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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 


m 


M.     H.    GILL     &     SON,    LTD. 

50     UPPER    O'CONNELL     STREET,    DUBLIN 

1920 


Printed  and  Boxmd 
in  Ireland  by  ::  :: 
M.  H.  Gill  &-  Son, 
::  ::  Ltd.  ::  :: 
50  Upper  O'Connell 
Street  ::  ::  Dublin 


'First'  'E'diti.m 
Second  Impression 


1919 
1920 


DA 
5  30 

3 


? 


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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