the
jurists, the historians, musicians, craftsmen, and
jugglers also and jesters. Wide avenues were laid
out with lines of conical roofed houses of timber
» " Eriu," vol. V., page 50.
THE IRISH RALLY 345
and wickerwork : a street for the poets, one for
the musicians, one for the chroniclers and genealogists,
one for the rhymers and jugglers. These structures
are compared to the letters on a page, O' Kelly's
castle to the illuminated capital letter at their head.
Craftsmen are busy carving animal figures on its
oakwork. It is in the midst of a rich country, re-
conquered by O' Kelly. On its bounds are Athenry,
Athlone, and Athleague, three famous fords. " Loch
Derg, a cause of pride, Loch Ree with its green
marshes, these blue bays on which the sun shines
brightly are the boundaries of William's land."
Before William's ancestors, the land belonged to the
hero Goll MacMorna and his brethren. It is a
country of plenty, with every variety of surface,
tillage and grasslands and forest. " We men of learn-
ing have come through evil days — the time of con-
quest and disruption — our lore neglected, our affluence
reduced, most of our country against us ; but a better
time has come. Our host to-night has delivered us
from sorrow."
It was among a people once more confident of
the future that a congress of this kind was planned
and successfully held. The poet bears witness that
the king's invitation has brought together a con-
course from every part of Ireland, from Ulster,
Thomond, Desmond, Leinster and Meath. The
annals tell us they came away well pleased. Could
any event be more typical of a conscious and con-
structive national idea ?
In 1387, Niall 'O'Neill the younger, in the reign
of his father, the victor of Downpatrick, built a
346 THE IRISH RALLY
hostel for the learned of all Ireland in Eamhain
Macha, the site of the ancient home of the kings
of Ulster. Margaret O'CarrolPs great festival of the
learned in 1433 was thus the third such occasion
within three generations, noteworthy above the
other two in this respect among others, that it re-
vived the fulness of national tradition on the very
borders of the Pale.
The true beginning of the Irish rally was in the
minds of those kings and nobles and fighting men
of Thomond and Connacht who marched to the
Erne in 1258 to offer the headship of the free Irish
to a king of Tir Eoghain. Both O'Brien and
O'Connor were closer in the line of descent to
kings of Ireland than O'Neill was. There was no
country in Europe at that time whose magnates
were not willing to have civil war rather than
abandon plausible claims to sovereignty. From
this worthy beginning I have traced the progress
of resurgent Ireland down to a worthy fruition, the
generous homage of an Irish queen to that literary
tradition which, as Mrs. Green has so clearly shown
us in a recent work, is the most characteristic
element in Irish nationality. And there I leave
the story.
Another time of dark adversity came afterwards.
What stands for the history of Ireland in that dark
time is mainly the history of a government which
nobody pretends to have been Irish. We need a
new history from the fifteenth century onward,
written out of the records of the Irish people. But
as I have set down the Irish rally as the subject of
THE IRISH RALLY 347
this lecture, I may properly be asked now this
resurgent movement ended. I shall go as near as
I can to imitate the brevity of Sir Robert Savage.
The Plantagenets invoked Peter, the Tudors in-
voked saltpetre. When the Plantagenets undertook
to become missionaries in Ireland, and incidentally
to pay Peter's Pence, as Giraldus says, out of the
profits, they were under the impression that Irish
kings had control of secret gold mines. When
Elizabeth's ministers professed a yearning to bring
the Irish to civility, they were calculating how
much land could be acquired by the expenditure of
the stock of saltpetre available from time to time at
so much per ton. It may shock the proper sense
of the " Ireland under " historians that this villain-
ous substance should be blown betwixt the wind and
their civility, but just as the true keynote of what
is called "Ireland under the Normans" is incastella-
tion, so the true keynote of " Ireland under the
Tudors ' is gunpowder. There is more mental
profit in one fact of this kind than in the painful
perusal of stacks of State papers, evidence mainly
against those who write them.
I must say that Irish history in the diatribal
stage afflicts me much less than Irish history in
popular handbooks. This lecture has not exhausted
the subject from the time of Brian O'Neill to
the time of Margaret O'Carroll — less than two
centuries. I claim to have shown evidence of
real life, growth, development, purpose and spirit
in the Irish nation during that time. Take up one
of these popular handbooks and what will you find ?
348 THE IRISH RALLY
The dissensions of the Irish clans, Edward Bruce's
invasion, the perpetual Statute of Kilkenny, and
how Richard II. fared in Ireland. Much is made
of the Statute of Kilkenny, as though its oppressive
operation were a necessary consequence of its record
on the Statute Book. The Irish dissensions are
gravely deprecated. They are the whole history
of the nation during all this period, and one example
is given as sufficing for all. It tells how Godfrey
O'Donnell, after his fight with FitzGerald near Sligo,
returned to Tir Conaill never to recover from his
wounds ; how Brian O'Neill used the occasion to
invade Tir Conaill ; how O'Donnell had himself
borne on a litter at the head of his forces, routed
O'Neill, and died in the hour of victory. All this
story indeed is related in a Latin chronicle of uncer-
tain date and the place of battle is not mentioned.
The contemporary Annals of Ulster are the most
copious and minute record for that time of the
affairs of Tir Eoghain and Tir Conaill, having been
written not far from the border of the two territories.
They say nothing about an invasion of Tir Conaill
or about any battle or hostility between the two
kings. They relate the death of O'Donnell in these
words only : ," quievit in Ckristo " — " he fell asleep
in Christ," the customary formula of the obit of a
churchman or of a layman who died in religious
retirement in a monastery. This leaves the romantic
battle story open to question. Whether the story
be truth or fiction, when it stands with Edward
Bruce, Richard II., and the Statute of Kilkenny, as
a representation of Irish history during the period
THE IRISH RALLY 349
with which this lecture is concerned, it is not the
truth of history. Not indolence nor want of access
to the materials produces popular history of this
sort. It is the product of a peculiar obsession of
mind, that makes Ireland appear a sort of hotel, in
which the important people are always distinguished
visitors, and the permanent residents, when they are
not under orders, are occupied with quarrelling
children and other household worries in the garret
or the basement.
I have said in a former lecture that the " clan
system," or, as some prefer to say, the " tribal
system," of medieval Ireland, is a modern notion and
is an illusion. Its basis is found in the prominence
given in Irish literature to the aristocratic kindreds
and in the Irish custom of naming territorial divisions
by the names of the septs to which their lords be-
longed. From this has arisen the notion that the
sept or clan from whom a territory was named was
the people of the territory. The illusion has been
enlarged by the loose use of the term " tribe," which
quotation has shown applied to a family group con-
sisting of the children, grandchildren and great-
grandchildren of one man ; the same term being
applied to an ancient aristocratic kindred like Dal
Cuinn, spread over nearly half of Ireland. Common
tenure of land by a family group, necessitating
redistribution of the land as new generations come
forward, with the use of the term " tribe " to denote
such groups, has created the further illusion of a
tribal territory held in common and periodically
redistributed. These things being illusions, I am
350 THE IRISH RALLY
reminded that I have not endeavoured to set out
the facts in their stead.
Let me then take a particular territory like
William O'Kelly's kingdom of Ui Maine. In the
fifth century, the lordship of this territory, carrying
the title of king, was granted by a king of Connacht
to his kinsman Maine. His descendants, called
Ui Maine, were the principal nobility of the territory
in later times. Before Maine, the territory belonged
to a Pictish folk, the Sogini or Soghain, also found
in other parts of the country. This Pictish folk
continued to inhabit the territory under the rule
of the sept of Maine, and under the subordinate
rule of their own nobles. But even before Maine's
time, the population did not consist of a homogeneous
tribe of Sogini, for we find record of another folk
dwelling there, distinguished from the Picts and
classed among the Fir Iboth, i.e. the Ebudeans or
Hebrideans ; and their descendants also remained
in occupation, and are named and located in medieval
documents. Successive conquests established various
degrees of freedom, the measure of freedom being
the degree of immunity from tributes and services.
Besides these permanent inhabitants, there were
landless immigrants who obtained holdings of land
on very exacting terms, mitigated, however, by law
after long continued occupancy. At the bottom of
the scale, there were slaves, who could be bought,
sold, or given away. In historical time, the slaves
were never numerous.
In addition there were professional men, the
brehons or jurists, the poets and historians, the
THE IRISH RALLY 351
physicians, the musicians ; and with these must
be classed the master craftsmen. All these had
lands for their support. In the later age, lands
were also set apart for the captains of galloglasses
and the constables of castles. The law of the family
or the fine governed all property in land, including
the high proprietorship of the ruler. Under this
and other influences, every calling tended to be
hereditary in the Irish sense, not necessarily from
father to son, but within the legal family group.
It is even clear from the annals that the clergy
were drawn from certain families much more than
from others.
There were common rights over rough land un-
suitable for tillage. The remainder of the land was
apportioned among family groups. There may have
been an older system of a more communal character,
for there is a tradition or legend about the enclosure
and specific apportionment of the lands of Ireland
in the reign of Aodh Slaine, about a.d. 600.
Any king or lord could make grants of land within
his jurisdiction ; and this can be shown to have
been done in every age from the fifth to the sixteenth
century.
In every large territory there were church lands.
The inhabitants of a church estate formed a little
body politic by themselves, with a chief of their
own, the airchinncch (oirchinneach, " erenach," or
" herenagh "). O'Donovan thought that the lay
succession to this title was a consequence of the
disorder caused by the Norse wars ; in any case, it
was merely an assimilation of the temporal govern-
352 THE IRISH RALLY
merit of church lands to the ordinary civil polity.
The airchinnech was obliged to provide from his
revenue for the support of the clergy and the main-
tenance of religious services. Otherwise, his status
was that of any territorial lord. In medieval Ireland,
as elsewhere, we find the conflict between Church and
State about the immunity of Church possessions
from rendering tributes and services to the secular
prince.
On broad and simple lines, the government of an
Irish State resembled that of the Roman republic,
with the king added as chief officer of State.
Authority belonged to the patrician class, con-
ditioned only by the prudential maxim, is treise
tuatb na tighearna — " a people is stronger than a
lord." Of the election of a king I know only one
detailed account — the last instance in history — the
election of Aodh Ruadh O'Domhnaill in 1593. The
nobles, meeting apart, came to a decision, and
then brought it before the popular assembly for
ratification. New laws, and even important legal
decisions, such as the sentence of death or deposition
of a king, were also proposed for ratification by
assemblies.
The executive functions of the king and the
relations of subordinate to superior kings are well
indicated in a law tract printed by Meyer in Eriu.
It deals with a case in which a plaintiff or creditor
has a claim to recover against a defendant or
debtor who belongs to a different State. The
plaintiff's king has no jurisdiction over the de-
fendant. He must refer it to the next superior
THE IRISH RALLY 353
king, called " the king of a major State." If the
defendant is outside of this king's jurisdiction, the
major king must have recourse to the next higher
authority, traditionally called " the king of a fifth."
This king, if his jurisdiction does not extend to
the defendant, must take the case to the king of
Ireland, whose duty it will then be to levy the
claim.
From this it follows that, when the parties at
litigation were both subjects of the same petty king,
it was his duty and function to give effect to the
law as between them.
The Irish Record Reports contain particulars of a
class of State papers, the Fiants, which, especially
for the reign of Elizabeth, contain lists of the
principal followers of various Irish chiefs. No one
who examines these lists will entertain the illusion
that the people of an Irish territory were a homo-
geneous clan. In a single list of the principal
followers of O'Donnell, there are close on 150 distinct
surnames, and among these the O'Donnells form a
very small fraction. With regard to occupation, in
these lists we find gentlemen, veomen, husbandmen,
surgeons, physicians, priests, rhymers, harpers,
pipers, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, tailors, butchers,
carpenters, masons, etc., and on the military side,
horsemen, kerns, and galloglasses.
There is no doubt that life in ancient Ireland was
for the most part rural life. It did not reach that
social intensity and complexity which arc peculiar
to towns and to countries in which town life is.
dominant. Nevertheless it was probably as high.
23
354 THE IRISH RALLY
a development of rural life as any country had
produced in any age.
What I have said about Irish institutions has of
necessity taken often the form of an apologia ; of
necessity, because I have found the balance heavily
weighted down. But, one may object, there must
have been some radical defect in this ancient civilisa-
tion, otherwise its inherent soundness would have
been more secure against either castles or saltpetre.
How came it that a brave and intelligent and
energetic people did not keep itself in the forefront
of western development ?
My answer to that is, that Ireland was ruled by a
patrician class — and that is not all, for other
countries have made remarkable progress under a
patrician rule. The Irish nobility were rendered
incapable of using their intelligence to profit with
the times by one defect — they were perhaps the
most intensely proud class of men that ever existed.
This pride was bred in their bones. It came to
them out of an immemorial past. The history of
the Gaelic people falls into cycles of four centuries,
beginning with our earliest knowledge of the Celts
in the Hallstatt Period. There are four centuries
of conquest, expansion and domination, before the
Celts came to Ireland. By this time, pride of race
was already their dominant sentiment. A Latin
poet has described a Celtic general :
" Before the rest, the rapid wing of the Boii, led
on by Crixus, charges headlong into the foremost
ranks and their gigantic limbs engage in battle,
Crixus himself, swelling with ancestral pride, boasted
THE IRISH RALLY 355
his descent from Brennus, and bore for his token
the capture of the Capitol. His shield depicted the
Celts weighing out the gold of Rome. His milk-
white neck gleamed with a golden torque, his rai-
ment was embroidered with gold, the sleeves were
stiff with gold, and the same metal formed his
helmet's nodding crest."
Four centuries more established the Celtic rule
in Ireland. Their rule in Ireland remained secure
during four centuries of Roman domination in Gaul
and Britain. During four centuries of Germanic
invasion and conquest, Ireland stood intact. After
four centuries of Norse supremacy over neighbouring
seas and lands, Ireland emerged unconquered. Two
thousand years of unbroken sway may suffice to set
pride above prudence in the tradition of any class.
At the end of another cycle, when the Irish nobles
were scattered over Europe, the nobility of their
bearing and the distinction of their manners won
admiration for them in every land but one.
This intense pride is blazoned on the pages of
our medieval literature, in annals, genealogies, stories,
poems. The poets lived by ministering to it. In
this respect, too, we can see the analogy with a
good deal of modern journalism.
Too much pride blinded the native rulers of
Ireland to the insecurity of their state, and made
them careless of their safety, and neglectful of the
measures it required. Glorying in the long vista
of their past, they did not look before them. They
were conservative, inadaptable, unproviding. Herein
lay the fatal weakness of medieval Ireland.
356 THE IRISH RALLY
We are now nearing the end of the seventh cycle.
It has brought us a different experience. I must
not speculate upon the outcome. If only I have
succeeded in convincing you that Irish history must
contain life, movement, colour, coherence, and human
interest, beyond anything depicted of it in many
books that have been written about it, with that
and the recollection of your kind support I make a
well contented conclusion.
INDEX
A
Aed Bennun ( ao-6 t3eAnriAn),
power of, 237
Agricola conquers the Britons,
36 ; intends the conquest of
Ireland, 136
Ailbhe, Saint, date of, 161
Ailech (OileAc), kingdom of,
184 ; growth in power, 277
airchinnech (oi]icinneAc, " ere-
nagh," " herenagh "), office
of, 351
airecht (oipeAcc), court of as-
sembly, 320
Airgialla (Oi|i siaUa, " Oriel "),
126 ; varying extent of, 185,
278
Aithech-thuatha, 148
Amorgen (AmAinjeAn, Ainii)i-
5eAn), legend of, 97
Anglo-Norman aggression, false
pretext of, 286
Anglo-Norman conquest, fail-
ure of, 323 ; supposed causes
of failure, 324 ; extent of,
327 ; rally begins against,
328 ; details of rally, 335
Anglo-Norman invasion, de-
ls of, 308-31 I
Anglo-Normans, [rish assimi-
La1 ion of, 341
Annals, restricted scope of the,
178
Aristocracy, intense pride of,
354
Armagh founded, 160; school
of, a national university, 284
Assemblies, 138. 320; of the
learned. ■', I 1
Atecotti, 144, 146, 147-149
B
Bede describes Ireland, 195;
relates Irish migration to
Scotland, 195, 196
Belach Mugna (toeAlAc ITU1511A
" Ballaghmoon "), battle of,
2C0
Belgae, origin of, 18 ; " Bryth-
ons," a supposed branch of, 42
Belgic migrations, 52 ; ex-
tended to Ireland, 57
Bernard, Saint, of Clairvaux,
his interest in Ireland, 281
Black Pig's Dyke, 131
" Book of Invasions," a nation-
al epic, 96
" Book of Rights," contents
of, 274
B6ramha tribute, 238
Brega (t^eAgA, " Bregia "),
kingdom of, 235
Bregon (t>neoj;An), legend of,
93
Brian Boramha. birth of, 266;
his allies, 268 ; his policy,
269-272
Britain, Irish invasion of, 141,
[rish sell Lements in, 155
British ethnography exempli-
fied, 3'2
Britons, effect of [toman con-
quest on, 34-37 ; displaced
from Scotland, 202 ; in Irish
wars, 203
Brittani, Brittania, origin of
tin- names, 58
357
358
INDEX
Bronze Age in Ireland, date of,
43 ; not Celtic, 44-46, 70 ;
tillage in Ireland during, 72
Brown Earl of Ulster, 339
Brace, Edward, chosen king of
Ireland, 334 ; conies to Ire-
land, 337
Bruce, Robert, sovereignty of
Ireland offered to, 333, 337
" Brythons," 34, 43, 45
C
Caesar, Julius on Ireland. 134
Caledones, 143
Cathal, king of Munster, 237
Cashel (c&ireAl TTlutiiAn) " dis-
covered," 127 ; synod of, 286
Cellachan (CeAllACAn), king of
Munster, 266
Celtae of Gallia Celtica, sup-
posed identity of Gaels with,
42
Celtic antiquity, growth of
learned and popular interest
in, 6-9
Celtic migrations to Britain and
Ireland, current British
theory of, 32 ; approximate
earliest date of, 48 ; tradi-
tions concerning, 49, 50 ;
archaeological evidence of,
51, 52
Celtic origin of Gaels and
Britons forgotten by them-
selves, brought to light by
Buchanan, 4-5
Celtic religion, 30
Celtic resistance to Norsemen,
254
Celtic studies : initiated by
Buchanan, 5 ; developed by
Llwyd, 6 ; stimulated by
Gray, 7 ; and still more by
Macpherson, 8
Celtic words in the Germanic
languages, 17, 18
Celto-Germanic population, 18-
25
Celts : the name indicative of
linguistic not racial descent,
1-3 ; earliest accounts of ;
early relations with Germans,
15-25 ; ancient civilisation
of, 25
Cerdraige (ce&n'ot<A15e)> 76
Christian era in Irish chrono-
logy, 223
Christians in Ireland before St.
Patrick, 161-167
Chronology of pre-Christian
Ireland, 49
Church, effect of the Anglo-
Norman invasion on the, 28S,
308
Church lands, 351
Ciaran of Saighir, Saint, 161
" Cities " in Ireland, mentioned
by Ptolemy, 137, 138
" Clan system," notions of, 289,
349, 353
Clann Cholmain dynasty, 236
Clontarf , character of the battle
of, 272 ; effect on Norsemen,
273
Coiced (cuiseA-o), significance
of, 101
Coirpre Nia Fer (CAi^b^e Hia
•peAji), king of North Leinster,
104, 106
Collas, the Three, 124
Columban monasteries, re-
organisation of, 284
Commios and his sons, 167-170
Communal land tenure, true
and false notions of, 295,
351
Connacht (CotitiAccA), ancient
extent of, 112, 186
Constantine, Donation of, 17
INDEX
359
Copper mines in Ireland, their
remote antiquity, 71
Copper Period in Ireland,
43,70
Copper rivets, ancient industry
in, 75
Corcu Loegdae (Co^ca Laoij-
•oe), 162
Cormac, king of Munster, 260
Cormac, king of Tara, 120 ; his
reign an epoch, 124
Craftsmen enfranchised. 229
Crinna, battle of, 120
Cruithin, the Irish name of the
Picts, 59, 63
Cu Chulainn, 79
Cu Roi (Cu TtAoi), 102
D
Dairine, 162
Dal Araidhe, 185
Dal gCais, " Dalcassians," ris-
ing power of, 266, 268
Dal Riada, 185, 194-200, 203
Danes arrive in Ireland, 253
Danish kings of the Hebrides,
212
Dathi = Nath- 'I, 157
De Burgh family, their alleged
change in policy, 340
Declan (-gia^Iati), Saint, 161
Derbfine (-oeipupno), signifi-
cance of, 230, 290
D6si, Deisi, migration of, 109,
128
Druim Ceata, assembly of, 197
Dublin first fortified, 251 ; be-
comes seat of Norse kingd< < 1 1 1 .
J.V2 ; battle of, 264
Dumbarton, " stronghold of
the Britons," 198, 204 ; cap-
tured by Dublin Norsemen.
255
Dynastic polity, 177
E
Eblana, Eblani, 137
Ecclesiastical reform, 281-288
'Eire, 'Eriu, origin of the name,
67
Emain (ati eAtiiAin. " the
Navan "), 115
England before the Anglo-
Norman invasion of Ireland,
305 ; racial type now preva-
lent in, 39
English invade Ireland, a.d.
684, 201
English power recovered
through firearms and artil-
lery, 347
Eochu Feidlech (eocAi-6 peni>-
Igac), 118
Eochu MacLuchtai (eocAi-6
rrtAc Ixicca), king of Munster,
103, 104
Eterscel (ei-nipr >eAl), king of
Ireland, 109
Eoghanachta, origin of, 127 ;
states of, 186 ; maximum
power and decline of, 260-
262
'Erainn, 'Erna, " Erneans,"
65-68, 104 ( = Iverni)
" erenagh "=airchinnech
Etruscan alphabet in Cisalpine
Gaul, 167
Eusebius, Irish writers influ-
enced by, 89
F
IVidhlimidh, king of Munster,
259
Peidhlimidh, king of Connacht,
career or. 828
Per Diad iv*v tiia-6), 79
Fergus (pcArsiir) defends the
Galians, 81
Fergus mac Eire, n<>, 194
360
INDEX
Fiachu Sroibtine (Paca S^Aip-
cme), 124
Fiana, 150
Find Fili (porm pile), king of
South Leinster, 104, 106, 110
Fionn Bheara a Celtic god, 87
Fir Bolg, 77, 79
Fir Domhnann, 79
Fir Iboth (Uboc), 74 (=Ebu-
deans )
Fit zGc raid, Maurice, career of,
328
Five-fold division of Ireland in
ancient tradition, 102
Flemish, settlers in Ireland, 303
Fochairt, battle of, 338
Fochla, kingdom of the, 185
Fomori (-potiionAis), 85, 87
G
Gabhair in Leinster between
the two ancient provinces,
107
Gaelic settlements in Britain,
origin of, 46
Gaels, legendary origin of, 90
Galians (gAileoin), 80, 104
Gall-Ghaedhil or Norse-Irish,
211, 252
Gall6glaich, " galloglasses,"
326 ; commanders of, 334 ;
first record of, 336 ; spread
of, 341
Gaulish settlers in Ireland, 128
Genealogies help to explain
the annals, 179, 183, 194
Geography in ancient Irish
schools, 92
Germans and Celts, early rela-
tions between, 15-25
Glacial period in Ireland, 69
Gold in ancient Ireland, 71
Gormlaith, career of, 262
Government of an Irish state,
character of, 352
Grants of land, 297 ; to Gallo-
glach commanders, 335
Grants of lordship, 177
Greek alphabet used in Gaul,
167
Greek in ancient Irish schools,
243
H
Hakon, king of Norway, loses
control of Hebrides, 216 ;
Irish sovereignty offered to,
332
Heathen lore, ancient Irish, 176
Hebrides, 74
Hebridean forces, 325 ; first
appearance in Ireland, 329
Heptarchy in Ireland, 113
" herenagh " — airchinnech
Hiberni, Hibernia, origin of the
names, 67
History of Ireland, how con-
structed by ancient writers,
89, 98 ; earliest documents
of, 114, 175 ; distorted views
of, 347
Ibar (iud&iO, Saint, date of, 161
Ibdaig (11jx>ai5), Ebudeans, 74
Iberi in Irish legend, 91
Iberians, supposed early in-
habitants of Britain, 40-42 ;
supposed traces of, 62
Inber Scene (inoeAfi Sseine),
legend of, 93-95
Incastellation policy of Anglo-
Normans adopted by Irish,
343
Industrial tribes of pre-Celtic
origin, 75-79, 82
Intercourse with the Continent,
242
Iona granted to St. Columba,
197
INDEX
361
Irish, civilisation, chief defect
of, 354
Irish forces under Roman com-
mand, 151
Irish language, ancient learned
jargon of, 165
Irish law, features of, 312
Irish learning, characteristics
of, 240-244
Irish manuscript orthography,
origin of, 174
Iron Age in Britain, supposed
to have been introduced by
Belgae, 42
Iron, Celtic expansion facili-
tated by possession of, 153
Iverni, 65-68, 104
K
Kenneth MacAlpin (CionAo-6
itiac Aitpin), 204
Kingship, law of succession to,
230
Kings, functions of, 352
Lagin Tuad-Gabair (IA15111
Cua-o-Jaoaih), L. Des- (Jab-
air (T)eAf-5ADAi|i), 107
Latin in ancient Irish schools.
241
" Laudabiliter," 286
Law, courts of, 318
Law of succession, evil conse-
quences of, 294, 300
Learning in Ireland, Zimmer's
account, 164 ; testimony of
Saint Columbanus, 166
Leinater, ancient extent of, 108,
122, 129, 186 ; struggle lor
lost territory of, 188 ; tribute,
238
Letters in Britain, introduction
of, 167-170
Limerick. Norse settlement at,
262
Lincolnshire, pseudo-scientific
ethnography exemplified in
the case of, 32
Literature in Ireland, begin-
nings of, 167
Loeguire (lAogAipe), king of
Ireland, 182, 188
Luaighni, 80, 104
Luguid (tusAi-6), king of Ire-
land, 190-193
M
MacCaba(" MacCabe ") family,
334
MacDomhnaill (" MacDonnell,
^JaeConnell," etc.) family,
334 ; obtains Irish territory,
219, 342
MacDubhghaill (" MacDugall,
MacDowell, Doyle, Coyle ")
family, 334
MacRuaidhri (" MacRory,
Rogers ") family, 334
MacSithigh (" MacSheehy,
Sheehy, Shee ") family, 334
MacSuibhne (" MacSweeney,
Sweeny ") family, 334 ; first
record of, 335
-MagRoth, niAj;nAc = Moira
Magnus, king of Norway, fails
to restore Norse power, 280
Malachy (IHaoL m'Ao-oos),
Saint, 281
Mathgamain ( 111 AcgAtii 41 n )
overthrows Eoghanacht
dynasty, 268
Matriarchy, a Pictish custom,
59 f
Medb (nicA-61)), 80, 118
Medraige (nicA'onAise), 82
Midhe, early extent of, 113;
partition of. '-'.•!.■;
362
INDEX
Mil, legend of, 91-95
Military organisation disap-
pears, 229, 235, 251, 267 ;
reintroduced, 325
Military tribes of pre-Celtic
origin, 79-82
Moira, battle of, 199
Monarchy, Irish, fictitious ac-
counts of, 115, 239 ; origin
of, 118; held by Connacht
dynasty, 130 ; detached from
Connacht dynasty, 192 ; suc-
cession to, 231, 238 ; in
abeyance, 272 ; restored in
depraved form, 273
Muirchertach MacErca, king of
Ireland, 190-193
Muirchertach, king of Ailech,
career of, 266
Muiredach Tirech (muipeA-oAC
CijieAc), 124
Munster, ancient extent of,
108, 126. 186 ; increasing
power of, 236 ; ecclesiastical
kings of, 258
Mythological inhabitants of
Ireland, 85
Mythology of Irish Celts shows
traces of continental origin,
87 ; transformed by Chris-
tian writers, 88
N
Nationality, ancient Irish con-
ception of, 96 ; characteris-
tic development of, 224-229 ;
conscious sense of, 244-248
Nath- 'I, 157
Nemed (tleitrieAX)), 88
Neolithic Age in Ireland, 69
Nia Segomon (niA SeASAtiiAti).
127
Niall Glundubh, king of Ire-
land, 263
Niall of the Nine Hostages, 129,
130, 157 ; settlements of his
kindred, 180-185
Norman statecraft. 301
Normans, so called, in Ireland,
their racial, linguistic, and
political affinities, 302
Norman plan of conquest, 304
North Leinster kingdom, fall
of, 122
Nuadu (nuA-oA, Nodons), a
Celtic god, 95
Norse invasions begin, 203.
249 ; Celtic resistance to,
205 ; conquests in Scotland,
205 ; kingdom of Hebrides
and Argyle, 211-220 ; earliest
settlements in Ireland, 251 ;
power in England and
France, 254 ; expelled from
northern Ireland, 255 ; adopt
a settled life, 265, 273 ; de-
moralisation caused by, 281
O
Ocha, importance of the battle
of, 190, 231
Oengus (Aonjur), a Celtic god,
86
Oengus ( Aonsur), king of Mun-
ster, 128
O'Farrell (Ua VeAr5*11) terri-
tory extended, 336
Ogham alphabet, origin of, 170,
inscriptions, range and time
of, 173
Ogmios, Ogme (OjtriA), a Celtic
god, 171
Oileach= Ailech
oirchinnea = chairchinneeh
oireacht =airecht
Oirghialla= Airgialla
O'Neill, Brian, career of, 328 ;
chosen chief king, 331
INDEX
36
•O'Neill dynasty, increased
power of, 343
Oriel= Airgialla
Orosius, Irish writers influ-
enced by, 90, 92-95
Ovoca, curious origin of the
name, 139
" P-Celts " and " Q-Celts," 43,
46
Paganism, survival of, 224
Palaeolithic Age not represented
in Ireland, 68
Palladius, Saint, mission of. 163
Parthal6n, 39, 88
Patrick, Saint, 159 ; date of his
death, 222 ; Bury's account
of, 225
Pelagius, 164
Pentarchy in Irish tradition,
100
Picts, supposed to be Iberians,
41 ; Ireland and Britain
named from, 59 ; in Ireland
and Scotland, 62-65 ; legend-
ary origin of, 64 ; in Ireland,
74 ; in Ulster, 120, 185 ;
earliest mention of, 141 ; in
Connacht, 180 ; their king-
dom in Scotland overthrown,
201 ; they lose territory in
Ulster, 233
Pliny on Ireland, 135
Political system in ancient
Ireland, 274-278
Pomponius Mela on Ireland,
134
Poseidonios on Ireland, 133
Pre-Celtic population of [re-
land, 73
Pre-Celtic metal workers, 75. 76
Pietani, significance of the
name, 59, 82
Primitive races, assumptions
regarding, 83
Property in land, 295-299
Ptolemy on Ireland, l'->'6
Q
Qreteni, an ancient name for
the Picte, 59
R
Race, true and false notions
of, 1, 2
Racial fusion in Ireland, 229
Red Earl of Ulster, 336
Revolt against Gaelic rule, 80,
119
Rigdamna (juo5x>AriinA), pre-
cise meaning of, 231
Roman empire, collapse of. 15S
Roman military system influ-
ences Ireland, 150
" Rosnaree," Ror ha U105,
battle of, 103
S
Schools, reorganisation of, 284
Scotland, Irish colonisation of,
194 ; Irish settlements ex-
tend to east coast, 202 ; con-
quest by Cinaed (CionAoo),
204 ; centralised polity of,
206 ; extent of Irish colonisa-
tion, 207 ; anglicisation, 208 ;
feudal institutions intro-
duced, 209
Scotti, legendary origin of, 90 ;
earliest mention of, 143 ;
meaning of the name. 111;
St. Jerome's account of, 146
Scottish history, earliest docu-
ments Of, 198
Scythians in Irish legend, 91
Segomo, a Celtic god, 127
364
INDEX
Semaine (SeAiriAiiie), Semrige
(Seimtuse), Semonrige (SeA-
montiAige), Tuath Semon
(SeAinAti), 75, 78
Siol Aedo Slane (siol aot>a
SlAine), dynasty of, 236
Sliab Badbgnai (sliAb t)A5nA,
" Slieve Baune "), 78
Sliab Echtgi (SliAb Oaccsa,
" Slieve Aughty or Baugh-
ty "),78
Snakes absent from Ireland,
140
Solintis on Ireland, 140
States in ancient Ireland, classi-
fication of, 274, 275
Strabo on Ireland, 134
Sumarlidi (SotiiAijili-o), founds
a kingdom in western Scot-
land, 214 ; spurious pedi-
gree of, 215 ; sends enibassy
to Derry, 284 ; bis descend-
ants in Ireland, 326, 3C4
T
Tacitus on Ireland, 136
Tadbg, son of Cian, 121
Taillte (" Teltown "), assembly
of, interrupted, 256 ; re-
stored, 258
*' Tain B6 Cuailnge," its an-
cient celebrity, 100
Tanistry, origin of, 295
Tara (CeAihAin), a provincial
capital, 104 ; occupied by
Connacht dynasty, 120 ; its
desertion, legendary and
historical, 233-236
" Teora Connachta," 130
Tigernach (CiseAtmAc), 86
Tillage in Ireland during
Bronze Age, 72
Tin from Britain, ancient trade
in, 47
Tradition, historical value ofr
105 ; medieval treatment of,
279
" Tribal system," theory of. 289
Tuatha De Danaan, 85, 95
Tuathal Teachtmhar, 118
U
Ui Maine kingdom, origin of,
179
Ui Neill, 130 ; Northern ami
Southern, 184-18G ; dissen-
sions of, 233, 236
Uisneach occupied by Connacht
dynasty, 118
IJlaidh, kingdom of, 185
Ulster, ancient extent of, 112,
123-125, 129 ; Great Wall
of, 131 ; strategic aspect 01"
frontier, 328 ; O'Neill kings
of, 335 ; earldom, 336 ; goes
to English royal house, 339 ;
Feudal authority overthrown
in, 341
Ulster kingdom, fall of, 126
W
Welsh settlers in Ireland. 303?
(See also under Britons)
Warfare in ancient Ireland,
227
Waterford, Norse settlement
at, 262 ; successfully defend-
ed, 264
World-sovereignty, Irish no-
tions about, 269
Writing in Irish, early spread
of, 176
Z
Zimmer's theory of the be-
ginning of Irish learning, 164
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