Full text of "A social history of ancient Ireland : treating of the government, military system, and law ; religion, learning, and art; trades, industries, and commerce; manners, customs, and domestic life, of the ancient Irish people"

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Fir.. 167A

Shrink of St. Patrick's Bell, made l>v order of Donall O'l.ochlin, Wing of Ireland idied ira )

now in the National Museum, Dublin Sec vol. I., p 374, supra

(From Miss Stokes's Early Christian Art in Ireland.)

A SOCIAL HISTORY

ANCIENT IRELAND

TREATING OF

The Government, Military System, and Law ;

Religion, Learning, and Art,; Trades, Industries, and Commerce ,

Manners, Customs, and Domestic Life,

of the Ancient Irish People

P. W. JOYCE,

LL.D., TRIN. COLL., DUB. ; M.R.I.A.
One of the Commissioners for the Pullication of the Ancient Laws of Ireland

VOL. II

V-Sf

Fir:. 167E— Cormac's Chapel on the Rock of Cashel.
From Miss Stokes's Early Christian Architecture in Inland

H>ublin
M. H. GILL & SON, LTD.

IQ30

Printed and Bound
in Ireland by :: ::
M. H. Gill &- Son,
:: :: Lid. :: ::
jo Upper O'Connell
Street :: :: Dublin

First Edition
Second „
Third Impression

1903
1913
1920

Ornament composed from the Book of Kells.

CONTENTS OF VOL. II

PART III

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

CHAPTER XIX

THE FAMILY,

Section

i. Marriage, ..

2. Position of Women and Children,

3. Fosterage, ..

4. Family Names,

CHAPTER XX

THE HOUSE

Section

i. Construction, Shape, and Size,

2. Interior Arrangements and Sleeping Accommod

tion,

3. Outer Premises and Defence,

4. Domestic Vessels,

5. Royal Residences,

CHAPTER XXI

FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT : PUBLIC HOSTELS,
Section

1. Meals in General,

2. Drink, . .

3. Cooking,

4. Flesh Meat and its Accompaniments

5. Milk and its Products, ..

6. Corn and its Preparation,

7. Honey,

8. Vegetables and Fruit, . .

9. Fuel and Light, . . . .
to. Free Public Hostels

PAGB

3
8

14
19

45
54
08

104

104
114
122
127
136
141
144
148
158
166

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXII

DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT, . . . .

Section

i. The Person and the Toilet,

2. Dress,

3. Personal Ornaments, ..

4. Rough Classified List of Gold Objects in the

National Museum,

PAGE

I7G

176

189

222

263

CHAPTER XXIII

AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE, ..

Section

i. Fences,

2. Land, Crops, and Tillage

3. Some Farm-Animals,

4. Herding, Grazing, Milking

264

264
269

277
281

CHAPTER XXIV

WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONF.
Section

i. Chief Materials, ..

2. Builders,

3. Brasiers and Founders,

4. The Blacksmith and his Forge,

5. Carpenters, Masons, and other Craftsmen,

6. Protection of Crafts and Position of Craftsmen,

28*

286
292
294
301
310
324

CHAPTER XXV

CORN MILLS,

33o

Section

i. History, ....

330

2. The " Eight Parts " of a Mill,

335

3. Small Mills,

• • 338

4. Drying and Grinding,

341

5. Common Property in Mills,

344

6. Querns and Grain Rubbers,

... 34J

CONTENTS

Vii

CHAPTER XXVI

TRADES AND INDUSTRIES CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING,
Section

i. Wool and Woollen Fabrics,

2. Flax and its Preparation,

3. Dyeing,

4. Sewing and Embroidery,

5. Tanning,

6. Workers in Leather, and the Articles they made,

349

349
354
356
363
367
368

CHAPTER XXVII

MEASURES, WEIGHTS, AND MEDIUMS OF EXCHANGE, 371
Section

1. Length and Area, .. .. .. .. .. 371

2. Capacity, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

3. Weight, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

4. Standards of Value and Mediums of Exchange, . . 380

5. Time, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

6. Enumeration, . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

CHAPTER XXVIII

LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE,
Section

i. Roads, Bridges, and Causeways,

2. Chariots and Cars,

3. Horse-riding, . . . . . .

4. Communication by Water,

5. Foreign Commerce,

393

393
401
410
422
429

CHAPTER XXIX

PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES, . . . . 434
Section

1. The Great Conventions and Fairs, .. .. .. 434

2. The Fair of Carman, .. .. .. .. .. 441

3. General Regulations for Meetings, . . . . 447

4. Some Animals Connected with Hunting and Sport, 451

5. Races, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462

6. Chase and Capture of Wild Animals, . . . . 466

7. Caman or Hurling, and other Athletic Games, . . 474

8. Chess, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

9. Jesters, Jugglers, and Gleemen, .. .. .. 481

Vlll

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXX

VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS AND OBSERVANCES,

Section

i. Salutation,

2. Pledging, Lending, and Borrowing, ..

Provision for Old Age and Destitution, . .
Irish Poetry and Prosody: Love of Nature

of Natural Beauty,
Six Stages of Life,
Human Temperaments, . .

7. Blood-Covenant,

8. Cremation-Ashes thrown into Water,

9. Something further about Animals,

10. Animals as Pets, ..

11. The Cardinal Points

12. The Wind,

13. The Sea

14. Bishop Ultan and the Orphans,

15. Prophecies of Irish Saints,

16. Sundry small matters worthy of notice,

PACK
48S

.}SS
491

493

497
509
5°9
5*°
512

5M
5i6
520

521
523

526
528
529

CHAPTER XXXI

DEATH AND BURIAL,
Section

1 Wills,

2. Funeral Obsequies,

3. Modes of Burial,

4. Cemeteries,

5. Sepulchral Monuments,

533

533
539
546

554
562

APPENDIX 5Si

LIST OF AUTHORITIES CONSULTED, AND QUOTED OR

REFERRED TO THROUGHOUT THIS WORK, . . 587

ADDITIONAL LIST OF AUTHORITIES 608

INDEX TO THE TWO VOLUMES 611

Sculpture on a Capital : Priest's House, Glendalough: Beraneer, 1779.
(From Petrio's Round Towers.)

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOL. II.

no.

PAGE

FIG.

PAGE

167A. Shrine of St. Patrick's ") Fronlis-

193. Stone drinking-cup, ...

Bell. J

btece

194. Do., do., . . . <

167B. Cormac's Chapel, Rock "l
of Cashel. )

Title

195. Carrickfergus Castle,

Page

196. Bronze vessel, hammered,

168. Clochan or beehive-shaped house,.

197. Bronze vessel, cast, .

169. Maynooth Castle, ....

198. The Kavanagh drinking-horn,

170. Antique wooden hut,

199. Ancient Irish wooden vessel, .

171. Coloured glass plate, enamelled,

200. Figure of man drinking, .

172. Coloured glass ornament,

202. Do

174. Another

203. Ancient wooden pail, . .

205. Glazed earthenware pitcher, .

207. The Forradh mound at Tara, .

179. King John's Castle, Limerick

208. Mound of Dinnree palace, .

180. Plan of ancient Irish homestead,

209. Mound of Naas palace, . .

181. Bunratty Castle in Clare,

210. Carbury Castle, Kilo are, . .

182. Plan of interior of ancient Iris]

211. Rock of Cashel, ....

IOI

213. Small antique table, . .

184. Great Moat of Kilfinnane,

214. Bronze strainer, . .

185. Section of underground hut, .

215. Ancient bronze caldron, .

125

186. Staigue Fort in Kerry, . .

216. Ancient wooden butter-print, .

. 137

187. Dun Aengus in Aran, . .

217. Firkin of bog-butter, . .

138

188. Stone fort of Ballykinvarriga,

. 164

219. Do., ....

. 164

190. Dundrum Castle, Co. Down, .

. 64

. 164

191. Section of crannoge, .

. 66

221. Ancieut hronze lamp,

. 165

192. Crannoge village, . . .

. 6?

222. Bronze figures of ecclesiastics,

. 176

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOL. II.

FIG. PACE

223. Specimen of plaited hair, . . 180

224. Ancient comb, ..... 181

225. Do., i8x

226. Do., 181

227. Ancient bronze razor, . . .184

228. Small antique gold box, . . . 188

229. Angel, from Book of Kells, . . 197

230. Evangelist, from Book of Kells, . 197

231. Figures on a book-cover, . . . 200

232. Mac Murrogh Kavanagh and Earl

of Gloucester 201

233. Figures on St. Manchan's shrine, . 204

234. Bronze pin, 206

235. Do., 206

236. Do., • • • • . 206

237. Do., 206

238. Do., 206

239. Do., . . . • . 206

240. Do., 206

241. Bronze button, ..... 206

242. Figure showing trousers, . . . 208

243. Group of figures, 16th century, . 210

244. Figures, showing costume, . . 211

245. Do., do., . . 21 1

246. Do., do., . . 211

247. Portion of veil, ..... 216

248. Ornamented shoe, .... 217

249. Do., .... 217

250. Sandals with rosettes, ... 218

251. Pair of shoes connected ... 220

252. Gold bracelet 224

253. Bronze bracelet, .... 224

254. Gold finger-ring, .... 225

255. Jet bead for necklace or fastener, . 227

256. Do., do., . 227

257. Do., do., . . 227

258. Gold bead for necklace, . . . 228

259. Do., do., . . . 228

260. Gold torque, 2jx

261. Do., 232

262. Gold crescent or necklet of the

first type, 234

263. Do., do., . . . 235

FIG. FAG*

264. Gold crescent or necklet of the

second type 236

265. Do., do., . . . 237

266. Front of gold boss of crescent, . 238

267. Do., do., . 238

268. Gold crescent or necklet of the

third type, 239

269. Gold Bunne-do-at or fibula, . . 241

270. Do., do., . . 241

271. Do., do., . . 241

272. Do., do., . . 242

273. Small Bunne-do-at, .... 243

274. Do., do., . . . 243

275. Great Bunne-do-at in Trinity

College, 244

276. Gold circular ornamental plate, . 245

277. Bronze brooch 249

278. Bronze spring brooch, . . . 249

279. Crowned Irish king 257

280. Enamelled fillet of a crown, . . 258

281. Spurious Irish crown, . . . 259

282. Gold earring, 260

283. Hollow gold balls 262

284. Pillar-stone in a rath, . . . 267

285. A holed-stone, 268

286. Ancient Irish bronze reaping-hook, 273

287. Do., do, . . . 273

288. Yoke for oxen or horses, . . . 275

289. Brasier's anvil, 296

290. Do., ..... 296

291. Inlaid metallic hook, ... 299

292. Spear-bead, 299

293. Mould for spear-head, . . . 300

294. Mould for Celt, 300

295. Do., 300

296. Plan of two-chamber smith's

bellows, 307

297. Plan of four-chamber smith's

bellows, 308

298. Stone hatchet, 312

299. Do., 312

300. Bronze adze, 314

301. Stone hammer, 315

302. Do., 315

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOL. II.

303. Stone hammer, .

315

333-

304. Bronze hammer, .

315

334-

305. Bronze chisel, . .

318

335-

306. Do., .

318

336.

307. Do.,

318

337.

308. Do.,

318

338.

309. Bronze gouge, .

318

339-

310. Specimen of dry masonry

319

340.

311. Clochan-na-Carraige, .

320

341.

312. Round Tower, Devenish,

323

342.

313. Christian stone oratory, .

333

343-

314. Window of Castledermot Abbe

y»

325

344-

315. Doorway of Rahan Church,

326

345-

316. Front of Killaloe Church,

328

346

317. Ancient mill-wheel and shaft,

339

347.

318. Upper stone of quern, .

346

348.

319. Quern

347

349-

320. Grain-rubber, . . .

348

321. Specimen of weaving, .

352

j50.

322. Do., do., .

352

351-

323. Portion of goat-hair web,.

352

324. Plaited woollen band,

352

325. Portion of woollen dress, .

352

353

326. Two bronze needles, .

364

354

327. Antique specimen of sewing,

265

355

328. Steelyard, ....

379

356

329. Bractcate coin, . .

382

357

3?,X Do.,

. 382

331. Small bunne or gold ring,

. 385

353

33s. Ancient chariots, .

. 408

Horseman, from Book of Kells, . 413

Do., do., . . 417

Single-piece canoe 423

Skeleton of Irish elk, . . . 459

Otter trap, 47'

Bone chessman 479

The colours of the twelve winds, . 522

Cromlech at Tawnatruffaun, . . 537

Sepulchral stone circle, . . . 539

Do., do 542

Cinerary urn 5+6

Do., 54&

New Grange, 555

King Dathi's grave and pillar-stone, 557

Cam near Sligo, .... 563

Duma or burial-mound, . . . 564
Sepulchral chamber, with carvings

and sarcophagus, .... 565

" Giant's grave," .... 567
Tomb of the Four Maels at Ard-

naree 569

The great cromlech at Kilternan, . 570
The Phoenix Park cromlech, . . 57*
Decorated lid of stone coffin, . . 572
Lugnaed's headstone, . . . 573
An ulad or altar-tomb, . . . 576
Strongbow's monument in Christ-
church, Dublin 57*

Tomb of Fclim O'Connor, king of

Connaught 579

PART III
SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

Sculpture on Window, Cathedral Church, Glendalough ; Berruiffer, 1779.
(From Petrie's Round Towers),

CHAPTER XIX

THE FAMILY

Section i. Marriage.

ancient Ireland it was a very general custom,
as it was in Wales, and in Greece in the time
of Homer, that when a couple got married
the man was bound to bring the marriage
portion or dowry, not the woman. Instances
of this custom are mentioned everywhere in
literature : and so well was it recognised, that
the ancient Irish writers — as was their wont in such
cases — assign a legendary origin for it. The legend is
found in the Book of Leinster, into which it was copied
from the still more ancient Book of Dromsnechta. When
the sons of Milesius arrived in Ireland, they found there
some Hebrew women who had been driven thither from
the Tyrrhene or Mediterranean sea by a tempest. The
newcomers proposed marriage to them : but the women
answered that they preferred to return to their own
country ; and that they would not abandon it to marry
the Milesians unless they got Tinnscra or dowry as a sort
of compensation : to which the Milesians agreed. And
the old account goes on to say : — " It is from this circum-
" stance that in Erin it is the men that purchase wives
" always : while it is the husbands that are purchased in
" all the rest of the world."*

* O'Curry, MS. Mat., 15, bottom : LL, 190, c,

4 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

There were several terms in common use to designate
dowry : and according to an ancient manuscript in Trinity
College, Dublin, quoted by O'Donovan,* the several names
were used for different sorts of dowries. The Tinnscra
was a gift of gold, silver, copper, or brass : the Coibche
[cov-ke] consisted of clothes and warriors : the Slabra of
cattle and horse-bridles : and the Tochra of sheep and
swine. But there is good reason to believe that these
distinctions were not rigidly adhered to, and that the
several terms were in some measure used indiscriminately.
Thus O'Clery, in his Glossary, explains Tinnscra by
Coibche : and many other such instances might be cited.
Moreover, the dowry might consist of other things besides
those named above, such as land, or houses, or the con-
cession of some valuable favour or privilege. " Give me,"
said Oengus mac Natfree, king of Munster in the fifth
century, " your foster-child [Eithne Uathach] as a wife,
and I will give you land as Tinnscra."^ There were
other terms, too, for ' dowry,' such as fola and foluch.
Occasionally time was given for payment of the dowry :
if it was paid in hand, it was called by the general name
Ellam,% from lam, ' the hand.'

In Ireland, as among all the Aryan nations,§ the
original conception was that the man purchased his
affianced wife from the father or other guardian, and the
dowry he brought in was the bride-price. It was usually
paid over by the bridegroom to the father of the bride.
Accordingly, Cormac's Glossary interprets coibche as
meaning cendach, i.e. ' buying.' The bride-price often
consisted of a yearly payment from the husband after
marriage : and we find it laid down in the Brehon Law
that the woman's father was entitled to the whole of the

* In Hy F, 207, note r : see also Silva Gad., 525, l8.
t LU, 54, b, 2. and Sullivan, Introd., 174, note 29S. For houses as
dowry, see O'Curry, MS. Mat., 133. J Corm. Gloss., 67, " Ellam."

§ De Jubainville, Cours de Litt. Celt., VI. 303.

CHAP. XIX] THE FAMILY 5

first year's coibche, to two thirds of the second year's, to
one-half of the third : and so on, diminishing to the twenty-
first, when the claim ceased.* In each case, what was left
of the coibche belonged to the wife.f

We meet many instances where the dowry consisted of
a privilege. When Fergus mac Roy, king of Ulaid (Ulster)
in the first century of the Christian era, proposed marriage
to the beautiful widow Ness, she refused to marry him
except on this condition as Tinnscra : — That her son
Concobar, then a mere boy, should be permitted to reign
as king, instead of Fergus, for one year : to which Fergus,
with the consent of his nobles, agreed. But at the end of
the year — just as the wily widow expected — when Fergus
claimed his throne, the nobles refused to supersede
Concobar, who — by the help of his mother — had so com-
pletely won them over that he remained king for the rest
of his life. J

Within late historical times we find a still more
interesting example of this sort of bride-price. Early in
the fourteenth century, it happened on one occasion that
Cormac O'Clery, a learned young ollave or doctor of laws,
visited the house of Matthew O'Sgingin, professor of
history to the O'Donnells of Tirconnell. For many
generations the O'Sgingins had been hereditary historians
to the O'Donnells : but this Matthew was destined to be
the last ollave of the name, for his only surviving child was
a daughter, a beautiful young girl. The two young people
soon fell in love with each other : and the father consented
to their union, but demanded from O'Clery as Tinnscra,
that the first son born of the marriage should be sent to
study history, so as to succeed to the position held by the

* Br. Laws, 11. 347 ; in. 315.

f In remote times the idea of sale and purchase of the woman in
marriage must have been prominent and familiar : see an instance of
Concobar mac Nessa buying a woman after the death of her first husband :
Br. Laws, iv., p. 9, note. 2.

X LL, 106, a, 3o: MS. Mat., 274, 636 : Stokes, Lives of SS., xxxv., top.

6 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

O'Sgingins. The young man willingly agreed : and he
faithfully kept to his promise. His first son, who became
a historian, was the ancestor of the O'Clerys of Kilbarron
in Donegal, who succeeded the O'Sgingins as hereditary
ollaves of history to the O'Donnells.* They were a race
of scholars who have left us many precious works in Irish,
illustrating the history and antiquities of Ireland, including
the Annals of the Four Masters, the greatest and most
important of all.f

The fact that the husband paid the bride-price did not
prevent the bride bringing goods or valuables of her own,
if she had them. Any number of cases might be cited
where the young woman brought jewels, or gold, or herds,
or land : and after the marriage, these continued to be
her own special property. Sometimes the friends of the
young couple made a collection for them, which was called
Tindl (i.e. ' collection ' : pron. tinnole), of which two-
thirds belonged by law to the man, and one-third to the
woman.J This custom was common among high and low,
and we meet with instances everywhere in the tales. Our
present custom of making a young married couple presents
is not unlike the old Irish tinnole.

It was usual that girls should be married in order of
age, beginning with the eldest. We are told in the story
of the Boroma that Tuathal the Legitimate, king of Ire-
land (a.d. 130-160), had two daughters, of whom Eochaid
[Ochy], king of Leinster, married the elder, though he pre-
ferred the younger, who was more beautiful. " For at that
time " — says the story — " it was not the custom in Erin for
the younger sister to be married before the elder. "§ The
lady Emer, when Cuculainn sought her in marriage, says : —
" I may not marry before Fial my sister, who is older than

* FM, Vol. 1., Introd. Remarks, xx. For Kilbarron, see vol. I., p.
524, supra.

f For examples of other sorts of dowries, see Oss. Soc, iv. 299 (head
of a destructive wild boar), and Bee Fola, p. 175 (a brooch).

% Br. Laws, 11. 347, 350, 351. § Rev. Celt., xin. 37 : Silva Gad., 402

CHAP. XIX] THE FAMILY J

I am." It was expected, too, that a girl should marry a
man of a family equal to her own in social standing.*

Marriages, as stated elsewhere (Chap, xxix., p. 439,
infra), formed a prominent feature of the fair of Tailltenn,
held during the last days of July and first days of
August. But it would appear from a passage in Cormac's
Glossary (p. 82, " Gam ") that throughout Ireland in
general the favourite and fashionable month for getting
married was November. According to some authorities
quoted by Sullivan in his Introduction to O'Curry's
Lectures (p. 240), a tribute had to be paid — at least in some
cases — to the king, on the marriage of every maiden of his
people. This tribute was usually a fdinne maighdena
[fawnya mydena], or ' maiden's ring ' ; for it was often a
gold ring : but it might be an ounce of gold, or less, or it
might be the bride's wedding-dress.

The general custom was to have only one wifef : but
there were exceptions, for in very early times we some-
times find a king or chief with two. In the story of the
Cattle Spoil of Fraech in the Book of the Dun Cow,
referring to far distant pagan ages, it is related how Fraech,
a powerful chief of Erris, goes to the house of Ailill and
Maive, king and queen of Connaught, as a suitor for the
hand of their daughter Finnabair, though it was well
known that he had at the time a wife and three sons.
Cobthach Coel Breg, king of Ireland before the Christian
era, had more than one queen. % Coming to Christian
times, Dermot, king of Ireland, a.d. 544-565, had two
queens.§ In the time of St. Finnchua (seventh century)
old Nuada the sage, king of Leinster, had two wives {da
bainchele), who, as might be expected, kept the poor old
king in hot water by their jealousies and bickerings.||

* Br. Laws, II. 347.

f On Monogamy, the basis of Greek, Roman, and Celtic society, see
De Jubainville, Cours de Litt. Celt., vi. chap. iv.
X Orgain Dind Rfg, in Zeitschr. Celt. Phil., in. 9.
§ See page 255, farther on. || Stokes, Lives of SS., p. 237.

8 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

That chastity and modesty were prized we know from
many passages, such as that in the Life of St. Finnchua,
in which he leaves blessings to the Leinster men, among
them " chastity in their queens and in their wives, and
modesty in their maidens."* A wedding was called banais
contracted (from ban-fheis, meaning " woman's feast ") :
a married couple was lanamain : marriage, lanamnas : a
widow was fedb and banlrebihach.

2. Position of Women and Children.

In ancient Ireland free women (as distinguished from
slaves) held a good position : and it may be said that as to
social rights and property they were in most respects quite
on a level with men. Husband and wife continued to own
the respective shares they brought in at marriage, such as
land, flocks, household goods, &c, the man retaining his
part and the woman hers, each quite independently of the
other. Of this custom we find illustrations everywhere ;
and there are many records of married women taking legal
proceedings on their own account against outsiders, quite
independently of the husband, in defence of their special
property.f

But notwithstanding this separate ownership, as both
portions were worked more or less in conjunction, and
naturally increased from year to year, it was generally
impossible — even if so desired — to keep them distinct, so
that a part at least of the entire possessions might be
looked upon as joint property : and for this state of things
the law provided. It is from the Brehon Law we get the
clearest exposition of the rights of women regarding
property. The respective privileges of the couple after
marriage depended very much on the amount of property

* Stokes, Lives of SS., p. 239.

f For the law on the point, and instances, see Br. Laws, 11. 361, 363,
379 : O'Curry, Man. & Cust., n. 89 : Stokes, Lives of SS., 165, 235 :
Feilire, 75 : Reeves, Adamn., 305 : and vol. I., p. 216, supra (the glaisin
Crop).

CHAP. XIX] THE FAMILY 9

they brought in. If their properties were equal at marriage
" the wife " — says the Senchus Mor — " is called the wife of
equal rank," and she was recognised as in all respects, in
regard to property, on an equality with her husband.* In
this case all transactions affecting the joint property, such
as buying and selling, had to be made with the consent of
both parties : and any contract made by either, for his or
her own special benefit, without the consent of the other,
was null and void in a court of law. But if it could be
shown that the transaction tended equally to the advantage
of both, the law confirmed it. If profit accrued from any
transaction (such as selling) it was apportioned to husband
and wife in the ratio of their respective shares.

That the husband and wife were on terms of equality
as to property is made still more clear from the provisions
laid down to meet the case of separation : and from the
evident care with which these are set forth, we may con-
clude that the separation of married couples was, in those
days, by no means an uncommon occurrence. Sometimes
they separated by mutual consent and sometimes as the
outcome of legal proceedings. Seven different kinds of
injury are enumerated in the law, which if inflicted on a
wife by her husband, gave her the right to separate
from him : most of which would at this day lead to a
decree of " separation from bed and board." If she proved
her case home, she was entitled to her dowry (or
that part of it that remained with her after marriage)
in addition to personal damages as Eneclann or honour-
fine, f

If the couple separated by mutual consent, the woman
took away with her all she had brought on the marriage
day ; while the man retained what he had contributed.
Supposing the joint property had gone on increasing

* Br. Laws, u. 357 : and Preface, lvi.

t Br. Laws, v. 293 : see also II. 357, 359, 361, 38l> 383 1 and
Sullivan, Introd., 176.

10 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

during married life : then at separation the couple divided
the whole in proportion to the original contributions.*

But all this might be modified by special circumstances,
which are detailed in the law with much exactness. One
of these was whether the woman was a " great worker " or
a "small worker." She was a " great worker " if she had,
of her own, all the utensils necessary for her feminine
occupations : such as a mill, a sieve, a loom, a spinning
wheel, a distaff, spindles, &c. : she was a " small worker "
if these were supplied by the husband, f In the division
of property a great worker took a larger share than a small
worker. For instance, in case of flax at the time of pulling
and drying : a great worker got one-sixth of it ; a small
worker one-ninth. J

If the woman was a " great worker " during married
life, and helped by her industry to increase the property,
she was entitled, at separation, to one-ninth of the increase,
even though she had no property (beyond the utensils) at
the time of marriage. § And in like manner the man, under
similar circumstances, if he had been a "great worker," could
claim just one-ninth of the increase. Here, in the words of
the law tract (n. 391), " the man goes in the place of the
woman, and the woman in the place of the man."

As to household articles manufactured by the woman's
hand, she was entitled to a part, as in case of other goods
— even though having no propert}' at the time of marriage :
but the exact amount depended on the state of advance-
ment of the work. Take woollen goods as an example,
which were generally managed exclusively by women. If
the wool was in the fleece at the time of separation, she
took one-eighth. If it had been separated into locks or
flakes ready for combing, she took one-sixth ; if after being
combed ready for spinning, one-third : after spinning, or

* Br. Laws, n. 397 : O'Curry, Man. & Cust., rl. 118.
I Br. Laws, 11. 411. J Br. Laws, 11. 419.

§ Br. Laws, 11. 391, 393, 395.

CHAP. XIX] THE FAMILY II

when in cloth, one-half.* So also flax : one ninth-growing
" on foot " ; one-sixth after drying ; one-third after scutch-
ing ; one-half after that. Similar arrangements were laid
down for dye-stuffs in the several stages of preparation ;
and for various other materials and products. From all
this, moreover, as well as from many separate passages,
it may be inferred that great importance was attached
to hand-work of all kinds.

Women, as has been said, might take actions at law on
their own account, and if successful might distrain the goods
of the defendant. But the distress should be confined to
such things as were understood to specially pertain to
women, in their daily life, of which a list is given in the
Senchus Mor. These included sheep, lap-dogs, and cats ; all
utensils used in the manufacture of cloth, such as spindles,
wool-bags, needles, weavers' reeds, &c, and also such
articles as looking-glasses, sieves, and kneading-troughs.f

When the wife owned land, it was subject to the same
law of succession as that of the husband ; viz., if she had
sons it descended to them, whether there were daughters
or not : if she had no sons it went to the daughters. Here
however, there were proper safeguards to prevent the land
passing from the tribe, in case the woman married a man of
another tribe. J When land passed by any right to a woman,
she entered into formal possession, by a process which was
attended with very curious ceremonies. § When a woman
came into possession of land, she was bound to send men
for war-service like male land-owners : but she was set free
of this obligation on giving up to the fine or tribe half the
land ; a privilege which was not accorded to men.||

* Br. Laws, II. 369, 373 : O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 118.

f General list in Senchus Mor, Br. Laws, 1. 151 ; and see 149. See
also iv. 9, note 2. and 13, I9.

\ See Br. Laws, iv. 17 and 19, 39 and 41, 45, 47, top : and Introduction,
cxvi, cxvii. § Ceremonies : for which see Br. Laws, iv. 9, 11, 13.

|| Br. Laws, iv. 19, 8 to end of par. ; 21, note 2 ; 41, mid par. ; 45;
47, n ; 49 ; an(i Introd., cxvii., bottom

12 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART m

Husband and wife stood on equal terms in a brehon's
court, so that if the husband gave evidence against his
wife, she was entitled to give evidence against him. For,
as the Senchus M6r expresses it, " though the Law cedes
" headship to the man [husband] for his manhood and
" nobility, he has not the greater power of proof upon the
" woman on account of it, for it is only contract that is
" between them."* But her father could give evidence
against his daughter, whether married or single, and she
was not permitted to rebut it by her evidence, f

The testimonies hitherto brought forward are mostly
legal and historical. But the general popular conception
of the position of married women may be also gathered
from the old romantic tales and legends, including those of
the Dinnsenchus, in which women hold as high a place as
men. We read of great female physicians, such as Air-
meda the daughter of the leech-god Dianket ; and of
distinguished female brehons or lawyers, such as Brigh
Briugaid, whose decisions were followed as precedents for
centuries after her death.

But with all that has been said so far in commendation
of the position of women, there were some features, which,
regarded from a moral point of view, were very objection-
able. These were not indeed peculiar to Ireland, but were
common enough among European nations at the time ; but
they were not the less repulsive for that. It is manifest
from Irish literature in general, and especially from the
Brehon Laws, that the practice of separation of man and
wife, either by mutual consent or by process of law, was
unpleasantly common. Concubinage was very general,
especially among the higher classes, and does not appear
to have been regarded by the general public as in any
degree reprehensible : indeed the Brehon Law provides
for it as a recognised custom. Female slaves too were
treated with great grossness, at least till the time of

* Br. Laws, n. 351. f Ibid., 347.

CHAP. XIX] THE FAMILY I3

Adamnan (at the end of the seventh century), by whose
exertions some much-needed improvements were effected
in their position, as well as in that of women in general.*

It is worthy of remark that the good old lawyers who
compiled the Brehon Law tracts, while doing full justice
to the position of women, are sometimes given to a rather
pompous assertion of the superiority of their own sex.
We have seen the lofty expression in last page : and the
commentator, explaining why the Senchus M6r, though
treating as much of women as of men, is still called the
" Senchus of the Men of Erin," says "it is proper indeed
" that it should be so called, so as to give superiority to
" the noble sex, i.e. to the male : for the man is the
" head of the woman, and the man is more noble than the
" woman. "f

The son was under the father's control till formally
emancipated : but what was the age or in what the
ceremony of emancipation consisted I have not found. %

We have seen (vol. I., p. 165, supra) that, even as late
as the twelfth century, it was common among the English
to sell their children and other relatives, especially to the
people of Ireland. In Ireland illegitimate children were
sometimes sold, but not legitimate children. It is laid
down in the Brehon Law that the children begotten
illegitimately of a woman who has been abducted belong
to the woman's family, who may sell them if they choose. §
That fathers also sometimes sold their illegitimate children
is shown by a story in the Life of St. Brigit, who — accord-
ing to this legend — was the illegitimate daughter of a
pagan chief named Dubthach. When she was a girl living
in her father's house, she was so charitable that every-
thing in the house she could lay hands on she gave away

* Trip. Life, Introd., xxii. f Br. Laws, 1. 35.

Br. Laws, iv. 231, 12; V. 357, „. 439, 5. See De Jubainville, Cours
de Litt. Celt., vi. 312 : and " Saer, Leicthe " in Atkinson's Br. Law Glos
As to the duty of the son to support the parents, see p. 495, infra.

§ Br. Laws, m. 403, 541.

14 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART m

to the poor and the needy : till her father became at last
so incensed that he resolved to rid himself of her by selling
her for a slave. He actually brought her away in his
chariot with this object but was diverted from his purpose
by the advice of a friend : and so Brigit was saved from
bondage.* In the annals and other ancient writings we
sometimes come across references to times of famine and
distress so severe that people were driven to sell their
legitimate children to procure food. But these entries, so
far from showing that the practice was customary in
Ireland, prove, as acknowledged exceptions, the very
reverse.

Adoption, whether of individuals, of familes, or of
whole septs, has been already dealt with (vol. i., p. 166,
supra).

A child was called in Irish lenab, now leanbh, pron.
lannav : an infant was noidiu. A son was mac, corre-
sponding with the Welsh map : a daughter, ingen [ing-een] :
a grandson was ua, hua, or haue. A father was athair : a
mother, mdthair : a brother, dearbhr athair, now pron.
drahaar : a sister, deirbhshiur, pron. drihoor.

3. Fosterage.

One of the leading features of Irish social life was
fosterage (Irish, altram or altrum), which prevailed from
the remotest period. It was practised by persons of all
classes, but more especially by those in the higher ranks.
The most usual type of fosterage was this : — A man sent
his child to be reared and educated in the home and with
the family of another member of the tribe, who then became
foster-father, and his children the foster-brothers and foster-
sisters of the child. While young persons were generally
fostered in this manner, in families, some were put in care
of distinguished ecclesiastics : and many of the Irish saints

* Stokes, Lives of SS., 187

CHAP. XIX] THE FAMILY 15

were fostered in this way, whose early training in a great
measure determined their future life. St. Columkille was
fostered and educated during childhood by a holy priest
named Cruithnecan.* For a number of individual ex-
amples of the fosterage of well-known historical personages,
the reader may refer to O'Curry's Manners and Customs of
the Ancient Irish, I. 374, 375.

The foster-father was denoted by the word aite or
oide [2-syll.] : the foster-mother by muime [mumme] : the
foster-child by dalta. Dalta is still in use as a term of
endearment to denote a favourite or a petted child, but
is now always applied to a boy. A foster-brother was
comalte [3-syll.]. Fosterage was subject to stringent
regulations, which were carefully set forth in the law. A
special portion of the Senchus Mor — occupying twenty-
four pages, Irish type, of the second volume — is devoted
to it ; in which the rights, duties, and obligations of the
parties are detailed with minute particularity : and it is
referred to in other parts of the law. I give here a few of
the most important of these regulations.

A child might be sent to fosterage at one year of age.
Boys might be kept till seventeen and girls till fourteen,
which were considered the marriageable ages : then they
returned to their parents' house. There were two kinds of
fosterage — for affection and for payment. In the first there
was no fee : in the second the fee varied according to rank.
The fosterage fee (iarrad) sometimes consisted of land,
but more generally of cattle. For the son of an og-aire or
lowest order of chief, the fee was three cows ; and from
that upwards to the son of a king, for whom the fee was
from eighteen to thirty cows. For girls, as giving more
trouble, requiring more care, and as being less able to help
the foster-parents in after-life, it was something higher
than for boys. The child, during fosterage, was treated in
all respects like the children of the house : he worked at

* Reeves, Adamnan, 191.

l6 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

some appropriate employment or discharged some suitable
function for the benefit of the foster-father : and he had to
be educated in a way that suited his station of life : as has
been already described (vol. I., p. 441). There were minute
regulations regarding clothes, food, and means of amuse-
ment, all of which varied according to rank. How far the
foster-father was liable for injuries suffered by the foster-
child at the hands of others, or for his misdeeds, is set
forth with great care.

Precautions were taken, in the shape of penalties, to
prevent the fosterage being terminated before the time by
either party without sufficient cause. At the termination
of the period of fosterage the foster-father gave the foster-
son a parting gift, the amount of which was regulated
according to rank and other circumstances. If in after-life
the foster-father fell into poverty, and had no children of
his own to support him, he had a claim on his foster-son
for maintenance, provided he had duly discharged all the
duties of fosterage, including that of the parting gift. The
foster-mother had a similar claim. It was usual for a chief
to send his child to be fostered to one of his own sub-
chiefs : but the parents often chose a chief of their own
rank. Sometimes a chief had a large number of children
at fosterage : in the Book of the Dun Cow we are told
that at one time Ochy Beg, king of Cliach, the district
round Knockainy in Limerick, had forty boys in his charge,
sons of the nobles of Munster.* In cases where children
were left without parents or guardians, and required pro-
tection, the law required that they should be placed in
fosterage under suitable persons at the tribe's expense, f

The children of kings, chiefs, or other distinguished
persons were eagerly sought after for fosterage ; and in
order to satisfy such claims, it sometimes happened that
such children had two or more foster-fathers, with whom

* O'Curry, Man. & Gust., I. 357. f Br. Laws. 11., Pref. lvii.

CHAP. XIX] THE FAMILY 1J

they lived in succession or in turn. Thus the great
Dedanann chief, Lugh the Ildana, had nine fosterers ;* and
coming to historic times, Lewy Mac Con, king of Ireland
(a.d. 250-253), was fostered by Olioll Olum, king of
Munster, and by Olioll's brother, Lewy Laga.f To be
fostered by several was considered a mark of distinction.
Laegaire's daughters, when inquiring from St. Patrick about
God (who they thought might be some great chief), asked,
among many other questions, did many foster His Son —
implying that this would be a sure indication of rank and
dignity.J

Although it (was more usual to send boys to be fostered
than girls, still we often find in the old tales pleasant
pictures of girls in their homes with their foster-sisters.
In the story of the courtship of Emer, the young hero
Cuculainn, going to the house of her father, Forgall Monach,
at Lusk, north of Dublin, to woo the young lady, found
her on the lawn of the fort with her foster-sisters, who
were learning embroidery and hand-dexterity with her.§

Fosterage was the closest of all ties between families.
The relationship was regarded as something sacred. The
foster-children were often more attached to the foster-
parents and foster-brothers than to the members of their
own family : and cases have occurred where a man has
voluntarily laid down his life to save the life of his
foster-father or foster-brother. This attachment is noticed
by many English writers from Giraldus down|| : and
illustrations are found everywhere in Irish writings both
ancient and modern. At the great Battle of Moyrath,
fought in 637 by the monarch Domnall against his
rebellious foster-son, Congal Claen, the king, both before
and during the battle, shows himself most anxious for the
personal safety of Congal, now his mortal enemy, ^f For a

* Rev. Celt., xn. 89. % Todd, St. Patk., 453 : see also Trip. Life, clxix.
f Silva Gad., 349. § Kilk. Archseol. Journ., 1870-1, p. 404.

|| Girald., Top. Hib., in. xxiii. v Tf Moyrath, 135, 155, 161, 305.

l8 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

modern illustration, see Carleton's story of " The Foster-
Brother."* The custom of fosterage existed in Ireland —
though in a modified form — even so late as the seventeenth
or eighteenth century.

There was also a literary fosterage, when a boy was sent
to be reared up by an ollave or professor, and instructed
for a degree. The foster-father was " to instruct him with-
" out reserve, to prepare him for his degree, to chastise
" him without severity, and to feed and clothe him while
" learning his legitimate profession." The amount of fee
was regulated by law. All gains earned by the pupil
while learning were to be paid to the tutor, and also the
first fee he earned after leaving him. If the teacher fell
into poverty in after-life, his foster-pupil was bound to
support him. The relationship of literary fosterage was
regarded as still more close and sacred than that of
ordinary fosterage. On this see also vol. I., p. 423.

Gossipred. — When a man stood sponsor for a child at
baptism, he became the child's godfather, and gossip to
the parents. Gossipred was — and is still — regarded as a
sort of religious relationship between families, and created
mutual obligations of regard and friendship, f

After the Anglo-Norman invasion the people of the
English colony, from the great lords down, often sent their
children to be fostered by the Irish : and as might be
expected, these young persons grew up speaking the Irish
language, and thoroughly Irish in every way. Mainly for
this reason the two customs of fosterage and gossipred
were bitterly denounced by early English writers, J most
of whom were anxious to keep the two races apart : and
we know that the Government passed several stringent
laws forbidding them under the penalty of high treason :
but these laws were generally disregarded. Gossipred in

* Irish Penny Journal, 338.

t For full accounts of Fosterage, see Br. Laws, II. 147, 349 ; v. 97 : and
for both customs, Ware, Antiqq., chap. xi. X Instance, Spenser, 112.

CHAP. XIX]

THE FAMILY

a modified form exists to this day all over the empire ;
and the custom of fostering was formerly common among
the Welsh, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Scandinavians.

4. Family-Names.
Hereditary family-names became general in Ireland
about the time of Brian Boru, viz. at the end of the tenth
and the beginning of the eleventh century : and some
authorities assert that they were adopted in obedience to
an ordinance of that monarch. The manner of forming
the names was very simple. Each person had one proper
name of his own. In addition to this, all the members of
a family, and of their descendants in the male line, took
as a common surname the name of their father, with Mac
(son) prefixed, or of their grandfather or some more remote
ancestor, with Ua or 0 (grandson or descendant) prefixed.
Thus the O'Neills are so called from their ancestor Niall
Glunduff, king of Ireland (a.d. 916), and ' John O'Neill '
means John the descendant of Niall : the Mac Carthys of
Desmond have their surname from a chief named Carrthach,
who lived about the year 1043. The same custom was
adopted in Scotland : but while in Ireland 0 was much
more general than Mac, in Scotland the 0 was very rarely
chosen, and nearly all the Scotch Gaelic family-names
begin with Mac.

Sculpture on a Column, Church of the Monastery, Glendalough.
(From Petrie's Round Towers, 260.)

Ornament : composed from the Book of Kells.

CHAPTER XX

THE HOUSE

Section i. Construction, Shape, and She.

efore the introduction of Christianity, buildings
in Ireland, whether domestic, military, or
sepulchral, were generally round or oval. The
quadrangular shape, which was used in the
churches in the time of St. Patrick, came very
slowly into use, and round structures finally
disappeared only in the fourteenth or fifteenth
century. But the round shape was not universal, even in
the most ancient period. The great Banqueting Hall of
Tara was rectangular, as we see by its ruins at the present
day. The Craebh-ruadh [Creeveroe], a similar hall at
Emain, was of a like shape ; and the bruden or feasting-
hall at Dun-da-benn (the fort overhanging the waterfall in
the Bann near Coleraine) was square : both of these made
in imitation of the hall of Tara.* And in case of many of
the ordinary good-sized dwelling-houses, the expressions
used regarding them show that the walls were straight and
parallel, and that consequently the shape was rectangular.
Some of the old lisses or forts still to be seen are of this
shape : and even where the surrounding rampart was round
the wooden houses it enclosed were often rectangular, f

* Tain bo Fraich, 160, 161 : Mesca Ulad, 13.

t See for example Sick Bed, Atlantis, 11. 105, first line : also O'Curry,

Man. & Cust., 11. 31.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 21

The common Irish word for a house is tech, Lat.
tectum ; whence come the compounds tegduis or teaghdais,
one of the names for a homestead ; and teaghlach, ' a family
or household.' A dwelling in general is denoted by drus
or dross ; a homestead by baile, now generally anglicised
bally, but used in a more extended sense to denote a town-
land. The word brug or brugh [broo] was also applied
to a large dwelling : in Peter O'Connell's Dictionary, taken
from old authorities, we find : — " Brug, the same as baile,
a mansion, manor, or farmhouse." But this word brug
had other applications, which will be found fully set forth
in Hennessy's Introduction to the Mesca Ulad, p. 7.

It has sometimes been stated that there were no towns
or cities in ancient Ireland : but this statement is mis-
leading. There were many centres of population, though
they were never surrounded by walls ; and the dwellings
were detached and scattered a good deal — not closely
packed as in modern towns. In our old writings, both
native and Anglo-Irish, we have many records of towns
and cities. As a comparatively late example — in the
twelfth century — may be mentioned Downpatrick, which
Giraldus Cambrensis, in his account of John de Courcy's
invasion of Ulster, calls the " City of Down " : but it was
quite open and undefended. Then we know that some of
the large monasteries had two or three thousand students,
which implies a total population much larger. Some of
the provisions of the Brehon Law show that numbers
of lis-dwellings must have been clustered together : one
statement, for instance, that a mill or a fishing-weir was
sometimes the common property of the fine or tribe.

The dwelling-houses, as well indeed as the early
churches, were nearly always of wood, as that material
was much the most easily procured. The ordinary kinds of
timber were used according to circumstances, but the most
common were deal, oak, and yew. The custom of building
in wood was so general in Ireland that it was considered

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CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 23

a characteristic of the Irish — more Scottorum, " after the
manner of the Scots " — as Bede expresses it. Yet we
know that the Britons, Saxons, and Franks, also very
generally built in wood. When Henry II. was in Ireland,
1171-2, " he had a royal palace constructed for himself of
" planed wood, built with wonderful taste, in which he and
" the kings and princes of Ireland kept the festival of
" Christmas."* Of course this house was the work of
Dublin builders and tradesmen. Some of the houses in
Waterford in 1168 were of wood : and it was by pulling
one of them down that Raymond le Gros effected an
entrance into the city. Wooden houses, highly orna-
mented, continued in use in Dublin, Drogheda, and other
towns, down to the last century, f

But although wood-building was general in Ireland
before the twelfth century, it was not universal : for some
stone churches were erected from the time of the intro-
duction of Christianity : beehive-shaped houses, as well as
cahers and cashels (pp. 57, 58, below), were built of stone,
without mortar, from pre-historic times : and the remains
of these primitive structures — churches, houses, and cahers
— are still to be seen in many parts of Ireland. J In all
these mortarless buildings, the stones, though in their
natural state — not hammered or chiselled into shape — are
fitted to each other with great skill and accuracy : or, as
Petrie expresses it, " with wonderful art."§

The dwelling-houses were almost always constructed
of wickerwork : tech-figthi or tech-fithi, a ' wickerwork
house ' : from jigim, ' I weave.' The wall (fraig) was
formed of long stout poles (slat, ' a pole ') placed in a
circle, if the house was to be round, standing pretty near
each other, with their ends fixed deep in the ground, the

* Hoveden, quoted in Cambr. Ev., 11. 173.
f Dublin Penny Journal, 1. 89 and 268.

J For a whole town of pre-historic circular stone houses in Kerry, see
Macalister's article in Trans. Roy, Ir. Acad., vol. xxxi., p. 209.
§ See Stokes's Life of Petrie, p. 135.

24 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

spaces between closed in with rods and twigs neatly and
firmly interwoven ; generally of hazel. The poles were
peeled and polished smooth. The whole surface of the
wickerwork was plastered on the outside, and made
brilliantly white with lime, or occasionally striped in
various colours ; leaving the white poles exposed to
view. The residence of O* Murphy at Dunflin in Sligo
in the thirteenth century is called in HyF (265) " a white
wattled edifice of noble polish."* When the house was
to be rectangular the poles were set in two parallel rows,
filled in with wickerwork.

Building in wicker-work was common to the Celtic
people of Ireland, Scotland, and Britain, f It is ver}
often referred to in Irish writings of all kinds. An
instance has been already cited in vol. I., p. 10. Adamnan
(p. 106) relates that Columba on one occasion sent his
monks to bring bundles of rods (virgarum fasciculos) to
construct one of the houses of a hospice. The same
incident is told in the Irish Life of St. Columba ; and
here the rods or wattles are called by the Irish term
caelaig (sing, caelach, ' anything slender,' ' a slender wattle,'
from cael, ' slender,' pron. kail). The cliath [clee-a] or
hurdle and the wattles or laths for building houses are
often mentioned in the Brehon Laws. J In some large
houses the standing poles were very thick and high : in
describing the construction of Bricriu's house at Dun-
Rury, the writer of the " Feast of Bricriu " (p. 5) states,
probably with some exaggeration, that it took seven
strong men to put each pole in its place. But more
usually they were of moderate dimensions.

From the curious details given in the Brehon Law
tract called Crith Gabhlach,§ it appears that, after the

* On all this, see O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 32 : HyF, 265, 279 :
Three Irish Homilies, 77 bot. : and vol. I., p. 10, sup*a

f Bede, Eccl. Hist., III. x. : Rhys, The Welsh People, 199, 200 : Ware,
Antiqq., xxv.

J As in vol. iv. 253, 305, 313. Br. Laws, iv. 305.

CHAP. XXJ

THE HOUSE

poles had been fixed in the ground, the spaces were
filled up with wickerwork in the following manner, to
form the fraig, or side wall. Beginning at the bottom,
a strip of a certain width was woven all round ; another
strip was woven above that : and so on till the eave was
reached ; after which a sloping -drip board was fixed all
round at the junction of each adjacent pair of strips, and
one at the eave over all.

FIG. i6cfc
Maynooth Castle at present : photograph. Erected originally in 1176 by Maurice
Fitzgerald : but greatly altered and enlarged subsequently. One of the Anglo-Norman
castles referred to in page 65 farther on. (From Journal of the Kildare Archaeological
Society, I., p. 223.)

This last description, and that of Bricriu's house-
poles above, go to show that the side wall was often
very high : and this is borne out for other buildings by
many passages, both direct and incidental. Keating
(page 333), drawing from old authorities, says that the
Banqueting-Hall of Tara was 300 feet long by 75 feet
wide and 45 feet high : and Kineth O'Hartigan, in the
tenth century, makes a similar statement as to length and
height.* Now Keating understates both the length and
breadth, as appears by actual measurement of the present

* Petrie's Tara, 190.

26 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

existing iiiin,* so we may take it that the height was not
under 45 feet. Again, three great heroes contend in
another banqueting-hall, the feat consisting in throwing
a heavy roth or wheel-quoit upwards towards the roof.
Laegaire the victorious throws it half-way up the wall :
Conall Cernach throws it to the ridge pole : but Cuculainn
sent it right through the roof.f Lastly, in the Battle of
Rossnaree (p. 5), Concobar, speaking of the devastation
committed by the Connaughtmen in Ulster, says : — " Our
" fine dwellings were burned so that they were left no
" higher than single rooms or outhouses." This passage
seems to point to two-storied houses, with which other
passages concur. But in some cases the wall, or part of
it, was so low that the eave was within reach of the hand,
like the eaves of some " Swiss cottages " of the present
day : for the Crith GabhlachJ lays down a penalty for
taking away any portion of the straw from the thatch of a
bo-aire's house. When there was more than one apartment
in a house, each had a separate wall and roof : except, of
course, where one apartment was over another.

In the Highlands of Scotland wattled or wicker houses
were used, even among high-class people, down to the
end of the eighteenth century§ ; and it is probable that
they continued in use in Ireland to as late a period.

In the superior classes of houses, and in churches, a
better plan of building was adopted, by forming the wall
with sawed planks instead of wickerwork. The little hut
erected at Iona for St. Columba's special use was con-
structed of wood planks (in tuguriolo tabulis suffulto).\\
The oratory built at Rahan in the present King's County
in the year 747 was of boards ; and we are told that it was
unusually large, so that it took a thousand boards to build

* For actual dimensions, see p. 85, below.

t Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870, p. 438.

\ Brehon Laws, iv. 313.

§ Stuart, in Book of Deer, Pref. cli. note I.,

|| Adamnan, p. 54 ; and see 177.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 27

it.* But the dwelling-houses of monasteries, as well as
the smaller oratories, were generally of wickerwork : of
which one instance has already been cited at p. 24 from
Adamnan. In the houses of the higher classes the door-
posts and other special parts of the dwelling and furniture
were often made of yew, carved, and ornamented with
gold, silver, bronze, and gems. We know this from the
old records ; and still more convincing evidence is afforded
by the Brehon Law (iv. 313, 315), which prescribes fines
for scratching or otherwise disfiguring the posts or lintels
of doors, the heads or posts of beds, or the ornamental
parts of other furniture.

Small square timber houses, consisting generally of just
one apartment, have often been found deep in bogs, and
sometimes in clay. They consist of beams and planks of
oak and other timber, joined together with much rude
skill by tenon-and-mortise without nails. They seem to
have served some temporary purpose, as they are too
small for permanent residence ; perhaps they were in-
tended to shelter workmen for the time who were cutting
turf, or for those who attended to cattle when they were
grazed in the booleys. Or possibly some may have been
the little buildings connected with ancient mills (see
chap. xxv.). From the position in which some of these
houses have been found, it seems plain that they are
very archaic : belonging probably to a time beyond the
reach of history, f

The roof of the circular house was of a conical shape,
brought to a point, with an opening in the centre for the
smoke. It was of wickerwork or hurdles supported by
rafters sloping upwards from the tops of the wall-poles
all round, to the centre at the very top. From its shape
and material this sort of roof was often called cua-chlethe,

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 37.

t Instances : Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1879-82, pp 307, 561; see also
Wood-Martin, Pagan Ireland, p 223 et seq

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 29

' cup-shaped wicker roof.'* The roof of the quadrangular
houses was much like that of the common run of houses
of the present day. If the house was large, the conical
roof of those of circular form was supported by a tall,
strong tuireadh or pole standing on the centre of the floorf ;
in case the house was quandrangular, there was a row of
such supporting poles, or two rows if the structure was
very large. The circular building with conical roof was
in shape exactly like the buildings called ' tholos ' among
the Greeks.

Straw was used for roof-covering from the earliest
times, and its use has continued to the present day. In
1596 the straw thatch of O'Madden's Castle was ignited
by a firebrand thrown by the besiegers, so that the roof
was burned (Hy Many, 150). The word tuga was used
to denote a roof -covering, whether made of straw or of
any other material. In the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick
(p. 157) we are told that a certain person built a house
in Ess Mace n-Eirc ; but that a rush of the thatch
(simni tuga : simni, ' a rush ') had not been put upon
it before it was demolished by another person. Reeds
were often employed ; and for this purpose they were
sometimes cultivated in special plots of ground. J We
have seen that St. Finan roofed his church at Lindis-
farne with reeds (har undine texit). Whatever the material,
the covering was in all cases put on with some degree of
art and neatness, such as we see in the work of the skilled
straw-thatchers of the present day.

A better class of roof than any of the preceding was
what is called in Irish slinn, commonly rendered by
shingle. The house of Ailill and Maive at Cruachan
had a roof of slinn (tuga slinned).§ Slinn, in Old Irish,

* Sullivan, Introd. 299, note 531 : and LU, 19, a, 17.
f O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 32. % Adamnan, 163.

§ Tain bo Fr., 141 : Ir. Texte, 1. 281, „ . and see " Slind " in Wirter-
huch, same vol. : also Fled Bricrenn, § 55.

30 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

glosses imbrex, ' a brick or tile,' and it has the same
meaning in the modern language : but Uiga dinned,
generally means a roofing of thin boards. For instance,
in an Irish poem written by Mac Conmidhe early in the
thirteenth century, the church of Armagh is said to be
roofed with slinns of oak (slinnlech darach)* ; and in
another much older authority shingles made of yew are
mentioned. f The covering was constructed by making
the small flat pieces overlap as in modern slated or
tiled roofs. Sometimes, anticipating modern usage, they
employed materials superior to any of the preceding.
The Annals of Ulster record that in the year 1008, the
oratory of Armagh was roofed with lead.

The thatch of ladies' greenans (see p. 42, infra) was
sometimes formed of birds' wings. In a poem composed
by the hero Cael O'Nemnann about the lady Crede [Cray],
daughter of the king of Kerry, it is stated that her beautiful
greenan was thatched with the wings of birds, so arranged
as to form bright stripes of brown, reddish purple, and other
colours^ : and King Cormac Mac Art, when he visited
Tairngire or Fairyland, saw people thatching a house with
the wings of white birds.§

Over the top of the principal room on the inside
extended a ridge-pole or roof-tree called feici [faika],
from which lamps were suspended to light the apartment :
whence Cormac's Glossary (p. 81) derives the word from
feighe rfay], ' illumination.' This last word again is derived
from feig, which Zeuss (998, 38, 39) explains ' bright, or
illuminated,' and which is connected with the modern
Gaelic verb, fetich, ' see.' This word feici was also applied
to the ridge-pole of a tent, and sometimes to the lintel
of a door. || The feici was used in houses of a rectangular
shape, and possibly in round houses also. It was supported

. *0'Curry, Man. & Cust., H. 5*. t Ibid., p. 34.

X O'Curry, MS. Mat., 309 : Maw. & Cust , 11. 12, 13 : Silva Gad., 120.
8 Ir. Texte, in. 213. || Moyrath, 200, I3.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 31

by the posts already mentioned, which also supported the
roof. In Cormac's Glossary (34, under ' clii ') a house-post
is mentioned as tapering from floor to ridge.

There were windows in the fraig or wall, and often a
skylight in the roof. A window was called by two names
semester and fmnneog, the first derived from Lat. fenestra,
and the second — which is the word now in use — from
A. -Sax. windeage* A skylight was called by the native
name forless (' top-light '), from less or les, ' light.' On one
occasion persons kept a lady in concealment in a wicker-
work house, door and windows all closed up except one
seinister and a forleas, ' a window and a skylight. 'f The
house of Ailill and Maive at Croghan had a shutter of
brass to each of its windows, and a fastening of brass to
its for les. I

Glass was known among various ancient nations from
the most remote period : the Celts of Britain were well
acquainted with it : and from constant references to it in
our oldest writings, it is obvious that it was well known
to the ancient Irish. § Beads and other small ornamental
objects of glass, variously coloured, are constantly found in
Irish pre-Christian graves and crannoges : and in one of
the Loughcrew graves were found a number of them, one
about an inch long, and — says Mr. Fergusson — obviously
shaped by being softened by fire.|| The statement that this
bead was softened by fire is quite true indeed, inasmuch as
all the objects of this kind wherever found in Ireland were
formed while the material was heated to softness. More-
over the manufacture of these little articles was an art
requiring long training and much delicate manipulative
skill, for most of them are made of different coloured glass

* Stokes, in Lives of SS., Pref. c. f Stokes, Da Derga, 19, 20.

% Crowe, Tain bo Fr., 141 top.

§ See, for examples, Miss Stokes, in Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., xxx. 283 :
Fled Bricrenn, 208 : Todd, St. Patrick, 222 : and Kilk. Arch. Journ.,
1879-82, p. 532. |i Fergusson, Rude Stone Mon., 218.

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART in

or porcelain — blue, white, yellow, pale red, &c. — blended
and moulded and beautifully striated in the manner shown
imperfectly here in the black-and-white figures. They were
used for ornamentation, very often forming the heads of
pins, but sometimes made into rings, or strung together for
beads.*

One of the testimonies to the use of glass at a remote
period in Ireland is the fact that it has two native Irish

names — not derived — viz.
gloinc or glaine [2-syll.], which
signifies clearness and purity,
from glan, ' pure,' ' clear,'
V^^L^^I irWSr\/B * bright ' : and bus, which is

explained by O'Davoren as
'crystal or glass.' We often
read of copans or
cups of bus, corns

Fig. 172.

Fig. 173.

Fig. 174.

Fig. 175.

Class and porcelain ornaments, full size, now in National Museum. In figures 172, 173, and 175,
the coloured orn; ments form part of the substance, and were worked into shape while the whole
mass was softened by heat. Figure 172, made of clear glass, with a yellow spiral ornament.
Figure 173, of opaque light-green glass, grooved from top to bottom. Figure 174, body of deep
blue, on which is twisted, and fastened while soft, an ornament of white enamel. Figure 17s,
pin-head of fine light-red porcelain decorated with wavy stripes, some white, some yellow : found
with part of bronze pin attached, as shown in figure.

There are in the Museum many ornaments of coloured glass, with variously coloured patterns of
enamel on the surface, of which the most beautiful is shown, full size, in figure 171. It is a circular
disk, half-inch thick, the body of dark blue glass, with a wavy pattern of white enamel, like an open
flower, on the surface. (AH, both figures and descriptions, from Wilde's Catalogue, pp. 162-165.)

or horns of bus, &c. These words were also applied to
natural crystal as well as to glass. Glass was turned to
various uses. Glass drinking-vessels were known to the
Irish at least as early as the sixth century. Adamnan
(p. 147) relates that a druid named Broichan, foster-father

* Sec Wilde's Catalogue, 162 to 169.

CHAP. XXI THE HOUSE 33

of the Pictish King Brude, in the time of St. Columba, had
a glass drinking-cup (vitream biberam) of great value which,
as he was about to drink from it, fell and was broken into
fragments : and vessels of glass are mentioned in the
Lebar Brecc*. In the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick (p. 95)
there is a legend of a stone altar found in a cave in Con-
naught with four glass chalices (ceitri cailig glainidi) at
the four corners.

Glass and vessels of glass are frequently mentioned in
the most ancient of the tales. In several passages of the
Voyage of Maildune we read of lestars or drinking-vessels
of glass : and in one part of the voyage he sails over a
transparent sea " like green glass." In a sermon in LU, on
the Day of Judgment, the six kinds of mercy by which
heaven is to be attained are called " the six glass doors
" through which comes the light of eternal life into the
" church." f Add to all this that the remains of a regular
glass factory have been found by the Rev. Mr. Ffrench in
the townland of Moylisha, almost beside the ancient church
of Aghowle in Wicklow, where great quantities of lumps of
glass, chiefly of the three colours, blue, green, and white,
have been — and can still be — dug up. The fuel used in
the manufacture was charcoal, bits of which are found
among the fragments (Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1885-6, p. 420).

Glass was used in England for church windows in the
seventh century ; and it had been long previously in use
for this purpose on the Continent : so we may conclude
that the knowledge of the use of glass for windows found
its way into Ireland from Gaul, Italy, and England, through
missionaries and merchants. £ At all events glass windows
are mentioned in many of the ancient Irish tales, which
shows that this use of glass was familiarly known to the
original writers. In the Feast of Bricriu in LU, which was

* Atkinson, Pass. & Homil., p. 48, „65_
f Rev. Celt., iv. 249 : LU, 32, a, 29.
J See Petrie, Round Towers, 201.

34 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

copied in noo from earlier books, we are told that Bricriu
made an apartment for his own special use, with windows
of glass (senistre glainide) on every side ; and he placed
one over his own couch in his grccnan, so that he could
have a full view of the banquet-hall and company through
it.* In the same tale the house of Ailill and Maive, king
and queen of Connaught in the first century, is described
as having twelve windows closed up with glass, f There is
of course bardic exaggeration in all this : still we are
forced to believe that glass of some kind was used in Ire-
land for windows, certainly before noo, and probably as
early as the beginning of the historical period.

There was one large door leading to the principal
apartment of the dwelling-house, with smaller doors, open-
ing externally, for the other rooms. Generally the several
rooms did not communicate with each other internally.
In the outer lis or rampart surrounding the homestead (for
which see p. 54, below), there was a single large door. The
doors of some great houses were very large and heavy. In
the Boroma, Branduff and his companions " went forth
" outside and shut the great royal doorleaf of the palace
" behind them " (ro iadsadar in rig-comlai moir in rigthigi
dara neise), " for the strength of nine men was in each of
them I " : which implies that the comla or door was very
massive. But such doors were exceptions, and those of
ordinary houses were not larger than was necessary. The
common Irish word for door was, and is, dorus : a single
leaf of a door was comla.

Sometimes there was a cairthe or stone column or pillar
— or more than one — standing at the side of the outer or
lis doorway. In the Mesca Ulad a person, seeing certain
white objects in the distance, mistakes them for shields :
but his companion says : — " They are not shields at all but

* Ir. Texte, i. 254 ; and Fled Bricrenn (Henderson), p. 5
f Ir. Texte, 1. 281 : Henderson, 69.
X Rev Celt., xm. 61 Silva Gad., 410.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 35

" the [white] stone columns (colomna clock) that are in the
" doors of these royal raths "* : and in the " Destruction of
Dind Rig " we are told that at the door of the dun outside
there was a cairthe or standing-stone. The knocker was
a small log of wood called bas-chrann, i.e. ' hand-wood,'
which lay in a niche by the door. It is everywhere
mentioned in the old tales that visitors knocked with the
bas-chrann. In rich people's houses there was a special
doorkeeper (Irish doirseoir, doirside or doirsire), to answer
knocks and admit visitors. At the bottom of the door
was a tairsech or threshold. Cormac, in his Glossary
(p. 161), derives this word from tairis, ' over it,' because
" people pass inwards over it." It is a derivative from the
Irish tars or tarsa, ' across,' connected with Latin trans.

The jamb was anciently called aursa or irsa, but in the
modern language it is ursa : the lintel was for-dorus (i.e.
' on the door '), now usually fardorus. A certain student
was making prostrations near the door of his hut, when he
struck his head against the fordorus and fell dead.j On
the outside of the large door of the lis was a porch called
aurduine (lit. ' front part of the dun '). Cormac's Glossary
explains aurduine as a structure " at the doors of the duns,
which is made by the artisans " — implying ornamentation.
The lis door was always closed at night. A more usual
name for a door-porch was immdorus (irntn or im, ' about ' :
' about a door '). In the Vision of Mac Conglinne (90, 91)
persons are spoken of as carrying offal " from the immdorus
of the great house to the immdorus of the dun or rampart
on the outside." In O'Clery's Glossary immdorus is stated
to be the same as fordorus, from which it would seem that
the two words were sometimes used one for the other.

The door was secured on the inside either by a bolt
or by a lock. We have the best evidence to show that
locks were used in Ireland in very early times. When

* Mesca Ulad, 21

t Fordorus : so in LL : see Stokes, Lives of SS., Pref. xi, note 5.

36 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

St. Columba went to visit the Pictish King Brude, " the
door of the fortress" — as the Irish Life of the Saint relates
— " was shut against him, and at once, through Colum-
cille's prayer, the iron locks (glais iarnaidhi) opened."
We are told by Adamnan that a certain disciple on an
important occasion peeped at St. Columba in his hut at
Iona through the keyhole, and was soundly rated by the
saint next day for his curiosity. Another similar occurrence
ended less harmlessly. While Columba was surreptitiously
copying St. Finnen's Book of Psalms at Drumfinn (vol. I.,
p. 501, supra), Finnen sent a messenger to spy out what he
was doing, who looked through the keyhole and saw him
at the work. But the saint's pet crane, happening to be
with him, walked over to the door and neatly picked out
the man's eye through the keyhole*

Fig. 176. Fic. 177.

Bronze Keys. Figure 176, a very perfect and highly decorated key, 2% inches long,
with a pipe in the shaft : found in Tory Island. Figure 177, i$n inch long. (From
Wilde's Catalogue.)

In the romantic literature notices of locks and keys
are equally common. In the story of Mongan in the Book
of the Dun Cow, mention is made of a beautiful chamber
locked and opened by a key.t And in the story of the
Demon Chariot of Cuculainn in the same old book, we are
told that the king's palace in the Isle of Skye had iron
locks.J Locks were used for other purposes, as, for
instance, to fasten fetters. In the seventh-century Life
of St. Patrick by Muirchu, it is related that Maccuil put
on his feet an iron fetter which he locked, and threw the
key into the sea.§ The common word for a lock is glas.

* Adamnan, 226, and note/;.

t Voyage of Bran, 1. 55 : LTJ, 134, a, last line, and b, first line.

X Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-1, p. 385. § Trip. Life, 288, 28.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 37

A key is denoted by echuir or eochuir (gen. eochrach),
which in Cormac's Glossary (p. 68) is derived from two
words signifying ' crooked-straight ' : i.e. partly crooked
and partly straight. A keyhole is poll-eochrach {poll, ' a
hole '). Sometimes a door had a chain (slabrad) attached,
which was probably used to fasten it. When Labraid and
his men were about to set fire to the palace of Dinnree,
they drew out the chain that was attached to the comla
or double door, and put it on or round the pillar-stone
outside, apparently to prevent the escape of those inside,
who in a little time were all burned to death.* Mention
is made of the aradh or ladder, which must have been in
constant use.

The houses were generally small, according to our idea
of size. But then we must remember that, like the people
of other ancient nations, the Irish had very little furniture.
In the main room there was probably nothing — besides
the couches— but a sufficient number of small movable
seats and a large table of some sort, or perhaps a number
of small tables. On this point it has been remarked that
the Grianan of Ailech on Greenan-Ely near Derry, a
circular building of uncemented stones, which was the
palace of the Ulster kings, " gives a very poor idea of
the extent of an ancient Irish regal abodef " : inasmuch
as it was, as its ruins show, only seventy-seven feet in
diameter. But this was merely the central keep or citadel.
The dwelling of the king himself may have been within
this enclosure, which afforded space enough for a respect-
ably large house. The whole hill is surrounded by several
earthen ramparts, one outside another, now nearly levelled,
with broad spaces between (for which see page 91 below).
In the intervening spaces timber houses were built, in
which the chiefs and numerous dependents of the king
lived : and probably the king himself had one or more

* Stokes, Destruction of Dinnree, Zeitschr. Celt. Phil., III. 13.
f Hennessy, Book of Fenagh, 63, note 3.

3«

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

outside the circular fortress. Many of the English and
Anglo-Irish square castles, of which the ruins are seen to
this day all through the country, were small and incon-
venient to live in — often much smaller than the Greenan-
Ely fortress : but most of them were merely citadels, which
were originally surrounded by buildings of a lighter con-
struction and more convenient size, in which the family
and dependents customarily lived.

fig. 178

Trim Castle, originally built by Hugh de Lacy the Elder, end of twelfth century ;
bat afterwards rebuilt. One of the Anglo-Norman strongholds referred to at p. 6s
farther on. (From Cromwell's Tours. Drawn by Petrie.)

Still the general run of houses were small in early
times, in Ireland as elsewhere. Moreover the standard of
living was in all countries low and rude compared with
what we are now accustomed to ; a fact that ought to be
borne in mind by the reader of the account given here of
the domestic arrangements in ancient Irish houses. In
England, even so late as the time of Holinshed — sixteenth
century — hardly any houses had chimneys. A big fire of
logs was kindled against the wall of the principal room,
the smoke from which escaped through an orifice in the
roof right overhead. Here the meat was cooked, and here

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 39

the family dined. In very few houses were there beds 01
bedrooms, and the general way of sleeping was on a pallet
of straw covered with a sheet, under coverlets of various
coarse materials, with a log of wood for a pillow : while
the manner of eating, which is noticed farther on (page
in), was correspondingly rude. All this is described for
England by Roberts.*

It is not easy to understand the statements given in the
Brehon Laws as to the size of houses. For instance, the
text of the Crith Gablach (iv. 311) says that a brewy or
public hospitaller had " a house of 27 feet," and a backhouse
or kitchen of 17 feet. But this is obviously a partial and
imperfect statement — like so many others in the Brehon
Laws ; for elsewhere we are told that he should be provided
with all the necessary appliances to accommodate numer-
ous guests, including, in case of one high class of brewy,
100 beds. It is probable that the " house of 27 feet "was
his own special residence, rectangular in shape, 27 feet
wide : the length undetermined. In this case the little
apartments for the family beds (see p. 46, infra) might be
along one or both side walls : but if it was a circular house
27 feet in diameter, some at least of the family beds must
have been in separate houses outside. As for the beds
for the brewy's guests, there must have been a number
of separate houses for these.

St. Patrick, in laying out the ecclesiastical buildings in
Armagh, imitated the ancient fashion of the country, as he
wisely did in most other things : for we are told in the
Tripartite Life (p. 237) : — " In this wise then Patrick
measured the ferta, namely, seven score feet in the lis
[i.e. the circular rampart enclosing the whole establish-
ment], and twenty-seven feet in the great house, and
seventeen feet in the kitchen, and seven feet in the
oratory : and in that wise it was that he used to found
the congbala [ecclesiastical homesteads] always."
* See Roberts, Soc. Hist., p. 318,

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

We know that many of the great houses were very
large. The present remains of the Tech Midchuarta or
Banqueting-Hall of Tara measure 759 feet long and
46 feet wide : and Petrie states that it must have been
originally about 90 feet wide.* In the " Wooing of
Emer " (p. 69) we are told that the measurement of the
hall of Emain was " fifteen feet and nine score " : which
refers to a square shape.

FlC. 179.

King John's Castle in Limerick. Erected in the beginning of the thirteenth

century by one of the Anglo-Norman chiefs. Stanyhurst states that it was

built by the order of King John. One of the Anglo-Norman castles referred

to at p. 63 farther on. (From Mrs. Hall's Ireland.)

We may form some idea of the better class of dwellings
from an enumeration, in the Crith Gabhlach, of the various
buildings in the homestead of a well-to-do farmer of the
class bo-aire, who rented land from a chief and whose
property was chiefly in cattle. His dwelling consisted
of (at least) seven different houses, each as already observed
with a separate wall, door, and roof : — 1. Dwelling-house
(tech), at least 27 feet in diameter : 2. Kitchen or cooking-

* Petrie's Tara, p. 185.

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

house (ircha, or cuchtair, or cuile), at the back of the
dwelling-house : 3. A kiln (aith) for drying corn : 4. A
barn (saball) in which corn was stored : 5. A sheep-house
(lias* cdirach) : 6. A calf-house (lias laeg) : 7. A pigsty
(muc-foil or muccdl, from muc, ' a pig,' and foil or fail, ' a
house ' — fail, ' dcmus,' Z., 5, 43).f These were all in one

s ^H«k*»<!<.>f,

"^ftfta

C5Z*

FIG. 180.
Conjectural plan of homestead of a well-to-do farmer of the bo-aire class,
constructed from the descriptions given in the Brehon Laws. " Dw," family
dwelling-house, of wickerwork, 27 feet in diameter, with three outside
sleeping-rooms (which might be either round or rectangular) : " Kit," kitchen :
"K," kiln (chiefly for corn-drying): " B," Barn: " C," calf-house: " P,"
pig-house: "S," sheep-house. The whole group surrounded by a circular
rath or defensive entrenchment, with one entrance. The cows and horses
were kept outside this enclosure.

group close together ; and each generally, though not
always, consisted of the usual round-shaped wicker-house
with conical roof, except the barn, which was oblong : the
whole group surrounded by the lis or rath, described farther
on (p. 54) . In all houses of the more comfortable class the

* This word lias (leece) was in very general use to denote a hut for the
smaller animals — calves, sheep, lambs, &c It must be distinguished from
les, lios, or lis, ' a rath or fort." | Brehon Laws, iv. 309, 311,

42 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

kitchen was separate from the dwelling-house and placed
at the back : and there was a separate pantry for provisions,
called in Irish scallad, a word which glosses cellarium in
some Old Irish documents.*

From a fanciful derivation of sabhall, given in Senchus
Mor (Br. Laws, I. 141), we may infer that a barn was
oblong and had one side quite open, with the roof sup-
ported at that side on posts. From the same derivation,
and from other passages, f it would appear that while in
some cases the barn belonged to the owner of the home-
stead individually, in others it was common to the several
families of the same fine, each householder using his own
compartment for storing his corn : but in this case it must
have been very large and detached — not situated within
the enclosure of any private homestead. This arrange-
ment could be adopted when the lisses and houses were
near each other, forming a village or hamlet.

The women had a separate apartment or a separate
house in the sunniest and pleasantest part of the home-
stead. This was called a grianan [greenan], which
signifies a solarium, solar, or summer-house : a diminutive
derivative from grian, ' the sun.' The women's greenan
is constantly mentioned in Irish writings : and sometimes
the master of the house had a greenan for himself, to
which he could retire when he pleased. In Cruachan the
greenan was placed over the fordorus or lintel, as much as
to say it was placed in front over the common sitting-
room : and probably it occupied some such position in
most houses.

In great houses there was one apartment called the
house of conversation (tech immdcallamae) , answering to
the modern " drawing-room," where the family often sat,
especially to receive visitors. Prince Fraech, when he
visited Maive at the palace of Cruachan on important

* Stokes, Ir. Glosses in Tract on Declension, No 741.
•f And see also Brehon Laws, iv. 305, mid.

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

business, was always brought into the " house of con-
versation " to discuss matters when an interview was
needed.*

Sometimes there was a small side-room beside the
principal apartment, from which a door opened directly
into it : having no separate outside door. This was called
erdam or erdomh or aurdom, as it is given in Cormac's
Glossary (p. 3 : ' on or by a house ' : dam or dom, ' house ').
This plan was often adopted in Christian churches where a
small apartment was placed at the side of the church.f

Fig. 181.

Bunratty Castle m the south of Clare, on the Bunratty river, where it joins the Shannon : built
about the end of the thirteenth century by Thomas de Clare, an Anglo-Norman lord. One of the
Anglo-Norman castles referred to in sect. 3 below. (From Kilk. Archa:ol. Journ., 1890-91, p. 292.)

The privy was called fialtech, i. e. ' veil-house ' {fial, ' a
veil ' : tech, ' house ') : the urinary was fualtech, from fual,
' urine.' In the Rule for the Culdee Monks, both houses
are said to be the abode of demons ; and whoever goes to
them is enjoined to bless them and also to bless himself —
i.e. to make the sign of the cross. £ The fialtech and

♦Tain bo Fr., 143, 145.

t See theErdamh or Erdam discussed at length in Petrie's Round Towers
(Index), + Reeves, Culdees, 91.

44 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

the fualtech are often referred to incidentally, but most
often in connexion with monasteries.

Maigens or Sanctuaries. — The plot of land around the
house of a person of rank was a sort of asylum. This was
called a maigen or precinct : and within it no man should
break the peace without the consent of the owner. The
higher the rank the larger the maigen. The maigen of a
bo-aire, the lowest rank entitled to the privilege, was the
smallest : it extended the cast of a spear all round his
house. That of an aire-desa extended two casts. The
extent doubled for each rank upwards to the king of the
tuath, whose maigen extended sixty-four casts round his
residence. The maigen of a provincial king or of the king
of Ireland included tho whole plain on which the palace
stood. There was also a maigen — varying according to
rank — round the dwelling of an ecclesiastic, and also round
a church : the sanctuary of a church was often called
Termon land (i. 358, supra). The Archbishop of Armagh
had the same extent of maigen as the king of Ireland. It
will be mentioned farther on (page 173) that every bruden
or first-class hostel was also an asylum.

A fugitive, no matter what his crime, and also whatever
property he had with him, whether belonging to himself or
to the pursuer, once he entered on a maigen, were safe for
the time, provided the regulations were complied with.
The following conditions and formalities were necessary
to ensure his safety : — 1. The owner, or some member of
his family legally entitled to act for him in such cases,
should give permission to the fugitive to enter on the
precinct, and should persist in claiming asylum for him.
2. The owner or his deputy should inform the pursuer that
the place was a precinct. 3. The owner or deputy should
guarantee that no loss should accrue to the pursuer or
aggrieved party by the temporary shelter afforded to the
fugitive — that the original claim should hold good — that
the fugitive should not be enabled to finally escape from

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 45

justice. If any one of these failed he might be arrested
on the maigen. A person who committed any act of
violence within a maigen — provided he knew it was one,
and that the necessary formalities were observed — had to
pay damages to the owner, the amount depending on
honour-price, on the extent of the violence, and on other
circumstances.

This law of sanctuary in and around a house existed
also in early times in England, and in a form almost
identical with that laid down in the Brehon Law.*

This is a proper place to observe that there was an
all-important distinction between the asylum-right of a
private residence and that of a church or a hostel. The
right accorded to the maigen of a dwelling was for the
protection of the owner against scenes of violence on his
premises by outsiders — not primarily in the interest of the
fugitive ; and as it depended on the will — or caprice — of
the owner, it was uncertain. It was indeed not an asylum
at all in the proper sense of the word. But the sanctuary
of a church or the asylum of a bruden was absolute and
inviolable, depending on no conditions and on no man's
will or caprice.

2. Interior Arrangements and Sleeping Accommodation.

It will be shown farther on (p. 52) that in large houses
there were separate sleeping-rooms. But among the
ordinary run of comfortable, well-to-do people, including
many of the upper classes, the family commonly lived, ate,
and slept in the one principal apartment, f as was the case
in the houses of the Anglo-Saxons, the English, the
Germans, and the Scandinavians of the same period. In
the better class of houses in Ireland there were, ranged
along the wall, little compartments or cubicles, each con-

* Brehon Laws, III., Introd. by Richey, ciii. For the whole law of
Precincts see Brehon Laws, iv. 277. See also HI. 119 to 145.

t For examples, see Mac Conglinne, 58 ; and Tromdamh, 51, 55, 61.

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

!> ART III

taining a bed, or sometimes more, for one or more persons,
with its head to the wall. The wooden partitions enclosing
the beds were not carried up to the roof ; they were prob-
ably about eight or nine feet high, so that the several com-
partments were open at top. A little compartment of this
kind, whether open or closed overhead, was called an imda.
The primary meaning of imda is a ' bed,' as is clearly
indicated in Cormac's Glossary (p. 6), where it is stated that
the adhart or ' pillow ' is so called because it is higher than

•a-D

*fr

{MRU

FIG. i8a.
Conjectural plan of a good-class house, where the family lived, ate, and slept
In the one large apartment : constructed from the descriptions in Tales and
Brehon Laws. (House here made quadrangular, but might be round or oval
Eight imdas, cubicles, or sleeping-places, each with one bed : some beds for
one person, some for two, some for three. Four low, small tables and a number
of seats are shown, all movable. Seats at ends of cubicles outside are fixeu.
Five supporting posts (shown by little circles) : fire near middle. The openings
or windows in walls arc not marked ; neither are the doors in doorways of house
and cubicles.

the rest of the imda or bed. But by a natural extension
of meaning the word is often used to denote the whole
compartment or cubicle with its bedstead. Sometimes the
word imda was applied to a large room : for example, in
Kineth O'Hartigan's poem it is stated that in Tara there
were fifty imdas, each with fifty men in it.* But the usual
meaning was either a bed or the little room containing a
bed. In the Bruden Da Derga, Ingcel goes to reconnoitre
the hostel that his party are about to attack. He sees
many imdas of different sizes with men in them varying in
number from one up to nine. From the whole context it

* Petrie's Tara, p. 190

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 47

is plain that these imdas were not couches but little com-
partments open in front, so that all those in them could be
seen sitting or reclining on couches : and accordingly the
persons are described all through, not as on the imda, but
as in it. Let us add that Dr. Stokes, in his edition of this
story, always translates imda by ' room.'

At the foot of each imda outside, and projecting into
the main room, there was a low fixed seat, often stuffed
with some soft material, for use during the day. Besides
these there were on the floor of the main apartment a
number of detached movable day couches or seats — all
low — with one or more low tables of some sort.

The preceding description of the disposition of the beds
applies to the better class of houses. The lower classes of
people probably slept, like those of Wales and Scotland of
those times, on beds or pallets ranged along the wall with
little or no attempt to screen one from another. Giraldus
describes the Welsh as sleeping in this manner with their
heads to the circular wall and their feet towards the fire.

The fire was in or near the middle, and the people sat
or reclined by day all round it ; while the smoke escaped
through an opening in the roof : a custom which, as Scott
records, existed in Scotland down to 200 years ago.* In
England also, down to the time of Elizabeth, before coal
was brought into domestic use, and when wood was the
general fuel, there were hardly any chimneys, and the fire
was lighted— as in Ireland and Scotland — in the centre of
the single big room or hall, or up against one of the walls,
the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof.f

That these arrangements for living and sleeping were
in general use in Ireland is abundantly plain from many
passages in the old writings. We find the expression,
so many " imdas from fire to side wall in the house all

* Rob Roy, chap, xxviii.

t Roberts, Social Hist. pp. 325, 348 ; see also Mr. P. H. Newman in
" Social England," 1. 225.

48 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

round "* constantly used in the tales. That there were
seats distinct from those at the ends of the cubicles appears
from a passage in the Crith Gabhlach describing the house
and furniture of an aire-tuisi. chief, in which we read that
there were " eight imdas with their proper furniture [namely,
" bedsteads with beds and end-seats], besides six couches
" [brothrach, ' a couch ' : pi. brothracha], with their proper
" furniture both pillows and sitting-skins '* (i.e. skins stuffed
with feathers). f All this shows that the ancient Irish of the
higher classes had two distinct kinds of couches : a couch
or bed for sleeping on, and another sort for sitting or re-
clining on at meals, or on other occasions during the day ;
just as the Romans had their two kinds of lecii or couches
for the same two purposes.

The bedstead within the imda, in the best class of
houses, consisted of four pillars connected by rails, with
a canopy overhead, and curtains running by rings on
copper rods. J Such a bed was designated lige cumtachta,
i.e. a ' protected,' enclosed, or testered bed : and this
designation occurs so often that such beds must have
been pretty common. Near the foot of the bed and
within the imda there was a rack with pins or hooks
for hanging clothes or other articles on.§ Lige or ligi
[lee] was a usual term for a bed, cognate with Lat. lecius :
but the commonest name was lej>ad, which, in the form
leaba or leabadh [labba], is the term in use at the present
day. This word was also used to denote a couch for day
use, which had generally a little table beside if for food
and drink. St. Patrick, when at Tara, was summoned to
King Laegaire's kpad in the banquet-room to have some
food. |! Both lige and hpad were applied to a grave. The
word sceng [skeng] also means ' a bed,' though not often
used : and hence the enclosure round a bed or couch was

* Tain bo Fr., 139. \ Silva Gad., 120.

t Brehon Laws, iv. 326, 6; 327, ,,. § Brehon Laws, iv. 75, bot.
[1 Trip. Life, 55

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 49

often called imscing [im, ' about '). In Cormac's Glossary
(p. 98) we have " imscing, a little house [or apartment]
in which a bed [imdae] fits " : and again (p. 150), " sceng,
i.e. iumdha, a bed, whence imscing, a small both or tent
which surrounds a bed." Sceng and imscing, like lefiad,
were applied also to day-couches. King Domnall, at the
banquet of Dun-nan-gedh, sat or reclined at the head of
the table in his golden imscing (Moyr. 29) : i.e. an imscing
ornamented with gold.

A bedframe or bedstead is often called tolg. We are
told in an ancient book of Irish annals, and also in the
story of the Boroma, that Feredach, king of Ossory, in the
sixth century, falling very sick, had to lie abed : and he
caused to be brought to him all his treasures, which he
kept beside him in his tolg : — " For it was [then] the
" custom of kings to have couches (tolgs) of yew around
" them, in which they had a collection of their bars and
" ingots of silver, and their [valuable] cups and vessels, and
" their chessmen and chessboards, and their camans or
" hurleys."* The fierce old warrior Cellach, unable to
walk or move about on account of his great age, had a
brass tolg as his bed, in which he always remained : and
his only treasure and consolation was his sword, which
he kept unknown to all, hidden under the bedclothes, f
The practice of keeping a sword in bed must have been
common : Dalian mac Moire, chief poet to Cerball king of
Leinster (a.d. 885-909), in his poem addressed to Cerball's
sword, asks : " from the day that Cerball departed, with
whom shalt thou have bed-fellowship ? " {lepthanas) .%

As distinct from the imda and bedstead, the bed-tick or
mattress was called dergud [dergu], a distinction clearly
pointed out in this passage from the voyage of Maildune : —
" There were seventeen canopied imdas in the house, with

* Three Fragments of Annals, 9 : Silva Gad., 416.
t Moyrath, 43.

I Kuno Meyer in Rev. Celt., xx., p. 12 : LL, 47, b, 13 from bottom.

50 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

good der guds {dagdergudhaib) set in them."* The word
colcaid (a loan-word from Lat. culcita) was also often applied
to a bed or bed-tick : O'Donovan always renders it ' a flock-
bed ' : but whatever sort of bed it was, it must have been
regarded as a luxury, for we are told in Cormac's Glossary
(p. 44) that it was used by nobles. This word was also
often applied to a quilt or other bed-covering ; having
undergone a change of meaning like the English word
quill, which also comes from culcita. The blanket (setigi)
and other bed-covering were brought out by day to be
aired and sunned, f White linen sheets were used, and in
grand houses they were often embroidered with figures. J

Beds of the best class were stuffed with feathers.
St. Columba is made to prophesy of a certain king that
he would not be killed in battle, but that he would die
on his own feather-bed (filumaliuncvlam) .§ Some of the
beds in the guest-house of the Cork monastery were made
of feathers. Straw was sometimes used : Mac Conglinne
(p. 14) growls by way of contempt that the attendant who
waited on him in Cork monastery had no better way of
lighting the fire in the guest-house than by pulling a wisp
of straw from the bed. The Book of Aicill,|| defining the
penalty for stealing straw, lays down a double fine if
the straw was intended to be put as beds under people ;
which indicates that it was subjected to some sort of
preparation. Rushes were sometimes used for beds — as in
Wales^f — especially in cases of emergency or for tempo-
rary use. When Cuculainn and Ferdiad had finished their
day's fighting, their attendants prepared beds of fresh rushes
for them.** When the Fena of Erin were out on their
hunting excursions, they put up hunting-booths each
evening, after which — to use the words of Keating : —

* Rev. Celt., x. 65. t Mac Conglinne, io, 22.

% Leahy, Courtship of Ferb. 29 : LL, 256, b, top line: Three Fragm., 11, 17.
§ Adamnan, 44. ^ Giraldus, Descr. of Wales, 1. x.

)| Brehon Laws, 111. 151, IS> ^ ** O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 439.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 51

" Each man constructed his bed of the brushwood of the
" forest, moss, and fresh rushes. The brushwood was laid
" next the ground ; over that was laid the moss ; and the
" fresh rushes were spread over all : which three materials
" are designated in old books tri cuilcedha na Feine, ' the
" three bed-materials of the Fena.' ' The people often
used beds of hides stuffed with some soft material : or
perhaps they simply spread the skin on the top of straw
or rushes. The Senchus Mor mentions " a poor sick man
lying on the hides."*

1'IG. 183.
Castle of Athlone : erected by John de Grey, Lord Justiciary, or Governor, or
Ireland, 1210-1313. One of the Anglo-Norman castles referred to at p. 65, infra.
(From Mrs. Hall's Ireland.)

A pillow was used for the head. The most common
word for a pillow was adart [ey-art], which is used to
this day by speakers of Irish. A fanciful derivation of
the word given in Cormac's Glossary (p. 6) indicates
clearly the nature of the article : — " Adart, i.e. ath-ard,
" additional height, because it is higher than the rest
" of the bed," Sometimes frithadart was used ; and a

* Brehon Laws, i. 195.

52 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

passage in Fiach's Hymn, in which this word occurs,
also indicates the distinction between the bed and the
pillow : — " He [St. Patrick] slept on a bare flagstone, a
pillar- stone was his pillow" (frithadart) * Another name
for a pillow was cerchaill or cenncherchaill (where cenn is
' head '). Cormac's Glossary (p. 38) defines cerchaill as
" head-protection." From the same passage we learn that
a pillow was filled with feathers, and that the case was
[sometimes] made from the skin of a wild deer (" It is of
" his hide [the hide of a wild deer] that the case for the
" feathers is made.").

Often two, and sometimes three, persons slept in the
same bed. St. Patrick placed the youth Aed, the king of
Leinster's son, in charge of Cascorach the minstrel, say-
ing : — " Let the king of Leinster's son be in one bed {in
" aeinlebaid) and in one condition with thee till we reach
" Leinster."f When St. Caillin visited the O'Cahalans of
Connaught, they received him so well that he blessed them
and prophesied that there should be always among them
some chief who would be [so much esteemed as to be]
selected as a king's bed-fellow. % It was a mark of distinc-
tion to set apart a bed for one. Maildune and his men
came to a certain house in which were a number of bed-
couches, one intended for Maildune alone, and each of the
others for three of his people§ : and in another place was
a house with a number of large beds, each for three of
the household, and one smaller bed for the master of
the house. || One of the complaints of the unreasonable
demands of the poets who were on a visit to Guaire
king of Connaught was that they insisted on a separate
bed for each.^T

In great homesteads there were sleeping-houses or
apartments distinct and separate both from the sitting-

* Trip. Life, 408-9. § Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 141.

f Silva Gad., 205. || Ibid., 125.

J Book of Fenagh, 179, 185. ^ Tromdamh 41, IS; 109, verse.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 53

or banquet-room and from one another, each probably

circular and having a conical roof of its own : often called

tech-leptha, i.e. ' bed-house.' When the three Red Branch

champions came to the palace of Cruachan, Ailill and

Maive gave them the choice of a house (tech) for each,

or one house for the three : and they selected three

houses, in each of which was a bed.* " We have distinct

' statements in our ancient records " — says O' Curry — " that

' different members of the same family had distinct houses

' (and not apartments) within the same rath, dun, lis, or

' cathair : that the lord or master had a sleeping-house,

' his wife a sleeping-house, his sons and daughters, if he

' had such, separate sleeping-houses, and so on, besides

' places of reception for strangers and visitors. "f But

this applies to the great houses belonging to people of

rank. Even in high-class houses, however, it was usual to

put two or three in the same room, with a bed for each.J

People of the upper classes sat upon seats covered with

skins. St. Patrick's chariot-seat was covered with the skin

either of a cow or of a seal : both are mentioned in the

Tripartite Life (p. 75) as in use. Skins for sitting on

(Gaimniu suidi) are noticed in the Crith Gabhlach§ as in

the house of an aire-tuisi chief. In Kuno Meyer's Liadain

and Curithir (p. 23) is mentioned a couch covered with

white fleeces of [sheep-] skins ; and Cormac's Glossary

(p. 81) quotes this verse from a poem, ancient in his time :

" It is delightful for me to be [sitting] on a yearling calf's

skin in Garbhan's house."

It was a common practice in the better class of houses
to strew the floor with rushes : and when distinguished
visitors were expected, the old rushes were removed and
fresh ones supplied. The women-servants always managed
this business. When Murkertagh of the Leather Cloaks

* Fled Brier., 69. f Man. & Cust., II. 70.

% See Silva Gad., 52 mid. and 102, 9; and Hyde, Lit. Hist., 295.
§ Brehon Laws, iv. 326, 8,

54 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

was approaching Ailech his home, with many royal captives,
after his circuit round Ireland, a.d. 941, he sent on a page
the day before with directions that women should be sent
to cut rushes for the floor.* The use of rushes for this
purpose was so well understood that there was a special
knife for cutting them ; and such a knife is enumerated
among the household articles in the house of a brugh-fer
or brewy.f Sometimes the floor was covered with soft
green-leaved birch-branches with rushes strewn over them 4
We know that this custom of covering the floor with rushes
also prevailed in England, where it was continued down
to the time of Elizabeth. In some of the inferior apart-
ments of Irish houses, straw was used : for example, it
was expected that the kitchen of a bo-aire chief should
be kept strewn with fresh straw,§ which one would think
a dangerous practice.

3. Older Premises and Defence.

The homesteads had to be fenced in to protect them
from robbers and wild animals. This was usually done
by digging a deep circular trench, the clay from which
was thrown up on the inside. This was shaped and faced ;
and thus was formed, all round, a high mound or dyke
with a trench outside, and having one opening for a door
or gate. Whenever water was at hand the trench was
flooded as an additional security : and there was a bridge
opposite the opening, which was raised, or closed in some
way, at night. The houses of the Gauls were fenced round
in a similar manner. Houses built and fortified in the
way here described continued in use in Ireland till the
thirteenth or fourteenth century (see Westropp's " Anc.
Forts of Ireland," p. 624).

* Circuit, 53 and note : see also Mesca, 13 top : and O'Curry, Man. &
Cust., 11. 13, „, f Brehon Laws, iv. 311.

X Leahy, Courtship of Ferb. 8 ; LL, 253, b, 23.
§ Brehon Laws, iv. 315 top.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 55

These old circular forts are found in every part of
Ireland, but more in the south and west than elsewhere ;
many of them still very perfect — but of course the timber
houses are all gone. Almost all are believed in popular
superstition to be the haunts of fairies. They are now
known by various names — lis, rath, brugh, mur, dun, moat,
caiseal [cashel], and cathair [caher] : the cashels, murs, and
cahers being usually built of stone without mortar. These
are generally the very names found in the oldest manu-
scripts. The forts vary in size from 40 or 50 feet in
diameter, through all intermediate stages up to 1500 feet :
the size of the homestead depending on the rank or means

Fig. 184.

The great " Moat of Kilfinnane," Co. Limerick, believed to be Trtda-na-Rec, the
triple-fossed fort of the kings, one of the seats of the kings of Minister. Total
diameter 320 feet. (From a drawing by the author, 1854.)

of the owner. Very often the flat middle space is raised
to a higher level than the surrounding land, and sometimes
there is a great mound in the centre, with a flat top, on
which the strong wooden house of the chief stood.*

Forts of this exact type are still to be seen in England,
Wales, and Scotland, as well as in various parts of the
Continent ; and the figure of an existing one near Geisel-
berg in Germany, given by Borlase (p. 1128), might be
mistaken for a drawing of some of those in Ireland.
Round the very large forts there are often three or more

* On this point see the instructive letter of the Welsh antiquary, Mr.
Geo. T. Clarke, in Stokes's Life of Petrie, p. 216 ; showing that the same
custom existed in England and Normandy : and see also Mr. Westropp's
Essay (Ancient Forts of Ireland), p. 585, in which are given, from th?
Bayeux Tapestry, representations of houses on the tops of forts.

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

great circumvallations, sometimes as many as seven*
The " moat or fort of Kilfinnane," figured above, has three.
A dim, sometimes also called dind, dinn, and dingna,
was the residence of a Ri [ree] or king : according to law
it should have at least two surrounding walls with water
between. f Round the great forts of kings or chiefs were
grouped the timber dwellings of the fudirs and other
dependents who were not of the immediate household,
forming a sort of village. Any great fortified residence of
this kind was often called port', in Cuimmin's Poem on
the Saints of Ireland, Armagh is called Port Macha.%

Fig. 185.

Section of an underground heehive<shaped liut. (From Wood-Martin's
Pagan Ireland, p. 205.)

In most of the forts, both large and small, whether with
flat areas or with raised mounds, there are underground
chambers, commonly beehive-shaped, which were probably
used as storehouses, and in case of sudden attack as places
of refuge for women and children. In the ancient litera-
ture there are many references to them as places of refuge.§
The Irish did not then know the use of mortar, or how
to build an arch, any more than the ancient Greeks ; and
these chambers are of dry-stone work, built with much

* See Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-71, p. 387, verse xi.

t O'Curry, quoting Brehon Laws, Man. & Cust., 11. 3, 4.

X Stokes, in Zeitschr. Celt. Phil., 1. 72.

§ Miss Stokes, Early Chr. Art, 3 : Kinahan, On Luscas [or caves] in
Raths, in Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1883-4, P- ll '• ar*d Westropp, Ancient Forts,
p. 666.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 57

rude skill, the dome being formed by the projection of
one stone beyond another, till the top was closed in by
a single flag.

Where stone was abundant the surrounding rampart
was often built of dry masonry, the stones being fitted
with great exactness. In some of these structures the
stones are very large, and then the style of building is
termed cyclopean. Many great stone fortresses of the
kind described here, usually called caher, Irish cathair,
still remain near the coasts of Sligo, Galway, Clare, and
Kerry, and a few in Antrim and Donegal : two charac-
teristic examples are Greenan-Ely, the ancient palace of

Fig. 186.

Staigue Fort in Kerry. Of stones without mortar. External diameter 114 feet ; internal,
88 feet: wall 13 feet thick at bottom, 5 feet at top. (From Wood-Martin's Pagan Ireland,
p. 180, and that from Wilde's Catalogue, p. 120, where a further description of this fort will
be found.)

the kings .of the northern Hy Neill, in Donegal,* and
Staigue Fort near Sneem in Kerry. The most magnificent
fortress of this kind in all Ireland is Dun Aengus on a
perpendicular cliff right over the Atlantic Ocean on the
south coast of Great Aran Island (see next page).

At the most accessible side of some of these stone
cahers, or all round if necessary, were placed a number
of large standing stones firmly fixed in the ground, in
no order — quite irregular — and a few feet apart. This
was a very effectual precaution against a sudden rush of
a body of assailants. Beside some of the existing cahers
these stones, or large numbers of them, still remain in their
places (shown in figs. 187 and 188).

* For which see sect. 5 of this chapter below.

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART ill

The caiseal or cashel was a strong stone wall round a
king's house, or round a monastery ; of uncemented stones
in pagan times, but often built with mortar when in con-
nexion with monasteries. The caher was distinguished
from the cashel by being generally more massive in
structure, with much thicker walls. The cahers are almost
confined to the south and west of Ireland.* Buildings like
our cahers are also found on the Continent, as mentioned
by Borlase (pp. n 26-1 129).

That the wooden dwelling-houses were erected within
the enclosing lios, les, or rath, is abundantly evident from

FIG. 187.

Dun-Aengus on the great Island of Aran, on the edge of a cliff overhanging the

sea : circular Firbolg caher : without mortar : the standing-stones were intended to

prevent a rush of a body of enemies. (Drawn for Dr. Wilde : published in Arch.

Cambr., 1858 : and subsequently in Wilde's Lough Corrib.)

the records. Queen Medb (or Maive) Lethderg (not Queen
Maive of Croghan) is recorded to have built the rath near
Tara, now called from her, Rath-Maive : " and she built a
choice house within that rath."f There were often several
dwelling-houses within one large rath: inside the great
rath at Emain there were at least three large houses, with
others smaller! : the Rath-na-Righ at Tara had several
houses within it : and in the romantic story of Cormac in
Fairyland, we are told that he saw " a very large kingly
dun which had four houses within it."

* On these fortified residences, see the valuable article in Stokes's
Life of Petrie, p. 216, et seq.

f O'Curry, MS. Mat., 480. \ O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II., II.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 5<)

There is good reason to believe that originally the
word rath was applied to the surrounding embankment or
rampart, and lios or les to the space enclosed. Thus a
person who was making his way towards the palace, leaped
over the three raths, until he was on the floor of the les,
and from that until he was on the floor of the royal house
(for lar r?g-tkige)* : a passage which moreover affords
additional testimony that the houses were built within the
enclosure. Again, in the tale of the sons of Usna, it is
told that the child shrieked " so that it was heard all over
the lis."^ But these distinctions have long since ceased
to be observed : and the words rath and lis are now
applied to the whole structure.

The rampart enclosing a homestead was usually planted
on top with bushes or trees, or with a close thick hedge,
for shelter and security : or there was a strong palisade on
it : — Co n-accai in liss m-bileach m-barrach : " so that I saw
a liss topped with trees. "} Tuittid cnci cuill cainmessa
dobilib rath : " the fair-fruit hazel-nuts fall from the trees
of the raths. "§ Lisses and raths such as we see through
the country are generally round or oval : but they are
occasionally quadrangular or square. J| Vitrified forts, i.e.
having the clay, gravel, or stone of the rampart converted
into a coarse glassy substance through the agency of
enormous fires, are found in various parts of Ireland as
well as in Scotland : and similar forts are still to be seen
in several parts of the Continent. ^J

Sometimes outside the outer earthen or stone rampart
there was a timber palisade of strong stakes, enclosing a

* Voyage of Bran, i. 47, I7i and 51, ,0. see also Kilk. Arch. Journ.,
1868-9, P- 223 : and 1870-1, p. 447.

f O'Curry, 3 Sorrowful Stories, Atlantis, in. 399.

% Mac Conglinne, 68. § LL, 118, a, 16.

|| Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1849-51, pp. 23, 24 ; 1867, p. 4 : and Mr. West-
ropp's Essay on the Ancient Forts of Ireland, p. 583.

If See Wood-Martin, Pagan Ireland, 183 : Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1879-
82, p. 756: Borlase, 1126: Stokes's Petrie, 223, 357: Proc. Roy. Ir.
Acad., v., p. 69 ; and Adamnan, 151, note b.

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

large area : this palisade was called sonnacJi (and sometimes
tonnach), from sonn, a cuaille or ' stake.' Aed Guaire, king
of Connaught in the sixth century, built, in preparation for
a marriage-feast for his wife, a new [wooden] house {tedi)
within a dun or double circular rampart ; and round the
di'in again, that is, outside all, he made " a sonnach of red
oak." Just as it was finished Aed Baclamh, the king of
Ireland's spear-bearer, made a circuit round the kingdom
to test obedience and discipline among the provincial and
minor kings : and he demanded that all doors should be

Hflfsfc'

Fig. 188.

Ballykinvarga Stone Fort (mortarless) near Kilfenom in Clare. Shape, oval ; 155 feet by 135 feet.
Showing chrvaux de/rise of standing-stones, to prevent a rush. (See Mr. Westropp's description of
this fort in Journ. Roy. Soc. Antiqq., Ire!., for 1897, p. 121 ; and p. 57, supra.)

broken open wide enough to permit him to enter freely
with his long spear held crosswise. Things went well with
him till he came to Aed's new house. Aed went so far as
to break an opening in the outer palisade : but when the
ill-grained visitor demanded that a corresponding opening
should be made in the elaborately carved door of the
house, he found to his cost that he had met his match ;
for Aed, flying into a rage, struck off his head with one
blow of his sword.*

* O'Grady, Silva Gadelica, 70.

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

Immediately outside the outer door of the rath was an
ornamental lawn or green called aurla, a name often varied
to urla and erla, which was regarded as forming part of
the homestead : " then queen Maiye went out through the
" door of the liss into the aurla [isin n-aurlainn], and three
" times fifty maidens along with her."* So also prince
Cummascach, when he visited Branduff, king of Leinster at
Baltinglass, pitched his tent on the erla of the king's haile

Fig 189
Carlow Castle in 1845 : believed to have been erected by Hugh de Lacy, who was
appointed Governor of Ireland in 1179 One of the Anglo-Norman castles referred
to at p. 6s, infra, (From Mrs. Hall's Ireland.)

or homestead, f Beside the dun or lis, but beyond and
distinct from the aurla — and outside the sonnach if there
was one — was a large level sward or green called a faithche
[faha] — commonly Latinised ftlatea or plateola% — which
was chiefly used for athletic exercises and games of various
kinds : it was sometimes called blai.§ Some idea of its

* Ir. Texte, i. 280 : Fled Brier., 69. f Silva Gad., 408.

\ Adamnan, 98 (f?) ; 360 ; 450.

§ See Windisch, Wurterbuch, Ir. Texte, 1., " Bla," land

02 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

size may be formed from the statement in the law that the
faithche of a brewy extends as far as the voice of a bell
{i.e. of the small bell of those times) or the crowing of a
cock can be heard.* Finn mac Cumail when a boy, coming
one day to a dun, found a number of youths hurling (oc
imdin) on the faithche.] The law lays down certain
regulations regarding the striking of the ball on the
faithche in hurling. % When not formally measured and
enclosed, the four fields nearest the house were understood
to constitute the faithche.^ A visitor was free to go upon
the faithche and could not be sued for trespass, " for every
faithche is free " [to all comers] ,|| The faithche was not to
remain profitless : animals, commonly sheep, were kept
grazing on it.*[ The haggard for grain-stacks, which was
always hear the homestead, was called ithla (gen. ithlann),
from ith, ' corn.' The ithla, like the barn, sometimes
belonged to an individual, and sometimes to the fine or
clan, of which each householder had his share** : but in
this case the ithla was very large, standing apart, and
unconnected with any one homestead. A garden or
enclosure at the back, fenced in for general purposes, was
often called airlis.]] The lubgort, or ' kitchen-garden,'
will be spoken of at p. 148, infra.

At a little distance from the dwelling it was usual to
enclose an area with a strong rampart, into which the
cattle were driven for safety by night. This was what
was called a badhun (bawn], i.e. ' cow-keep,' from ha,
pi. of bo, ' a cow,' and dun%% : and sometimes bo-dhaingen
[bo-ang-in], which has the same meaning (daingen, ' a
stronghold '). This custom continued down to a late

* Brehon Laws, iv. 195. As to ^ Br. Laws, iv. 311 bottom,
these measurements, see pp. 374 ** Ibid., 1. 125, 141 : in. 285.

and 375, infra. ft Ibid., iv. 313 bottom.

f Oss. Soc, iv. 295. XX See Moylena, 183 (whole page):

X Brehon Laws, in. 253. and Joyce, Irish Names of Places,

§ Corm. Gloss., 78. 1. 308.

|| Brehon Laws, III. 253.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 63

time : and was adopted by the English and Scotch settlers.
One class of the planters who were settled in Ulster in the
time of James I. were required to build a castle and a
bawn. The ruins of many of these settlement-bawns still
remain.*

The outer defence, whether of clay, or stone, or timber,
that surrounded the homestead was generally whitened with
lime. When Nuada the druid built a dun on Almu, now
the Hill of Allen in Kildare, " he rubbed the sund or sunn
" or outer rampart with alamu (ro colmed alamu dia sund)
" until it was all white. "f The text does not tell us what
this colouring stuff alamu or almu was. Stokes (Acallamh
283) makes it alum ; and we know that alum is a native
product, with which people have been familiar from early
times. J It is indeed probable that alum was in the
writer's mind ; for the impossibility of procuring so much
of it as would whiten a whole immense rampart would be
no difficulty to an etymologist who invented the episode
to account for the name. The dun was made white at
any rate ; and it is pretty certain that lime was the real
material ; which seems borne out by an old verse relating
to Almu, quoted in the story in the Book of the Dun
Cow : —

" All white is the dun of battle renown
As if it had received the lime of Ireland."

That the outer rampart of duns or homesteads was
often whitened with lime is shown by many other passages.
Maildune comes to a little island with a large dun on it
surrounded by a white wall (mur gel), as white "as if it
" had been built of burnt lime or carved out of one unbroken

* See the article on Bawns, Ulster Journ. Archasol., v. 125 ; and a
particular bawn described by Dr. J. P. Mahaffy, in the Athenasum of
10th August, 1901.

f See LU, 41, b, 26 and 29 : Hennessy in Rev. Celt., 11. 89 ; Silva Gad.,
!32, % See Kinahan, Geol., 358 ; and p. 357, below.

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

" rock of chalk."* " The colour of the dun of the lady
Crede "—says another story—" is like the colour of lime."f
The great ramparts of Tara must have shone brilliantly
over the surrounding plain : for it is called " White-sided
Tara," in the " Circuit of Muirchertach mac Neill " : but
this was a memory only, for when the poem was written,
Tara had been deserted for centuries.

Fig. 190.

Dundrum Castle, ne»r Newcastle, County Down. Built at the end of the twelfth
century by John de Courcy, on the very site of the old Irish fortress called Dun
Rury, which covered the summit of the rock. The great earthworks belonging to
the original dun still remain at the base of the rock at one side, but are not seen in
this figure. (From Kilk. Archaeol. Journ. for 1883-4, P- 158.)

The treatment of forts here is necessarily very brief.
Those who wish to study the subject farther may consult
Mr. Westropp's essay in Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad, on " The
Ancient Forts of Ireland," in which the whole subject is
examined for the first time scientifically and in considerable
detail, and the similarity of the ancient Irish forts to those
of Greece, Thessaly, Italy, France, Austria, Germany, and
other parts of the Continent, is pointed out.

In modern times, when the native knowledge of Irish
history and antiquities had greatly degenerated, and the
light of our own day had not. yet dawned, many writers
attributed the ancient Irish raths and duns to the Danes,
* Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 131. f O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 13.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 65

so that it became the fashion to call them " Danish raths
or forts '" : but this idea has been long since exploded, as
the reader will have seen who has glanced through the
preceding pages. The peasantry have the same notion :
but their error arose from confounding the Dedannans or
Dananns with the Danes, through similarity of sound.*

The Anglo-Normans built stone castles in Ireland
according to their fashion : and not unfrequently they
selected the very site, or the very vicinity, of the old Irish
fortresses : for an Anglo-Norman had at least as keen an
eye for a good military position as an old Irish warrior.
Accordingly the circumvallations of the ancient native
forts still remain round the ruins of many of the Anglo-
Norman castles ; as at Rahinnane in Kerry, Knockgraffon
near Cahir in Tipperary, and Dundrum in County Down.f
Several of those Anglo-Norman or Anglo-Irish castles are
figured throughout this chapter. It is to be observed
that the Irish began to abandon their earthen forts and
build stone castles — many of them round like the older
earthen forts and cahirs — shortly before the arrival of
the Anglo-Normans in 1169 : but this was probably in
imitation of their warlike neighbours.]:

Crannoges. — For greater security, dwellings were often
constructed on artificial islands made with stakes, trees,
and bushes, covered with earth and stones in shallow lakes,
or on small flat natural islands if they answered. These
were called by the name crannog [crannoge], a word de-
rived from crann, ' a tree,' as they were constructed almost
entirely of wood. Communication with the shore was
carried on by means of a small boat, commonly dug out
of one tree-trunk. At night, and at other times when
precaution was necessary, it was kept in a boat-house on
the island. But in ordinary times, for the convenience

* On this see Stokes's Petrie, 218 : and Wilde, Boyne, 70.
f See Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1854-5, pp. 394-7.
% Stokes's Petrie 212 et seq.

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

of the residents and visitors coming and going, it was
usually left floating in the lake-channel, with a cable
from boat to island and another from boat to mainland,
so that whether arriving or departing the person could
pull it towards him* Usually one family only, with
their attendants, lived on a crannoge island ; but some-
times several families, each having a separate wooden
house. Where a lake was well suited for it — pretty large
and shallow — several crannoge islands were formed, each
with one or more families, so as to form a kind of little
crannoge village.

Fie. 191.

Section of Crannoge in Ardakillen Lough, near Strokestown, Co. Roscommon. Gives a good
idea of the mode of constructing these little islands. The three horizontal lines at top show the
level of the water according to season. (From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 226.)

Crannoge dwellings were in use from the most remote
prehistoric times, as is clearly shown by the remains found
in them, implements of various kinds, which belonged to
primitive ages. They are very often noticed, both by
native Irish and by English writers, and they continued in
use down to the time of Elizabeth. They are referred to
in the Tripartite Life by the name insola in gronna, ' an
island in a bog.' Cambrensis describes them as he saw
them in the twelfth century, though he does not use the
name crannoge : — " These lakes [of Ireland] encompass
" some slightly elevated spots, most delightfully situated,
" which, for the sake of security, and because they are
" inaccessible except by boats, the lords of the soil appro-
" priate as their places of refuge and seats of residence."!

*Bec Fola, 179. fTop. Hib., I. vii.

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

Great numbers of crannoges have of late years been
explored, and the articles found in them show that they
were occupied by many generations of residents. In most
of them rude " dug-out " boats have been found, many
specimens of which are preserved in the National Museum,
Dublin, and elsewhere. In some cases the original crannoge
dwelling was, in later ages, replaced by a stone-and-mortar
castle, of which the finest existing example is the Hag's
Castle in Lough Mask in Mayo. This is circular like

Fig. 192.

A Crannoge Village in Lough Eyes, near Lisbellaw, County Fermanagh. The little artificial
islands are there still, but the wooden dwelling-houses are all gone : and this is an attempted resto-
ration, by Mr. Wakeman, of the appearance of the whole group when a house stood on each.
(From Colonel Wood-Martin's Traces of the Elder Faiths, I. 223.)

the original structure, occupying almost the whole of the
little island : and it is perhaps the earliest stone-and=
mortar castle erected in Ireland before the Anglo-Norman
invasion* Lake-dwellings similar to the Irish crannoges
were in use in early times all over Europe, and explorers
have examined many of them, especially in Switzerland.!

* See Wilde, Lough Corrib, 260: and Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1872-3, p. II.

t Numerous descriptions of individual crannoges and of their exploration
will be found in the. Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., and in the Kilk. Arch. Journ.
and its continuation, the Journ. of the Roy. Soc. Antiqq., Irel. Easily
found out by glancing through the Indexes.

18 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The word ' crann6ge ' was also used by the ancient Irish
to designate a small wooden vessel of some sort. In the
" Colloquy of the Ancients," Feredach, king of Ossory, is
spoken of as using gold and silver for decorating such
things as drinking-horns, crannoges, swords, chessboards,
and chessmen* In later times the ' crann6ge ' was familiar
among the Anglo- Irish — a sort of basket of a certain
size used as a measure for corn.f In the Senchus Mor
* crannog ' is used simply to denote a rod.J

4. Domestic Vessels.

The material in most general use for vessels was wood ;
but there were vessels of gold, silver, bronze, and brass, all
of which however were expensive. Occasionally we read

of iron being used :
among the treasures
possessed by Ailill
and Maive, as we find
stated in the Tain,

Fig. 193. Fig. 194- • 7 ,

^.,. ,, , ., were larn-lestair,

Figure 193, Stone Dnnking-cup, tM inches wide across
thebowj. Found, buried deep, in the bed of the Shannon.' 'irotl VCSSels '§ There

Figure 194, Stone Cup. (Wilde's Catal.. p. 114) ' "

were also vessels of
stone : but these were not much in use. A stone bottle,
of the kind hitherto known only in Egypt, has been found
in the big rath near Lucan|| : and two stone drinking-cups
are figured here. Drinking-goblets of glass have been
already noticed ; and leather vessels for holding liquids
will be described in chap, xxvi., sect. 5.

* Silva Gad., 416. t Ware, Antiqq. 223.

% Brehon Laws, I. 152, 29 ; 153, 9 from bot.

§ O'Curry, Man. & Oust., II. 89 : LL, 54, a, 33.

|| Stokes's Petrie, 420: see Wilde, Catal., 114. Petrie and his biographer,
Dr. William Stokes, seem to have regarded this as an Irish imitation of an
Egyptian bottle. Many years later Miss Margaret Stokes calls it an
" Egyptian alabaster bottle," and looks upon it as brought hither by some
of those Egyptian monks mentioned in vol. I., p. 413, supra. See Miss
Stokes, Inscr., II. 137.

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

For making wooden vessels beech was oftenest em-
ployed : but the best were made of yew. In one of
O'Curry's Lectures,* he gives, from an old ms., a curious
list of vessels, all made from the trunk of one immense
yew-tree. A large proportion of the timber vessels used
were made of staves bound by hoops, like those in use
at present, indicating skill and accuracy in planing
and jointing. This is proved by many passages. St.
Finnchua's mother during her pregnancy — according to

FIG? 195.

Carrickfergus Castle in 1840. On a rock over the sea. Built originally by John

de Courcy in the end of the twelfth century, on the site of an older Irish fortress, but

greatly enlarged and altered after his time. One of these Anglo-Norman castles

referred to at p. 65, supra. (From Wright's Ireland Illustrated.)

the legendf — once longed for a drink of ale, and asked
the brewers for a little : but the churlish fellows refused.
She went away : but scarcely had she turned her back
when the hoops (circatta : sing, circall, a ' circle ' or ' hoop ' :
Lat. circulus) slipped off the vats, and the ale all ran
about. In the list of yew-tree vessels noticed above,
several are mentioned as having grown so old that the
hoops at last fell off. There was also a native term for
a hoop — fonnsa : the Brehon Law (v. 483) enumerates
the material for fonnsa or hoops — i.e. plantations of the

* Man. & Cust., 11. 61.

f Stokes, Lives of SS., 85, 232.

JO SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

proper timber, such as sallow-trees — as forming part of
the " Commons " property of a territory.

A large open hooped tub or vat was called by several
names. One was dabach or dabhach [dauvagh], of which
the derivation in Cormac's Glossary (p. 52) shows that the
vessel was a two-handled tub like that of the present
day : — " Dabach, derived from de-oach, two o's or ' ears,'
" meaning two handles upon it : for at first there used to
" be no handles on vessels." It may be remarked that the
side-handle of a vessel was often called an 0 or ' ear,' of
which the word oach is a modification. In O'Clery's
Glossary it is stated that a coimde was the same as a
dabach. Another name for this sort of vessel was lotar
or lothar [loher] : " a trough wherein are kept braichles
or grains left after brewing," says Cormac's Glossary
(p. 105). A moderately-sized tub with two handles, called
a drolmach, was used by women for bringing water. This
word is still in use and pronounced drowlagh.

There was a special drinking-vessel, originally made of
yew (ibar), and thence called ibrach, or in modern spelling
iubhrach [yooragh]. This was until lately in use in Mayo,
and called by its old name : it was deep, and grew narrow
from bottom to top.

The people used a sort of pitcher or hand-vessel called
a cilorn [keelorn], having a stuag or circular handle in its
side, from which it was also called stuagach, i.e. ' circle-
handled ' : sometimes called milan-duirn and metair-duirn,
i.e. ' hand- vessel ' ; for milan and metair (or medar) both
mean ' a small vessel ' : and dom, gen. duirn is a ' hand '
or ' fist.' In Zeuss (p. 41, 26) cilornn glosses urceus, ' a
pitcher.' In the Coir Anmann we read that a certain
Lugaid went with a cilorn in his hand to bring water for
drinking at dinner.* Milan glosses urna in the Tract on
Lat. Decl. (No. 138) ; and it must have been intermediate
in size between the cilorn and the medar : for in the list of

* Ir. Texte, 111. 319.

CHAP. Xt]

The HotfsE

yew vessels mentioned above (p. 69) it is stated that when
the original cilom became worn out from age, the owner
made a milan out of what was left : and when this milan
again became decayed and worn, there was only as much
sound wood left as made a medar. In the Voyage of
Maildune it is related how a certain man gathered up a
great many valuable articles, and among them a number
of brazen cilorns* This ancient term is still preserved in
the south of Ireland, where it passes quite current as an
English word, in the form of keeler, though the people
apply it now to a vessel of a different shape and with a
different use. A broad, shallow tub about 18 inches across
and 6 or 8 inches deep, and having two handles formed by

Fig. 196.

Fig. 197.

Two bronze Drinking-vessels in National Museum. Figure 196 is 1% inches wide : hammered
out and shaped with great skill from one single thin piece of metal : found in a crannoge in
County Roscommon. Figure 197, oval, sH inches in the long diameter. Handle decorated,
and terminating at top in an animal's head. Found near Keshcarrigan, County Leitrim. (Both
from Wilde's Catalogue, pp. 533, 534.)

the projection upwards of two of the staves, is universally
called a ' keeler.' Milk is ' set ' in a keeler for a night to
throw the cream to the top for churning.

A com [curn] or horn was a drinking-vessel, usually
made from a bullock's horn, hollowed out and often highly
ornamented with metal-work and gems. A com mounted
with silver was sometimes called a fethal (Corm. 80).
This word com seems to be borrowed from Latin comua :
but there was a native name also, viz. buabaill [boovill],
from bo or bu, ' a cow ' : and another, adarc [ey-ark], which
is now the common Irish word for ' horn ' : but buabaill may
be a borrowed . word. Conn the Hundred Fighter, on a

* Rev. Celt., X. 83.

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

certain occasion during the feis of Tara, stood up from
where he sat on his throne, and with a polished buabaill in
his hand, spoke to the assembled nobles.* That a corn is
the same thing as a buabaill is proved by this : — that while
in one version of the Boroma it is stated that certain
messengers, arriving at the palace of Ailech, found king
Aed mac Ainmirech drinking mead from a com, in another
version the self-same drinking-horn is
called a corn- buabaill.^ Drinking-^my
were made at home from cows' or bul-
locks' horns ; but very large ones were
imported and much valued. Among the
" foreign " valuables mentioned in the
Brehon Law, the glossator enumerates
cuirn-buabaill {cuirn, pi. of com) :
these no doubt were genuine
buffalo-horns, as is perhaps indi-
cated by the Irish word
buabaill. %

These corns were
sometimes , given as a
Fio, 198. part of the stipend due

The " Kavanagh Horn,'' drawn from an exact model f 1" O IT1 Olie kin°" tO
in National Museum, Dublin : 22 inches along the convex

or under side. On a brass plate round the top is this another aS We filld bv

inscription : — "TlGERN ANUS O'LAUAN ME FECIT '

DEO Gracias. I. H.S.": which gives the name of the manV entries in tile
artist, Tiernan O'Lavan. This is not a very old speci- *

men. (From Wildes Catalogue, p. 266.) Book of Rights, where

they are often called
curved corns from their shape. Sometimes they were
coloured : part of the stipend or taurcrec due to the king
of Offaly from the king of Ireland was four corns " of
various colours " (Bk. of R., 253). According to the
bardic history, ornamented drinking-horns covered with
gold and silver were first introduced into Ireland by king
Tigernmas, many centuries before the Christian era, a

Silva Gad., 143 : Ir. Texte, 131, i0. t Rev. Celt., XIII. 63.

\ Brehon Laws, V. 220, 23 ; 221, 20.

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

record which, though, legendary, indicates the general
costliness of the workmanship. Some of these corns are
preserved in our museums, of which one is figured on
page 72.

The escra was a drinking-goblet : Cormac's Glossary
(p. 69, twice) says it was a copper vessel for distributing

Fig. 199.

Ancient Irish vessel, 15 inches high, and 15 inches in width at the mouth : made
out of a single piece of oak, except the bottom, which is of alder. The carving on
the side is the Opus Hibernicwn or interlaced work. It had a lid when found,
similarly carved ; but this has been lost. The whole outer surface was originally
painted in a kind of dark enamel, portions of which still remain. This very ancient
vessel was found five feet deep in a bog in County Fermanagh. (From Kilk.
Archaeol. Journ. for 1879-82, p. 98.)

water ; but it was sometimes made of silver. The sons
of O'Corra, in the course of their voyage, landed on an
island, where a lady came towards them having in one
hand a copper cilorn full of food like cheese, and in the
other a silver escra. And she gave them the food to eat:
and she brought them water in the escra from a well on
the strand : " and there was no delicious flavour that was

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

fPARt lit

"ever tasted by man that they did not find in this food
" and drink."* In the Life of St. Darerca it is stated
that the cscra was a silver drinking-cup from which great
people were wont to drink.f

The word lestar was applied to vessels of various kinds,
among others to drinking-vessels : it was often used as a
generic term for vessels of all kinds, including ships. In
the Life of St. Brigit it is related that on one occasion the
king of Teffia was drinking out of a lestar covered with
gems, when a careless man took it
from his hand and let it drop so
that it was broken into bits.* The
beautiful lestar represented in fig.
199 was found some years ago, as
stated in the descriptive note, but
what special name was applied to
it we cannot tell. There was a
drinking-cup of some kind called

h/T 1 fy* indtile which Cormac (p. 58) defines
KX^M I J "a little lestar or vessel in which

drink fits," i.e. for holding drink :
which agrees with O'Reilly's "inntille,
a drinking-cup."
The simple word cua, and its derivatives cuad and
cuach, all mean ' a cup.' In the gloss on the Senchus
Mor we are told that a folderb (see below) is a cua in
the shape of a bell {cua cluic)% : and the Crith Gabhlach
speaks of a cuad 12 inches high for drinking milk out of.||
Cuach, which is the common word for ' cup,' is retained in
Scotland to this day and used as an English word, in the
forms of quaigh and cogue, for a drinking-cup. It was
prophesied for Finn mac Cumail by his wife that on

*Rev. Celt., XIV. 47: Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 415. This food
like cheese, containing every delicious flavour, is a stock incident in ancient
Welsh, as well as in Irish, tales.

t Three Fragments, 9, i. § Brehon Law, I. 134, 5.

t Stokes, Three Irish Homilies, 73. || Ibid., IV. 306, 9.

Fig. 200.
Grotesque figure of a man
drinking : from the Book of
Kells (seventh century 1. (From
Wilde's Catalogue, p. 299.)

CHAP. Xx]

THE HOUSE

whatsoever day he should drink from a horn [adarc\ he
would die. Accordingly he took good care always to
drink from a cuach. But one day in his old age, being
overcome with thirst, and not having his cuach, he drank
from an adarc : and on that same day he was killed on
the Boyne* Ian, gen. ena, means ' a vessel ' : it is often
applied to a small drinking-mug. The Crith Gabhlach
mentions a vessel, ian-oil [drinking-zVm], three hands high,
used for drinking milk.f Cormac's Glossary (p. 34) de-
scribes a sort of drinking-goblet called a cingit, in such a
way that we may infer it was slender in the middle and
opened out at the top
and bottom, so that
the two halves were
alike, or nearly so, in
shape and size, and
were probably intended
to be reversible.

The usual drinking-
vessel among the com-
mon people, especially

at meals and drinking-bouts, was a medar or mether (so
called from the drink called mead), made of wood, with two
or four handles : it circulated from hand to hand, each
passing it to his neighbour after taking a drink. Many of
these methers are preserved in museums, of which two are
figured here.J People drank from the corners. A sort of
hamper or vessel called a ritsc [roosk], made of bark-strips
on a wicker-work frame, was much used in farmhouses.§

A churn was known by several names — among others
cuinneog, which is the present name. In the Senchus

Fig. 201. Fig. 202.

Wooden Methers. From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 214.

* Silva Gad., 98. t Brehon Laws, IV. 302, 23.

% See Dub. Pen. Journ., 1. 300: Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1860-61, p. 54:
and Wilde, Catal., 21*4.

§ Stokes, Lives of SS., line 1277, and p. 320 bot. Also Three Irish
Homilies, 62,11: and "Ruse" in Windisch's Worterbuch.

y6 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Mor it is called comm ; and in the gloss, this again is
interpreted by three names: — ctiairt (' round -vessel '),
belcumaug ('narrow-mouth'), and muide* showing that
it was something Jike the hand-churn still in use. Derb is
another name for a churn, according to O'Clery's Glossary,
which explains this word as meaning either a churn {cuin-
nedg) or a cup {balidn). A saying quoted in the same
glossary, " my ear to the ear of the derb" shows that the
ancient churn had two ears or handles, which the modern
hand-churn has not. The compound foilderb was also used ;
but from the words of the gloss in the Senchus Mor, it
would seem to denote here an ordinary drinking-cup : —

E" Folderb which has a ring or handle
{foil or fair) out of its side, and
it is a bell -shaped cua."f Another
compound of derb is given in
Cormac's Glossary (p. 58) to denote
FiG.203. a churn — derb-loma, i.e. the derb of

Pan or bucket, made o.,t'3f o..e 16 im or milk. From all the preced-

piece of red deal : i foot long, 6%

inches deep, and iotf inches broad, jng we may infer that derb and its

Cover made of yew, pressed into

shape when softened (see •• can- compounds were used to denote

tair," ' a press,' in Index). Now in

National Museum. (From wildes both a drinking-cup and a churn.

Catalogue, p. 213 ; A

The form of churn used among the
ancient Irish was that in which the cream or milk is
agitated by a dash worked with the hand. The churn-
dash was — and is still — called lotmd, and sometimes
loimdha, from loi?n, ' milk.+

For bringing home milk from the milking-place, Adam-
nan (pp. 126, 445) mentions a wooden vessel of such a
make that it could be strapped on the back. The lid was
kept in its place by a wooden cross-bar {gercenn) which
ran through two holes at opposite sides near the rim.
Adamnan tells a story of a young member of the Iona
community bringing home on his back a vessel full of milk

* Brehon Laws, I. 124, 4; and 134, 2, 3. t /bid., 124,5.

X O' Curry, Man. & Cust., 1. 133.

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

into which a demon had entered : and when St. Columba,
blessing the milk according to his custom, made the sign
of the cross, it became agitated, and the bar which fastened
the lid was driven through the two holes and shot away to
a distance. Adamnan, writing in Latin, uses the original
Irish word for this bar in the form ger genua. The word is
elsewhere explained as a slender bar which passes through
two openings and fastens the lid. In " Mac Conglinne's
Vision" (p. 87, 1.9) it is used for an ordinary door-bolt —
which seems its primary meaning. It appears that this
term is not found in any other Latin document besides
Adamnan's : and it is probably an original Gaulish or
Celtic word.*

Fig. 204.

Natural Boulder-Stone : height 3 feet, with three artificial balldns. (From Col. Wood-Martin's
Pagan Ireland, p. 411. Drawn by Wakcman.)

It will be seen from what precedes that there was in
old times in Ireland quite as great a variety of vessels of
all kinds, with distinct names, as there is among the
people of the present day ; and there are, besides, other
names not yet noticed. The cup that St. Patrick was
drinking out of at Tara, when the druid attempted to
poison him, is called ardig in the Tripartite Life (p. 54, 7) :
ardig or airdig being a common old word for a drinking-
goblet. A balldn seems to have been a simple, cheap,
wooden drinking-cup in very general use : in one place,

* Sec Kuno Meyer in Rev. Celt., xill. 506.

SOCIAL. AND DOMESTIC LIFE

TPART III

Cormac's Glossary (p. 25) defines it as <: a poor man's
vessel " : and elsewhere (p. 27) as a vessel used by lepers.
Keating applies it to a drink ing-cup, and it was sometimes
also applied to a milk-pail.* In Connaught it is used to
designate round holes in rocks usually filled with water :
which use modern antiquarians have borrowed, and they
now apply " ballaun " to those small cup-like hollows,
generally artificial, often found in rocks, and almost
always containing water.t

Esconn, escand, or escann is
described in Cormac's Glossary
as a vessel for distributing water,
derived from esc, 'water,' and
"cann, the name of a vessel."
This last phrase is interesting
as showing the existence in
ancient Gaelic of a term for a
drinking -vessel identical with
the English word can. There
was a pail or vessel of some
kind called sitheal, which was
sometimes made of silver.

The word cernhi [kerneen] is
given in Cormac's Glossary (p. 37)
as meaning mi'ass, i.e. a dish on
which food is placed at table ; in which sense it is also found
in an ancient satire given in the Book of the Dun Cow,
said to have been the first satire ever composed in Ireland.
Cernin is a diminutive of the simple word cern — modern
form cearn — which is used to denote a dish of any kind,
for measuring commodities, such as grain: Peter O'Connell
explains it " a certain dry measure " : and Keating has the
expression cearn-arbhair ; a ' cern of corn.' Bleid or bleide
was the name of a goblet or vessel of some kind, mentioned
both in the Brehon Laws and in the Tales. The word

*Corm. Gloss., 54 ("Del "). t Ibid., 25.

Fig. 205.

Earthenware glazed Pitcher. 13
inches high. Found in a crannoge
in County Down. (From Wilde's
Catalogue, p. 158.)

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 79

miass or mias, given above from Cormac's Glossary, is
very commonly used for a platter or dinner dish.* Coire,
' a caldron ' ; cusal ; criol ; and some other terms, as well
as the vessels they denote, will be dealt with elsewhere in
this book. Most of those named in this section will be
found mentioned in vol. v. of the Brehon Laws, p. 407, and
the following pages.

Earthen vessels of various shapes and sizes were in
constant use. They were made either on a potter's wheel,
or on a mould, or on both. This appears from a curious
commentary on the Latin text of a passage in the Psalms
(11. 9), written in the Irish language by an Irishman, in the
eighth or ninth century, contained in a manuscript now in
Milan. This old writer, evidently taking his illustration
from his native country, explains " a potter's wheel " as " a
" round wheel on which the potters [Irish na cerda, ' the
" cairds or artisans '] make the vessels, or a round piece of
" wood about which they [the vessels] are while being
" made."f The " round piece of wood " was the block or
mould on which they were first formed roughly, to be
afterwards perfected on the wheel.

5. Royal Residences.

Almost all the ancient residences of the over-kings of
Ireland, as well as those of the provincial and minor kings,
are known at the present day ; and in most of them the
circular ramparts and mounds are still to be seen, more
or less dilapidated after the long lapse of time. As
there were many kings of the several grades, and as each
was obliged to have three suitable houses (vol. I., p. 58),
the royal residences were numerous ; of which the most
important will be noticed here.J In addition to these,

* See the story of B6thar-na Mias in Joyce, Ir. Names of Places, n. 191.
f Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus, 1., p. 23.

% The present appearance of several of the royal residences will be found
described in Mr. T. O. Russell's " Beauties and Antiquities of Ireland."

8o SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

several of the great strongholds described in vol. I., pp. 84
to 90, were royal residences.

Tara. — The remains of Tara* stand on the summit
and down the sides of a gently-sloping, round, grassy hill,
rising 500 feet over the sea, or about 200 over the sur-
rounding plain, situated six miles south-east of Navan, in
Meath, and two miles from the Midland Railway Station
of Kilmessan. It was in ancient times universally regarded
as the capital of all Ireland, or, as Muirchu, in his seventh-
century Life of St. Patrick calls it, caput Scotorum, the
' capital of the Scots ' ; so that in building palaces elsewhere
it was usual to construct their principal houses and halls
in imitation of those of Tara. It was the residence of the
supreme kings of Ireland from prehistoric times down to
the sixth century, when — as already mentioned — it was
deserted in the time of King Dermot the son of Fergus
Cervall on account of St. Ruadan's curse. Although it
has been abandoned to decay and ruin for thirteen
centuries, it still presents striking vestiges of its ancient
importance.

Preserved in the Book of Leinster and other ancient
manuscripts there are two detailed Irish descriptions of
Tara, one written in the tenth century by Kineth O'Harti-
gan, and the other in the eleventh by Cuan O'Lochain (for
whom see vol. 1., p. 462, supra). Both these distinguished
men examined the remains personally, and described them
as they saw them, after four or five centuries of ruin, giving
the names, positions, and bearings of the several features
with great exactness. These two interesting documents
are published with translations and learned annotations in
Petrie's essay on Tara. More than sixty years ago Dr.
Petrie and Dr. O'Donovan made a most careful detailed

* Old Irish name Temair (modern Teamhair), gen. Temrach, dat.
Temraig, which is represented by the present name " Tara." For more
about this name, and for other places of the same name, see Joyce, Ir.
Names of Places, 1., p. 294.

fig. 200.

Flan ol Tara, as it exists at the present day. (From the two plans given by Petrie in his Essay on Tan.

82 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

examination of the hill and its monuments ; and with
the aid of those two old topographical treatises they
were able, without much difficulty, to identify most of the
chief forts and other remains, and to restore their ancient
names. The following are the most important features
still existing, and they are all perfectly easy to recognise
by any one who walks over the hill with the plan given here
in his hand. A much more detailed description of them,
with their full history and all extracts relating to them
from Irish manuscripts, is given in Petrie's essay on Tara,
from which most of the account given here has been con-
densed. It is to be borne in mind that the forts now to be
seen were the ramparts or defences surrounding and pro-
tecting the houses. The houses themselves, as has been
already explained (p. 55), were of wood, and have of
course all disappeared.

The principal fortification is Rath Righ [Rath-Ree] or
Rath-na-Righ, the ' fort of the kings,' also called Caher
Crofitw, an oval occupying the summit and southern slope
of the hill, measuring 853 feet in its long diameter. The
circumvallation can still be traced all round ; and judging
from the existing remains, it consisted originally of two
walls or parapets with a ditch between. Moreover it is
pretty certain that one at least of these two ramparts was
of stone, as the " caher " (Irish cathair) in the name
" Caher Crofinn " would indicate ; and as a matter of fact
the stones still remain for about a fifth of the whole circuit.
This seems to have been the original fort erected by the
first occupiers of the hill and the most ancient of all the
monuments of Tara.

Within the enclosure of Rath Righ are two large
mounds, the Forrad or Forradh [Forra] and Tech Cormaic,
beside each other, and having portions of their ramparts in
common. The Forradh has two outer rings or ramparts
and two ditches : its extreme outer diameter is nearly 300
feet. The name " Forradh " signifies ' a place of public

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

meeting,' and also a judgment-seat, cognate with Lat.
forum ; so that it seems obvious that this is the structure
referred to by the writer of the ancient Norse work called
" Kongs Skuggsjo " or ' mirror for kings,' already referred
to (vol. 1., pp. 226, 300). This old writer, speaking of
Tara says : — " And in what was considered the highest
" point of the city the king had a fair and well-built castle,
" and in that castle he had a hall fair and spacious, and in
" that hall he was wont to sit in judgment."

On the top of the Forradh there now stands a remark-
able pillar-stone six feet high (with six feet more in the
earth), which Petrie believed was the Lia Fail, the inaugu-
ration-stone of the Irish over-kings, the stone that roared

Fig. 207.
The Mound called the Forradh, at Tara. (From Mrs. Hall's Ireland. Drawn by Wakeman.!

when a king of the true Milesian race stood on it (see
vol. 1., p. 45) ; but recent inquiries have thrown grave
doubts on the accuracy of this opinion.

Tech Cormaic (' Cormac's house ') was so called from
the illustrious King Cormac mac Art, who reigned a.d.
254 to 277. It is a circular rath consisting of a well-marked
outer ring or circumvallation, with a ditch between it and
the inner space : the extreme external diameter being
244 feet. We may probably assign its erection to King
Cormac, which fixes its age.

Duma nan Giall or the ' mound of the hostages,'
situated just ins'ide the ring of Rath Righ, is a circular
earthen mound, 13 feet high, 66 feet in diameter at the

84 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

base, with a flat top, 25 feet in diameter. The timber
house in which the hostages lived, as already mentioned
(vol. 1., p. 54), stood on this.

A little to the west of the Mound of the Hostages stands
another mound called Duma na Bo (the ' mound of the
cow '), about 40 feet in diameter and 6 feet high. It was
also called Glas Temrach (the ' Glas of Tara ') which would
seem to indicate that the celebrated legendary cow called
Glas Gavlin, which belonged to the Dedanann smith
Goibniu,* was believed to have been buried under this
mound.

About 100 paces from Rath Righ on the north-east is
the well called Nemnach (' bright ' or ' sparkling ') so cele-
brated in the legend of Cormac's mill — the first mill erected
in Ireland, for which see chap. xxv. (page 330), below. A
little stream called Nith (' shining ') formerly ran from it,
which at some distance from the source turned the mill.
The well is now nearly dried up ; but it could be easily
renewed.

Rath na Seanaid (the ' rath of the synods '), now popu-
larly called " the King's Chair," has been partly encroached
upon by the wall of the modern church : the two ramparts
that surrounded it are still well-marked features. Within
the large enclosure are two mounds, 106 and 33 feet in
d iameter respectively. Three Christian synods are recorded
as having been held here, from which it had its name : —
one by St. Patrick on the occasion when he preached to
King Laegaire and his nobles at Easter, a.d. 433 ; one by
St. Ruadan or Rodanus when he pronounced the curse
that caused Tara to be abandoned (for which see page
437, below) ; and the last by Adamnan, probably in
the year 697, in which he procured acceptance for the law
exempting women from taking part in battles (see vol. I.,
p. 96, supra).

* For Goibniu, see vol. 1. 261, supra : and for the wonderful cow, Glas
Gavlin, see Joyce, Ir. Names of Places, 1. 163 : and FM, 1., p. 18, note s.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 85

Near the Rath of the Synods, and within the enclosure
of the modern church, stood Adamnan s Cross, of which the
shaft still remains, with a human figure rudely sculptured
in relief on its side. A little to the south-east of this cross
was situated the house which — as already related, vol. I.
p. 307 — was burned round young Benen and the druid
Lucet Mail, when Benen escaped and the druid was
reduced to ashes.

On the northern slope of the hill are the remains of the
Banqueting-Hall, the only structure in Tara not round or
oval. It consists of two parallel mounds, the remnants of
the side walls of the old Hall, which, as it now stands, is
759 feet long by 46 feet wide ; but it was originally both
longer and broader. It is described in the old documents
as having twelve (or fourteen) doors : and this description
is fully corroborated by the present appearance of the ruin,
in which six door-openings are clearly marked in each side
wall. Probably there was also a door at each end : but all
traces of these are gone.

The whole site of the Hall was occupied by a great
timber building, 45 feet high or more, ornamented, carved,
and painted in colours. Within this the Feis or Convention
of Tara held its meetings, which will be found described in
chap. xxix. (p. 436), farther on. Here also were held the
banquets from which the Hall was named Tech Midchuarta,
the ' mead-circling house ' ; and there was an elaborate
subdivision of the inner space, with the compartments
railed or partitioned off, to accommodate the guests
according to rank and dignity. For, as will be seen in
chap. xxi. (p. 105), they were very particular in seating the
great company in the exact order of dignity and priority.
From this Hall moreover, the banqueting-halls of other
great houses commonly received the name of Tech
Midchuarta.

Rath Caelchon was so called from a Munster chief
named Caelchu (gen. Caelchon), who was contemporary

86 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

with Cormac mac Art, third century. He died in Tara,
and was interred in a leacht or earn, beside which was
raised the rath in commemoration of him. The rath is
220 feet in diameter ; and the very earn of stones heaped
over the grave still remains on the north-east margin of
the rath.

Rath Grdinne is a high well-marked rath, 258 feet in
diameter. It received its name from the lady Grainne
[Graunya : 2-syll.], daughter of King Cormac mac Art, and
betrothed wife of Finn mac Cumail. She eloped with
Dermot O'Dyna, and the whole episode is told in detail in
the historic romance called ' 'The Pursuit of Dermot and
Grainne."* This mound, and also the smaller mound
beside it on the south called the Fothad of Rath Grdinne,
are now much hidden by trees.

A little north-west of the north end of the Banqueting-
Hall, and occupying the space north of Rath Grainne and
Rath Caelchon, was the sheskin or marsh of Tara, which
was drained and dried up only a few years before Petrie's
time : but the well which supplied it, Tober Finn (Finn's
well), still remains.

Rath Laegaire [Rath Laery], situated south of Rath
Righ, was so called from Laegaire, king of Ireland in
St. Patrick's time, by whom, no doubt, it was erected.
It is about 300 feet in diameter, and was surrounded by
two great rings or ramparts, of which one is still very well
marked, and the other can be partially traced. Laegaire
was buried in the south-east rampart of this rath, fully
armed and standing up in the grave, with his face, towards
the south as if fighting against his enemies, the Leinster
men. The whole account of his interment will be found
at page 551, farther on.

West of Rath Righ was the well called Laegh [Lay], a
name signifying ' calf ' : it is now dried up, though the
ground still remains moist. In this well, according to

* This fine story will be found in Joyce's Old Celtic Romances,

CHAP. XXJ THE HOUSE 87

the seventh-century Annotations of Tirechan, St. Patrick
baptised his first convert at Tara, Ere the son of Dego
who afterwards became bishop of Slane, and who is com-
memorated in the little hermitage still to be seen beside
the Boyne (vol. I., p. 320). This well is called Laeg by
Cuan O'Lochain ; and Tirechan calls it Loig-les, which he
translates vitultis civitaium, the ' calf of the lisses or cities.'
Probably there was some legend accounting for this very
old name of Laeg or ' calf,' but it is not now known.

The five main sliges [slees], or roads, leading from
Tara in five different directions through Ireland, will be
found described at pp. 393 and 395, below. Of these,
portions of three are still traceable on the hill. The
modern road traverses and covers for some distance the
sites of two of them, Slige Dala and Slige Midluachra, as
seen on the plan : Slige A sail still remains, and is sometimes
turned to use.

In one of the ancient poetical accounts quoted by
Petrie (Tara, 147, top), it is stated that the houses of the
general body of people who lived near Tara were scattered
on the slope and over the plain east of the hill.

In connexion with Tara, two other great circular forts
ought to be mentioned. A mile south of Rath Righ lies
Rath Maive, which is very large — 673 feet in diameter ; it
forms a striking object as seen from the hill, and is well
worth examining. It was erected, according to one
account, by Queen Maive, wife of Art the solitary, the
father of King Cormac mac Art, which would fix the period
of its erection as the beginning of the third century. This
lady, observe, was different from Queen Maive of Croghan.

The other fort is Rathmiles, 300 feet in diameter, lying
one mile north of the Banqueting-Hall : but nothing is
known of its histoiy.

After the abandonment of Tara the kings of Ireland
took up their abode where they pleased, each commonly
in one of his other residences, within his own province or

88 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

immediate territory. One of these seats was Dun-na-Sciath
(the ' Fort of the Shields ' : pron. Doon-na-Skee), of which
the circular fort still remains on the western shore of Lough
Ennell in County Westmeath (MS. Mat., 24). Another
was at Rath near the western shore of Loch Leibhinn (now
Lough Lene in Westmeath), two miles from the present
town of Castlepollard. This residence was occupied for a
time by the Danish tyrant Turgesius, so that the fort, which
is one of the finest in the country, is now known as Dun-
Torgeis or Turgesius's fort ; while the Old Irish name has
been lost (Petrie, Tara, 128). In the time of St. Fechin,
Dermot, one of the joint kings of Ireland (a.d. 656-664),
had a residence in an island in Lough Lene, which, accord-
ing to a local tradition, was also occupied for a time by
Turgesius.* The tradition is probably correct, for the
island is now known by the name of Turgesius's Island.

Cenannus. — In the second century Conn the Hundred
Fighter, while yet roydamna, before he became king of
Ireland, resided in his stronghold at Cenannus, now Kells,
County Meath : and four centuries after his time Dermot
(son of Fergus), king of Ireland (544-565), had a palace
here, probably the very stronghold occupied by Conn.

Fremainn. — The kings of Tara had two royal residences
at two different places called Fremainn (LU, 129, b, 25).
One of these is still well known, and retains its old name :
now locally designated Frewen Hill, rising over the western
side of Lough Owel in Westmeath, on the top of which the
old fort still stands (see MS. Mat., 285).

Raeriu. — There were two very ancient palaces at two
places called by the same name Raeriu, both of which still
retain the name slightly altered. One was at the place
now called Reary-more near the village of Clonaslee in the
north of Queen's County. The other at Mullagh-Reelan,
five miles south-east of Athy in Kildare, where the old

* See FM, 1., p. 501, note r : Three Fragments, 169, note c : and Rev,
Celt., xii., 343.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 89

mound still remains near Kilkea Castle. In this anglicised
name, the termination " Reelan " represents Raerenn, the
genitive of the old name, by the usual change of r to /.*

Maistiu (gen. form Maistenn). — A better-known royal
homestead stood five miles nearly east from Ath-I (now
called Athy), where on the summit of a low hill the large
circular fort remains, and is now well known by the name
of the " Rath of Mullamast," in which the last syllable
represents the old name. (This is mentioned farther on,
at pages 366, 442, 552.)

It has been already stated (vol. 1., p. 38) that Tuathal
the Legitimate, king of Ireland in the second century, built
four palaces at Tara, Tailltenn, Ushnagh, and Tlachtga. The
fort of Tlachtga still remains on the summit of the Hill of
Ward near the village of Athboy in Meath. There were
royal residences also at Dunseverick in Antrim, the ancient
Dun-Sobairce ; at the Old Head of Kinsale in Cork, called
in Irish Dun-mic-Patraic ; at Derry ; at Rathbeagh on the
Nore, where the rath is still to be seen ; at Dun-Aenguis
on Great Aran Island (for which see p. 57, supra) ; and
on the site of the present Baily Lighthouse at Howth,
where several of the defensive fosses of the old palace-fort
of Dun-Criffan can still be traced.

Emain. — Next to Tara in celebrity was the palace of
Emain or Emain-Macha, or, as its name is Latinised,
Emania. It was for 600 years the residence of the kings
of Ulster, and attained its greatest glory in the first century
of the Christian era, during the reign of Concobar (or
Conor) MacNessa, king of Ulster. It was the centre
round which clustered the romantic tales of the Red
Branch Knights, f The most ancient-written Irish tradi-
tions assign the foundation of this palace to Macha of the

* As to these two mansions, see FM, 1., p. 38, note r ; and Book of
Rights, pp. 210, 211.

f For the Red Branch Knights, and the literature connected with
them, see vol. 1., pp. 83 and 536, supra.

90 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Golden Hair, wife of Cimbaeth (Kimbay], king of Ireland
three or four centuries before the Christian era. From that
period it continued to be the residence of the Ulster kings
till a.d. 335, when it was burned and destroyed by three
brothers, cousins of Muredach, king of Ireland — Colla Uais,
Colla Menn, and Colla Dachrich, commonly known as the
Three Collas — after which it was abandoned to ruin. The
imposing remains of this palace, consisting of a great
mound surrounded by an immense circular rampart and
fosse half obliterated, the whole structure covering about
eleven English acres, lie two miles west of Armagh. Nay,
the ruin retains to this day the old name " Emain "
slightly disguised ; for it is familiarly called " The Navan
Fort or Ring," in which " Navan " correctly represents the
sound of 'n-Emain, i.e. the original name with the Irish
article 'n prefixed.

When the Red Branch Knights came to the palace
each summer to be exercised in feats of arms, they were
lodged in a great house near Emain, called the Craobh-
Ruadh,. commonly Englished the ' Red Branch,' from
which the whole body took their name. But according to
an old glossary, ruadh here means not ' red,' which is its
usual sense, but ' royal ' : so that Craobh-Ruadh should be
translated ' royal branch ' : but the designation " Red
Branch Knights " is now too well established to be dis-
placed. The name of this house is also preserved : for
" Creeveroe," which very well represents the sound of
Craobh-Ruadh, is still the name of a townland near the
Navan fort. So far as we can judge from old tales, the
Craobh-Ruadh seems to have been altogether built of
wood, with no earthen rampart round it, which explains
why the present townland of Creeveroe contains no large
fort like that of Emain.* (See also Allen, vol. I., p. 88, supra).

* According to LL, as quoted by O'Curry, Man. & Cust., I. 332, there
were, in the time of Concobar, three chief houses in Emain : — The craeb
ritaid, or ' royal branch,' where the kings and chiefs feasted : the craeb

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 91

Ailech or the Grianan of Ailech. — Another Ulster palace,
quite as important as Emain, was Ailech, the ruins of which
are situated in County Donegal, on the summit of a hill
800 feet high, five miles north-west from Derry, command-
ing a magnificent view of Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly
with the surrounding country. It is a circular stone cashel
of dry masonry, 77 feet in internal diameter, the wall about
13 feet thick at the base, and on the outside sloping
gradually inwards. This central citadel was surrounded
at wide intervals by five concentric ramparts, three of
which may still be traced, the whole area originally
including many acres. According to the old tradition it
was founded by the Dedannans, and continued to be a
royal residence to the time of its destruction, sometimes of
the king of Ulster, and sometimes of the king of Ireland.
After the fourth century it was the recognised residence of
the northern Hy Neill kings, down to the year 1101, when
it was destroyed by the Munster King Murkertagh, in
retaliation for the destruction of Kincora by the Ulstermen
thirteen years before. After this it was abandoned ; and
the kings of Ailech transferred their residence to Inis-
Eanaigh — now called Inchenny — in the County Tyrone,
near Strabane, where they probably resided till the arrival
of the Anglo-Normans. For nearly eight centuries Ailech
continued in a state of ruin, the wall being reduced to a
height of about 6 feet : but during the years 1874-8, it was
rebuilt — in the face of great difficulties — by Dr. Bernard of
Derry, a man of culture, with antiquarian tastes, who, as
far as he could, restored it to its original shape. The wall

derg, or ' crimson branch,' where were kept their spoils and trophies and
the skulls of their enemies : and the teite brecc, or ' speckled house,'
wherein were deposited the heroes' arms, so as to have them safely out of
reach in case the owners should quarrel over their cups. There was also,
according to Keating (p. 271), a hospital for the sick and wounded, called
Brdn-Bherg, or the " Warrior's Sorrow." See the Paper on the Plan of
Navan Fort, by M. D'Arbois de Jubainville in Rev. Celt., xvi., p. 1 : Joyce.
Irjsh Names of Places, 1., p. 90 : and Mr. T. O. Russell, p. 58,

92 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

is now about 17 feet high. It still retains — has all along
retained — its ancient name, in the form of Greenan-Ely,
where Ely correctly represents the sound of Ailigh, the
genitive of Ailech*

The Dalaradian princes had their residence in the sixth
and seventh centuries, in a place of great repute called
Rathmore-Moylinny. The fort still remains in the town-
land of Rathmore two miles from the town of Antrim.
Adjoining Rathmore townland is another called Rathbeg,
which takes its name from the rath of another palace of
much celebrity, where Dermot, the son of Fergus Cervall
king of Ireland, lived for some time after he had left Tara,
and where he was slain in the year 565, by Aed Dubh,
king of Dalaradia.f

Cruachan. — The chief palace of the kings of Connaught
was Cruachan (or as it is now called, Croghan) from times
beyond the reach of history down to the death of King
Raghallach, who, as already related (vol. I., p. 409), was
assassinated a.d. 648. It figures in various parts of this
book, and is chiefly celebrated as being the residence of
Ailill and Maive, king and queen of the province, in the
first century of the Christian era. Here they held their
court, which is described in the Tales of the Red Branch
Knights in a strain of exaggerated magnificence : and from
this the warlike queen set forth with her army to ravage
Ulster and bring away the great brown bull which was the
main object of the expedition, as described in the epic
story of the " Tain bo Chuailnge " [Quelna].

The remains, which are situated three miles north-west
from the village of Tulsk in Roscommon, are not imposing :
for the main features have been effaced by cultivation.
The principal rath, on which stood the timber palace and

* See Ordnance Survey of Londonderry, p. 217. In this work, Dr.
Petrie, with the assistance of O'Donovan and O'Curry, has given an
elaborate historical, literary, and topographical description of Ailech.

f See Reeves, Eccl. Antiqq., pp. 69 and 278-281 : Adamnan, p. 68,
note : FM, a.d. 558 : and Voyage of Bran, 1. 58.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 93

the subordinate houses, is merely a flat, green, circular moat
about an English acre in extent, elevated considerably
above the surrounding land, with hardly a trace of the
enclosing circumvallation. There are many other forts
all around, so that, in the words of O'Donovan, who has
described the place in some detail in the Four Masters
under a.d. 1223 — the whole site may be said to be " the
" ruins of a town of raths, having the large rath called
" Rathcroghan placed in the centre ' : but they are scattered
much more widely and at greater distances than those at
Tara. Besides the homestead forts there are also, in the
surrounding plain, numerous other antiquarian remains,
indicating a once busy centre of royalty and active life —
cromlechs, caves, pillar-stones, and mounds, including the
cemetery of Relig-na-ree (about half a mile south of the
main rath), which will be described at p. 556, below.

Durlus Guaire or Dungory. — The royal house known by
this name was the abode of Guaire [Goorie], the hospitable
king of Connaught in the seventh century. It was built
on a little island beside the seashore, half a mile north-east
from the present village of Kinvarra on Galway Bay. On
the site of the old dun a stone castle was subsequently
erected, the ruin of which is now called " Dungory Castle,"
a name that commemorates the fortress of the hospitable
monarch.*

Ailenn or Ailend, now Knockaulin. The most important
residences of the kings of Leinster were Ailenn, Dinnrigh,
Naas, Liamhain, and Belach-Chonglais or Baltinglass, in all
of which the raths still remain. Ailenn is a round hill, now
commonly called Knockaulin (Aulin representing ' Ailenn ')
near Kilcullen in Kildare, rising 600 feet over sea-level,
and 200 or 300 feet over the Curragh of Kildare which
lies adjacent, and over all the plain around. The whole
summit of the hill is enclosed by a huge oval embankment,
514 by 440 yards, enclosing an area of 37 statute acres,
* See Tromdamh, p. 120, note 2.

94 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

one of the largest forts, if not the very largest, in Ireland.
Within this great enclosure stood the spacious ornamental
wooden houses in which, as we learn from our records, the
Leinster kings often resided : for each king had at least
three palaces (vol. I., p. 58, supra) which he occupied in
turn, changing from one to another as it suited his pleasure
or convenience. On the present 6-inch Ordnance map the
fort is called the " Hill of Allen," instead of the proper
modern popular name Knockaulin, which tends to confound
it with the equally celebrated hill, now properly and
universally called the Hill of Allen near Newbridge in
Kildare, Finn mac Cumail's residence already described
(vol. 1., p. 88) : a mistake evidently committed without
O'Donovan's knowledge, when he and others were
employed sixty or seventy years ago to settle the local
names of Ireland.*

Dinnrigh. — One of the most noted, and probably the
oldest, of the Leinster palaces was Dinnrigh [Dinnree : the
' dinn or fortress of kings '], also called by two other names,

* I am informed on the best authority, that this mistake will be rectified
in future editions of the 6-inch map.

The fact that there are no remains of a fort on the Hill of Allen — i.e. the
hill properly so-called, near Newbridge — a place of such celebrity as having
been the residence of the renowned hero Finn mac Comail — seems so unac-
countable as to lead some to conjecture that the ancient Irish writers
confounded the names of the two hills — names which are somewhat like
each other ; and that the fort of Ailenn above described may have been
really Finn's residence. But this is pure conjecture without a shadow of
evidence to support it. The absence of remains on the Hill of Allen has
been already satisfactorily accounted for (vol. i., p. 90). As to the two
names : they have never been confounded by any old writer, and could not
possibly be, except by an amount of stupidity never exhibited by the
writers of the Book of Leinster or the Book of the Dun Cow. The oldest
form of the name of Finn's residence was A Imu, gen. Alman, dat. Almain ;
which dative — in accordance with a well-known linguistic law — is often
used as a nominative, on which a second genitive A Imaine has been formed.
The oldest form of the name of Knockaulin is Ailend or Ailenn. The
names of both vary somewhat in. form ; but there is one obvious and
never-failing distinction : — that however Almu is varied, it always has the
m : however A ilenn is varied, it never has an m The evidence that Finn
lived at Almu, or what is now properly called the Hill of Allen, is quite
as clear as that by which we know that Brian Boru lived at Kincora.

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

Tuaim-Tenba and Duma-Slainge, ' Slainge's burial-mound,'
because the Firbolg king Slainge died and was buried
there (FM, a.m. 3267). Besides being very often men-
tioned in the records, it was the scene of a tragedy which
is related in detail in the historical story called " The
Destruction of Dinnree," contained in the Book of Leinster,
which has been edited and translated by Dr. Whitley
Stokes.* Some two centuries and a half before the Chris-
tian era, Cobthach the Slender of Breg murdered the king

FIG. 208.
Dinnree, the most ancient residence of the kings of Leinster. Now Ballyknockan
Fort, on the west bank of the Barrow, half a mile below Leighlin-bridee, Carlow.
(From Mrs. Hall's Ireland.)

of Ii eland — his own brother — and also the king's son
Ailill, and usurped the throne. But Ailill's son Labra
Loingsech, or Lavra the Mariner, who fled to the Continent,
returned after some years with a party of Gauls, and
landed at Wexford, where he was joined by large contin-
gents of the men of Leinster and Munster, who hated the
usurper. Marching quickly and silently by night to Dinn-
ree, where the king then happened to be holding court, he
surrounded the palace, and setting fire to the houses while

* In Zeitschr. Celt Phil., vol. in.

96 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

the company were engaged in feasting, he burned all —
palace, king, and courtiers — to ashes.*

Dinnree continued to be used as a royal residence far
into Christian times. From a passage in the Life of
St. Finnchua,f we know that it was occupied early in
the seventh century by " Old Nuada the Sage," king of
Leinster : but when it was abandoned is not known. The
old documents define very clearly the position of this
palace : and the fine old fort still exists in good preserva-
tion. It is situated on a high bank over the River Barrow
on the west side, half a mile south of Leighlinbridge, and
is now commonly known by the name of " Ballyknockan
Moat." The moat or mound — figured in the illustration,
p. 95 — is 237 feet in diameter at the base ; the circular
plateau on the top is 135 feet in diameter, and 69 feet over
the River Barrow (FM, vol. I., p. 15, note /).

Fig. 209.

North Moat, Naas : remains of ancient palace. House on top modern.
(From a drawing by the author, 1857.)

Naas. — In old times Naas was a place of great celebrity,
where the Leinster tribes held some of their periodical
aenachs or fair-meetings, from which it got the name
of Nds-Laigen [Naas-Lyen], i.e. the ' assembly-place of
Leinster,' corresponding exactly with the name of Nenagh
in Tipperary. There were here two royal houses, the forts
of which still remain. One is an ordinary circular, flat

* See O'Curry, MS. Mat., 252 to 257 : Keating, 253 : and Joyce, Irish
Names, 1. 93. -f Stokes, Lives of SS., pp. 237, 238.

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE 97

rath, now called the south moat, situated near the southern
end of the town. The other, called the north moat, is a
high, flat-topped mound on which the citadel once stood,
but which is now occupied by an ugly modern house.
Naas continued to be a residence of the Leinster kings till
the death of King Cerball (already referred to, p. 49), who
was slain by the Danes in 908.*

Belach Chonglais. — Another of the Leinster palaces was
at Baltinglass in the county Wicklow, whose old name was
Belach-Chonglais (Cuglas's road) : but a still older name was
Belach Dubthaire [Duff era]. f Here resided in the sixth
century Branduff, the powerful king who defeated and
slew Aed mac Ainmirech, king of Ireland, in the Battle
of Dunbolg, a.d. 598 (vol. 1., p. 141, supra). On the hill
rising over the town are two great raths or forts, the
remains of the old residences. One, now called Rathcoran,
is on the very summit, 1256 feet over sea-level. It is an
oval, about a quarter of a mile in its longer diameter,
having two ramparts, and containing about twenty-five
statute acres. The other and smaller fort, now called
Rathnagree, is on the northern slope of the hill : it has
also two ramparts and covers about seven acres.

Liamhain. — The name of Liamhain or Dun-Liamhna
[Dun-lavna] is still preserved in that of Dunlavin, a
small village in the county Wicklow. The mound of this
residence is still to be seen a mile south of the village :
but it has lost its old name and is now called " Tornant
Moat." (Tornant, ' nettle-mound ' : ominous of ruin.)

Side-Nechtain. — The Hill of Carbery in Kildare has a dim
legendary history as a royal residence. It was anciently
called Side-Nechtain [Shee-Nechtan] , i.e. ' Nechtan's Shee
or fairy-hill ' : showing that it was the site of one of those
elf-mounds described in vol. I., p. 254, supra. This Nechtan,
according to the old documents, was king of Leinster, and

* FM, vol. ir., p. 573, note o : see Tromdamh, p. 166, for a further
account of Naas. f ^ev- Celt., xin. 57 : Silva Gad., 411

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

also a poet. But the place contained a residence of a less
shadowy kind ; for on the north-west slope there are still
two remarkable and very perfect military raths or forts.
Near the base of the hill is Trinity Well, the source of
the Boyne, the enchanted well that in old times burst up
and overwhelmed Boand, Nechtan's queen, as described
in vol. I., p. 284, supra. But in subsequent times the
Christian missionaries — as in case of many another well
(vol. 1., p. 366) — removed its heathenish character and

Fig. 210.
Carbury Castle, County Kildare. (From a photograph.]

associations, and dedicated it to the Holy Trinity. The
Anglo-Norman De Berminghams, who took possession of
the district, having an eye to something more substantial
than Dedannan fairy palaces, took advantage of the selec-
tion of their immediate Milesian predecessors and built
a splendid castle not far from the old Irish fortresses, near
the summit, the ruins of which are now conspicuous for
leagues round the hill.*

Cashel was one of the most renowned seats of the
North Munster kings, though not the oldest as a royal

* See Wilde's Boyne, pp. 24 to 32.

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

residence. Its chief feature is the well-known lofty
isolated rock overlooking the surrounding plain — the
magnificent Golden Vale, as it is called, from its fertility.
The most ancient name of the rock was Sidh-Dhruim [Shee-
drum or Sheerim], ' fairy-ridge ' ; but it was also called
Lec-na-gced [Lack-na-gade] , the ' rock of the hundreds,'
and Druim-Fiodhbhuidhe [Drum-Feevee] , ' woody-ridge ' ;
and in Christian times Lec-Phatraic, ' St. Patrick's Rock.'
An ancient legend still preserved in old Irish mss., and

Eft'fo 1 rk

I gfiS m r^»

'^^**Ajjr ^ifciiiiij

\r S5S8

Fig. an.

Rock of Cashel (top of Round Tower appears to the right). (From Brewer's

Beauties of Ireland. Drawn by Petrie.)

given by Keating, relates that two swineherds, while
feeding their flocks in the woods round the hill, in the
beginning of the fifth century, saw an angel as bright as
the sun standing on the rock, blessing the place with voice
more melodious than any music, and prophesying the
coming of St. Patrick. Core mac Luighdheach, king of
Munster, coming to Ijear of this, immediately took posses-
sion of the whole place, and on the summit of the rock
built a stronghold, which was known as Lis-na-Laochraidhe
[Laikree], the ' fort of the heroes,' and which then became
the chief residence of the Munster kings, and continued so

100 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

till the beginning of the twelfth century. In iioi King
Murkertagh O'Brien dedicated the whole place to the
church, and handed it over to the ecclesiastical authorities,
since which time it figures chiefly in ecclesiastical history.
Then began to be erected those splendid buildings which
remain to this day ; so that the " Rock of Cashel " is now
well known as containing the most, imposing group of
ecclesiastical ruins in the united kingdom.*

Grianan Lachtna. — One of the ancestral residences of
the Dalcassian kings of Thomond or North Munster was
Grianan-Lachtna or Greenan-Lachna, the fine old fort of
which is still to be seen occupying a noble site on the
south slope of Craig-Liath or Craglea in Clare, over the
western shore of Lough Derg, two miles north of Killaloe.

Kincora. — But when Brian Boru ascended the throne,
he came to live at Kincora, where the remains of the
palace have all disappeared, inasmuch as the site is now
occupied by the town of Killaloe. The O'Briens, as
kings of Thomond, continued to reside at Kincora for two
centuries after the Battle of Clontarf : but about 12 14
they removed their residence to Clonroad near Ennis.
One of the outlying forts — a very fine one — still remains,
however, beside the Shannon, a mile north of Killaloe, and
is now known by the name of Beal Boru.

Dungrud. — In East Munster there were, from remote
times, two royal residences. One was Dun-gcrot, now
called Dungrud or Dungrott, in the Glen of Aherlow, at
the foot of the Galtys, on the site of which the English
of Galbally erected a strong castle.

Caher. — The other East Munster palace was on a little
rocky island in the river Suir at the town of Caher, in
Tipperary. It was oringially called Dun-iasgach, the ' fish-
abounding dun,' from the dun that constituted the original

* On all this, see O'Curry, MS. Mat., 485 and 623 : Comyn's Keating,
1. 123 : and for a description of the buildings on it, Petrie's article in the
Irish Penny Journal, p. 17.

CHAP. XX]

THE HOUSE

IOI

fortress-palace. This was succeeded by a circular stone
caher, which gave the place its present name. The castle
was- built by the Anglo-Normans on the site of the caher.*
Another of these Munster palaces was Dun-gclaire
[Doonglara], the fort of which is still in good preserva-
tion, standing at the northern base of the mountain of
Slievereagh near Kilfinnane, two miles nearly north-west
from Ballylanders, on the left of the road as you go from

Caher Castle in 1845 : on site of the old palace. (From Mrs. Hall's Ireland.)

this village to Knocklong. It covers about four statute
acres, and is now called Doonglara, or more often Lis-
Doonglara.

Brugh-righ. — Bruree in the county Limerick, situated
beside the river Maigue, was from remote times one of
the seats of the kings, of South Munster, as its Irish name
Brugh-righ indicates, signifying the ' House of Kings.'
It was also called Dun Eochair Mhaighe, the ' fort on the

* See Petrie's article on Caher Castle in Irish Penny Journal, p. 27.
For all these Munster palaces, see Comyn's Keating, pp. 121 to 129.

102 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

brink (eochair) of the River Maigue.'* The illustrious
King Ailill Olom, ancestor of many of the chief Munster
families, lived there in the second centuryf : and it
continued to be occupied by the Munster kings till long
after the Anglo-Norman Invasion. The Anglo-Norman
chiefs also adopted it as a place of residence, as they did
many others of the old Irish kingly seats : and the ruins of
two of their fine castles remain. There are still to be seen,
along the river, several of the old circular forts, the most
interesting of which is the one now universally known in
the neighbourhood by the name of Lissoleem, inasmuch as
it preserves the very name of King Ailill Olom, whose
timber house was situated within its enclosure. It is
situated on the western bank of the river, a mile below the
village, in the townland of Lower Lotteragh, in the angle
formed by the Maigue and a little stream joining it from
the west. It is a circular fort with three ramparts, having
the reputation — like most other raths — of being haunted
by fairies : and as it is very lonely and much overgrown
with bushes, it is as fit a home for fairies as could well be
imagined.

This king's name, Ailill Olom, signifies ' Ailill Bare-Ear,'
so called because — as already mentioned (vol. I., p. 263) —
one of his ears was cut off in a struggle with the fairy lady
Aine of Knockainy. Olom is accented on the second
syllable, and is compounded of 0, ' an ear,' and lorn,
' bare,' : in the name " Ailill Olom " it is in the nomina-
tive case : " Ailill Bare-Ear " (not " of the Bare-Ear ") :
like the English names William Longsword, John Lackland,
Richard Strongbow. But when placed after " Lis," it takes
— as it should take — the genitive form, " Oluim " : and
" Lis-Oluim," which is exactly represented in sound by
" Lissoleem," signifies ' Olum's lis or residence.' Many
examples of the preservation of very old personal and
other names in our existing topographical nomenclature

* Comyn's Keating, p. 123 t Silva Gad> P- 348-

CHAP. XX] THE HOUSE IO3

are given in my " Irish Names of Places " ; and this case
of Lissoleem — which has not been noticed before — is fully
as interesting as any of them.

Temair-Luachra. — In the time of the Red Branch
Knights and of the Munster Degads (vol. I., p. 86), and
from immemorial ages previously, the chief royal residence
of South Munster was Teamair or Tara-Luachra, the fort
of which in all probability still exists, though it has not
been identified. Mr. W. M. Hennessy, in his Introduction
to the Mesca Ulad, has brought together the several
notices bearing on its position : and the Rev. Dr. Hogan
has a remark on the subject in Rossnaree (p. 23, note 7).
It was well known in the time of Elizabeth ; and anyone
acquainted with the country, who would take the trouble
to walk over the exact locality indicated, and make
inquiry among the old people, would be able, as I believe,
to light on and identify the very fort.

Knockgraffon. — Another noted Munster palace was
Cnoc-Rafonn, now called Knockgraffon, three miles north
of Caher in Ppperary, where the great mound, 60 or 70
feet high, still remains, with the ruins of an English castle
beside it. Here resided, in the third century, Fiacha
Muillethan [Feeha-Mullehan] , king of Munster, who, when
the great King Cormac mac Art invaded Munster in an
attempt to levy tribute, defeated him at Knocklong and
routed his army : an event which forms the subject of the
historical tale called Forbais Droma Damhghaire, or the
" Siege of Knocklong." The fort is now as noted for
fairies as it was in old times for royalty (see Crofton
Croker's story " The Legend of Knockgraffon.")*

* A full list of the royal seats of Munster, annotated by O'Donovan, is
given in the Book of Rights, pp. 89 to 95.

Ornament : composed from the Hook of Ivells

CHAPTER XXI

FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT

Section i. Meals in General.

inner, the principal meal of the day, was called
in Irish prainn or praind, probably a loan-
word from the Latin prandium, which is
explained by the Irish proind in Zeuss (67, »).
Hence the refectory of a monastery was called
praintech, literally ' dinner-house.' Dinner was
taken late in the evening both among the laity and in
monasteries. "At the end of the day his [Patrick's]
" charioteer said to him : ' Thou hast left a cross to-day
" in thy path without visiting it.' Thereupon Patrick left
" the guest-house and his dinner (a tech-noiged ocus a
" praind), and went back to the cross."* In the notes
to the Feilire of Aengus (p. 62), it is stated that Ciaran's
dinner (praind), every night, consisted of a little bit of
barley-bread, two roots of a vegetable, and a drink of
water.

It was usual to have a light meal between breakfast
and dinner corresponding with the modern luncheon. It
was called etsruth or etrud, which Cormac (p. 68) explains

* Trip. Life, 125 : see also Silva Gad., 113, 34>
104

CHAP. XXl] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 105

as " eter-shod [' middle-meal '], the middle-meal of the
day." The time is given more definitely in an entry
(quoted by Stokes under this explanation) in an ancient
ms. : — " Etrud, i.e. etar-suth (' middle-fruit '), i.e. between
" morning and evening ; or rith-etir, or ' middle-running,'
" i.e. [running] at midday." It was a custom among the
laity, as well as in the monastic communities, to have
better food on Sundays and church festivals than on other
days, as appears from many passages in the Laws, and in
ecclesiastical and general literature.

Among the higher classes great care was taken to seat
family and guests at table in the order of rank ; any
departure from the established usage was sure to be
resented by the person who was put lower than he
should be ; and sometimes resulted in serious quarrels or
wars. The placing of Prince Congal by Domnall king
of Ireland below his proper place at the banquet of
Dun-nan-gedh was one main cause of the great Battle of
Moyrath (fought a.d. 637).* It was especially necessary
to observe the proper formalities at banquets and on all
state occasions, where the arrangements were under the
direction of the rechtaire or ' house-steward ' (for whom see
vol. 1., p. 64). At the banquet given by King Concobar
mac Nessa at Dun-da-Benn, as narrated in the Mesca Ulad
(p. 13) of which the original is in the Book of Leinster, the
banqueting-hall was " arranged by Concobar according to
" deeds and parts and families ; according to grades and
" arts and customs, with a view to the fair holding of the
" banquet." (Any great banquet or feast was called fled,
and sometimes imdell.)

The account given by Keating (pp. 302-3), which he
took from ancient documents now lost, of the seating of the
guests at the state banquets of Tara, is very interesting.
The persons entertained were of three main classes : —

♦Moyrath, 29, 31. For the battle, see Joyce, Short History of
Ireland, p 153.

106 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE '[PART III

Lords of territories ; the commanders of the bands of
warriors who were kept permanently and maintained at
free quarters by the king at Tara ; and the ollaves or
learned men of the several professions. The territorial
lords were regarded as of higher rank than the military
commanders ; and each chief of both classes was attended
by his " shield-bearer " or squire. It was the duty of the
ollave shanachie to have the names of all written in two
separate rolls, in exact order of precedence : and in this
order they sat at table.

The banquet-hall was a long narrow building, with
tables arranged along both side-walls. Immediately over
the tables were a number of hooks in the wall at regular
intervals to hang the shields on. One side of the hall was
more dignified than the other, and the tables here were for
the lords of territories : those at the other side were for
the military captains. The upper end was reserved for
the professional ollaves : the dependents — always a large
company — sat at the lower end.

Just before the beginning of the feast all persons left the
hall except three : — A Shanachie or historian : a Bollscari
or marshal to regulate the order : and a trumpeter (fear-
stuic) whose duty it was to sound his trumpet just three
times. At the first blast the shield-bearers or squires of the
lords of territories came round the door and gave their
masters' shields to the marshal, who, under the direction of
the Shanachie, hung them on the hooks according to ranks,
from the highest to the lowest : and at the second blast
the shields of the military commanders were disposed of
in like manner. At the third blast the guests all walked
in leisurely, each taking his seat under his own shield
(which was marked with his special cognisance : see vol. I.
p. 125). In this manner all unseemly disputes or jostling
for places were avoided. No man sat opposite another,
as only one side of each row of tables was occupied, namely,
the side next the wall.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 107

Keating does not, in this passage, give the arrangement
when the king was present : but this is described in other
authorities ; as well as elsewhere in Keating (415). The
king was always attended at banquets by his subordinate
kings, and by other lords and chiefs : and great formality
was observed in seating all. In the " Wooing of Emer "
(p. 69), it is stated that when the company sat drinking in
the banquet-hall of Emain, " no man of them would touch
the other." Those especially on the immediate right and
left of the king had to sit at a respectful distance. At
the feasts of Tara, Tailltenn, and Ushnagh, it was the
privilege of the king of Oriell to sit next the king of
Ireland, but he sat at such a distance that his sword just
reached the high king's hand : and to him also belonged
the honour of presenting every third drinking-horn brought
to the king.* According to Kineth O'Hartigan, while
King Cormac mac Art sat at dinner, fifty military guards,
or " heroes," remained standing beside him.f The arrange-
ments for seating subordinate kings, at banquets given by
the Hy Neill Monarchs, may be seen in the Battle of
Moyrath, pp. 29, 31 ; and a much more detailed account
of those for king and guests at Brian Boru's banquets
at Kincora is given, from old authorities, in O'Curry's
Lectures. I At Tara it often happened that the women
did not sit at banquets with the men : they had a banquet-
hall for themselves. But in the feasts at other places men
and women always, or nearly aways, banqueted in the
same hall : the women, however, generally sitting apart :
and they often wore a mask — sometimes called fethal —
which hid or partly hid the face.§

This rigid adherence to order of priority at table con-
tinued in Ireland and Scotland down to a recent period :

* Book of Rights, 137. t Petrie, Tara, 191, 192.

% Man. & Cust., 1. 121. See also Petrie's Tara, p. 199 et seq., for the
detailed arrangements in Tara.

§ See Law Tract quoted by O'Curry, Man. & Cust., n. 114.

108 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

and it continues still in a modified and less strict form
everywhere. Readers of Scott will call to mind the scene
in " The Lord of the Isles," when the seneschal — corre-
sponding with the Irish rechtaire — seated the unknown
strangers next the prince : —

" Then lords and ladies spake aside,
And angry looks the error chide
That gave to guests, unnamed, unknown,
A place so near their prince's throne."

An odd instance of the Irish " pride of place " in the
eighteenth century is related by Hardiman* concerning
Arthur O'Neill, the celebrated Irish harper. He was
universally respected, partly on account of his musical
abilities, but more because he belonged to the illustrious
family of O'Neill : and he always sat at table among the
highest people. Once at a public dinner in Belfast, which
was attended by all the local nobility and gentry, the
noble lord who presided apologised to him for being
accidentally placed so far down from the head of the
table. " O my lord," replied he, " apology is unnecessary :
wherever an O'Neill sits, that is the head of the table."

The host stood up before the meal and formally
welcomed his guests. f At all state banquets particular
joints were reserved for certain chiefs, officials, and pro-
fessional men, according to rank. These are set forth in
several authorities, though with some differences : they
may be seen in detail in Petrie's Tara (pp. 199 et seq.),
taken from the Book of Leinster. The following shorter
statement is given in the treatise on Irish Ordeals trans-
lated by Stokes, which is almost identical with that given
by the commentator on the Senchus M6r — "A thigh
' [laarg] for a king and a poet : a chine [crotchet] for a

* Ir. Minstr., n. 412.

t See Moyrath, 25 : Ir. Texte, 1. 99. paragraph, 6, with a translation
in Hib. Minora, 59.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT IO9

" literary sage [sai litri : vol. I., p. 434] : a leg [colptha]
" for a young lord [ogtigern] : heads [cuind] for charioteers :
" a haunch [les] for queens."* A similar custom existed
among the ancient Gauls and also among the Greeks. f
A remnant of this old custom lingered on in the Western
Islands of Scotland to the time of Martin (p. 109), 200
years ago. When the chief of an island killed an animal,
he gave head, feet, entrails, and such like, to his depen-
dents, the head being due to the smith, the udder of a cow
to the piper, &c. At a still later time — 1773 — Dr. Johnson,
in his account of his visit to the Hebrides, records the
prevalence of the custom there in the following words :—
' When a beef was killed for the house, particular parts
' were claimed as fees by the several officers or workmen.
' . . . The head belonged to the smith, and the udder of a
' cow to the piper : the weaver had likewise his particular
' part : and so many pieces followed these prescriptive
' claims that the laird's was at last but little." Even so
late as 1839, when Petrie wrote his Essay on Tara, the
custom was partially kept up in some parts of Ireland,
where the farmers, when they killed a beef or a pig, always
sent the head to the smith, whose kitchen was often
garnished with from fifty to a hundred heads, obtained in
this manner. J Sometimes the marrow-bones were assigned
to a particular member of the household, to whom everyone
passed his bone after picking it : and woe betide anyone
else who broke a bone for marrow. §

In the time of the Red Branch Knights, it was the
custom to assign the choicest joint or animal of the whole
banquet to the hero who was acknowledged by general
consent to have performed the bravest and greatest exploit.
This piece was called curath-mir, i.e. ' the hero's morsel or

* Ir. Texte, in. 206 : Br. Laws, 1. 49 : see also " Milgitan " in Corm.
Gloss., 107 : and for a further detailed account see Ulster Journ. Archaeol.,
in. 119.

f Iliad, xxn., and vn. 320; Odyss., iv. 66.

I Petrie's Tara, p. 212. § For instance, see Moyrath, 71.

110 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

share ' (inir). There were often keen contests among the
Red Branch heroes, and sometimes fights with bloodshed,
for this coveted joint or piece : and some of the best
stories of the Tain hinge on contests of this kind.* This
usage, which, according to Diodorus Siculus, prevailed
among the continental Celts in general, and which also
existed among the Greeks,f seems to have continued in
Ireland to comparatively late times : for the Senchus Mor
mentions among the offences for which penalty was due
" Carrying away the hero's morsel from the person to
whom it belongs." The word used here is danttnir, which
the gloss explains by curath-mir. O'Donovan, the trans-
lator of the Senchus M6r, considers the marrowbones
mentioned above — assigned to one particular individual—
as a sort of curath-mir. X

Fig. 213.

Small Table : 28 inches long, :6 inches broad, and 5 inches high : made
of willow: found in a bog in Tyrone, five feet under the surface. (From
Wilde's Catalogue, p. all.)

Tables were, as we have seen, used at the great feasts.
But at ordinary meals, high tables, such as we have now,
do not seem to have been in general use. There were
small low tables, such as that in the illustration, each used
no doubt for two or more persons, who sat or reclined
on low couches or seats of some kind at meals. Often
there was a little table laid beside each person, on which his
food was placed — the meat on a platter.§ In late times —
the sixteenth century — Derrick, in his " Image of Ireland,"

* See Fled Bricrend, p. 15. Nearly the whole of this tale is occupied
with the contests of the three Red Branch heroes, Cuculainn, Loegaire the
Victorious, and Conall Cernach for the curath-mir.

t De Jubainville, Cours de Litt. Celt., VI., pp. 3, 4.

J Br. Laws, 1. 177, 181, bottom, and note 1.

\ Joyce's Old Celtic Romances, 125.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT III

represents the Irish at their meals in this fashion : but
Derrick's words and pictures must be received with
caution, for they are all more or less caricatures.
According to Giraldus,* his countrymen, the Welsh, had
no tables at all at their meals : and very probably this
was the case in the general run of the houses of the Irish
peasantry.

Forks are a late invention : of old the fingers were used
at eating. In Ireland, as in England and other countries
in those times, each person held his knife in the right hand,
and used the fingers of the left instead of a fork : just as
we see described in the " Vision of Mac Conglinne " (p. 64).
Sometimes — as at banquets, and among very high-class
people — the carvers cut off great pieces from the joint,
which they brought round and put on the platters. The
attendants who supplied food and drink in this manner at
great dinners were called ddilemain, ' carvers, distributors,
or spencers ' (from ddil, ' to cut or divide ') ; and deogbhaire,
or deochbhaire, ' cupbearers ' (from deoch ' a drink '). But
more commonly each person went to the joint, and using
his left-hand fingers to catch hold, cut off a piece for
himself and brought it to his own platter. Even so late
as the sixteenth century this was the custom in England,
according to Roberts (p. 342), who says that dinner was
served without knives or forks, but each had his own clasp-
knife, and going to the dish, cut off a piece for himself : and
he gives this illustrative verse from " The Mirror of Good
Manners," by Alexander Barclay (sixteenth century) : —

" If the dish be pleasant, either flesche or fische,
Ten hands at once swarm in the dishe."

Even towards the end of the seventeenth century " they
" scarce ever make use of forks or ewers, for they wash
" their hands by dipping them into a basin of water "
(Social Engl., iv. 490). That this was the manner of dining

* Description of Wales, x.

112 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

in very early times in Ireland appears from a passage in
the " Second Battle of Moytnra," where it is said of the
inhospitable King Bres : — " Their knives [i.e. the knives of
" his subjects the Dedannans] were not greased [nibtar
" beoluide a sceanai] by him, and their breaths did not smell
" of ale at the banquets."* The Greeks and Romans had
no knives or forks at meals : they used the fingers only,
and were supplied with water to wash their hands after
eating : yet the meat must have been cut in some way
either by the guests or by the attendants. The Irish
people picked the bones as many do now, partly with the
knife and partly with the teeth, f In the story told in
vol. I., p. 414, sufita, the bishop, being suddenly called on
deck, came up from his dinner holding in his hand a big
bone, which no doubt he was picking in the good old
fashion.

As early as the eighth or ninth century the higher
classes used napkins at table, for which they had a native
word, lambrat, i.e. ' hand-napkin ' (lam, ' hand ' : ' brat, a
cloth '). In a manuscript quoted by Zeuss (653, 45) the
Latin words mappa and mantile are explained by the
eighth-century Irish Glossator, lambrat bis tar glune, ' a
napkin that is usually placed over the knees ' : and in
another part of the same manuscript the Latin gausape is
explained by the single Irish word lambrat (Z., 854, 22).
In the Latin version of the Voyage of St. Brendan there
is a more direct reference to the use of napkins. The
voyagers went into a mansion on an island, in which they
found a large hall with couches and seats and water to
wash their feet, and plenty of food. " St. Brendan ordered
" the serving-brother to bring forward the meal which God
" had sent them : and without delay the table was laid with
" napkins (linteamina) and with white loaves and fish for
" each brother." % But perhaps linteamina here means

* Rev. Celt xn. 69. f See for example Moyrath p. 71.

I Brendaniana, 121 : Card. Moran, 93, ,3.

CHAP. XXlJ FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 113

' tablecloths.' I suppose the chief use they made of the
napkins was to wipe the left-hand fingers ; which was
badly needed. They sometimes used dried hides as
tablecloths. Cathal the king-glutton (eighth century :
for whom see Index) was once eating apples as part of his
dinner, and " he began supplying his mouth from both
" hands with the apples that were on hides round about
" him." Mac Conglinne (pp. 46, 50) was there and began
importuning him for some of the apples, so that the king
threw him one after one ; till at last he " flung him hide,
apples, and all."

It was the custom, both in monastic communities and
in secular life, to take off the shoes or sandals when sitting
down to dinner ; which was generally done by an attendant.
The Romans we know had the same custom : " the cover-
ing of the feet was removed before reclining at meals."*
It is related in the " Vision of Mac Conglinne " (p. 46) that
the gluttonous king of Munster mentioned above, who had
a lon-craos, i.e. a 'demon of, gluttony' in his stomach,
sitting down one day to dinner, was in such a hurry that
he fell to before the attendant had loosed the thong of
one shoe (broc). And Adamnan tells us in his " Life of
St. Columba" (pp.121, 122) that St. Canice, in his monastery
of Aghaboe (sixth century), while in the act of breaking
the bread in the refectory, having a revelation that
St. Columba and his companions were in great danger
on sea, hastily left the table and went to the church to
pray " with one shoe on his foot, the other being left
behind in his great haste." -Another similar incident is
related in Oengus's Feilire (p. 9, i5). We may infer
from the existence of this custom that the Irish, like the
Romans, reclined during meals on couches on which the
feet also rested.

The Irish, like the people of all other countries, had
their meals commonly served hot, immediately after

* Smith's Diet. Greek & Rom. Antiqq., " Calceus."

114 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

cooking. But at great banquets the food must have been
generally taken cold ; for in such cases, with the appliances
then available, it would have been impossible to serve hot.
Accordingly, we constantly read that before a banquet the
whole of the food was cooked and laid out on tables in the
first instance. Just before the guests came into the hall to
the Feast of Dun-nan-gedh, Prince Congal is brought in
to view the viands, all laid out and ready, and eats part
of a goose-egg. When Lomman, king of Hy Fidgente,
prepared a feast for St. Patrick, a youth named Nessan, as
soon as he heard of it, came with his mother, bringing «.
cooked ram as a contribution.*

2. Drink.

In old times people were quite as fond of intoxicating
drinks at dinners and banquets as they are now : and we
are constantly told in the tales that when the cups went
round, the company became mesca medarchaini, ' ex-
hilarated and right merry.' They sometimes drank more
than was good for them too ; and on one occasion of this
kind the Ulstermen marched southwards in a drunken raid
on Munster, which is the subject of the old tale in the Book
of Leinster called Mesca Ulad, the " Intoxication of the
Ultonians," edited by Mr. Hennessy in the MS. series of the
Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad. Yet drunkenness was looked upon
as reprehensible. In Cormac's Glossary (p. 116) is a deri-
vation for the word mesci, ' drunkenness,' implying that
radically it meant " more of reproach than sense or
sobriety " : and in the Tripartite Life (p. 137) it is related
that when St. Patrick was in Connaught, a certain king,
while in a state of intoxication, came to visit him : at which
the saint was sorely displeased, and prophesied that that
king's descendants would be ale-tipplers and would go
to the bad in the end. At their feasts they often

* Trip. Life, 205.

CHAP. XXl] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 115

accompanied their carousing with music and singing.
Maildune and his men visiting a certain island, saw the
people feasting and drinking and " heard their ale-music "
(corm-cheol) .*

In very early times ladies often sat with the men at
the banquets, and joined in the festivities. It appears, too,
that the Irish ladies of those times could take a moderate
part in a drinking-bout with their male friends, like those
of Wales and Scandinavia, as we read of them in the tales
of those countries ; like the Egyptian ladies of four or five
thousand years ago ; and like English ladies of much later
times (Soc. Engl., II. 422 ; and iv. 161). At Bricriu's Feast,
where the ladies were present, after the revelling had gone
on for some time, Fedelma, wife of Loegaire the Victorious,
went forth from the banquet-hall with her fifty hand-
maidens, " after heaviness of drinking " (iar trommi oil),
as much as to say, they went out to shake off the effects
by a walk in the fresh air.f In the ancient tale called the
" Vision of Cahirmore," king of Ireland a.d. 174-177, we
read that on one occasion, while the king was celebrating
the Feis of Tara, the whole company, after dinner, got so
drunk that they fell asleep, and a thief slipped in and stole
the queen's diadem % : which seems to imply that the queen
herself was present taking a comfortable nap like the rest.

Besides plain water and milk, the chief drinks were ale.
mead or metheglin, and wine. Giraldus Cambrensis (Top.
Hib., 1. v.) remarks that Ireland never had vineyards : but
that there was plenty of wine supplied by foreign com-
merce ; and he mentions Pditou especially as supplying
vast quantities in exchange for hides. This account is
corroborated by the native records, from which we learn
that wine (Irish fin, pron. feen : a loan-word from Latin)
was imported in very early ages ; and it is frequently

* Rev. Celt., x. 81.

f Fled Brier., 17, 154 : see also Bee Fola, 179 and note 23.

J Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1872-3, p. 29.

Il6 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

mentioned as an accompaniment at banquets. Muirchu,
writing in the seventh century, tells us that when St.
Patrick came to Tara on Easter Sunday a.d. 433, the
kings, princes, and druids were feasting and drinking wine
in the palace with King Laegaire.* In the year a.d. 533
the palace of Cletty was set on fire by a revengeful woman
while Murkertagh mac Erca, king of Ireland, was feasting
in it with his nobles ; and the king, to avoid the fire,
plunged into a butt of wine, in which he was drowned, f
Domnall, king of Ireland (a.d. 627 to 641), in preparation
for the banquet of Dun-nan-gedh, provided three kinds of
drink — wine, mead, and ale. Wine is also often mentioned
in Cormac's Glossary and in other Irish authorities as a
well-known drink.

Of all the intoxicating drinks ale was the most general,
not only in Ireland, but among all the peoples of northern
Europe : and the more intoxicating it was the more
esteemed. One of the attractions of Midir's wonderful
fairyland was " ale which is strongly intoxicating."]: Irish
ale was well known from the earliest period, even on the
Continent, as we see from the statement of Dioscorides in
the first century : — " The Britons and the Hiberi or Irish,
" instead of wine, use a liquor called courmi or curmi, made
" of barley. "§ This author caught up correctly the ancient
Irish name for ale, which was cuirm or coirm (gen. corma) :
and hence coirmthech, ' ale-house,' i.e. a house in which ale
was made. The present word for ale is linn or leann:
and although this, too, was one of the words for ale in old
times, it was often used to denote drink in general. Ale
was a native product, and was reddish in colour as now.
Its manufacture was understood everywhere ; and the
whole process is given in detail in the Senchus Mor, and
in the commentaries and glosses on it.|| The grain chiefly

* Hogan, Docum., 37. % O'Curry, Man. & Cust., XX. 191.

t Petrie, Tara, 120. § Ware, Antiqq., 183.

|| Br. Laws, XI., pp. 241 to 245, from which the following details of the
processes are chiefly taken.

CHAP. XXI]

FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT

117

used was barley ; and what grew on rich land was most
valued for the purpose : but it was also often made from
rye, as well as from wheat and oats.

The corn, of whatever kind, was first converted into
malt : Irish brae or braich : gen. bracha. For this purpose
it was steeped in water for
a certain time, after which
the water was let off slowly,
and the wet grain was
spread out on a level floor
to dry. During this time
persons turned it over and
over and raked it into
ridges to bring all parts
in turn to the surface. It
was next dried in a kiln
{aith, pron. ah) till the
grain became hard. This
dried grain was malt. If
not intended to be kept in
grains, it was ground with
a quern or in a mill, and
was then either put into
sacks as it came from the
mill, or made into cakes
and dried. Malt cakes
were often so hard that
before using they had to
be broken in pieces with a
mallet and ground again
in a mill to reduce them back to meal.* Whether as
unground kiln-dried grains, or as meal in bags, or as dried
cakes, this brae or malt kept for any length of time ; and
it was often given in payment of rent or tribute, as
repeatedly mentioned in the Book of Rights.

* Fled Bricrend, 67 ; O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 1. 309.

FIG. 214.
Bronze Strainer, found in the crannoge of
Moylarjr, County Antrim. Cup-shaped, 4^ inches
wide and ij£ inch deep. Observe, the holes are
not at random ; they form curve-patterns. (From
the Journ. Roy. Soc. Antiqq. for 1894, p. 319.)

Il8 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

When the ale was to be prepared, the ground malt
was made into a mash with water, which was fermented,
boiled,* strained, &c., till the process was finished. Conall
Derg O'Corra had in his house strainers (men) with their
cries always at work ag sgagadh leanna, ' a-straining ale,' in
hospitable preparation for guests, f Malt, and of course the
ale, might be spoiled by mismanagement at any stage of the
process ; and the Senchus Mor mentions three successive
tests : one after kiln-drying and before being ground, by
putting a grain under the tooth to try whether it was
sound and free from bitterness : another after grinding,
before it was made into a cake, to ascertain if it was free
from mawkishness ; and a third when it was in mash,
before it was put to ferment.

Ale was often made in private houses for family use :
for everywhere among the people there were amateur
experts who understood the process. But there were
houses also set apart for this purpose, where a professional
brewer carried on the business. Some ale-making houses
were what were called " lawful " (dligtech, ' lawful,' ' legal-
ised,' or ' licensed '), that is, the law took cognisance of them
and received their certificates : others were unlawful — un-
legalised or unlicensed, which meant, not contrary to law,
but merely that the law took no cognisance of them — did
not accept their certificates. This made an important
difference in cases of dispute ; for whenever a tenant paid
part of his rent or tribute in ale which had been made in a
lawful ale-house, if he proved that the three tests had been
applied with satisfactory results while the malt was in the
house, he was free from responsibility, even though the ale
turned out bad. J But if ale which had been made in an
unlawful house proved to be bad after being sent in pay-
ment to the chief, it was forfeited, and the tenant had to

* Boiled : see Br. Laws, iv. 311, „. f ^ev- Celt., xiv., 27.

I On this see Br. Laws, V. 167, in addition to the passages in Br. Laws,
vol. u. referred to in note ||, p. 116, abov$.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT Iig

make good the loss, even though the three tests had been
applied. : for the certificate from the unlawful house counted
for nothing. Probably the proprietor of a licensed ale-
making house took advantage of his privilege to make
higher charges, like legally recognised experts of all kinds
at the present day.

Among the members of St. Patrick's household was a
brewer — a priest named Mescan. A professional brewer
was called cerbsire or cirbsire [kirvshirre], a loanword from
Latin cervicia or cerviciarius (which is itself a borrowed
Gaulish word). But there was also a native term for a
brewer, scoaire [3-syll.], which is given in Cormac's Glossary
(p. 31) to explain cerbsire. It is probable that a " lawful "
alehouse had always one of these men, and not a mere
amateur, in charge of it.

When people felt indisposed or out of sorts, it was usual
to give them a draught of ale to refresh or revive them, as
we now give a cup of tea or a glass of wine. At Easter
time, and after the restraint of Lent was over, the people
sometimes indulged in a good drink of ale : and a supply
was commonly kept in the churches, so that members of
the congregation might take a drink when it was lawful to
do so. At a certain Easter time, as we are told in the Life
of St. Brigit, she brewed ale to supply the churches all
round her : and this she did as a kindly and charitable act.
St. Domangart or Donard, a disciple of St. Patrick, always
kept a pitcher of ale and a larac or leg of beef with its
accompaniments every Easter at his church of Maghera
near Slieve Donard : " and -he gives them to Mass-folk
" [i.e. those that have been at Mass] on Easter Tuesday
" always."*

Yeast or leaven — called in Irish descad and serba —
made from malt, was used in brewing, and also in baking.
The house of the hospitable brewy Conall Derg O'Corra

Trip. Life, 131.

120 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

was never without a " sack of malt for preparing yeast "
(miach bracha re jrithealamh ndeasgadh)*

There was a kind of ale called in Cormac's Glossary
and elsewhere brocoit, bracaut, or braccat, which, although
made and named from brae or malt, was somewhat different
from the ordinary cuirm or ale. Cormac (p. 19). says that
brocoit is a Welsh word. It has descended to our day,
and is found in English dictionaries as bragget, used to
designate a sort of ale sweetened with honey and seasoned
with spices. The Glossary states that " braccat is a goodly
ale [or goodly drink : sain-linn], made from malt " [and
honey] : and we know that honey was also used in making
the Welsh bragget. This kind of ale is often mentioned in
later Irish writings under the name of brogoit.

Mead or metheglin (Irish mid, pron. mee) was made
chiefly from honey : it was a drink in much request, and
was considered a delicacy, which is indicated in the designa-
tion applied to it in the " Vision of Mac Conglinne " (p. 98) —
the " Dainty drink of Nobles " (sercoll sochenelach) . It was
intoxicating, though not so much so as ale : the O'Caith-
niadhs are spoken of in " Hy Fiachrach " as " the host who
are most excited by mead." Where mead abounded the
people of the district were the more thought of for it ; so
that we often meet with such laudatory expressions as
" the mead-abounding murrisk," " the O'Gillens who have
encouraged mead-drinking," " the mead-drinking men of
Meath." A visitor on arrival was often treated to mead :
when the king of Leinster came to visit St. Brigit at her
nunnery, she gave him a cup of mead to drink. Mead is
mentioned, in our most ancient authorities. The rule of
St. Ailbe, a contemporary of St. Patrick, directs that when
the monks sit down to dinner, they " shall get on clean
" dishes herbs or roots washed in water, likewise apples,
" and mead from the hive to the depth of a thumb." f In

* Rev. Celt., xiv. 27. f Lynch, Cambr. Ev., 11. 137

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 121

the story of the Children of Lir, Finola, speaking of their
former happy life, says that they often drank " hazel-
mead " (miodh cuill)* ; from which we may infer that
hazel-nuts were sometimes used as an ingredient in making
mead, probably to give it a flavour. Mead continued to
be made in the south of Ireland till about the year 1824.!

Sullivan, in his Introduction to O'Curry's Lectures
(p. 378), states that the Irish made a kind of cider called
nenadmim, from the wild- or crab-apple ; and that the
people kept wild-apple trees planted in hedgerows to
supply the fruit. He also says that they made another
drink bearing the same name from " wood-berries," which
are probably the berries still well known as fraechoga or
fraechdin, anglice " froghans," the Vaccinum myrtillus,
better known in Munster as " whorts " or " hurts." No
doubt he had good authority for these statements, but I
have found none.

In old times it would appear that people consumed
their drink in large quantities : but then it was only mildly
intoxicating. The law-tracts assign the quantity of ale
allowed at dinner to laymen and to clerics respectively.
There are some contradictions and obscurities in these
statements]: : but it seems probable that the following are
the allowances meant : — Six pints to a layman, and three
to a cleric. It is added that the latter were so restricted
in order that the clerics " may not be drunk and that their
canonical hours may not be set astray on them " : in which
there is an implication that a man was liable to get drunk
on six pints but not on three.

The word beoir is used in Irish for ' beer ' — obviously
the same as the English word. There is a late tradition
that a kind of beer was made from heath, or from the

* Three Sorrowful Stories, 141 ; and old Celt. Rom., 24. See also
" a cup with hazel-nut mead " in K. Meyer's King and Hermit, p. 17.
f For mead see also Ware, Antiqq., 183 : and Sullivan, Introd., 377.
I Br. Laws, in., 337 and note.

122 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

red heather-berries called tnonadan (" bog-berries " : not
" hurts " or whortleberries), which was designated in
English " bog-berry wine," and in Irish beoir Lochlannach,
i.e. " Lochlann or Norse wine " : but I have not met with
any reference to it in old Irish literature.*

Whiskey is a comparatively modern innovation. The
first notice of it in the Irish annals appears to be at a.d.
1405, where there is the ominous record that Richard
Mac Rannall, chief of Muinter Eolais, died from an over-
dose of uisge beatha [ishke-baha] or whiskey.

3. Cooking.

In great houses there were professional cooks, who,
while engaged in their work, wore a linen apron round
them from the hips down, and a flat linen cap on the
head.f Among ordinary families the women did the
cooking : and in monasteries a few of the monks, specially
skilled, were always assigned for this part of the work of
the community. Among St. Patrick's household his cook
was Athcen, who is still remembered as the patron saint of
Bodoney in Tyrone. J The Irish for ' a cook ' is coic, which
is a loan word from Latin coquus : and the Irish cucenn, ' a
kitchen,' is from the Latin coquina : both Irish words are
found in Cormac's Glossary (p. 31).

Meat and fish were cooked by roasting, boiling, or
broiling. The word inneonadh [innona] was commonly
applied to the process of broiling or roasting, as dis-
tinguished from fulachta, ' seething, stewing, or boiling.'
A spit (bir) for roasting — made of iron — was an article in
general use, and was regarded as an important household
implement. But the spits commonly used in roasting, as
well as the skewers for trussing up the joint, were pointed
hazel-rods, peeled and made smooth and white. § Meat,

* See Sullivan, Introd., p. 378. J Trip. Life, 265 : FM, a.d. 448.

f Mac Conglinne, 62. § For spits, see Petrie, Tara, 213, 214.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 123

and even fish, while roasting, were often basted with honey
or with a mixture of honey and salt* ; and it is to be
presumed that the joint or animal was kept turning round
simply by hand. Meat and fish were often broiled on a
gridiron, or something in the nature of a gridiron. In a
very ancient story in Cormac's Glossary (p. 130), we read
that on a certain occasion Finn mac Cumail found one of
his men, Coirpre, in an empty house, cooking fish upon an
indeoin [innone]. There is some doubt about the exact
meaning of indeoin in this passage. Stokes translates it
' stone,' while O'Donovan renders it ' spit ' : but in another
place he makes it ' gridiron.' An indeoin was no doubt a
gridiron or griddle of some kind : probably of stone in
primitive times, but subsequently of metal. This word
indeoin has, however, several meanings : as may be seen
by reference to the Index at the end.

When bodies of men marched through the country,
either during war or on hunting excursions, they cooked
their meat in a large way. Keating and other writers give
the following description of how the Fena of Erin cooked,
a plan which is often referred to in the ancient tales, and
which was no doubt generally followed, not only by the
Fena but by all large parties camping out. The attendants
roasted one part on hazel spits before immense fires of
wood, and baked the rest on hot stones in a pit dug in the
earth. The stones were heated in the fires. At the bottom
of the pit the men placed a layer of these hot stones : then
a layer of meat- joints wrapped in sedge or in hay or straw
ropes to keep them from being burned : next another
layer of hot stones : down on that more meat : and so on
till the whole was disposed of, when it was covered up ;
and in this manner it was effectively cooked. The remains
of many of these cooking-pits are still to be seen in
various parts of the country, and are easily recognised by
the charred wood and blackened stones ; and sometimes

* Mac Conglinne, 62.

124 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

the very pits are to be seen.* To this day they are called
fulachta-na-bhfiann [fullaghta-na-veen], the fulachta or
' cooking-places of the Fena ' : for in popular legend they
are still attributed to the Fena of Erin. 'These cooking-
places are referred to in Cormac's Glossary (p. 69, " Esnad")
where they are called fulacht-fiansae ; and it is stated that
while the cooking was in progress the hunters chanted a
kind of music called esnad (see vol. 1., p. 592, supra). A
pit in which meat was cooked in this manner was called
brothlach.

In the house of every chief and of every brewy there
was at least one bronze caldron for boiling meat. Its
usual name was coire or caire [2-syll.] : but it was some-
times called aighean, or more correctly adhan [ey-an],
which is now its usual name in Scotland. It was highly
valued, as a most important article in the household ; and
it was looked upon as the special property of the chief or
head of the house — much in the same way as his sword
and shield. Everywhere we meet with passages reminding
us of the great value set on these caldrons. One of them
was regarded as a fit present for a king. St. Patrick when
a boy in slavery in Ireland was sold to some mariners at
the mouth of the Boyne for two caldrons of bronze, f The
caldron of a chief or of a brewy was supposed to be kept
in continual use, so that food might be always ready for
guests whenever they happened to arrive. A common
appellation for one of these was coire ainsec, or caire ainsic,
or caire ainsecan, the ' un-dry caldron.' It is laid down in
the Senchus MorJ that a brewy of the highest class should
have a caire ainsec, which is denned as " a caldron which
•' should be always kept on the fire for every party that
" should arrive " : and the old book goes on to give several
derivations for ainsec, of which one — from an, a negative,
and sic, ' dry ' — ' not dry,' ' always wet ' — is probably

* KUk. Archaeol. Journ., 1885-6, p. 390. t Trip. Life, 417.

+ Br. Laws, 1. 41, 47, 49.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 125

correct ; reminding one of the modern Irish invitation to
" a dry bed and a wet bottle."

Some caldrons were believed to possess magical pro-
perties, one of which was that, whatever quantity of food
was put into the vessel to boil, it cooked just as much
as was sufficient for the company and no more : and when
the attendant {luchtaire) thrust in the fleshfork to serve
any particular individual, he always — by the same magic
virtue — brought forth the very joint specially allotted to
him (p. 108, supra). This virtue is alluded to in Cormac's

Fig. 215.

Ancient Bronze Caldron : 12 inches deep : now in National Museum :
formed of separate pieces, beautifully riveted, the head of each rivet
forming a conical stud or button, like the rivets of the gold gorgets and
of some of the bronze trumpets. (From Wilde's Catalogue.)

Glossary (p. 45, " Caire atnsic") in a derivation of the
name : — it was called caire ainsic " because it returns
(aisces) his right to everyone." The Welsh, too, had their
magical caldrons, to which they attributed magical virtues
something like those in Ireland.*

If we are to believe the tales and other old writings,
some caldrons were large enough to hold two or three
sheep or hogs together, cut up into joints ; the Brehon
Law (iv. 327) tells us that in an aire-tuisi chief's house
there must be a caldron in which a cow and a hog will fit ;
and in other parts of Irish literature these very large

* Ulst. Arch. Journ., V. 85 : Mabinogion, p. 31.

126 Social and domestic life [part hi

caldrons are continually referred to. Many bronze cal-
drons have been found from time to time, and are now
preserved in the National Museum, Dublin — several of
beautiful workmanship — but none are large enough to hold
all the chief joints of a cow and a hog.

All those caldrons that have been preserved have a
pair of ears or rings at the sides by which they were hung
over the fire on hooks ; and this use is alluded to in the
expression sadail ar cairi da drol, " cozy our caldron on
the hook," in the story of the cave of Ben Etair or Howth.*
Caldrons appear to have been always made of brass or
bronze — most often the latter. Those hitherto found are
all of that material ; and the Brehon Law says that in
every brewy's house there should be a cairi humai, ' a
bronze (or brazen) caldron.' Caldrons were manufactured
at home : but that some at least, and those among the
most valuable, were imported, is shown by Muirchu's
record, written in the seventh century, that Daire gave
Patrick an aeneum mirabilem transmarinum, ' a wonderful
brazen caldron from over sea.'f

Accompanying every caldron was an del or fleshfork,
for lifting out pieces of meat. On one occasion, soon
before the Battle of Dunbolg, a.d. 598 St. Maidoc of
Ferns, as we are told in the " Boroma," brought to Branduff,
king of Leinster, a present of a three-pronged fleshfork
(del-trebend) , a caldron, a shield, and a sword! : an °dd
combination, quite characteristic of the times. But in
early ages kitchen utensils were everywhere regarded as
important. The inventory of the jewels of the English
King Edward III. gives a list of this king's frying-pans,
gridirons, spits, &c.§ A fleshfork was also called gdbal
[goul], which was, and is now, the ordinary word for a fork
of any kind. There is a curious provision in the Brehon

* Rev. Celt., XI. 133. f Trip. Life, 291.

J Rev. Celt., xm. 57 : Silva Gad., 408, 409 : Wilde, Catalogue, 529 :

Man. & Cust., 1. 338. § Roberts' Soc. Hist., p. 318.

CHAP. XXl] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 127

Law that if any accident occurred to a bystander by the
lifting of the joint out of the boiling caldron, the attendant
was liable for damages unless he gave the warning : " Take
care : here goes the ael into the caldron ! "*

4. Flesh-meat and its accompaniments.

The flesh of wild and domestic animals, boiled or roast
or broiled, much as at the present day, formed one of the
staple food-materials in old times in Ireland as in other
countries.

Pork (muicc-fheoil, i.e. ' pig-flesh/ pron. muckole) was a
favourite among all classes, as it was among the Greeks
and Romans. When the fairy-king Midir tried to entice
Befinn to Fairyland, one of the allurements he held out
was that — among other choice viands — it had plenty of
fresh pork (vol. I., p. 295). This preference is noticed in
later ages by Stanyhurst. — " No meat they fansie so much
" as porke and the fatter the better. One of John O'Nel's
" household demanded of his fellow whether beefe were
" better than porke : ' that ' (quoth the other) ' is as intricat
" a question as to ask whether thou art better than O'Nele."
And the partiality for this meat continues to the present
day among the peasantry, but they generally eat it in the
form of bacon. Pork was made into bacon as at present
by being salted and hung up on the wall over the fire.
Old bacon was considered good for chest-disease, f

Beef, or as it was called in Irish mairt-fheoil (i.e. ' ox-
flesh ' : pron. morthole), was much in use. The animal
seems to have been generally killed with a spear. % The
flesh of fattened calves, either boiled or roast, was con-
sidered a dainty food. Mutton — in Irish caer-fhedil or
muilt-fheoil (' sheep-flesh,' ' wether-flesh ' : pron. kairole
and multhole) — was perhaps in more request than beef.
Boiled mutton (muilt-bruithi, ' boiled wether ')is mentioned
in the " Vision of Mac Conglinne " (98) as a savoury viand.

* Br. Laws, 111. 267. t Mac Conglinne, 98. % Br. Laws, iv. 311, l8.

128 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Venison was in great favour : everywhere in the tales
we read of hunters chasing deer artd feasting on the flesh.
It was sometimes called fiadh-fheoil, ' deer-flesh ' [pron.
fee-ole] : and there were other names. It was food fit for
kings : one of the seven prerogatives of the king of Ireland
was to receive a tribute of the milradh [milra] or venison
of Naas.* On a certain occasion an envoy promised Finn
mac Cumail among other choice viands the feoil daimh
(' flesh of deer ') of Knockclare. Salted venison, which is
sometimes called serccol-tarsain (' dainty-condiment ') is
mentioned in the Brehon Law (iv. 309, i7) as one of the
refections due to an og-aire or ' junior chief.' Goats were
quite as common in old times as now, and their flesh was
as much used, as well as their milk.

Some of the animals mentioned in the records as
supplying food are no longer used for this purpose. That
badgers were eaten we have certain proof. Cormac Gaileng,
preparing a grand feast for his father Teige, held it as a
point of honour to have the flesh of all eatable animals,
and put himself to much trouble to procure badgers from a
neighbouring warren, f Deirdre, when recalling the life
she had led in Scotland, says that the sons of Usna
brought her for food fish and venison and the flesh of
badgers : and badger-flesh from Beare in Cork was one of
the dainties promised on a certain occasion to Finn mac
Cumail by Moiling the Swift. J Badgers were eaten in
Ireland until lately. In a comic description of a wedding
in an Irish poem by a Connaught poet named Mac Sweeny,
of about a hundred years ago, " the badger of the glen " is
enumerated as among the animals to be procured for the
feast.§ A small animal named a togmall is mentioned in
some of the oldest of the Irish tales (see chap, xxx.,
page 519, infra). O'Curry makes it a squirrel : but it

* Book of Rights, 3, 9.

t Joyce, Irish Names of Places, 11. 244 : see also vol. 1. 287, supra.

X Rev. Celt., xm. 47. § Hardiman, Iar C, 286, note ; 290, ,0.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 129

appears that the squirrel is not a native Irish animal, and
that it was introduced only in late times. About the
togmal we only know that it was sometimes tamed as
a pet, and as such was often carried on the shoulder — as
was then the custom — so that it must have been small :
and that its flesh was used as food ; f or " speckled togmalls
from Berramain " (in Kerry) are included in the Colloquy
as part of the food-supplies of the Fena of Erin.*

Seals were valued chiefly for their skins, but partly also
for their flesh as food. Adamnan mentions the seal and calls
it by two Latin names, fhoca, and marinus vitulus (' sea-
calf ') : the Irish name was, and is, rdn [roan]. There was
a little rocky island near Mull where seals congregated and
bred, and which — according to Adamnan (p. j8) — was
regarded as a preserve belonging to Iona : but he does not
state what use the monks made of the animals : probably
for the skins. We have direct evidence however that seals
were anciently used as food in Ireland. In the Book of
Lismore it is related that the seven bishops of Tulla in
the east of Leinster (near Killiney) came on a visit to
St. Brigit, on which she sent one of her people to sea to
fish. This man succeeded in spearing a seal, which, with
some difficulty, he brought home for the use of the visitors, f
The flesh of seals is now seldom used as food, for which
— at least in parts of the west — there is a very good reason.
There is a legend that at some former time several members
of a certain family were metamorphosed into seals, so that
a latter-day member who sat down to a dinner of seal could
never be quite sure that he was not feasting on his own
great-great-great-grandfather. :{: Martin, in his description
of the Hebrides in 1703 (p. 64), says that seals were eaten
by the meaner people, who salted the flesh with " burnt
sea- ware." The higher classes however ate only the hams.

* Silva Gad., 119 (Irish text, no,,,),

■f Stokes, Lives of SS., 196 : see also Hardiman in Iar C., 95.

t Iar C., 27, t ; 95, *■

130 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Corned meat was everywhere in use. A dead pig
salted was usually called Untie [tin'ne] : but this word
was also often applied to a salted joint of any animal.
A number of whole -pig-tinnes commonly formed part of
the tribute paid to a superior king or chief.* The word
saill or saille [sal, sal-le] from sal, ' salt,' was applied to
any sort of salted meat : and it is still in use in this sense.

Besides the main joints boiled or roast, we find mention
of various preparations of the flesh of animals, mixed up
with many ingredients. A pottage or hash formed of
meat chopped up small, mixed with vegetables, was called
craibechan [craiv'ahan]. We find it stated in an Irish
document that Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a
craibechan] : and elsewhere the term is defined " fine or
small meat." In the " Vision of Mac Conglinne " (p. 34) is
mentioned as a dainty food " sprouty craibechan with
purple-berries " : " sprouty," i.e. mixed with vegetable
sprouts. The " purple-berries " were probably the quicken-
berries or rowan-berries added to give a flavour. There
are several other terms used to designate meat-prepara-
tions of this kind : such as brothchdn (a dim. of broth),
follach, and scaiblin. No doubt each of these pointed to
some special mode of preparation : but the distinction — if
it ever existed — is now lost.

Simple broth or meat- juice without any mixture of
minced-meat was called by several names : — beochail,
bruth, broth, and enbruithe. This last, which is still a
living word for broth, is given in Cormac's Glossary ; and
is there said to be derived from en, ' water,' and bruith,
' flesh,' i.e. ' water of flesh,' a natural interpretation. The
Irish broth or bruth, which is also a living word, is the same
as the English broth. In later times broth was a favourite
with the Irish, and also among the Scottish Highlanders,
as is noticed in " The Fair Maid of Perth " : — " The hooped
" cogues [Gaelic cuach : see p. 74, supra] or cups, out of

* Br. Laws, n. 201, bottom. f Trip. Life, Introd., xviii. 12.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT I3I

" which the guests quaffed their liquor, as also the broth or
" juice of the meat, which was held a delicacy."

Sausages or puddings were a favourite dish, made
much the same as at the present day, by filling the intestines
of a pig, cow, or sheep with minced-meat and blood.
They were known by the terms indrechtan and mar 6c, the
latter of which (spelled marog) is still in use among the
Highland Scotch.* In O'Clery's Glossary innreachtan is
given as equivalent to putog, ' a pudding.' In the " Vision
of Mac Conglinne " (p. 88) we find mention, as a delicacy,
of indrechtana finda bo-bdn-methi , ' white-coloured puddings
of white fat cows.' Puddings and sausages got a boil after
making, so as to half cook them, and were then put aside
till wanted : when about to be brought to table they were
fried and served hot as at the present day. Accordingly
in the same piece (p. 66) we find mentioned maroca arna
cetberbad, ' puddings first-boiled,' i.e. having got a boil
after making. The belly of a pig, called tarr, when
properly cleaned and boiled, was much in use, but was
regarded as rather an inferior meat food.f

In the " Vision of Mac Conglinne " is mentioned, as good
food, the dressan of an old wether : and Kuno Meyer, the
editor, on the authority of an ancient Glossary, translates
dressan, ' the spleen.' The word is a diminutive of dress
or driss, which is familiarly applied to things of a branchy
nature, such as a bramble or the smaller intestines : and as
applied to an article of food is still in use in Cork in the
form of drisheen, which has the Irish diminutive in instead
of the an of Mac Conglinne. The name drisheen is now
used in Cork as an English word, to denote a sort of
pudding made of the narrow intestine of a sheep, filled
with blood that has been cleared of the red colouring
matter, and mixed with meal and some other ingredients.
So far as I know, this viand and its name are peculiar to
Cork, where drisheen is considered suitable for persons

* Mac Conglinne, 32, 66, 86. t Rev. Celt., v. 252.

132 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

of weak or delicate digestion. The fact that the word
drisheen (old form drisin) is now used in this sense makes
it probable that the other diminutive dressan was used in
a wider sense than that of ' spleen,' as given in the above-
mentioned Glossary. Perhaps the drisheen of Cork is the
same as the dressan of Mac Conglinne.

Sometimes the gullet (lonlongin) of an ox was filled
with minced-meat and cooked like a sausage : and this
appears to have been regarded as a delicacy, for it is
designated in " Mac Conglinne's Vision" (98, i5) " the choice
" easily discussed thing for which the hosts contend — the
" gullet of salted beef " (Idnlongin bdshaille). The contents
only were eaten, not the enveloping gullet, which was
not fit for food. Tripe, whether of pig or sheep, was
designated by the word caeldn* (kailaun], which means
something slender, ' a slender gut ' (from cael, ' slender ').
In Cormac's Glossary (p. 44), it is stated that the coelan
or small gut is " the slenderest thing in the body " : and
farther on in the Glossary the word innbi is found as
another name for a caeldn. Spenser says that in his time
the northern Irish used to draw the blood of living beasts
" to make meat [i.e. puddings] thereof " : but I find no
mention of this custom in old Irish literature.

Lard was known by three names, geir, usca, and blonog,
which last is the word now in use. It was much used as an
annlann or condiment, and entered into cooking in various
forms. It is very often mentioned in " Mac Conglinne's
Vision," showing how much it was in request. The Culdee
monks were allowed lard on festival-days, f We also find
mention of olar, ' rich gravy ' ; and of inmar, ' dripping,'
both used as a condiment or relish. J

Most of the birds used for food at the present day were
eaten in old times : and frequent allusions to birds as food
are found in ancient Irish writings. Among the food of

* Mac Conglinne, 38, 88, 98. f Reeves, Culdees, 85.

{ Mac Conglinne, 32.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT I33

the Fena are enumerated " birds out of the trackless oak
woods " : " wood-cocks (cailig fheda) out of [the wood of]
Fidrinne " : and " speckled nests from the mountain
peaks."* This last entry shows that they made some
use of birds' nests in cooking : but how is not known : for
we have in Ireland no edible nests. Stokes (Acall. 279)
throws out the suggestion that the nests may have been
used to make fires as a charm : just as in India milk-
porridge boiled on a fire of birds' nests was used as a
charm against certain evil spirits. Giraldus Cambrensis
says that the Irish loathed the flesh of the heron ; but that
Henry II. induced those kings and chiefs he entertained in
Dublin at Christmas, 1171, to taste it. They do not seem
to have much relished it : for ever since that time the Irish
people have let the herons alone.

Eggs were extensively used : they seem to have been
often boiled hard and eaten cold. One of the relaxations
allowed to Culdee monks on festivals was " a dry [i.e. a
hard] egg."f Goose-eggs, if we are to judge from their
frequent mention, were a favourite. In a legendary
account of Bishop Ere of Slane given in the " Feast of
Dun-nan-gedh," we are told that he kept a flock of geese
to lay eggs for him, and that his dinner every evening was
" an egg and a half and three sprigs of the cresses of the
Boyne."| At the great banquet itself, some of these eggs
were on the table, cold, and Congal, going in to view the
feast, ate a part of one. And when the company sat down,
a goose-egg [cold] on a silver dish was placed before each
chief. § From all this we may infer that the eggs were
boiled hard.

All the fish used for food at the present day were eaten
in Ireland in old times, so that there is no need to go into
details. Only it may be remarked that salmon was then
the favourite ; and we meet with constant reference to it as

* Silva Gad., 119. J Moyrath, 19.

f Reeves, Culdees, 85. § Ibid., 25, 29.

134 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

superior to all other fish. The salmon of the " salmon-full
Boyne," of Linnmhuine or Lough Neagh, and of the
Barrow, were much prized. The subject of fishing, will
be treated of in chapter xxix., p. 472, below.

Any viand eaten with the principal part of the meal as
an accompaniment or condiment, or kitchen as it is called
in Ireland and Scotland — anything taken as a relish with
more solid food — was designated by one of the words
annlann, tarsunn, ionmar, all equivalent to the Latin
obsonium. The Brehon Laws, when setting forth the
refections legally due to various classes of persons, specify
the tarsunns with much particularity : — butter, salt, bacon,
lard, salt meat of any kind (when used in small quantities
and not the principal part of the meal), honey, kale, onions,
and other vegetables, &c. Thus in one place (iv. 119) we
find mentioned " three cakes with their annlann of butter
or bacon," as the fine for a hen's trespass in a garden.
According to the Rule of the Culdees, while they could
not increase the quantity of bread on festival-days, they
were allowed the use of various annlanns such as kale,
apples, &c*

Salt — Irish sal, salann — was used for domestic purposes
much the same as at the present day — for corning various
kinds of provisions, especially butter, pork, and beef, and
at meals with all viands requiring it. It was not so easily
made or procured then as now, so that the supply was
limited, and people kept it carefully, avoiding waste. In
rich people's houses it was kept in small sacks. In the Life
of St. Senan it is related that on a certain occasion the
saint sent, as a present to St. Brigit of Cluain Infide, a
basket containing certain articles, among which were two
masses of salt (da cloich t-salainn, ' two stones of salt '), one
for herself and the other for St. Diarmait of Inis Cleraun
in Lough Ree.f The Senchus Mor mentions salt as one
of the important articles in the house of a brewy, on which

* Reeves, Culdees, 84. f Stokes, Lives of SS., line 2408.

CHAP. XXl] fOOt), FtJEL, Attt> LIGHT f 35

the glossator remarks that it is " an article of necessity at
all times, a thing which everyone desires "* : and in confir-
mation of this we find, in the story of the " Voyage of the
O'Corras," that the house of the rich brewy Conall Derg
O'Corra was never without certain plentiful supplies,
among them a sack of salt (miach salainn) " to make each
food taste well."f It was kept in lumps or in coarse
grains ; and at dinner each person was served with as
much as he needed. In the sixteenth century in England
— as we are told by Roberts — each guest at dinner was
given a little lump of salt, which he ground into powder
with the bottom of his glass or drinking-goblet : and
something of the same plan may have been followed in
Ireland. English salt was largely imported, and was
considered the best. Mac Conglinne (p. 60), when calling
for a number of viands specially delicious, has among
them " English salt (salann saxanach) on a beautiful
polished dish of white silver." In this last point the Irish
accounts are corroborated by an English authority of a
later time, Higden's " Polychronicon," which mentions the
export of salt from England to Ireland : — " Also Flanders
" loveth the wolle of this lond [England], Ireland the oor
" [ore] and the salt."! But there were at home professional
salt-makers, as we find by a passage in the story of the
Tromdamh (119), where it is related how a ship's crew
from Ireland meets on the coast of the Isle of Man (then
occupied by the Irish) a person who was every alternate
year a maker of salt. At a much later time, a.d. 1300,
salt was exported from Ireland, as we know from the fact
that it was one of the commodities sent to Scotland to
supply the army of Edward I. (for which see p. 433, infra).
The salt must have been manufactured either from sea-
water, or from rock-salt taken from the earth, or more

* Br. Laws, 1. 127, 143.

f Stokes, Rev. Celt., xiv, 27 ; Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 401.

X Quoted by Kuno Meyer in Mac Conglinne, 142.

I36 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

likely from both. For, according to Kinahan,* there are
plenty of salt deposits in Ulster : and we have seen above
how St. Senan sent to his friend a present of " two stones
(or rocks) of salt." But of salt mines, or of the mode of
preparing the salt, the ancient literature — so far as I know
— contains no details. The word salanndn (a dim. of
salann) is still used in the Irish language to signify a
salt-pit.

5. Milk and Us products.

There are several ancient Irish words for milk, three of
which are ass, loim, and melg or melc : this last evidently
cognate with Latin mulgeo and with English milk ; and
from it is derived the old verb omalgg ("mulxi;" Zeuss,6i, 15).
The most general word in modern use is bainne [bon-ya],
which is also an ancient word. Another old word for
milk, according to Cormac's Glossary (149), is siig, whence
comes sigamlae, ' milkiness,' "as in the saying of the
Bretha Nemed : — ' a cow is estimated by her segamlae.' "

The milk chiefly used in Ireland was that of cows ;
but goats' and sheep's milk was also in much request. Deer's
milk was sometimes made use of, and the milking of the doe
is often mentioned in the records, but always in a manner
implying that it was exceptional. In the Tripartite Life (73)
we read that St. Patrick left at Ath-da-laarg (the ancient
abbey of Boyle in Roscommon) three brothers with their
sister Cathnea : " She it is that used to milk the hinds "
(eillti : sing, eillit, ' a hind '). Nia Segamain, who was king
of Ireland, a.m. 4887, was so called because " during his
time cows and does were milked alike : and it is for him
that does were cows." This it seems was effected through
the incantations of his mother, who was an enchantress, f

Milk was used in a variety of ways, as at the present
day. For drinking, the choice condition was as new milk

* Geology of Ireland, 358, 359.

f C6ir Anmann in Ir. Texte, m. 295 : FM, a.m. 4887 : Keating, 260.
For other instances of milking does, see Trip. Life, 233 and Dr. Healy, 211.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 1 37

(lernnacht or lemlacht) : and cream was sometimes added
as a luxury. But skimmed milk, i.e. milk slightly sour,
and commonly thick, from which the cream had been
skimmed off, was considered a good drink. This was
called draumce and also bldthach [draumke, blawhagh],
which last word is the name used at the present day.
Thick milk was improved by mixing new milk with it*
as I have often seen done in our own day.

The people made butter (Irish im or imtri) in the
usual way, in a small churn : the churn has been already
described (p. 75, supra). The process of churning was
called maistred. In the description of an
imaginary house, all made of choice viands,
in "Mac Conglinne's Vision" (p. 92), is men-
tioned " a pure-white bed-tick of butter,"
from which it may be inferred that a
whitish colour was a mark of good fresh
butter.

Butter of any kind was considered a

J Fig. 216.

superior sort of condiment. Salt butter Ancient Butter.prtnt
was called gruiten and sometimes grusden. °[ *; «f *£%£*
In Cormac's Glossary (86) gruiten is %££&£?""
derived from groit, ' bitter,' and sen, ' old.'
Its inferiority to fresh butter is brought out clearly in
the Brehon Law provision (II. 149) that, in fosterage,
the sons of farmers are to have gruiten with their
stirabout, the sons of chiefs fresh butter, and the sons
of kings honey. A lump of butter shaped according
to fancy was called a mescan, a word given in Cormac's
Glossary (116), where it is stated that a mescan was
so called because it was produced by the mescad or
agitation of the milk. This word is still in very general
use even among the English-speaking people, who pro-
nounce it miscaun or miscan. A earn on a mountain top
is sometimes called a m-iscaun from its shape, as, for
* Br. Laws, iv. 303, 4 from bottom : and 306, ]0.

1 38

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

example, Miscaun Maive on the top of Knocknarea hill
near Sligo. Another name for a roll or miscaun of butter
was brechtan : a brechtan tir-imme, a ' roll of fresh butter,'
was portion of the viands procured for the May-day feast
according to an old Irish poem*: and in O'Clery's Glossary
brechtan is explained 'wheat,' and also im tir, 'fresh butter.'
But brechtan was also applied to a viand like what we call
a custard, made of flour, milk, and perhaps eggs, sweetened
with honey : a brechtan cruthnechta (of
wheat) is mentioned in " Mac Conglinne's
Vision" (123, 21).

In later times it was customary to sink
\ J\ 1 butter deep down in bogs, closed up in

y\ casks or wrapped up in cloths, to give it

a flavour, or, as some think, as a mode of
preserving it.f Among the food of the
Irish, Dineley (A.D. 1675) mentions butter
" mixed with store of ... a kind of garlick,
''and buried for some time in a bog to
" make a provision of an high taste for
" Lent." Sir William Petty also mentions
butter made rancid by keeping in bogs ;
and other authorities to the same effect
might be quoted. Whether this custom
existed in ancient times I am unable to
say ; but at any rate, its prevalence, even
at this late period, is a sufficient explanation of the fact
that butter is now very often found in vessels of various
shapes and sizes, deeply embedded in bogs ; sometimes in
firkins not very different from those now in use.+ Several
specimens of this " bog butter," as it is commonly called,
are to be seen in the National Museum. In all cases the

*Sick Bed, Atlantis, I. 271.

t Kev. James O'Laverty, in Kilk. Arch. Journ., i8q2, p. 356, thinks so,
and advances good reasons for bis opinion. See Sullivan, Introd., 367 ; and
the authorities referred to by Wood-Martin, Pagan Ireland, 601.

J Wilde, Catalogue, p. 212.

Fig. 217.

A firkin of Bog-butter
26 inches high : made
from a single piece of
sallow. Top and bottom
and part of side of firkin,
with butter inside, still
remain. In the National
Museum. (From Wilde's
Catalogue, p. 212.)

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT I39

butter is found to be changed, by the action of the bog
water, into a greyish cheese-like substance, partially
hardened, not much like butter, and quite free from
putrefaction.

Curds — called in Irish gruth [gruh] — formed one im-
portant article of diet. Milk was converted into curds and
whey by calves' rennet, Irish Unit, so called, according to
the fanciful derivation in Cormac's Glossary (p. 20), because
" it strikes (benait) in milk till it [the milk] is thick and
coagulated."* A light collation of curds, butter, and milk,
flavoured with crem or wild garlic, was known by the names
samit or sam-ith and crimmes. It was well recognised as
a summer dainty, for the wild garlic grows only in summer.
The second name crimmes means ' wild-garlic harvest,' from
crim, another form of crem, and mes, ' harvest or produce."

Curd was converted into cheese of various sorts, which
was greatly valued as an article of food. Cheese was
denoted by several different words, of which the most
common were cdisse or cdise [cawsha], and maethail [maihil]:
but this last word was often applied to dried curd. Cheese
was made from curd as now, by pressing in a mould, from
which it was turned out in firm shapes. Curds were much
used in an intermediate stage, not quite turned into cheese,
but sufficiently pressed to squeeze out all the whey, so as
to form a mass moderately firm and capable of keeping for
a long time. In this state curd was a well-recognised food :
in the " Circuit of Muirchertach of the Leather Cloaks "
(p. 55) we are told that on a certain occasion he contributed
to a banquet, among many other supplies, three score vats
of curds (gruidh). This soft material, half curd, half
cheese, was often called milsen, which O'Clery in his
Glossary explains by gruth-caisse, or ' curd-cheese.' It
was also called maethail, and mulchan, words understood
to mean soft unpressed cheese, f This sort of food was

* For Curds, see Sullivan, Introd., 368 ; and Reeves, Culdees, 85. middle.
I Conn. Gloss., p. 117: Mac Conglinne, 80, 189.

140 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

often given as rent or tribute*: thus we are told in the
Tripartite Life (p. 15) that the steward of a certain king
came to St. Patrick's foster-mother for tribute of curd
(gruth) and butter.

Cheese pressed tightly in a mould, and turned out very
hard, was called tanag. Its hardness is illustrated in one
version of the death of Queen Maive of Connaught in her
old age : — That her nephew Furbaide, who had a grudge
against her, catching sight of her one day in some distance,
put into his sling a piece of tanag that he happened to be
eating, as he had no stone, and flung it with so true an
aim that he struck her on the forehead and killed her on
the spot.* Masses of cheese have been found in bogs,
of which some specimens may be seen in the National
Museum.

Whey— Irish midg [maig] — was made use of ; but it
was considered a poor drink, so much so that it was in
constant use among monks as a fasting beverage. Mac
Conglinne, grumbling at the beggarly reception he got in
Cork monastery, complains that they gave him nothing
but the whey-water (medg-usci) of the church to drink.
New milk from a cow that had just calved, now called
beestings, was in Old Irish called nus, a word still in use,
which in Cormac's Glossary (126) is derived — probably
erroneously — from Latin novus, ' new.' This milk was
not fit for drinking ; but it was turned into curds and
whey by merely heating, and in this form it was used as
food. But more often the curd was made into thin pan-
cakes. It was evidently valued — as it is at the present
day — for one of the blessings brought on the country by
Cormac Mac Art's benign reign, was that the cows after
calving had their udders full of mis or beestings, f

Milk and all food-preparations from it, such as curd,
cheese, butter — as distinguished from flesh-meat — were
called ban-bid [bawn-bee], ' white-meat.' They were con-

* LL, 125, a, ,,. f Silva Gad., 97, 7 (Ir. Text, 90, a).

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 14I

sidered inferior in nutritive qualities to flesh-meat : and
they were often permitted — and are permitted still — by
the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical authorities, on fast
days, when flesh-meat is forbidden. Mac Conglinne
mentions the constant consumption of white-meats as one
of the causes of his low condition of health.

6. Com and its preparations.

It will be seen in chapter xxiii., sect. 2 (pp. 271, 272,
below), that all the various kinds of grain cultivated at the
present day were in use in ancient Ireland. Corn was ground
and sifted into coarse and fine, i.e. into meal and flour,
which were commonly kept in chests.* The staple food of
the great mass of the people was porridge, or as it is now
called in Ireland, stirabout, made of meal (Irish miri),
generally oatmeal. It was eaten with honey, butter, or
milk, as an annlann or condiment. So well was it under-
stood, even in foreign countries, that stirabout was almost
the universal food in Ireland — a sort of characteristic of
the country and its people — that St. Jerome takes occasion
to refer to the custom in a letter directed against an Irish
adversary, generally believed to be the celebrated heresi-
arch Celestius, the disciple of Pelagius. Jerome could
use tongue and pen in hearty abuse like any ordinary poor
sinner : and he speaks revilingly of Celestius, who was a
corpulent man, as " a great fool of a fellow swelled out
with Irish stirabout. "f

The common word for stirabout was, and still is, littiu,
modern leite, gen. leitenn [letthe, letthen] ; but in the
Brehon Laws and elsewhere it is often called gruss. Gruel
was called menadach : it is mentioned as part of the fasting-
fare of the Culdees.J The Senchus Mor annotator, laying
down the regulations for the food of children in fosterage,§

* Todd, Book of Fermoy, 17.

f Todd, St. Patrick, 190, 191 : Lanigan, 1. 17 : FM, vol. 1., Pref. li.

J Reeves, Culdees, 86. § Br. Laws, 11. 149 and note ; 151 and note.

142 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

mentions three kinds of leite" or stirabout : — of oatmeal,
wheatmeal, and barleymeal : that made from oatmeal
being the most general. Wheatmeal stirabout was con-
sidered the best : that of barleymeal was inferior to the
others. For the rich classes, stirabout was often made on
new milk : if sheep's milk, so much the better, as this was
looked upon as a delicacy.* Finn-leite, ' white-stirabout,'
i.e. made on new milk, is designated by an epicure, f in an
exaggerated strain — " the treasure that is smoothest and
sweetest of all food " : it was eaten with honey, fresh
butter, or new milk. For the poorer classes stirabout was
made on water or buttermilk, and eaten with sour milk or
salt butter : but butter of any kind was more or less of a
luxury. All young persons in fosterage were to be fed,
up to a certain age, on stirabout, the quality and condi-
ment (as distinguished above) being regulated according
to the rank of the parents. J

All the various kinds of meal and flour were baked
into cakes or loaves of different shapes. The usual word
for a cake was bairgen, now pronounced borreen : hence
borreen-brack, ' speckled cake ' (speckled with currants and
raisins), eaten on November eve, now often written barn-
brack, sometimes corrupted to barm-brack. Flour was
usually mixed with water to make dough : but bread made
of flour and milk was also much in use. Honey was often
kneaded up with cakes as a delicacy : and occasionally the
roe of a salmon was similarly used.§ The word tort was
applied to a cake, or to a loaf of bread of any shape ;
whence the diminutive tortine [torteena], ' a little cake '|| :
connected with Lat. torta : Span, tortilla.

By a curious custom, often referred to in the Brehon
Laws, what was called a " cake of man-baking " (bairgen

* Mac Conglinne, 32, ^ Introduction, 365, note : and

f Ibid., 98, 29 Tromdamh, 73.

I Br. Laws, 11. 151, top ; 177. || Corm. Gloss., 156.

§ Fled Brie, 9 bottom : Sullivan.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 143

fer-fuine) was twice the size of a " cake of woman-baking."
" Three cakes of man-baking," says the Brehon Law, " are
the equivalent of six cakes of woman-baking " ; and this
proportion is given in many parts of the law.* Accord-
ingly the Crith Gabhlach, when setting forth the legal
allowances of an og-aire chief, includes among them
either one cake of man-baking or two of woman-baking, f
Perhaps the meaning of these terms is that the larger cake
was considered as a meal for a man, and the smaller for a
woman. There is something like a confirmation of this
conjecture in the " Small Primer," where it is stated that
under certain circumstances each man of a company is
allowed two cakes of men's baking per night as his refec-
tion : i.e. presumably supper (or dinner) and breakfast. J
If this is so, the allowance was liberal : for the Senchus
Mor states in one place that a cake of woman-baking was
two " fists " or ten inches in width, and one fist or five
inches thick.§ Wheaten bread was considered the best,
as at present : barley-bread was poor. St. Finntan, the
son of Gaibrene, never ate anything but " woody bread of
barley," and a drink of muddy water. ||

We have seen that yeast, or barm, or leaven, was used
in brewing. That it was used also in baking appears
from the fact that in this application there was a native
word (descaid) for it, as well as from an eighth-century
commentary on 1 Corinth, v. 7, 8, written in the Irish
language by some Irish writer, in which the use of descaid
or leaven in souring dough is spoken of in such a manner
as to show that the writer was quite familiar with the
process. ^

The several utensils used in making and baking bread
are set forth in the Senchus Mor ; and baking and the

* Br. Laws, n. 177, 24; iv. 119, 9. || Feilire, 52.

f Ibid., iv. 307, IS: see also v. 31 If Zeuss, 777, 28 to 32. Stokes and

and 47. Strachan, Thesaurus, 1 552. Here

% Ibid., v. 47, in. the word for sour is serb ; modern

§ Ibid., 11. 255, 8. Irish, searbh fsharrav].

144 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

implements employed therein are always spoken of as
specially pertaining to women.* The woman had a
criathar [criher] or sieve for separating the fine part of the
flour from the coarse, which was done on each particular
occasion just before baking. f Having made the flour into
dough (Irish toes, now written taos), she worked it into
cakes on a losat [losset] or kneading-trough — sometimes
also called lethech% — a shallow wooden trough, such as we
see used for making cakes at the present day. The cake
was baked on a griddle of some kind, which was called
lee or lec-juine.% Lee signifies a flat flagstone : lec-fuine,
' flag of baking ' : which shows that whatever may have
been the griddle or baker in later times, it was originally
a lee or flagstone, heated to the proper degree. In some
Irish Glosses, lapisfulta is explained by lec-an-ardin, ' the
flag or griddle of the bread. '|| And O'Davoren, as quoted
by Stokes, has " cert-fuine, i.e. the stone {lee) on which
cooking is done."^f In the " Courtship of Emer " in LU
(123, b, 9 from bot.), it is called lee or flagstone, without
any qualifying epithet : Cormac's Glossary (103) calls it
lecc, which is the same word. We know that in Ireland,
down to the time of Elizabeth, cakes were sometimes
baked on a hot stone.** A common metal griddle was
usually called gretel or greidel ; and sometimes lann, which
however means any thin plate of metal.

7. Honey.

Before entering on the consideration of honey as food,
it will be proper to make a few observations on the
management of bees by the ancient Irish. From the
earliest times Ireland was noted for its abundance of
honey. A foreign writer, Solinus, who lived in the third

* Br. Laws, 1. 123, 149. || Stokes in Conn. Glossary, 103

t Miss Hull, Cuch. Saga, 97. (" Lecc ").

X Corm. Gloss., 102. If Corm. Gloss., xn. 5.

§ Br. Laws, in. 275 ; iv. 11, 9 from ** Tribes of Ireland, 51 and note 2.
bottom

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT I45

century, says that there were no bees in Ireland : but in
this he was undoubtedly misinformed, as he was in many
other particulars regarding this country.* Giraldus ex-
presses the curious opinion that honey would be still more
abundant in Ireland if the bee-swarms were not checked
by the bitter and poisonous yews with which the woods
abounded.

The management of bees was universally understood,
and every comfortable householder kept hives in his
garden. Wild bees, too, swarmed everywhere — much
more plentifully than at present, on account of the extent
of woodland. Before cane-sugar came into general use
— sixteenth century — the bee industry was considered
very important, so that a special section of the Brehon
Laws is devoted to it. The Irish name for a bee was bech
or beach : a swarm was called saithe [saeha]. The hive
was known by various names, such as cliabh [cleeve],
which means ' basket ' ; bechdin, ' little bee-house ' ; and
cesach-bech, ' bee-basket ' : but the name now universally
in use is corcog. A honeycomb was called criathar
[criher], literally a ' sieve.' Hives stocked with bees were
sometimes given as part of a tribute to a king.f

The Brehon Law tract on " Bee-judgments," of which
the printed Irish text occupies twenty pages (of vol. iv.),
enters into much detail concerning the rights of the various
parties concerned, to swarms, hives, nests, and honey : of
which a few examples are given here. If a man found a
swarm in the faithche or green surrounding and belonging
to a house : one-fourth of the produce to the end of a year
was due to the finder, the remaining three-fourths to the
owner of the house. If he found them in a tree growing
in a faithche or green : one-half produce for a year to the
finder : the rest to the owner. If they were found in land
which was not a green : one-third to the finder and two-

* See Keating, Pref., xxiv : and Gir. Cambr., Top. Hib., 1. v.
f Book of Rights, 245, 3rd verse.

146 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

thirds to the owner of -the land. If found in waste land
not belonging to an individual, but the common property
of the tribe, bees and honey belonged to the finder, except
one-ninth to the chief of the tribe. As the bees owned by
an individual gathered their honey from the surrounding
district, the owners of the four adjacent farms were entitled
to a certain small proportion of the honey : and after the
third year each was entitled to a swarm. If bees belonging
to one man swarmed in the land of another, the produce
was divided in certain proportions between the two. It is
mentioned in " Bee- judgments " that a sheet was sometimes
spread out that a swarm might alight and rest on it : as is
often done now. At the time of gathering the honey the
bees were smothered. The Senchus M6r prescribes a
penalty for stealing bee-hives with their bees.

The Book of Aicill has a long enumeration of injuries
done by bee-stings to men and animals, with the corre-
sponding fines, and also the fines for killing bees. Great
care is exhibited on the one hand to protect bees from
wanton or unnecessary destruction, and on the other to
provide compensation for men and animals injured by
their stings* : but some of the provisions are so minute
and trifling that we may doubt if they were ever seriously
intended to be carried into practice. The whole article
however shows that the subject of bees and bee-culture
much occupied the attention of the public.

One of the circumstances indicating the great plenty of
honey in historic times in Ireland is the large size of the
vessels sometimes used in measuring it, as instanced in
chap, xxvii. (p. 376, below). It was used with most kinds
of food, sometimes mixed and sometimes separately as a
condiment. In the Book of Aicill the penalty for a
certain class of offences is laid down as " a full meal of
honey "f : taken of course with other food.

* Br. Laws, in. 433-441.

•f Ibid., in. 433, I2 from bottom.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 1 47

In the tale of the Feast of Bricriu (p. 9) we are told

that in a certain house, among other choice viands, were

one hundred wheaten cakes kneaded up with honey. A

mixture of milk and honey was sometimes drunk : the

Culdee monks were allowed to drink thick milk mixed

with honey on the eves of Christmas and Easter* : a drink

which would be hardly relished nowadays by either monk

or layman. A mixture of lard and honey was sometimes

used as a condiment, f When the gluttonous Munster King

Cathal — eighth century — was cured of the craes Ion or

wolf in his stomach, he was ordered to get one more good

meal before toning down to his natural appetite. So they

boiled, according to directions, a mixture of new milk,

fresh butter, and honey, in a great caldron, of which he

drank a prodigious quantity ; and " that was the last great

" bellyful that Cathal took under the influence of the

" glutton-demon."! After this he fell asleep, and woke

up well. In another part of the same story (p. 78) is

mentioned brechtan- jo-mil, some sort of custard mixed

with honey, with probably flour and eggs.

Honey was sometimes brought to table pure, and
sometimes in the comb.§ Often at meals each person had
placed before him on the table a little dish, sometimes of
silver, filled with honey ; and each morsel whether of meat,
fish, or bread was dipped into it before being conveyed to
the mouth. || Stirabout was very generally eaten in the
same way with honey as a delicacy. Honey was used to
baste meat while roasting, as well as salmon while broiling.
In the " Tain bo Fraich " (p. 153) we read that Ailill and
Maive, king and queen of Connaught, had a salmon broiled
for the young chief, Fraech, which was basted with honey
that had been " well made by their daughter, the Princess
Findabair " : from which again we learn that the highest

* Reeves, Culdees, 84, top % Mac Conglinne, 106.

f Mac Conglinne, 90, 7 from § Ibid., 60.

bottom. || Ibid., 64, 8.

I48 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

persons sometimes employed themselves in preparing
honey. It has been already stated that honey was the
chief ingredient in mead ; and it is probable that it was
used in greater quantity in this way than in any other.

8. Vegetables and Fruit.

Table vegetables of various kinds were cultivated in
an enclosure called lubgort [loo-ort], i.e. ' herb-garden ' or
kitchen-garden : from lub, ' an herb,' and gort, a fenced-in
cultivated plot. The manner in which the kitchen-garden
is mentioned in literature of all kinds — lay, ecclesiastical,
and legal — shows that it was a common appanage to a
homestead. We find it often noticed in the Book of
Armagh (eighth century) : and in the eighth-century
glosses of Zeuss (37, 2s) lubgartdir — which is still the
common word for a gardener, and pronounced looartore —
explains the Latin word olitor, a ' kitchen-gardener.' The
word lub, now spelled luibh [luv or liv], glosses frutex in
Zeuss, and is cognate with the English leaf. Another and
more usual Irish word for herb is lus : but this term was
often used specifically to designate the leek.

Cabbage of some kind was an important food-herb
among the early Irish, so that it is often mentioned in old
authorities. Its Irish name was braisech [brasshagh],
borrowed probably from the Latin brassica : but this word
braisech was sometimes applied to a pottage made of herbs
of any kind.* Among the articles of food noticed in the
" Vision of Mac Conglinne " is " boiled, leafy, brown- white
kale or cabbage." In the Culdee rule the monks were
permitted on festival days to add kale as a condiment to
their customary scanty allowance of bread.

Among the vegetables cultivated in kitchen-gardens and
used at table were leeks and onions. " Mac Conglinne's
Vision " mentions the leek by one of its Irish names lus,

* As in Stokes, Lives of SS., 362, a, I0.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 149

and the onion by the name cainnenn. Lus is now the
general word for a leek, and was often used in this special
sense in old writings : in the Rule of the Culdees " three
or four sprigs of luss " are mentioned as part of the refection
of the monks : but lus primarily means an herb in general.
A leek had a more specific name, folt-chep {jolt, ' hair ' :
" hair-onion " : chep or cep, corresponding with Lat. cepa,
' an onion '). A pregnant woman, as we are told in the
Tripartite Life (201), once longed for leeks, so that she
was like to die ; whereupon St. Patrick miraculously
changed a rush into a folt-chep, which she ate and was
cured : and Patrick declared that " all women who shall
eat of this herb (the leek) shall be cured of their [longing-]
illness." That the word cainnenn or cainne signifies an
onion there can be no doubt, for an old Irish authority
remarks that a cainnenn will draw tears from the eyes.*
Under this name onions are mentioned as part of the
refection due to a chief from his tenant, f But cainne was
also occasionally applied to a leek : as in the expression
in the Crith Gabhlach, " a handful of cainne with their
heads." % Garlic appears to have been a pretty common
condiment, and the same word cainnenn was often applied
to it. O'Donovan sometimes translates cainnen and coinne
by garlic in the Brehon Law :§ from the Law also we see
that garlic was cultivated in gardens. But in individual
passages it is often doubtful whether cainnen or cainne
means onion or garlic.

Wild garlic, called in Irish crem or creamh [crav or
craff] was often used as a pot-herb, gathered no doubt from
the fields, for I find no evidence that it was cultivated.
The facts that it is often mentioned in Irish literature,
and that it has given names to many places, || show that it

* Mac Conglinne, 163, last line. f Br. Laws, iv 339.

X Br. Laws, iv. 303, 6 from bottom

§ Ibid., 11. 255, „. iv. 117, l6: 119, 27.

|| For which see loyce, Irish Names of Places, 11. 347.

150 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

was a well-recognised plant and pretty generally used.
The Chronicon Scotorum records the winter of a.d. 1006
as being so mild that creamh (which is a summer plant)
grew in the fields. Sprigs of creamh are mentioned as
portion of the food of the Fena of Erin,* no doubt as an
annlann ; and in the Brehon Law (11. 327, note 2), a certain
food allowance is mentioned as given to a chief in the
time of the " creamh harvest " (see also crim-mes, p. 139,
supra) .

Tap-rooted plants were designated by the general term
mecon [mackan], with qualifying terms to denote the
different kinds : but mecon used by itself means a parsnip
or a carrot. Both these vegetables were cultivated in
kitchen-gardens, and are often mentioned in old writings.
St. Ciaran of Saigir had for his dinner every evening a
small bit of barley-cake and two mecons of murathach,
with a drink of water, f

Good watercress (birir) was prized and eaten raw as a
salad or annlann, as at present. It is often spoken of in
connexion with brooklime, which is called fochlocon in
Cormac's Glossary (p. 72), but more commonly fothlacht
[fullaght], and which was also eaten. Constant references
to both are found in the ancient tales. In the Story of
the Colloquy a certain well is praised for producing large
birir and fothlacht% : and St. Caillin, when the people of
Magh-Ae in Connaught had received him well, left them,
among other blessings, the palm of pure water and brook-
lime^ Among the prerogatives of the king of Ireland
mentioned in the Book of Rights were the cresses of the
river Brosna in Westmeath. The three drink-bearers of
Conaire, king of Ireland in the first century, are repre-
sented in the story of Bruden Da Derga, as having before

* Silva Gad., 119 {creamh here translated " gentian " by O'Grady).
f Feilire, 62, b, 3. Stokes does not translate murathach : Sullivan
makes it equivalent to gort, ' an enclosed garden ' ; Introd., 366 : but ?
I Silva Gad., 103, 104. § Book of Fenagh, 179, and note 10.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 151

each of them, ready for the use of the guests, a cup of
water in which was a bunch of birir.* From all this it is
plain that both watercress and brooklime were in constant
use as salads. In Cormac's Glossary (p. 19) the first
syllable of birir, ' watercress,' is derived from bir, ' a well
or stream,' which is certainly correct.

Poor people sometimes ate a pottage made of the
tender tops of nettles, as I have seen them do in my
own day in time of scarcity : but they mixed a little
oatmeal with it when they could get it. Once when
St. Columba was walking near the monastery of Iona, he
saw a poor old woman cutting nettles ; and he asked
what she wanted them for. She replied : — " I have but
" one cow that I am expecting to calve soon : and until
" that happens I live on nettle-pottage, which I have eaten
"for a long time back." He was much impressed with
this, and said : — " This poor woman eats nettles, and
" endures hunger, waiting for an uncertain event — the
" calving of her cow : why should I not live on that same
" pottage too, since the thing I look for is very certain —
" namely, heaven ? " Whereupon he ordered his cook to
give him for supper thenceforward nettle-pottage without
milk or butter. But as time went on, the brethren, who
had heard with dismay of the change for the worse in
his diet — which was poor enough before — were rather
surprised to observe that he still continued in excellent
condition. Their talk among themselves coming to his
ear, he began to suspect some kindly pious fraud on the
part of the cook. So he sent for him and asked him : —
" What do you put into my pottage every day ? " The
cook, looking as innocent as a lamb, replied : " I know
" nothing that goes into the pottage unless it could come
" out of the iron of the pot or out of the potstick." The
saint, who was not so easily hoodwinked, examined the
potstick, and found that the cook had ingeniously made

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 150.

152 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

it hollow like a pipe, and thus contrived to pour in some
milk or meat juice unknown to Columba, to keep his
master from starving. The saint at once put a stop to
the thing : but with characteristic kindness of heart left
a blessing on the cook for his affectionate solicitude.*

We find it stated by several Anglo-Irish writers that
in former times the Irish occasionally ate the shamrock.
Spenser, for instance, mentions that in time of famine the
poor people who were reduced to the last stage of starvation
were glad to eat water-cresses and shamrocks ; Fynes
Morrison has a passage of much the same import ; while
Thomas Dinely, who made a tour through Ireland in 1675,
tells us that the people ate shamroges to cause a sweet
breath. In the time of Elizabeth, Aengus O'Daly, the
notorious satirist (for whom see vol. I., p. 455), reviling one
of the Irish clans, represents them as at certain seasons
making an onslaught on the shamrocks, f All this has led
some persons to believe that the true shamrock is the Oxalis
acetocella, or wood-sorrel. I see no reason, however, why
these passages should not refer to the white trefoil, which
is quite as fit to be used as a food-herb as wood-sorrel ; for
I think we may assume that neither cress nor shamrocks
were eaten in any quantity except under pressure of
extreme hunger, but only as an annlann with other food,
as watercress is eaten now.

Moreover seamar and seamrog are given in Irish
dictionaries as meaning Trijolium repens, which is the
name of the true shamrock, while wood-sorrel is desig-
nated by samhadh-coitte and seamsog. And as corroborating
the dictionary explanations, we find the compound scoith-
sheamrach (translated by O'Donovan " abounding with
flowers and shamrocks " : scoth, ' a flower ') a favourite
term among Irish writers to designate a green, open
plain. The old records, for instance, tell us that Fiacha

* Stokes, Lives of SS., 302 : Feilire, 100.
| Tribes of Ireland, 51, .note 8 ; 53, note 3.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 153

Finnscothach (Fiacha of the white flowers), king of Ireland
before the Christian era, was so called because " every
plain in Ireland was scoith-sheamrach in his time " : and
the same term is used by the Irish poet, Ferfeasa O'Cointe,
about the year 1617 (Misc. Celt. Soc, 1849, p. 355), and by
the writer of the Life of St. Scuithin (O'Cl. Cal., p. 5). In
these passages seamar cannot mean ' wood-sorrel,' which is
not produced in sufficient abundance, and moreover does
not grow in open plains, but in shady places under trees
and hedges.*

The sea-plant called in Irish duilesc, and in English
dillesk, dulse, dulsk, or dilse (Rhodymenia palmata) , growing
on sea-rocks, was formerly much used as an article of food,
that is, as an accompaniment. It was eaten with butter, a
practice that Martin (p. 68) found in the Western Isles of
Scotland in 1703. According to the Brehon Law, seaside
arable land was enhanced in value by having rocks on its
sea-border producing this plant, and there was a penalty
for consuming the duilesc belonging to another without
leave, f Among the various choice articles used by the
Fena as food was duilesc from the coves of Cape Clear. J
In the Crith Gabhlach duilesc is included with other food
as part of the refection due to an og-aire or junior chief :§
and it is mentioned in the " Vision of Mac Conglinne "
(p. 88) as a desirable viand. On one occasion St. Senan,
while at Scattery, sent one of his disciples to cut some for
him on the island-rocks. j| Dillesk is still used ; and you
may see it in Dublin hawked about in baskets by women :
it is dry and, people eat it in small quantities raw, like
salad.

The marine-plant called Porphyra vulgaris, a species
of laver, found growing on rocks round the coast, was

* See this whole question well discussed by Mr. Nathaniel Colgan in
Journ. Soc. Antiqq., liel., 1896, pp. 211 and 349.

f Br. Laws, 1. 171, middle. § Br. Laws, iv. 309.

J Silva Gad., 119. || Stokes, Lives of SS., line 2331.

1 54 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE ■ [PART III

esteemed a table luxury : it is now often sold in flsh-shops
and eaten with pepper, vinegar, &c. It is called in Gaelic
sleabhacdn [slavacan, sloakan], which in the anglicised
forms sloakan, sloke, and sluke, is applied to it all over the
Three Kingdoms.*

Though there is not much direct mention in old Irish
literature of the management of fruit-trees, various detached
passages show that they were much valued and carefully
cultivated. It would appear from a remark in the Irish
language on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, xi. 24,
written in the eighth century by some Irish commentator,
that the art of grafting was probably understood in Ire-
land : at least this old writer shows himself familiar with
the process : but whether he saw it practised at home is
not made clear. The remark in question is : — " For they
" [the Romans] have a custom to cut a tree and to insert
" another tree therein."f One of the Brehon Law tracts
(iv. 149) has a curious provision showing much thought-
fulness and knowledge in the management of trees — though
the case instanced in not a fruit-tree. If a person stripped
off part of the bark of a growing oak-tree belonging to
another — a thing sometimes done for tanning — he had not
only to pay a fine, but also to secure the tree against
injury from weather by covering the wound and two fingers
beyond all round with a plaster made of fine clay, cow-
dung, and new milk. The apple (ubhall, pron. ooal)
appears to have been as much cultivated and used in old
times as at the present. Apples, when gathered, were
hoarded up to preserve them as long as possible : they
were generally eaten uncooked. During the great festivals,
the Culdees, though not permitted to increase the quantity
of bread at meals, could use various condiments as an
indulgence, and among them apples. % According to

* S e Sullivan, Introd., 367.

f Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus, I. 529. See also Stokes, in Trip.
Life, Preface, el. J Reeves, Culdees, 85,

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 155

O'Donovan, the word abhall (fern.) was used in the best
and most ancient Irish mss. to denote the apple-tree, and
ubhall (masc.) its fruit* : but this distinction has long
ceased to be observed.

The hazel-nut was much used for food. This is plainly
indicated by the high value set on both tree and fruit, of
which we meet with innumerable instances in tales, poems,
and other old records, in such expressions as " Cruachan of
the fair hazels " : " Fidh-cruaiche of the white banquets, in
which are shower-shaken hazels of white bark " : " Doire-
na-nath, on which fair-nutted hazels are constantly found."
The Brehon Law classes the hazel among the " noble "
trees, partly on account of its nuts (for which see p. 287,
infra) : a plain indication of the value set on them.
Abundance of hazel-nuts was a mark of a prosperous and
plenteous season. The year 1031 is mentioned by the
Four Masters as of such abundance that, among other
great bargains, you could buy in Armagh one-third of a
sesedhach " of the nuts of the fair hazel-hedge " for one
pinginn or penny. It is expressly stated in the Colloquy
of the Ancients that part of the choice food of the Fena of
Erin was " nuts from the hazels of Cantire " (cno do chollaib
cintire).\ Among the blessings a good king brought on
the land was plenty of hazel-nuts : — " O'Berga [the chief]
for whom the hazels stoop " [with the weight of their
fruit] : " Each hazel is rich from [the worthiness of] the
hero " (HyF, 253, 221).

In many similar entries nuts are mentioned without
the hazel being specified : but there can be no doubt that
hazel-nuts are meant. An old Irish poem enumerating
the viands for the Mayday festival has among them cno
mes, ' nut-mast. 'I A young man comes up to St. Patrick

* HyF, 285, d. The distinction seems to indicate that the fruit was
imported long before the tree was naturalised in Ireland.
f Silva Gad., 119.
% Hib. Minora, 49 : see also Br. Laws, v. 407, bottom.

156 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE f [PART III

and his companions with a present of fruit : — " An armful
of yellow-headed nuts, and of beautiful golden-yellow
apples* : and on a certain occasion the cook of St. Mochta
of Louth brought him a dish of nuts.f Nuts are often
referred to as a dainty : a lady sends to her lover kernels
(ettne), and apples, and many sweets. J In the Book of
Leinster it is recorded that in the year 1056 there was a
remarkable nut-harvest (cno-mess : " Trip. Life," 525). It
has been stated elsewhere (at p. 121, supra) that hazel-nuts
were sometimes used as an ingredient in making mead :
but this was an exceptional and minor use. It appears
that nuts were hoarded up for use like corn, another
illustration of the value set on them.

From all these references and quotations it may be
inferred that hazel-nuts were regarded as an important
article of human food. No doubt they were generally
eaten raw, as they are at present. Tacitus tells us that
some of the Celtic nations of Gaul ground acorns and other
wild nuts into meal of which they made a sort of coarse
bread : but I find no evidence that the Irish ground nuts
for food. The Irish name for the hazel-tree is coll, gen.
coill, caill, or cuill. A nut of any kind is cno or cnu,
cognate with Latin nux and English nut, both of which
have lost the initial hard c, which the Irish has preserved.
A hazel-nut is called cno-coill.

The sloe-tree or blackthorn was called droigen (Corm.
60), modern droigheann [dree-an], which generally takes a
diminutive form droigheannan [dreenan] : hence dreenan-
donn or drinan-donn (donn, ' brown ') is a common name for
the blackthorn, even among English-speaking people. The
sloe is called dime [awrna] : a less usual word, grannmhuine
[granwinna], is given in O'Clery's Glossary as meaning
sloes. That sloes were used as food, or as an annlann or

* Silva Gad., 112. f Stokes, Three Irish Homilies, 99.

J Mac Conglinne, 4, ,3 . see also Three Sorrowful Stories, Atlantis, m.
385, verse.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 157

condiment, and that the sloe bush was cultivated, is evident
from the manner in which both are mentioned in Irish
literature. Annagh Island in Lough Conn is called by
way of praise " a district of sloes and apples."* The year
103 1 was so plentiful that, as the Four Masters tell us,
a large measure of black-red sloes could be bought for a
penny. When King Domnall was endeavouring to placate
his angry foster-son Congal, he offered him, among many
other privileges [the produce of] an apple-tree and of a
sloe-tree out of every homestead in a certain district :f and
among the many dainties promised to Finn mac Cumail
on a certain occasion, as related in the story of the Boroma,
were sloes from one of the glens of Ebliu, now Slieve Felim,
east of Limerick city. St. Brigit once came to a certain
church round which grew abundance of apples and fragrant
sloes ; and one of the nuns gave her a basketful of the
fruit. I

Strawberries (sing, sub, pi. suba : pron. soo, sooa) are
often mentioned as dainties. In the passage above referred
to from the Boroma, Finn was also promised strawberries
from Sliab Bairrche, now Slieve Margy near Carlow. We
are told in the Book of Rights (p. 9) that one of the pre-
rogatives of the king of Erin was to have the heath-fruit
(fraechmeas) of Brigh-Leithe (now Slieve Golry in Long-
ford) brought to him. The fraechmeas was no doubt the
whortleberry (called whorts or hurts in Munster), as is
indicated by the fact that the whortleberry is now called
fraechog and fraechdn, two diminutives of the same word
fraech, heath. Most Dublin people have seen women with
baskets of " froghans," as they call them, for sale, picked
on the neighbouring mountains. The passage referred to
shows that they were eaten in old times even by kings.

Beechmast and oakmast were greatly valued for feeding
pigs, which were kept in droves among the woods. The

* HyF, 283. t Moyrath, 131.

J Stokes, Lives of SS., 326.

158 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

general name for mast was mes or mess. On one occasion
the badb [bauv] or war-witch, predicting evils for Ireland,
included among them " woods without masts."* (feda tin
mess). The Four Masters signalise the year a.d. 835, for
" great produce both of beechmast and acorns, which so
choked up the brooks that they ceased running." And in
the Brehon Laws (iv. 257 bot.) mast is coupled with grass
and corn as a part of the valuable produce of the land.
In the Bodleian copy of the Dinnsenchus we are told that
" in the west of the plain of Macha there was a fruitful
" oak wood, of which the odour was so fragrant, that when
" the swine in the country all round smelled the wind that
" blew over it, it was a heartbreak to them, and they
" rushed quite mad to get to the wood." The same story
is told in the Book of Leinster.f

9. Fuel and Light.

Fuel. — as the country abounded in forests, thickets,
and brakes, the most common fuel for domestic use was
wood. Firewood or " firebote " was called condud, or as it
is now spelled, connadh [conna]. Two other names given
in Cormac's Glossary (p. 73) are fochonnad and geltine.
Firewood, made up in faggots, is mentioned in the Book of
Rights as a portion of the tribute of the unfree tribes of
Leinster to the king of that province. A bundle of fire-
wood was called a brossna, a word found in the oldest
authorities and used to this day all over Ireland, even by
the English-speaking people, as meaning a bundle of
withered branches, or of heath, for fuel. We read in the
Tripartite Life (p. 10) that when St. Patrick was a boy, his
foster-mother told him to bring her a brossna of withered
branches to make a fire.

Peat or turf was much used as fuel. The Senchus M6r
speaks of the cutting of turf from a bank (port) and carti.ig

* Rev. Celt., XII. III.

■j- Folklore, in. 514 : LL, 169, a (" Srnthair Matha ").

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 159

it home when dry ; and mentions a penalty for stealing
it.* It is recorded in the Annals that Ragallach, king of
Connaught in the middle of the seventh century, having
exasperated some men who were cutting turf (oc buain
monadh) in a bog, they fell on him and killed him with
their sharp ruams or turf-spades, f The whole bog was
the " commons " property of the fine or group of related
families : but a single turf-bank might belong for the time
to an individual. I The word ruam, used above, was a
general word for any spade. At the present day the sharp
spade used in cutting turf is designated by the special
name of sleaghan [pron. slaan, the aa long like the a in
star]. This word is a diminutive of sleg, modern sleagh,
a ' spear ' (see vol. I., p. 108, supra) : sleaghan, a little
spear ' — though a slaan is not very like one.

Metal-workers used wood charcoal ; for neither plain
wood nor peat afforded sufficient heat to melt or weld.
We have seen (vol. I., p. 565) that charcoal made from
birch afforded the highest degree of heat then available ;
and was used for fusing the metals known at that time.
Allusions to the use of charcoal — which in Irish is
designated gual or cual — are met with in all sorts of
Irish literature. In the Book of Rights (253) it is stated
that the king of Hy Gabla was entitled to certain stipends,
and, among other things, to " a ring of gold from the
white [-hot] coal " (fail oir o'n gheal ghual) : and in the
Crith Gabhlach we find mention of " a sack of coal (gual)
for the irons. "§ In a poem in tne Book of Leinster the
fuel kept in a blacksmith's forge is designated cual craing,
a form of cual craind, ' coal of crand or wood,'|| which
plainly points out its material. From the Crith Gabhlach
passage, as well as from the special manner in which the

* Br. Laws, 1. 133 ; also iv. 221, 223.

f Silva Gad., 431 : Keating, 476. See also p. 92, supra.

I Br. Laws, 1. 133, 165 : a law still observed.

§ Ibid., iv. 311, bottom.

!| O'Currv. Man. & Cust., i. T47 : LL, 35, a, 4,

l60 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

cual craing is mentioned in this last entry, it appears that
it was usual for smiths to keep it in sacks. The pit on
which charcoal was made was called clas-guail or gual-
chlais. The remains of some of the old charcoal-pits are
still recognisable. I know one in which the soil is mixed
up and quite black with quantities of charcoal-fragments
and dust. In the story of " Fingal Ronain " a man says : —
" If I were to be thrust into a cual-chlais tened (a ' fiery
charcoal-pit.'), I would not do it " [a certain evil deed].*

That coal from mines was used at some very early time
is rendered certain by the fact that old coal-mines have
recently been found exhibiting all the marks of extreme
antiquity (chap. xxiv. page 289, infra). But as the word
gual or cual, which is constantly used in the old accounts
of the Irish metal-workers, will stand for either mine-coal
or wood-charcoal, the literature alone — or that portion of it
available — would not enable us to infer with certainty that
mine-coal was used by the old Irish smiths and braziers, or
used at all for fuel.

A live coal from a turf fire was called smerdit or
smeroid\ : a mixture of smerdids and hot ashes was,
and is still, called griosach [greesagh]. A mass or fire of
burning coals, especially of charcoal or coal, was called
richis or rights, I a word which has long dropped out
of use. O'Clery explains righis as lasair (flame), and
O'Davoren has richis as meaning tine (fire). Straw,
when plentiful and not otherwise wanted, was sometimes
used as fuel in the absence of better. That this was so we
know by a provision of the Book of Aicill, which mentions
a penalty for stealing it.§ If it was intended for cattle-
feeding, there is a certain fine : but if for burning, the fine
was less. Probably the straw for burning was wheaten
straw, and was subjected to some sort of preparation, such
as trussing it up into wisps. Sometimes when fuel was

* Rev. Celt., xni. 376, 377. % Rev. Celt., xi, 435, top.

t Conn. Gloss., 149. § Br. Laws, III. 151.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT l6l

scarce, the poor people burned dried cowdung, gathered in
the pasture fields in summer, as they do to this day : they
call it boithredn [boraun], a word formed by suffixes from
bo, ' a cow.'*

Flint and steel with tinder were used for striking and
kindling fire. In the ancient Latin version of the voyage
of St. Brendan, so celebrated all over Europe in the middle
ages, the old hermit Paul says that on a certain occasion
he struck fire with flint and steel {silice ferro percusso) and
cooked his fish.f And in the Mediaeval Irish Tract on
Latin Declension, edited by Stokes (No. 720), igni ferrium
(' steel-fire ') is glossed by the Irish teine-creasa, literally
' fire of the girdle,' so designated because the whole
kindling-gear, or tenlach-teined, as it is called, J i.e. the flint,
steel, and tinder, was carried in the girdle-pocket, so as to
be ready to hand. The spark produced by flint and steel
was called tenlam, which in Cormac's Glossary (158) is
derived from tene, ' fire,' and lam, ' the hand ' : that is to
say, it means ' hand-fire ' : and O'Clery again explains this
word tenlam by teine-creasa, ' girdle-fire.' Tinder was, and
is, commonly called sponc [spunky which is obviously the
same as the Latin spongia, English sponge. Spunk or
tinder was sometimes made from the dried leaves of the
coltsfoot, so that this plant is now always called sponc :§
but in recent times it was more usually made of coarse
brown paper steeped in a solution of nitre and dried.
" Spunk " is now used as an English word both in Ireland
and Scotland : "a spunk of fire on the hearth."

Light. — In the better class of houses dipped candles
were commonly used. The usual Irish word for a candle
is caindel or cainnel, which seems borrowed from the Latin
candela : but there is also an old native word for it — innlis,

* See O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 65.

f Brendaniana, 171 : Card. Moran, Act. Brend., 127.

X Silva Gad., 302, top : Ir. Text, 267, s.

§ See Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1868-9, p. 449.

l62 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

which O'Clery's Glossary explains by cainneal. There are
numerous references to candles in ancient Irish authorities.
The Senchus Mor mentions candles of " eight fists " (about
forty inches) in length, made by [repeated] dipping of
peeled rushes in melted tallow or meat grease* : from
which we learn that the wicks of candles were, sometimes
at least, made of peeled rushes : but other kinds of wicks
were used. In the Tripartite Life (p. 53) St. Patrick is
made to say, when about to present himself at Tara, that
he would not make of himself a candle under a vat (caindel
fo dabaich). In the Irish Life of St. Senan in the Book of
Lismore (which however seems a comparatively late piece,
though copied from older books), we are told that the
saint — when young — once asked for a candle to light him
while grinding corn at the mill : and the cook answered
" I have no dipped candles [coinnle tumtha] just now but
©ne : take this and you will get more if they are dipped, "f
In the ancient tract called the " Law of Adamnan," it is
stated that before the time of that saint one function of a
cumal or female slave was to dip a candle (cainnel), four
hand-breadths in length, in butter or lard, and to hold it
in her hand to light the company at supper till they
separated for bed.|

As bees were so abundant, beeswax (Irish ceir, pron.
care), as might be expected, was turned to account. Bees-
wax candles must have been in use at some early period
in the houses of the rich. In the Book of Rights (15 and
xlvi) it is stated that one of the prerogatives of the king
of Leinster was " to drink by the light of wax candles
[coindle ciarriha] at Dinnree " ; which was one of the most
ancient of the royal residences of Leinster (p. 94, supra).
Add to this that beeswax " found in square masses, and
" also in the form of candles, has been discovered under

* Br. Laws, il. 251, 253. f Stokes, Lives of SS., line 1995.

X Trip. Life, Introduction, xxii. See also for candles, Ware, Antiqq.,
183, bottom.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 163

" circumstances which leave no doubt as to the great
" antiquity of such articles."* Several specimens of this
ancient wax are in the National Museum, Dublin.

Although, in very early times, candles were sometimes
held in the hands of slaves, they were more commonly
placed on candlesticks. The ancient Irish word for a
candlestick is caindelbra, modern Irish coinnleoir [conlore],
both of which are modified forms of the Latin candelabra.
The Senchus Mor and the Crith Gabhlach mention a
caindelbra as a usual article in a house ; O'Donovan here
translates the word ' branch-light ' : and the old Irish com-
mentator explains it as " the straight wand upon which the
" beautiful light is placed, like a candle, in the house of
" each person."! The ancient Latin Hymn of Secundinus
makes mention of a light placed on a candelabrum% : and
in the description of the Banqueting-House of Tara in
the Book of Leinster it is stated that there were seven
coindelbruig in it.§

It was usual to keep a rlchaindell [reehannel], or ' king-
candle ' (ri, ' a king '), or royal candle, of enormous size,
with a great bushy wick, burning at night in presence of a
king : in the palace it was placed high over his head ;
during war it blazed outside his tent-door ; and on night-
marches it was borne before him. This custom is men-
tioned very often in the records. We are told in the
Annals that Cerbhall [Kerval], king of Ossory, coming
out of his chamber in the middle- of the night to attack
the Danes, a.d. 860, had " a large king-candle carried
before him, the light of which shone far on every side."||
In Tain-bo-Fraich (O' Curry,. 11., 219), Froech visits his aunt
with a spear shining like the candle of a king-house (caindel

* Wilde, Catalogue, 255. See also Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1892, p. 184.
t Br. Laws, 1. 126, s; 143, bottom ; also iv. 310, „.
% Trip. Life, 387, 14.

§ Petrie's Tara, p. 188. On Candlesticks, see also Reeves, Eccl.
Antiqq., 210 ; and Joyce, Irish Names of Places, 11. 204.
}| Three Fragments, 145.

1 64

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

rig-thigi) in the hand of each of his fifty attendants : and
in Bruden Da Derga in LU, three heroes are described as
sitting in presence of King Conare with the candle of a
royal house burning over the head of each of them.* A
hero's spear is sometimes compared (as above) to a royal
palace candle for the brightness of its polished bronze
headf ; and in this sense a spear is sometimes called,

I it.. 213. Fie. 219. Fig. 220

Rush and Candle-holders : found in different parts of Ireland. These are 10 or 12 inches high,
and when in use were placed on a table. Those intended to stand on the floor were about 36 inches
high. (From Proc. Roy. Ir. Academy for 1889-91, p. 629.)

'figuratively, a caindell rigthaige; as in LL, 97, a, i4 from bot.:
See also Rev. Celt, xxiv., 128, note. In regard to size, the
Four Masters are fairly definite in the passage already
quoted, vol. 1., p. 62, supra, where the " king-candle " kept
burning at night before Shane O'Neill's tent (a.d. 1557) is
described as " a huge torch thicker than a man's body " :
a passage which shows moreover that this custom continued
till the sixteenth century. (See also Ware Antiqq., 183 bot.)

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11 140.

| O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 219, I9; and 220, note, 1st col., line 9.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 165

The poorer classes commonly used a rush-light, i.e. a
single rush peeled (leaving one little film of rind the whole
length to keep it together) and soaked in grease, but not
formed into a candle by repeated dippings. It gave a poor
light and burned down very quickly ; and it was known by
two names, adann and itharna [ey-an : lharna]. It is well
characterised in a verse ascribed to St. Colman, founder of
Cloyne (died a.d. 604), quoted in Cormac's Glossary (p. 10),
in which a warrior, praising his sword, is made to say : —
" As blackbirds are to swans, as peasant women are to
" queens, as an adann is to a candle [so is any other] sword
" to my sword." The word adann means ' to kindle ' ; and
hence adannadh was applied
to a candle-lighter in a church.
The other word itharna is
also given in Cormac's Glos-
sary (p. 92) as equivalent to
adann : and it is derived, says FIG- -**■

,■• ^~>i t( -.. Ancient Irish bronze Lamp. Found in a

tUe LrlOSSary, aCCOramg tO crattnog-e (i.e. an island-dwclling in a lake)

~-~.*.:*.~i. ...„:4.^^« " 12 „ „„„:^„.j. in County Roscommon. The vessel held (he

ancient writers [i.e. ancient oil, and the wick projected from tlie pipe.
when the Glossary was written £*£*«**«** Lake Dweu^s m irci»»d.

— ninth or tenth century),

from ith, ' fat,' i.e. " the fat of the cattle they used to melt
in the rushes " (simnib). There were simple holders for
rushlights : and several specimens have been found, which
however do not appear to be old : nevertheless they are
probably the representatives of the holders of more ancient
times. They are of iron or of wood, or of both combined,
and are often so formed as that each will hold either a rush
or a dipped candle, or both at one time.* (See last page.)
Oil lamps of various kinds were used ; and they are
often mentioned in the oldest recordsf under two names —
lespaire [les-pe-re] and luacharnn or lochrann (from Lat.
lucerna). Luacharnn occurs several times in the eighth-

* See Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1890-1, p. 473 ; and Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad.,
1889-91, p. 626. f Corm. Gloss., 103 : Stokes, Lives of SS., line 342.

1 66 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

century Glosses of Zeuss, as the equivalent of lampas and
lucerna, which shows the remote time in which lamps and
lanterns were used in Ireland. Some were made of bronze
(fig. 221) : some of clay. A rude unglazed earthenware
lamp, shallow, and with a snout to support a wick, was found
some time ago among prehistoric remains near Portstewart.*
It has been already stated (p. 30) that it was usual to
light the principal apartment in a house from above by a
row of lamps or candles suspended from the ridgepole.

In modern times, long, dried slits of bogdeal have been
used bj^ the peasantry instead of candles. Probably the
same practice prevailed in early times, but I have found
no notice of it.

10. Free Public Hostels.

This seems a proper place to give some information
regarding the provision made for lodging and entertaining
travellers and officials. Hospitality and generosity were
virtues highly esteemed in ancient Ireland ; in the old
Christian writings indeed they are everywhere praised and
inculcated as religious duties (1. 330, supra) ; and in the
secular literature they are equally prominent. The higher
the rank of the person the more was expected from him,
and a king should be lavish without limit. In the story of
the Battle of Moyrath (p. 105), Erin is lauded for many
virtues during the reign of King Domnall, among thern
hospitality : — " Her habitations were hospitable, spacious,
" and open for company and entertainment, to remove the
" hunger and gloom of guests." The duty of dealing out
plenty to guests was so universally recognised that even
the Brehon Law (iv. 337) is careful to specify the cases
where a king may be excused for deficiency of food if
there should occur an unexpected arrival of a number of
guests : — such as failure or refusal, at the wrong moment,
of a tributary chief to send in the expected food-supply.

* Kilk. Archaeol. Town., 1883-4, p. 318.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 167

Guaire, king of Connaught in the seventh century, is
celebrated and lauded everywhere in tales and poems for
his generosity and hospitality. He was so constantly
stretching out his hand to give away that — as the legends
have it — his right hand grew longer than his left : and to
this day he is known as " Guaire the Hospitable." We
often find generous persons praised in terms like those
applied to Owen O'Madden, a Connaught chief, of whom it
is said in an old Irish document (HyM, 141) that " he does
" not refuse anyone gold or horses, food or kine. and he is
" the wealthiest of the race of Gaedhal for bestowing them."
Even St. Patrick himself is represented as blessing the
district of Moy Rein in this fashion : — " I leave prosperity
"to the place so that it shall provide for all [requiring
" help] even though every cleric should be poor " — as much
as to say that in case the clergy and the monasteries had
not the means to discharge the duty of hospitality expected
of them, the lay people of the district should be so prosper-
ous that they could and would provide for all without any
clerical help.*

If by any accident a person found himself unable to
discharge the due rites of hospitality, it was supposed that
his face became suffused with a mice [rucke] or blush — a
blush of honourable shame — called also enech-ruice or ainech-
ruice, ' face-blush,' as it is explained in Cormac's Glossary
(p. 66). The brewy or head of a hostel took care to have
" the snout of a rooting-hog 'f — meaning he had plenty of
p0rk — " to break or prevent his face-blush " : when there
was plenty there was no reason to blush. If anyone
through the default of another ran short of provisions when
visitors came, so that he had reason to feel ashamed of his
scanty table, the defaulter had to pay him as compensation
what was called a " blush-fine. "J

* Book of Fenagh, 273. t Br- Law, iv. 311 et seq.

% Br. Laws, I. 123, Ii; 129, note 1. ; iv. 345, middle; 347> I3: and
Corm. Gloss., 103 (" Leos ").

l68 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

As illustrating what was expected of the higher ranks,
the Brehon Law (iv. 237) lays down that " the chieftain
" grades are bound to entertain [a guest] without asking
'-' any questions " — i.e. questions as to his name, or business,
or where he was bound for, and the like. It is added that
the Feine or farmers were not so bound — i.e. they might
make reasonable inquiry about a guest before entertaining.
Once a guest had partaken of food in a house, his host
was bound to abstain from offering him any violence or
disrespect under any circumstances.* Bede's testimony
as to the hospitality of the Irish has been already quoted
(vol. 1., p. 414).

This universal admiration for hospitality found its
outward expression in the establishment, all over the
country, of public hostels for the free lodging and enter-
tainment of all who chose to claim them. At the head of
each was an officer called a brugh-fer, or brugaid, or briuga
[broo-fer, brewy, broo-a], a public hospitaller or hosteller,
who was held in high honour. He was bound to keep an
open house for the reception of certain functionaries — king,
bishop, poet, judge, &c. — who were privileged to claim for
themselves and their attendants free entertainment when
on their circuits : and also for the reception of strangers.
He had a tract of land and other large allowances to
defray the expenses of his house : the names brugh-fer
and brugaid indeed literally signify ' landholder,' from
brugh, land, a farm of land. Brugaid was often used in
the sense of a farmer merely, but we have here to do only
with its special application to a keeper of a public hostel.

The brewys were of two main classes. The lowest was
the brugaid cedach or ' hundred hospitaller, 'f who should
have at least one hundred of each kind of cattle, one
hundred labourers, and corresponding provision for feeding

* As illustrative, see how Branduff treated Glasdam, p. 483, below.
t See Stokes, Rev. Celt., xv. 431 : HyF, 239, h : and Kiik. Archseol
Journ., 1872-3, p. 47, verse xlii.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 169

and lodging guests. The brugaid cedach is constantly
met with in all kinds of Irish writings. " But " — says the
gloss on the Senchus Mor — " there is a brugaid who is
better than this man " : this was the brugaid-lethech, who
should have two hundred of each kind of cattle. His
house should be supplied with all necessary furniture and
appliances, including one hundred beds for guests ; for he
was not allowed to borrow.* In order to be at all times
ready to receive visitors, a brewy of either class was bound
to have three kinds of meat cooked and ready to be served
up to all who came ; three kinds of raw meat ready for
cooking ; besides animals ready for killing. In one of the
law tracts a brewy is quaintly described as " a man of
three snouts " : — viz. the snout of a live hog rooting in the
fields to break the blushes of his face ; the snout of a dead
hog on the hooks cooking ; and the pointed snout of a
plough : meaning that he had plenty of live animals and
of meat cooked and uncooked, with a plough and all
other tillage appliances, f He was also " a man of three
sacks " : — for he had always in his house a sack of malt
for brewing ale ; a sack of salt for curing cattle-joints ; and
a sack of charcoal for the irons ; this last referring to the
continual use of iron-shod agricultural implements calling
for frequent repair and renewal. We are told also (iv.,
pp. 310, 311) that his kitchen-fire should be kept per-
petually alight, and that his caldron should never be taken
off the fire, and should always be kept full of joints boiling
for guests. The whole description is a picture of lavish
abundance, reminding one strongly of Chaucer's description
of the Franklin : —

" An householder, and that a grete was he
Seint Julian J he was in his Contree,
His brede, his ale, was alway after on ;
A better envyned§ man was wher non.

* Br. Laws, 1. 47, bottom. j Ibid., iv. 311. J St. Julian, the patron-
saint of travellers and of hospitality. § Supplied with, wine.

170 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

VVithouten bake mete never was his hous,

Of fish and flesh, and that so plenteous,

It snewed [snowed] in his hous of mete and drinke,

Of alle deintees that men coud of thinke,

After the sundry sesons of the yere,

So changed he his mete and his soupere.

Full many a fat partrich hadde he in mewe,

And many a breme, and many a luce [a fish] in stewe.

Wo was his coke but-if [i.e. unless] his sauce were

Poinant and sharpe, and ready all his gere.

His table dormant in his halle alway

Stode redy covered all the longe day."

There should be a number of open roads leading to
the house of a brewy, so that it might be readily accessible ;
and on each road a man should be stationed to make sure
that no traveller should pass by without calling to be
entertained ;* besides which a light was to be kept burning
on the faithche [faha] or lawn at night to guide travellers
from a distance. The noble brewy, Da Derga, mentioned
below, kept his doors open day and night, except at the
windy side of the house, f

As visitors and their followers were constantly coming
and going, the house-furniture and other property of a
brewy were jealously protected by law from wanton or
malicious damage, the various possible injuries being set
forth in great detail, with the compensation for them. He
was moreover a magistrate, and was empowered to deliver
judgment on certain cases that were brought before him
to his house : " He is a bo-air e for giving judgment." We
have already seen (vol. I., p. 44) that a, court was held in
his house for the election of the chief of the tribe. Keating
says that there were ninety brugaids in Connaught, ninety
in Ulster, ninety-three in Leinster, and a hundred and
thirty in Munster, all with open houses ; and though it is
not necessary to accept these numbers as strictly accurate,

* Br. Laws, v. 17, ,7. and 79, 22.

f Da Derga, 36. See also, about the brugatd, Br. Laws, v. 77, 79.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 171

they indicate at least that the houses of hospitality were
very numerous. The house of a brewy answered all the
purposes of the modern hotel or inn, but with the important
distinction, that guests were lodged and entertained with
bed and board, free of charge. With great probability the
rule prevailed here, as in case of private hospitality, that
an ordinary guest was supposed to be kept — if he wished
to stay — for three nights and three days : after which the
obligation to entertain ceased : but I have not found this
specifically mentioned.

There were a few brewys of a higher class than the
preceding, who had large tracts of land and held a vety
exalted position. They often entertained kings, chiefs,
and warriors, of the highest classes, with whom also they
were on terms of familiar intercourse. The hostel of one
of these was called a brudin or bruden [now pronounced
breen or bryan], a word which Mr. Crowe* connects with
the Greek prytaneum, meaning the same thing as the Irish
bruden — a house of public or state-endowed hospitality.
In the time of the Red Branch Knights there were six of
these " chief courts of hospitality in Erin," each situated
at the meeting of four roads, f all of which figure in the
Romantic Tales. The most remarkable of them was the
" Bruden Da Derga," kept by the great hosteller Da
Derga. The ancient story of the " Togail or Destruction
of Bruden Da Derga," gives a detailed and very vivid
account of the sack of this hostel and the slaughter of its
people, including Conari I., king of Ireland — who happened
to be staying in it at the time with all his retinue — by a
band of Irish and British marauders, in the first century of
the Christian era : in which however the assailants suffered
still greater loss than those they attacked. This fine story
has been lately edited and translated by Dr. Stokes in the
Revue Celtique, vol. xxii. The narrative fixes the position

* In Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1868-69, p. 326.

t According to the poem referred to in note *, p. 173, infra

172 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

of the Bruden Da Derga with great precision, as situated
on the river Dodder, where it was crossed by the " Slige
Cualann " (for which see chap, xxviii., p. 395, infra), the
great road leading from Tara across the Liffey at Dublin,
and on across the Dodder through the district of Cualann
towards Bray.

In 1879, during the preparation of a piece of ground for
building near Donnybrook, a remarkable discovery was
made, which, as in many other like cases, goes to confirm
the truthfulness of the old saga. A large, low, earthern
mound situated beside the Dodder on the south side, at a
spot now called Mount Enroll, a little east of the Roman
Catholic Church of Donnybrook, was levelled, in which
vast quantities of human bones were found, not interred as
in an ordinary cemetery, but flung in heaps and otherwise
exhibiting unmistakable evidences of a general massacre.
The whole mound and its contents were carefully examined
by Dr. Frazer of Dublin, whose account of the exploration
is given in the Proc. Roy. Ir. Academy, 1879-1886, p. 29.
Sir Samuel Ferguson, in an instructive note to his poem of
Conary, has rightly identified the place where this mound
was situated, with the site of Da Derga's hostel.

We have seen that each bruden was placed at the
meeting of four roads : i.e. where two main roads crossed.
The two roads here were the Slige Cualann and another
leading from the old district of the once powerful tribe of
Hy Donohue which lay along on both sides of the Dodder
from Glennasmole down. This road passed by Boherna-
breena and Rathfarnham till it crossed Slige Cualann at
the Bruden, and on towards the mouth of the Liffey, then
and afterwards a great resort of trading vessels. O'Curry
(Man. & Cust., 11. 136) states that Bohernabreena took
its name from the old Bruden or breen, in which he is
undoubtedly correct : for " Bohernabreena " is the proper
anglicised phonetic form of Bothar-na-Bruidne, i.e. the
road of the Bruden, meaning the road leading to it. But

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT 173

he is certainly mistaken in asserting, as he does, that the
present Bohernabreena was itself the site of Da Derga's
Bruden ; as anyone may see who glances through the
story. The destruction of this Bruden is recorded in the
Annals of Tigernach.

Another of these six hostels was Bruden-Da-Choca (or
Choga), kept by the hospitaller Da Choca. This was the
scene of another tragedy, in which Cormac Conlingeas, son
of Concobar mac Nessa, perished, as related in the historical
tale called " The Destruction of Da Choca's Bruden," which
has also been translated by Dr. Stokes in the Revue Celtique,
vol. xxi. The old fort, the only remaining relic of this
bruden, is still well known. It is situated in Westmeath,
a few miles from Athlone ; and to this day it retains the
name " Bruden," in the phonetic form of Bryan. Forgall
Monach, or Forgall the Wily, Cuculainn's father-in-law,
kept another of these brudens at Lusca, now Lusk, north
of Dublin, which figures much in the tales of the Red
Branch. The remaining three were the bruden of Mac
Datho in Leinster ; Bruden Blai Briuga (or Brugaid) in
Ulster ; and Bruden mic Dareo (or Bruden da Ger) in
Brefney.*

Every bruden was a place of refuge for a homicide,
where he might claim protection from the immediate
vengeance of his victim's friends till he could obtain a fair
trial before a brehon ; as appears from a statement in the
" Destruction of the Bruden Da Choca " : — " Every Bruden
is an asylum of the red hand," i.e. for the manslayer.f In
this function the Irish bruden answered to the " asylum "
of the Greeks : and Dr. Stokes has called attention to the
curious correspondence of the six refuge brudens of Ireland

* An account of the whole six may be seen in a short poem published
and translated by Stokes, in Rev. Celt., xxi. 397 : of which a very corrupt
version was published in Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1870-76, p. 253. They are
also enumerated in the Battle of Moyrath, pp. 51-53.

t Rev. Celt., xxi. 315. In the Br. Laws, v. 319, a manslayer is called
" a man of red weapons."

174 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

with the six Jewish cities of refuge for manslayers against
the avengers of blood.*

The word bruden is still preserved in the names of
several townlands in different parts of Ireland, from which
it is probable that the term was applied to other houses of
hospitality as well as to the six mentioned above. Or
perhaps the multiplication of the name may have arisen
from this circumstance : that bruden was — as we know —
sometimes applied to any great banqueting-hall, as, for
instance, to that of Tara and of Dun-da-benn, now the fort
called Mountsandal, over the Bann, near Coleraine ; and
also to the royal house of refuge for aged warriors at
Emain (vol. I., p. 97, supra).] " Bruighean " — says Peter
O'Connell's Dictionary — ' a sumptuous house, a court or
palace. 'J

There was another sort of public victualler called
biatach or biadhtach [beetagh], who was also bound to
entertain travellers, and the chief's soldiers whenever they
came that way. In order to enable the betagh to dispense
hospitality, he held a tract of arable land free of rent,
called a baile-biadhtaigh or ballybetagh, equal to about
1000 of our present English acres, with a much larger
extent of waste land. The distinction between a brewy
and a betagh is not very clear. They are distinguished in
a passage in the Book of the Dun Cow,§ which, among
other classes of people, mentions the briugaid and the
biatach : but there was probably little substantial difference
between them. The Four Masters record the death of
several individual biataghs : thus at a.d. 1225 (p. 219) :
" Auliff O'Boland, Erenach of Drumcliff, a wise and learned

* Numbers xxxv. ; Deuteronomy iv. : Joshua xx.

t See Petrie's Tara, 199, bottom : Mesca Ulad, 13, 8: and Rossnaree,
20, last line.

X Zeitschr., Celt., Phil. 1. 427. At the present day Bruden, "in its
modern form bruighean [bree-anj, means a ' fairy-palace " ; for which,
and for the local names derived from it, see Joyce's Irish Names of Places,
vol. 1. 289, 290. § LU, p. 123, b, A and s from bottom.

CHAP. XXI] FOOD, FUEL, AND LIGHT I75

man, and a general biatach, died." In later times the
English of the Pale used the word betaghe to denote a
servile class of farmers, like the English villeins : those on
the king's manors are indeed sometimes called ' the king's
villeins or betaghes.' But from the descriptions of these
persons given by Anglo-Irish authorities, it appears that
they were a class of dependent tenants who held small
farms, probably on betagh lands, from which in course of
time they came to be erroneously called betaghs. It is
clear they were not the biataghs of Irish records.*

The Irish missionaries carried this fine custom to the
Continent in early ages, as they did many others : for we
are told, on the best authority, that before the ninth
century they established ' hospitalia/ chiefly for the use of
pilgrims on their way to Rome, some in Germany, but
most in France, as lying in the direct route to the Eternal

City.f

In the legendary history we read of female brewys.
Just before Cormac mac Art's accession there was a ban-
brugaid or ' she-brewy ' at Tara ; the lady already men-
tioned (1., 216), whose sheep ate up the queen's crop of
glaisin : and in Cormac's Glossary (p. 13c) is given the
legend that through the country there were several female
brewys who entertained Finn and the Fena on their
hunting excursions.

* About the Anglo-Irish betaghes, see Ware, Antiqq., chapter x-x. :
\teg. of All Hallowes, xv. : and Statute of Kilkenny, pp. 4, 5.
f See Lynch, Cambr. Ev., 11. 244-5.

Ornament composed from the Book ef Kells

Sculpture on a Capital : Priest's House, Glendalough : Be ranter, 1779.
(From Petrie'; Round Towers.)

CHAPTER XXII

DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT

Section i. The Person and the Toilet.

arks of Aristocracy. — An oval face, broad above
and narrow below, golden hair, fair skin,
white, delicate, and well-formed hands with
slender tapering fingers : these were considered
by the ancient Irish as marking the type of beauty
and aristocracy.* Among the higher classes the finger-
nailsf were kept carefully cut and rounded : and beautiful
nails are often mentioned with commendation. It
was considered shameful for a man of position to have
unkempt nails : among several opprobious terms applied
by Conan Mael to the warrior Cairell is crechtingnech,
' ragged-nailed.' Crimson-coloured finger-nails were greatly
admired. In the Tain a young lady is described as having,
among other marks of beauty, " regular, circular, crimson
nails " ; and ladies sometimes dyed them this colour.
Deirdre, uttering a lament for the sons of Usna, says : — -

* All the above characteristics are mentioned so often in Irish writings
that it is unnecessary to give references.

f Inga or ionga, ' a finger-nail.' As to the nails, see Silva Gad., 381,
with Irish text, 339, s. Tromdamh, 71, bottom : Hyde, Lit. Hist., 258,
bottom ; Sons of Usna, 413, note 44 : and Sullivan, Introd., 72, 73.

176

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT Vj>]

" I sleep no more, and I shall not crimson my nails : no
" joy shall ever again come upon my mind."*

Ladies sometimes dyed the eyebrows black with the
juice of some sort of berry, as appears from the following
expression in Cael's poem in praise of the lady Crede
[cray] : — " A bowl she has whence berry-juice flows, with
which she colours her eyebrows black, "f We have already
seen (vol. I., p. 343) that the Irish missionary monks some-
times painted or dyed their eyelids black. An entry in
Cormac's Glossary plainly indicates that the blush of the
cheeks was sometimes heightened by a colouring matter
obtained from a plant named ruam. The Glossary thus
explains the word : — " Ruam, i.e. ro-eim, an herb that
gives colour to the face until it is red. "J The ruam was
the alder : but the sprigs and berries of the elder-tree were
applied to the same purpose, as appears by the " kenning "
or figurative name — the " reddening of faces " — given to
this tree in a passage in the Book of Ballymote.§ It is to
be hoped that bedecking the face with an artificial blush
was practised only by ladies : but the authorities do not
enlighten us on the point : or perhaps it would be more
correct to say they leave a sort of presumption that the
practice was common to men and women. In connexion
with all this, it is proper to remark that among Greek and
Roman ladies the practice was very general of painting
the cheeks, eyebrows, and other parts of the face.

The Hair. — Both men and women wore the hair long,
and commonly flowing down on the back and shoulders — a
custom noticed by Cambrensis, and pronounced by him,
in his narrow-minded way, barbarous, because among the
Anglo-Normans of his time it was the fashion to trim the

* Sons of Usna, Atlantis, ill. 413 : Ir. Texte, 1. 79, „. This is like the
practice of the Egyptian ladies dyeing their finger-tips with henna.

t O'Curry, MS. Mat., 309, 595, 6. Silva Gad., 120 (Irish text, m).
Berry-juice is here called sugh-subh, from sugh, ' juice,' and subh ' a berry.'
\ Corm. Gloss., 144: Three Ir. Gloss. 39 (for the Irish).
Kuno Meyer, in Rev. Celt., xm 220, note.

178 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

hair short. The hair was combed daily after a bath, as is
shown by the passage from the Battle of Rossnaree, quoted
at p. 185, infra. The heroes of the Fena of Erin, before
sitting down to their dinner after a hard day's hunting,
always took a bath and carefully combed their long hair.
The Irish derived this fashion of the hair from old times ;
for we know that part of Gaul was called " Gallia Comata,"
from the long hair worn by the people.*

Among the higher classes in very early times great
care was bestowed on the hair : its regulation constituted
quite an art ; and it was dressed up in several ways. Very
often the long hair of men, as well as of women, was
elaborately curled. Conall Cernach's hair, as described in
Da Derga (p. 199), flowed down his back, and was done up
in " hooks and plaits and swordlets." The accuracy of
this and other similar descriptions is fully borne out by
the most unquestionable authority of all, namely, the
figures in the early illuminated manuscripts and on the
shrines and high crosses of later ages. In nearly all the
figures of the Book of Kells, for example (7th or 8th century)
the hair is combed and dressed with the utmost care, so
beautifully adjusted indeed that it could have been done
only by skilled professional hairdressers, and must have
occupied much time. Whether in case of men or women,
it hangs down both behind and at the sides, and is com-
monly divided the whole way, as well as all over the head,
into slender fillets or locks, which sometimes hang down
to the eyes in front. In some cases the fillets are combed
down straight, though kept carefully separate ; but in
others each is beautifully curled or twisted spirally the
whole way down, which must have been done with a
curling-iron of some kind. These descriptions apply to
the hair of priests and nuns as well as to that of lay people.
In the seventh century this elaborate arrangement of the
hair must have been universal among the higher classes :

* Ware, Antiqq., 176

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT

179

for the artist who drew the figures in the Book of Kells
has represented the hair dressed and curled in the manner
described, not only on the figures of men and women,
whether lay or ecclesiastical, but even on those of angels.
The three nuns represented on the Breac Moedoc [Brack
Mogue : thirteenth century] have the hair hanging down
on each side to the waist : not divided into fillets, but each
a single mass twisted spirally. Two other figures from
the same shrine, given here — both ecclesiastical — show
very well how men had
the hair and beard dressed,
which is seen still better
in the figure of the Evan-
gelist at page 197, below.
I do not find mentioned
anywhere that the Irish
dyed their hair, as was the
custom among the Greeks
and Romans.

For women, very long
hair has been in Ireland
always considered a mark
of beauty. For example,
in the Tain, a lovely lady
is described as having her
yellow hair parted in four
wreaths, three of them braided round her head, and the
fourth hanging down to her ankles.* This admiration
has come down to the present ; for you constantly find
mentioned in the Irish popular songs of our own day, a
maiden " with golden hair that swept the dew off the
grass " — or some such expression. The long fair hair
hanging down at the back was called cuilfhionn [coolin] ;
from cul, the back of the head, and finn or fionn, white :
whence the well-known anglicised word coolin or coolun,

* O'Curry, Man & Cust., II. no

Fig. aaa.

Figures of two ecclesiastics worked in bronze
on the Breac Moedoc, the ' Shrine of St. Maidoc or
Moeue,' dating from abont the thirteenth century.
See vol. I., p. 570, note •. (From Miss Stokes's
Early Christian Art, p. 107.)

iSo

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

which is often applied to a fair-haired person, but which is
now better known as the name of a beautiful Irish air, and
of Moore's exquisite song to it.

In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, it
was usual, among the general run of people, for unmarried
girls to wear the hair carefully combed out and hanging
down loosely on the back : while married women more
commonly bound it up round the head, with bright-
coloured ribbons and long pins, in tasteful knots and
wreaths : generally with a covering of some
kind — a cap or folded kerchief.*

The practice of braiding the hair must
have been very general among men as
among women. One test of the activity
of a candidate for admission to the ranks
of the Fena of Erin (vol. I., p. 87, supra)
was that he should be able to run and
escape from pursuers through a wood-
without letting the braids of his hair be
disordered by the branches, f It was con-
sidered an accomplishment for a young
man to be able to plait hair well. J

Very often — especially in active life —
the hair was bound up and confined with
rings or circlets, called by various names,
such as fdinne, flesc, buinne (or bunde), of gold, silver,
or white bronze ; or with ribbons or fillets of different
materials, or with thin flexible gold plates (called
lann or niamlann : see pp. 249, 250, below). This mode
of disposing of the hair — both of men and women — is'
constantly referred to in the tales. § That these binders
were often of gold we know, partly from the literature

* On this see Lynch, Cambr. Ev., 11. 169.

t O'Grady, Silva Gad., 100 : Keating, 350. J Three Fragm., 35.

§ For example, Voyage of Bran, 1. 60, „ ; 72, 3I : O'Curry, Man. & Cust.,
J59> 9: !69, top ; 188, bottom : Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 248. Such
references might be indefinitely multiplied.

fig. 233.

Portions of the plaited
hair of a woman whose
body, clothed in antique
woollen costume, was
found buried in hard
gravel, under a bog, 4!4
feet deep, in the County
Down, in the year 1780.
(From Proc. Roy. Irish
Academy, IX. 102.) For
more about this find, see
note under illustrations,
P. 352. in/ra.

CHAP. XXIIJ DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT

131

and partly from the testimony of the National and other
museums, in which may be seen many long plates and
ribbons of gold, most of them probably used to confine
the hair. One beautiful golden ribbon of this kind in
the National Museum, 5 feet long, will be mentioned in
section 3 of this chapter. The forehead-band or fillet
usually worn by a charioteer, sometimes of bronze or
findruine, sometimes of a woven fabric, was called gipne*
— a word also applied to a doctor's cupping-horn (I. 621,

Fig. 224.

Fig. 225.

Fig. 226.

Ancient Irish Combs, of bone, now in National Museum. Fig. 224 is 10 inches long : fig. 225
2J4 inches : fig. 226, 2^ inches. (They are not drawn here to uniform scale.) Fig. 224 is of one
single piece, with thin metal plates riveted on the sides. The other two have each two plates
riveted together, with the teeth inserted between, and firmly riveted : so that if a tooth got broken,
it could be withdrawn and a new one inserted. (From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 271.)

supra). At the end of this chapter will be found a notice
of the custom of suspending light, hollow gold balls from
the ends of the hair- wreaths. In later times the long locks
worn on the back and sides of the head by men were called
glibbes by Anglo-Irish writers. t

Combs. — From what precedes it will be understood
that combs were in general use with men as well as with
women : and many specimens — some made of bone, some
of horn — some plain, some ornamented — have been found

* Wooing of Emer, p. 72, i9: LU, p. 122, b, 8#, »7.
t Ware, Antiqq., 176, bottom.

1 82 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

in lisses, crannoges, and such like places. In the Crannoge
of Cloonfinlough near Strokestown in Roscommon have
been found combs in an incomplete state of manufacture,
indicating a combmaker's workshop.* The comb — Irish
cir or cior [keer] — is, as we might expect, often mentioned
in ancient Irish writings. In the story of Maildune, two
great birds are said to have " picked and sleeked the
plumage [of another bird] as if it were done with a
comb."t

As long hair was so much admired, so baldness was
considered a serious blemishj : and as showing the notice
it attracted, we find it classified in Cormac's Glossary
(p. 143, " Range ") into six different kinds, which the
author names and describes. Mail, mael, or maol is the
Irish word for bald ; and baldness is designated by matte
[meela].

The Beard. — The men were as particular about the
beard as about the hair. The common Irish names for
the beard were ulcha and feasdg [faissoge], of which the
last is still in use. It was also called grend or greann
(Conn. 90) : in O'Clery's Glossary greann is explained
by " ulcha or feasdg." In very early times the men —
especially the soldiers and higher classes of people — wore
the full beard. The soldiers of King Domnall, marching
to the Battle of Moyrath, had " tufted beards covering and
" surrounding their cheeks and mouths, their faces and
" their heroic chins : great is the length of their beards,
" which reach to their navels."

The fashion of wearing the beard varied. Sometimes
it was considered becoming to have it long and forked,
and gradually narrowing to two points below. King
Concobar mac Nessa — like many of his attendant heroes —
is described as having " a double-forked beard upon his
chin " : and other kings and mighty heroes are constantly

* Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., v. 211. t Rev- Celt-» x- 77-

t O'Curry, Man. & Cust., n. 144, bottom : Da Derga, p. 286.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 183

described as wearing their beards in this fashion. On several
panels of the high crosses at Monasterboice and elsewhere,
as well as on the shrines, and in the Book of Kells, are
figures of men with full beards : in some the beard is
forked ; in others it falls down in a single mass : while in
a few it is cut rectangularly not unlike Assyrian beards
(see the figures on St. Manchan's shrine, p. 204, below).
Nearly all have a mustache, in most cases curled up and
pointed at the ends as we often see now. In some there is
a mustache without a beard : and a few others have the
whole face bare. In many the beard is carefully divided
into slender twisted fillets, as described above, for the hair.
All this must have taken great trouble and a long time to
arrange : but among the higher classes there was provision
for it ; for kings and chiefs had their barbers (p. 184, infra).
Indeed men must have given more time to this part of the
toilet than women ; for they had both hair and beard to
attend to.

It was disgraceful to have the hair and beard trimmed
short. When Cuculainn had his hair and beard cut off
by Curoi mac Daire, who had vanquished him in single
combat, and inflicted this humiliation on him, he remained
in a hiding-place till both grew sufficiently long to be
presentable. None others but nobles, chiefs, and warriors
were permitted to wear the full beard : and those who wore
it were bound by laws of honour to be brave and generous,
never to retreat in battle, never to resort to mean ways of
fighting, never to engage in manual or servile labour, and
to be always ready to relieve distress. Working people
were prohibited from wearing beards, so that they were
expected to shave at least once a month.*

The beard that grew on the upper lip, when the lower
part of the face was shaved, was called crombeol (' stoop-
mouth '), what we now designate a mustache. This term

* All this is laid down in a short ancient Irish piece called Gets* Ulchai,
or Prohibitions of Beard, edited by O'Looney, in Bee. Fola, 191.

184

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

is often met with in Anglo-Irish writings in the form
crommeal. This was the fashion sometimes adopted by
soldiers marching to battle, who probably regarded
the long beard on the chin as an encumbrance.
Among the silly measures passed by the Anglo-Irish
Parliament in 1465, was one prohibiting the crommeal —
commanding all the Irish within the Pale to shave the
upper lip like the English*

That the ancient Irish used a razor
(in Irish alt or altan) is proved by the
fact that it is mentioned in our very
oldest documents, and in such a way as
shows it to have been a very familiar
article. In a poem in the Book of
Leinster, alt, ' a razor,' is mentioned
twice : — " as sharp as a razor was his
spear."f In Cormac's Glossary (p. 10)
altan is derived from ail, ' edge,' and
teinn, 'sharp-cutting.' In a still older
authority, the Milan eighth - century
glosses on the Psalms, the Latin raso-
rium acutum is explained by the Irish
commentator: — Amal inscrissid, edon,
anial innaltain ndith : or in English,
"as a scraper, that is, as a sharp razor. "J
This shows moreover that the razor was then used in
shaving as it is now, by a sort of scraping movement
against the beard. In the Book of Leinster it is stated
that the "man of shaving" {i.e. barber) to the sons of
Miled was Maen of the Mighty Deeds, and that he
received as fee for his office the district of Berramain,
lying along the shore near Tralee in Kerry, which was so
called — says the legend — from berrad, ' shaving,' and main,

* See Lynch, Cambr. Ev., n. 219 : and "Ware, Antiqq., 176, bottom.

t'MS. Mat., 481.

J Stokes and Strachan, Thesaurus, I., p. 245. See also Zeuss, 657, iB.

Fig. 227.

Bronze cutting-instrument,
believed to be a Razor. It is
all of one piece, 3'A inches
long, i'X inch wide, with the
two edges very thin, hard, and
sharp. In National Museum,
where there are others like
it. (From Wilde's Catalogue,
P- 549)

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 185

'riches or reward': — Berrad-main, 'pay for shaving.'*
A razor was also called berr-scian : " shaving-knife."

The Bath. — Bathing was very usual, at least among the
upper classes, and baths and the use of baths are constantly
mentioned in the old tales and other writings. The bath
was a large tub or vat usually called dabach, but sometimes
ammor, omur, or lothomur : bathing — taking a bath — was
designated jothrucud.\ People bathed daily, generally in
the evening ; and it was usual to prepare a bath for a
guest. In the " Battle of Rossnaree " (pp. 33, 35), we read
that when King Concobar's army were encamped for the
night, after a day's march, " fires were kindled, food and
" drink were prepared, they went into baths where they
" were carefully cleansed, their hair was smooth-combed,
" after which they had supper." In one of the houses that
Maildune came to he found a bath ready : and a certain
person who entertained St. Brendan and his companions
in their voyage, had a bath prepared for them on their
arrival.J In the story of Goll and Garb we read that
when Concobar and his retinue were entertained at the
house of Conall the brewy, a bath was prepared for them
after supper.§ In the commentaries on the Senchus M6r
it is incidentally mentioned that Fergus mac Leide, king
of Ulster, took a bath every day. There was a bath for
the use of visitors in the guest-house of every monastery :
when St. Cairnech of Tuilen came on a visit to the
monastery of Duleek, a bath was prepared for him in a
dabach : and we are told in the Crith Gabhlach that every
brugh-fer or brewy had in his house a bathing-vessel (long-
foilcthe).\\ Kings and chiefs were in the habit of bathing

* Silva Gad., 525, middle, and 478, 33. LL, 167, b, 6. and " Contents,"
43, b, middle. Other references to razors and shaving, Br. Laws, 1. 125, 3.
and 133, 23: Ir. Texte, 1. 277, 3: Moyrath, 20, 3i and 21, 4.

f Mac Conglinne, 11, M: Corm. Gloss., 73. J Brendan., 144.

§ Rev. Celt., xiv. 417.

|| Br. Laws, iv. 311, ,4. See Foilcim in Glossary of Atkinson, Pass. &
Horn.

1 86 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

and anointing themselves with oil and precious sweet-
scented herbs : as we find in the case of Cellach, king of
Connaught, who, before a battle, bathed and anointed
himself in this manner.* So Ulysses bathes and anoints
himself with olive oil after being shipwrecked on the coast
of Phaeacea (Odyss. VI.). A king of Leinster died at Naas
while in a bath, as sometimes happens people at the
present day.

Every bath was furnished with a number of round
stones. Among the articles of furniture in the guest-house
of the Cork monastery was " a bath-tub with its stones, "f
They must have been moderately small : for in the Gloss
on the Senchus Mor we read that Fergus mac Leide being
once angered by the bond-woman Dorn, he killed her with
a bath-stone {cloch-fothraicthe)% : no doubt by flinging it at
her. The bath stones are constantly referred to in all sorts
of Irish documents : but what the use of them was is a
puzzle. It has been suggested that the water was heated
by throwing the heated stones into it : and this view
receives countenance from an incident related in Jocelin's
" Life of St. Patrick " (Cap. C), that the saint cursed the
stones of Ushnagh, after which " they cannot be heated by
" fire, nor when plunged into water [after coming out of the
" fire] do they hiss like other stones " : which seems to
show that Jocelin believed the stones were used to heat
the water. In the far older Tripartite Life, where the
same circumstance is told, nothing is said about heating
the stones, but merely that after the curse, nothing good
is made of them, " not even bathing-stones."

But it seems incredible that they heated bath-water
in this uncouth fashion ; for we know they often heated it
in the ordinary way. In the Battle of Moyrath (275, 20 ;

* Three Fragments, 107, top : and Silva Gad., 443, bottom. Other
references to baths and bathing, Silva Gad., 77, bottom : Miss Hull,
Cuch. Saga, 130, J2 (LL, 59, 7) : Mesca Ulad, 47 : Ir. Texte, 1. 295, 6

t Mac Conglinne, 10, 2fi. % Br. Laws, I. 69, ,,.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 187

277, 3) we are told that in the house of a certain chief, the
women were preparing a bath " for washing and bathing " ;
and that they heated the water with firewood. In the
tale of the Sons of Usna (Atlantis, in., p. 409), Deirdre.is
represented as preparing a bath for Naisi " over the fire " :
and such examples might be multiplied.*

Cormac's Glossary distinguishes between fothrucud,
bathing the whole body, and indlot (or indluf) , washing the
feet or hands ; and this distinction is generally recognised
in the old writings. As the people had a full bath some
time down late in the day, they did not bathe in the
morning, but merely washed their hands ; for which
purpose they generally went out immediately after rising
and dressing, to some well or stream near the house. This
practice is constantly referred to. " At early morning,"
says Mac Conglinne (70 : also 58), " I rose and went to the
well to wash my hands." In the Sick Bed of Cuculainn,
Eochaid Iuil goes out early in the morning to wash {do
ilnuf) his hands at the spring ; and a better-known example
is where, as we are told in the Lives of St. Patrick, the two
daughters of King Laegaire came out in the early morning
to the well of Clebach near Cruachan " to wash their hands
as was their custom. "f

In both washing and bathing they used soap (sleic,
pron. slake). In the Crith Gabhlach we are told that
foulness is washed away from a person's, honour as the
face is washed with soap (sleic) and water and a linen
cloth. I

* In O'Grady's Silva Gadelica, p. 283 (transl.), the quarrel between
King Fergus and his queen is related " anent precedence in the use of the
bath-stone." But in the corresponding part of the Irish text, as given in
the first volume (p. 250, 24) — tre imremim fothraicthe — it will be observed
that the word for " stone " (cloiche) does not appear — perhaps a printer's
error. The original manuscript is inaccessible to me : and, as matters
stand, this passage teaches us nothing on the point.

f Trip. Life, 101, top line : see also Tain bo Fraich, 165.

J Br. Laws, iv. 319.

1 88 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Small Toilet Articles. — Mirrors of polished metal must
have been common from very early times, for they are
often mentioned ; generally by one or the other of the
two names, scathdn [skahan] and scadarc, this last spelled
variously scaiderc, scadarcc, and the oldest form scaterc [all
now pron. sky-ark]. The great antiquity of the article is
shown by its mention in Zeuss's Glosses (854, is), where
scaterc glosses lucar, i.e. speculum, and where it is derived
from scdth-derc, 'shadow-seeing,' or a 'shadow see-er.'
From scdth [skaw], ' a shadow,' is also derived the other
name scathdn, which is merely a diminutive form. In the

Senchus M6r, among many house-
hold articles, is mentioned a scadarc,
which is explained by the other
word scathdn ; and a man is spoken
of as looking into it to see his
image (scdth)* In the same autho-
rity (I., 235, 3 from bottom) the
a ^.dbox^Jinches ac^: white cloth and "the nitairic, i.e.
c-S";:^;: the scathdn or mirror," are men-
SS£ mSZSltJ™ tioned as among the articles of the
toilet : which gives another name
for the mirror — nitairic. In both these entries certain
regulations are laid down against removing the mirror
when one is using it, " looking at his image." In the
romantic story of the Death of Fergus mac Leide, king
of Ulster, we are told that this king was struck with
a deformity in his face which he was not aware of, and
care was taken that a mirror {scathdn) should not be left
in his way. But one day when he and his queen had a
quarrel, she, in her anger, brought him a mirror, in which
he saw his face with his mouth all awry.f

Small articles of the toilet, and especially combs, were
kept by women in a little bag which they carried about

*Br. Laws, 1. 124, i3; 125, n ; 138, 30; 139, 34.
t Silva Gad., 283.

CHAP. XXIl] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 189

with them, called a ciorbholg [keerwolg], i.e. ' comb-bag '
(cior, ' a comb ' : bolg, ' a bag '). The Book of Aicill lays
down that a woman is exempt from liability in certain cases
of quarrel, if she shows her comb-bag and her distaff (cuigel)
in presence of her guardian (Br. Laws, in. 291, top).

2. Dress.

Materials. — Woollen and linen clothes formed the dress
of the great mass of the people. Both were produced at
home ; and elsewhere in this book the mode of manufac-
turing them will be described. Silk and satin, which were
of course imported, were much worn among the higher
classes, and we find both constantly noticed in our literature.
The flags and banners used with armies were usually made
of silk or satin, as we find mentioned in the Book of Rights
and in many of the historic tales. The ordinary word for
silk was sida [sheeda] ; but it was also sometimes called
striae, a word coming from the same origin as the English
silk, and Lat. sericum : from which again comes the adjec-
tive sirecda, ' silken.' But siriac was also occasionally
applied to satin. The common word for satin is srdll
[srole], both in the old and in the modern language.

The furs of animals, such as seals, otters, badgers,
foxes, &c, were much used for capes and jackets, and
for the edgings of various garments, so that skins of all
the various kinds were valuable. They formed, too, an
important item of everyday traffic, and they were also
exported.* St. Molaise of Devenish wore a hood of
badgers', skins, which, after his death, was cherished as a
relic, and called the brocainech [bruckanagh], from broc, ' a
badger. 'f In 1861 a cape was found in a bog at Derry-
keighan in Antrim, six feet beneath the surface, made alto-
gether of otter skins. " The workmanship of the sewing "
— says Mr. Robert Mac Adam, who gives an account of it J

* Wilde, Catalogue, 279. f Silva Gad., 21, bottom.

J In Ulst. Journ. Archaeol., ix. 294.

190 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

— " is wonderfully beautiful and regular : and the several
" parts are joined so as not to disturb the fur, so that from
" the outside it looks as if formed of one piece."

In Scotland the tartan is much used — a sort of cloth,
generally of wool, sometimes of silk — plaided or cross-barred
in various colours. In some English dictionaries the word
is conjectured to be derived from the French teretaine,
which is not a good guess : but both the material and the
name originated in Ireland. The original Gaelic name is
tuartan, as we find it used several times, both in the
Senchus Mor, and in the glosses on it, where tuartan is
defined to be a sort of material " containing cloth of every
colour."*

Colours. — Before entering on the particular forms of
dress it will be well to say a few words on colours. The
ancient Irish loved bright colours. In this respect they
resembled many other nations of antiquity — as well indeed
as of the present day ; and they illustrated Ruskin's saying
(speaking of poppies) : — " Whenever men are noble they
" love bright colour, . . . and bright colour is given to
" them in sky, sea, flowers, and living creatures." The
Irish love of colour expressed itself in all parts of their
raiment : and in chapter xxvi. (p. 356), below, it will be
shown that they well understood the art of dyeing.

Everywhere in our ancient literature we find dress-
colours mentioned. Cahirmore, king of Ireland, saw in
his sleep a vision, namely, the daughter of a brewy, with a
beauteous form, and every colour in her dress, f Ailill and
Maive, king and queen of Connaught in the first century,
when showing off their treasures — as related in the " Tain "
in the Book of LeinsterJ — brought forward their stores of
apparel, " purple, blue, black, green, yellow, speckled, grey,
brownish-grey, pied, and striped." In the Ulster army, as.

* Br. Laws, i. 188, l8. 189, 24> 25; 239, <.
t Kilk. Archasol. Journ., 1872-3, p. 31.
X LL, 54, a, 36: Man. & Cust., 90.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 191

described in the Tain, was one company with various-
coloured mantles : — " some with red cloaks ; others with
" light blue cloaks ; others with deep blue cloaks ; others
" with green, or blay, or white, or yellow cloaks, bright and
" fluttering about them : and there is a young red-freckled
" lad, with a crimson cloak in their midst."*

The king of Tara, as recorded in the Book of Rights,
was bound to give, as stipend every year to the provincial
king of Emain, who was his subordinate, " twelve suits of
clothes of every colour " : and in the same book we often
find notices of such articles as a purple cloak, a cloak with
purple border, " ten red cloaks and ten blue cloaks."

King Domnall, in the seventh century, on one occasion
sent a many-coloured tunic (inar-ildathach) to his foster-
son Prince Congalf : like Joseph's coat of many colours.
The fashion of dyeing a single, cloak variously was so usuaV
that we sometimes find it specially mentioned, as a thing
worthy of notice, that a man's cloak had only one colour. J
Colours are also depicted in the few drawings that have
come down to us, as for instance in the Book of Kells ; but
Dr. Keller is of opinion that no inference can be drawn
from these figures as to the hues of the several garments
in real life ; for he thinks that the colours are often flung
in any way, according to the fancy or caprice of the
artist.§ In several of the figures in this same book the
upper mantle has a uniform pattern consisting of little
spot-clusters about three inches asunder, irregularly
placed : each cluster formed of three little white circular
spots close together like a shamrock — but not a shamrock.
This pattern is seen in the figure of the Evangelist at
p. 197, infra, and it so often occurs that in this case at
least we may conclude it represents a fabric often worn in
real life.

* MS. Mat., 38, bot. For another good example, see Rev. Celt., xrv. 413.
t Moyrath, 39. + Voyage of Bran, p. 72, 19, 20.

§ Ulst. Journ. of Archa^ol., vm. 229.

I92 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

We are told in our legendary history that exact regu-
lations for the wearing of colours by the different ranks of
people were made by King Tigernmas [Teernmas] and by
his successor, Eochaid Edguthach (' Ochy the cloth-
designer '), many centuries before the Christian era : — a
slave was to be dressed in clothes of one colour ; a peasant
or farmer in two ; and so on up to a king and queen and an
ollave of any sort ; all of whom were privileged to wear six
(FM, a.m. 3656, 3664). Whatever degree of credence may
be accorded to this legend, it is certain that in historic
times there was some such arrangement : for the commen-
tator on the Senchus M6r lays down with some detail the
colours to be worn by children in fosterage, the clothes of
those of kings and high-class chiefs having more varied,
brilliant, and costly colours than those of the lower grades.*
All people, young and old, wore brightly-coloured clothes,
so far as they could afford, or were allowed them : and we
may infer from this Brehon Law example that the distri-
bution of colours among various classes of people in
ordinary life was subjected to some sort of supervision
and regulation.

At the present day green is universally regarded as the
national colour : but this is a very modern innovation. It
is well known that at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, the
Irish wore little strips of white paper in their caps, while
the Williamites wore sprigs of green. In ancient times
some colours were preferred to others. Purple, for
instance, was a favourite with kings, for no other reason
apparently than its great scarcity and expensiveness
(for which see p. 363, below). On this account it is now
sometimes designated the imperial or royal colour : but
its preference had certainly nothing to do with nation-
ality : and as a matter of fact the ancient Irish had no
national colour.

• Br. Laws, IX. 147, 149

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 193

Classification of Upper Garments. — The upper garments
worn by men were of a variety of forms and had many
names : besides which, fashions of course changed as time
went on, though, as I think, very slowly. Moreover, the
several names were often loosely applied, like the English
words " coat," " mantle," " frock," &c. ; so that it is often
impossible to fix exact limitations. But the articles them-
selves were somewhat less vague than their names ; and
so far as they can be reduced to order, the upper garments
of men may be said to have been mainly of four classes : —

1. A large cloak, generally without sleeves, varying in
length, but commonly covering the whole person from the
shoulders down.

2. A short tight-fitting coat or jacket with sleeves, but
with no collar.

3. A cape for the shoulders, commonly, but not always,
carrying a hood to cover the head.

4. A sort of petticoat, the same as the present Highland
kilt. There was nothing to correspond with our waistcoat.

Sometimes only one of those was used, viz. either the
outer mantle or the short frock — with of course in all
cases the under and nether clothing ; but often two were
worn together ; sometimes three ; and occasionally the
whole four.

1. Loose Upper Garment. — The long cloak assumed
many shapes : sometimes it was a formless mantle down
to the knees ; but more often it was a loose though shaped
cloak reaching to the ankles. This last was so generally
worn by men in out-door life that it was considered
characteristic of the Irish. It had frequently a fringed or
shaggy border, round the neck and down the whole way on
both edges, in front ; and its material was according to the
rank or means of the wearer. Among the higher classes it
was of fine cloth edged with silk or satin or other costly
material. Sometimes the whole cloak was of silk or satin ;
and it was commonly dyed in some bright colour, or more

194 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

often — as we have said — striped or spotted with several
colours. In the numerous figures in the Book of Kells (7th
or 8th century) the over-garment is very common : some-
times it is represented full length, but often only as far as
the knees or the middle of the thigh.

The large outer garment of whatever material was
known by several names, according to shape, of which
the most common was brat or bratt, gen. and pi. bruit,
dat. brut : which appears to have been a general term for
any outer garment, and which is still in common use,
though somewhat altered in meaning. The word fallainn
[foiling : from Eng. f aiding] was applied to a loose cloak or
mantle, reaching about to the knees : but it has nearly
dropped out of use. This was the name given to Giraldus
Cambrensis by his informant in 11 85 : and he gave it the
Latin form phalingium : — " Under which [i.e. under the
" hooded cape : see p. 200, infra] they wear woollen
" phalingiums instead of palliums or cloaks "* (that is,
instead of the long cloaks that Giraldus was accustomed to) .
There were other names for a mantle, which evidently
point to some difference in material or make. The
lummon was a cloak or ' wrap ' of coarse material. In
Peter O'Connell's Dictionary the word is explained " a
coarse cover, a large great coat, sackcloth " : and it was
sometimes applied to a sack. According to the Dinn-
senchus legend, Limerick derived its name from the
circumstances that a high tide once flowed over a number
of men standing on the brink, and carried off their loose
luimne or lummons ; whence the place was called Luimnech,
i.e. a spot full of lummons. Mac Conglinne, the ecclesiastical
student, on his way to the Cork monastery, travels in his
cloak, which he calls more than once his " white lumman "f;
and in the story of Mongan in LU, a lay student is described

* Top. Hib., in. x. ; see also Book of Rights, 38, note / : and Lynch,
Cambr. Ev., n. 201. \ Mac Conglinne, pp. 9, 27. and 25, IS.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 195

as wrapped in his lummon while learning his lesson.* In
Cormac's Glossary (p. 104) the word lend, which was in
common use for some sort of coat or mantle, is derived in
this manner : — " Lend, the name for a white brat or mantle,
from lee-find, ' white wool.' " This entry, and Mac Con-
glinne's " white lummon," point to the practice, which we
know from other sources (vc4. 1., p. 343, supra) was common
enough, of making these coarse garments from undyed
wool — the natural colour just as it came from the sheep's
back. If the sheep from which the wool was taken were
black, then of course the lummon was black ; and black
sheep must have been — at one time at least — very general,
for Giraldus says that nearly all the woollen clothes the
Irish wore in his time were black, " that being the colour
of the sheep in this country " (Top. Hib. in. x.).

The fuan or fuaman was a loose brat or mantle :
O'Clery's Glossary explains it as meaning a kind of brat.
In the " Demon Chariot " Cuculainn is described as wearing
a fuan of bluish-crimson around him with borders of pure
white, silver, The word matal was applied to some sort of
loose cloak, apparently — as O'Donovan believesf — another
name for the fallainn. The term seems borrowed from
Norse mottul, both words being masculine, and both pro-
bably connected with Lat. mantelum, the n of this dropping
out, as usual, in the transfer. In the Lebar Brecc the
garment worn by our Lord is called a matal. The outer
garment was called by another name, tlacht : " tlacht, that
is, a brat or cloak," says O'Clery's Glossary. Momera, the
Spanish princess, made a tlacht or cloak of bright-coloured
wool for her intended husband Eoghan Mor, king of
Munster.J Still another name for the brat was fola, which is
given in O'Clery's and Cormac's Glossaries (Corm. 73).

It was a very common fashion to have, on the loose
cloak, five folds or plaits, called in Irish c6ic diabail :

* Voyage of Bran, i. 54. f In Book of Rights, p. 38, note /.

X Moylena, 163.

I96 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

from cdic, five : diabal, a plate or fold : diabul, duplex
(Z., 980, 3i). In the story of Laegaire Liban, a warrior is
seen emerging from the mist wearing a purple five-fold
brat* : Mac Conglinne's cloak is in one place called lummon-
coic diabalta, a five-fold lummon : while Cuculainn, in the
" Courtship of Emer," is described as wearing a beautiful
five-fold fuan around him. The folds apparently ran
across, not lengthwise.

Women wore similar cloaks called by the same names.
The woman that was to wait on Mac Conglinne (p. 96, i4)
was to have a purple five-fold bratt about her : and in the
Tain bo Fraich in the Book of Leinster, the fifty women
from the shee are described as wearing purple tunics (inar),
green head-dresses, and brooches of silver. f Women
often wore a variously-coloured tunic down to the very
feet, with many folds and much material — twenty or thirty
yards — which was different from the bratt and from the
hooded cloak mentioned below. Under this was a long
gown or kirtle. Linen, whether used by men or women,
was commonly dyed saffron. The long cloak worn by
women had often a hood attached at top which commonly
hung down on the back over the cloak, but which could
be turned up so as to cover the head at any moment when
wanted. A woman represented on one of the crosses at
Clonmacnoise appears with a hooded-cloak of this kind,
the hood hanging down behind : and the country-women
wear this sort of cloak to the present day all through
Ireland.

The loose cloak, of whatever shape or by whatever
name called, was almost always fastened at the throat by a
brooch. Cloaks in their various forms and with their
several names were an important commodity of inter-
change, and very often constituted part of the tribute
given by or to kings.

* Stokes, Lives of SS., xxxiv.
t Tain bo Fr., 149.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT

197

It is difficult or impossible to embrace all varieties of
clothing in any formal classification : and as a matter of
fact there was another article of full-covering dress worn
in very early times by both men and women, hardly
included in any of the preceding descriptions. In the
Book of Kells (7th or 8th century)
a large number of the figures, both
of men and women, have the usual

FIG. M«. FIG. a*).

Figure 239. representation of an Angel. (From the Book of Kells : Dr. Abbott's Reproductions, Plate XIV.)
Figure 330, representation of one of the Evangelists. (From same, Plate XVIII.)

outside mantle generally reaching to about the knees, and
under it a long narrow garment like a petticoat (but not
a kilt), from the shoulders down to the insteps, widening
towards the bottom, yet so narrow that it would obviously
interfere with the free movement of the feet in quick walking.
I do not find this mentioned in the written records any-

10,8 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

where — at least so as to be recognisable ; but^ it is depicted
so often in the Book of Kells that it must have been in
general use. It is quite conspicuous on the Blessed Virgin
and on the Infant Jesus, on angels and evangelists, on our
Lord in the representation of His arrest, and on the two
soldiers who are in the act of arresting Him.* It is well
shown here in figs. 229 and 230, both from the Book of
Kells.

Distinct apparently from the preceding over-mantles
was the loose-flowing tunic — worn over all — usually of
linen dyed saffron, commonly called Mine [2-syll.], which
was in very general use and worn by men and women
in outdoor life. This is noticed by Spenser (p. 102) as
prevalent in his time. It had many folds and plaits and
much material — sometimes as much as thirty yards ; so
that in later times the Anglo-Irish Parliaments made laws
forbidding the use of more than a certain quantity of stuff.
It has been already remarked that the Irish generally wore
this garment in battle. It seems to have been the lend-
brat which the royal army are described as wearing in the
Battle of Moyrath (p. 181, note c), intermediate between
the loose brat and the close-fitting lend : made not too
loose to impede the action of the limbs in fighting, with
probably a waistbelt. Part of the Boroma tribute con-
sisted of " three times-fifty hundred lend-brats." The
saffron-tunic was used in the Hebrides down to the time of
Martin : there it took twenty-four ells of material. It
was he says, called leni-croich, because it was dyed with the
crock or saffron-plant ; and when worn it was tied round the
waist with a belt.

The outer covering of the general run of the peasantry
was just one loose sleeved coat or mantle, generally of
frieze, which covered them down to the ankles ; and which
they wore winter and summer. This is the garment that

* Hodges & Figgis's Reproductions, Plates xxvu., xxvin., xxxi.,

XLI., XLII., L.

chap, xxnj dress And personal adornment 199

drew from Spenser (View, 87) the well-known denunciation
that stands to this day an astonishing example of blind
irrational prejudice and intolerance. Here are a few
extracts ; which are applied, be it remembered, to an
ordinary everyday garment, worn with no more malignant
intentions than are our present overcoats : —

" It is a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt
cloke for a theife. First the outlaw being for his many crimes and
villanyes banished from the townes and houses of honest men, maketh
his mantle his house, and under it covereth himselfe from the wrath
of heaven, from the offence of the earth, and from the sight of men. . . .
Likewise for a rebell it is as serviceable. For in his warre, when he still
flyeth from his foe, and lurketh in thicke woods and straite passages,
it is his bed, yea and almost his household stuff. . . . Lastly for a theife
it is so handsome [convenient] as it may seem it was first invented
for him, for under it he may clearly convey any fit pillage that cometh
handsomely in his way. Besides this, he, or any men els that is dis-
posed to mischief or villany, may under his mantle goe privily armed
without suspicion of any, carry his head-piece, his skean [dagger], or
pistol if he please, to be always in readiness."

And so he continues, throwing in a passage about the
uses to which women turned it, that could not well be
reproduced her.

2. Tight-fitting Upper Garments. — The tight-fitting
sleeved upper garment was something like the present frock-
coat ; but it had no collar, and was much shorter, usually
reaching to about the middle of the thigh, and often only a
little below the hips ; with a girdle at the waist. It was
generally called by one or another of three names : — lenn or
lend, inar, and Mine, line, or leinid : but Mine was also
applied to a shirt, as well as to the saffron-dyed loose tunic.
Persons are very often described as wearing this short
coat with a brat or mantle over it : as for example in the
Bruden Da Derga.* Cuculainn's charioteer wore a tight

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 147, note 218 : LU, 95, a, 3 and .

200

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

inar of leather, over which was a for-brat (' over-brat ') or
loose mantle * Sometimes the tight coat was fastened at
the throat with a brooch like the loose over-cloak. But
lend, like many other terms for garments, was often used
vaguely. The short coat is very well represented in the
figures given below, which, however, belong to a com-
paratively late time, but serve to show how this garment
held on in fashion.

A sleeve, no matter to what article of dress it belonged
was denoted by two names :— lamos and munchille, both

Fig. 231.

Figures carved on a bone book -cover, Now in National Museum. Probably of the thirteenth
or fourteenth century. "Five figures" — says Wilde — "engaged in some sort of game. . . . The
external figures are represented in the act of throwing rings or quoits." The tight-fitting inar or
jerkin well represented here : with striped sleeves and plaited skirts : confined by a waist-belt : all
probably parti-coloured. (From \Y'ilde*s Catalogue, p. 320.)

given in Cormac's Glossary (pp. ioo, 116). He derives
lamos from lam-fhoss, the foss or case of the lam or arm.
The other word he derives from man, the hand, and call,
a case: mun-chille, equivalent to man-cail, 'hand- or
arm-keeper.' Muinchille is the present Irish word for
a sleeve.

3. Cape and Hood. — The short cape, with or without a
hood, was called cuchull or cocholl, corresponding in shape
and name with the Gallo-Roman cucullus, English cowl:

•Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1870-71, p. 423, 5, 8, 36, 40 : LU, 79, a, top line
and those that follow.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT

201

but this English word cowl is now often applied to a hood
simply. The cochull just covered the shoulders : and it is
quite usual to find in the tales persons described as wearing
" a short cochull reaching as far as the elbows."* Some-
times in old writings the diminutive cochline [3-syll.],
" little cochull," is used. Cuculainn wears a cochline ettach
immi con urslocud for a dib n-ulendib,\ " a winged cochline
about him with openings at the
two elbows." Here the word ettach

Fig. 232.

Meeting of Mac Murrogh Kavanagh and the Earl of Gloucester in 1399. (From an illuminated
contemporary English manuscript. Reproduced in Gilbert's Facsim. National Manuscripts,
from which this illustration was copied,) The English appear on the left-hand side.

' winged,' refers to the loose extremities of the sleeves
flying open at the elbows, where they terminated. Both
cape and hood were dyed in colours : Giraldus says
that in his time they were made with variously-coloured
pieces of cloth sewed together. The hood was called
cenniud [ken-yu], from cenn, the head ; or more usually
culpait. It covered the whole head except the face. The
followers of Art mac Murrogh KavanaghJ (fourteenth

* Man. & Cust., 138, l6 : Da Derga, 181 : Rev. Celt., xn. 87.

t LU, 122, b, 28, 29 : Demon Chariot, 376, last line ; 379, top line.

X For whom see Joyce's Short History of Ireland, p. 323.

202 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART 111

century) are shown wearing these odd-looking hoods : and
it is worthy of remark that the English standing beside
them wear head-dresses and capes not very different.
This hood was generally attached to the cowl or cape so
as to form part of it ; as appears clear from the following
examples. In the Bruden Da Derga, Ingcel, describing
certain persons that he saw among many others in Da
Derga's hostel, says that each wore a little cochall or cape,
and a white hood {cenniud) on each cape, and a red tuft
(cuirce, pron. cur-ke) on each cenniud, and an iron brooch
in each cochull* [fastening it at the throat in front].
The three Pictish kings who were in the same hostel
are described by Ingcel as having each a short black cowl
with a long hood on itf ; and again he says, about three
others, that they wore three short black capes reaching
to the elbows, and hoods on the capes. This fashion
continued long, for we find it mentioned in the story of
O'Donnell's kern as in use in the fifteenth century. J In
this same century, too, the hood was sometimes worn in
the Scottish Highlands.§ Still later, Thomas Dineley
(in 1675) observed that the men, in parts of Ireland,
covered their heads with their cloaks. || Cochall is now
applied, as anciently, to any short cape covering the
shoulders.

The word cochall, like many other terms designating
articles of dress, in ancient as well as in modern times,
was often used loosely. It was applied to a monk's cowl :
and the chasuble worn by a priest was sometimes called a
" cassal or cochall."^ We know that the long leathern
cloaks, reaching down to the feet, worn by the soldiers of
Murkertagh mac Neill during his celebrated circuit through
Ireland in the winter of a.d. 941, were called by thisname,

* Man. & Cust., 11. 150, top paragraph. f Stokes, Da Derga, 181.

J Silva Gad., 315, top line : Irish Text, 279, I0.
§ Rob Roy, Introduction. || Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1856-7, p. 186.

UTrip. Life, 384, 4: 399, a3l LB, "Contents," p. 6, bottom.

CHAP. XXIlj DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT i0$

whence he is known in history as Muirchertach na g-cochall
g-croicenn, i.e. ' of the leathern cochalls or cloaks.'* The
fact that these long cloaks were called cochalls renders it
pretty certain that they were furnished with hoods to
protect the head ; a thing we might expect under the
circumstances.

4. The Kilt. — The Gaelic form of this name is celt [kelt],
of which " kilt " is a phonetic rendering. In Cormac's
Glossary (p. 47) celt is vaguely explained by the Latin
vesta, and also by the Irish edach, ' raiment ' : and in
another old authority quoted by O'Donovan in his trans-
lation, it is said to be " anything used as a protection."
This seems nearest to its primary meaning : for celt means
' concealing.' The word occurs so seldom, and is used so
vaguely, that we might find it difficult to identify the
particular article it designates, if the Scotch had not
retained both the article itself and its name : for the High-
land kilt is the ancient Irish celt. In Ireland the garment
itself was very common, though it was seldom called a
celt. On one of the panels of Muiredach's cross at
Monasterboice are represented three soldiers dressed in
kilts reaching to the kneesf : and all the figures on the
shrine of St. Manchan — a work of about the eleventh
century — are similarly attired — the kilts here being very
decided and characteristic, as well as highly ornamented. J
The kilt — commonly falling to the knees — is very fre-
quently met with on the figures of manuscripts, shrines,
and crosses, so that it must have been very much worn
both by ecclesiastics and laymen. The kilt and the bratt
outside it are seen in some of the figures of the illustration
in vol. 1., p. 59, where also, as in all other representations,
the plaits run up and down, like what we see at the present
day. The present Highland article of dress is called kilt

* Joyce, Short History of Ireland, pp. 197, 198.
t Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1872, p. 109, Ia>

* See on this shrine Stokes's Petrie, 285.

204

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

everywhere except among the Highlanders themselves,
whc usually designate it by another Gaelic term, filleadh,
or more generally filleadh-beg (' little garment '), anglicised
philibeg.

FIG. 233.
The figures on one face of the shrine of St. Manchan (for which see vol I., p. 564, supra) : dating
from about the eleventh century. They all represent laymen, and they diminish in size to the right
to suit the shape of the panel. (From Kilk. Archxol. Journ. for 1874-5, P- I45-)

In the story of the Tain we read that one of the games
in which the boys of Emain contended was tearing off
each other's outer garments — truly a rough play. The
little boy Cuculainn entered the field against a number of
them, and while they were not able even to disturb his

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 205

brooch, he tore off the de-chelt from a number of them.*
This de-chelt or ' double celt ' was a loose jacket and celt
combined, as it is defined in Cormac's Glossary (p. 47) : —
" Dechelt, that is to say, a brat and a leine " [joined] :
whereas the celt proper extended only from the waist
down.

In several passages of the Bruden Da Derga persons
are described as wearing berbroca, a term which both
O' Curry and Stokes translate aprons : though Stokes in
one place — and only one (Da Derga, p. 57) — makes it
' drawers ' — apparently on the authority of Zimmer. The
word is always used in LU in the plural number — berr-
broca : but whether the singular is the same, or berbroc, is
at present uncertain. The name of the article seems to
indicate that it was an apron — or possibly some special
sort of kilt — reaching down to the broca or shoes. For
ben means to shave : berr-broca, ' shave-brogues,' because
it just brushed them with its lower hem : exactly as the
word tond, ' a wave,' is said in Cormac's Glossary (p. 161)
to be derived from tondeo, ' I shave,' " because it shaves
[berrad] the grass from off the sea-marsh," where, it will be
observed, the same Irish word (berr) is used.f

Of the four upper garments hitherto mentioned,
Giraldus (a.d. 1185) notices two : — the cochall and the
fallainn, with the trousers (to be presently dealt with
here). He says : — " It is their custom to wear small
" tightly-fitting hoods (caputium is the word he uses)
" hanging the length of a cubit below the shoulders [i.e.
" the cape to which the hood was attached hung so far]
" and generally made of variously coloured-strips sewn
" together."^ Three of them are mentioned in an ancient

*Miss Hull, Cuch. Saga, 139: LL. 63, a, 6 from bottom: Kuno
Meyer, Ventry, 83, ,.

f On berr-broca see O'Curry, Man. & Cust., n. 147 (twice), 148, 149,
183 : and Stokes, Da Derga, 57, 289, 309. Several of the original
passages where the word is used will be found in pp. 94, 95, of LU.

I Top. Hib., in. x. : Book of Rights, 38, note /.

Fig. 238.

F10. 237.

Fig. 236.

Fig 234

10. 235-

\$2&M£Z&^

Fig. 239.

Fig. 240.

Fig. 241.

Bronze pins and button : all very ancient. Figures 234, 235. and 236, drawn natural size. Those with
circular disk-heads are generally very long: figure 240 is I3>4 inches, with a disk 2^ inches in diameter
Figure 241, drawn natural size, a hijfhly-decorated bronze button, enamelled in red and green, with a
a small metal fastening-loop behind. (All from Wilde's Catalogue, pp. 555. 537, 538. 572')

CHAP. XXII DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 20y

Irish poem copied at Armagh in 1139 by Mael-Brigte hua
Mael-Uanaig, noticed by Stokes,* which states that on
each of the Magi who came to visit the Infant Jesus were
three [upper] garments {tri-etaige im each fer dib : " three
garments round each man of them ").- The three were no
doubt the cape with hood, the loose cloak, and the short
tight-fitting coat (with of course the nether garment to
correspond) : the Irish writer attributing to outsiders the
fashion of his native country.

Fasteners for Upper Garments. — The over-garments were
fastened by brooches, pins, buttons, girdles, strings, and
loops. Brooches will be treated of next section. Simple
pins were generally ornamented, head, or shank, or both,
as seen in the annexed figures, of which the originals are
all in the National Museum, with many others.

Nether Garments. — The ancient Irish wore a trousers
which differed in some respects from that worn at the
present day. It generally reached from the hips to the
ankles, and was so tight-fitting as to show perfectly the
shape of the limbs. When terminating at the angles it
was held down by a slender strap passing under the foot,
as seen in one of the figures in the Book of Kells.f Like
other Irish garments it was generally striped or speckled
in various colours. The usual Irish name was triubhas
[truce], which is often correctly anglicised trews, and from
which the modern word " trousers " is derived. The
people of other ancient nations wore parti-coloured trousers
as well as the Irish ; the Gauls and Britons for example ;
among whom it was called braccae. The Romans saw this
article of dress in general use for the first time among the
Gauls : so that they gave the name Gallia Braccata to a
part of Transalpine Gaul. It would seem, that the Irish
and British trousers were also called braccae, I from which

* In Rev. Celt., vm. 346. t Abbott's Reproductions, Plate 1.

J Ware, Antiqq., 176 : Lynch, Cambr. Ev., 11. 213 : De Jubainville,
Cours, Litt. Celt., vi. 371, 372

208

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

comes the modern word breeches : and which, as some
think, is itself derived from the Celtic brecc, speckled.

In the time of Giraldus Cambrensis, the Irish trousers,
hose, and shoes were all one garment : — " The Irish "—he
writes — " wear breeches ending in shoes, or shoes ending
in breeches"*: a fashion also described by Lynch in his
" Cambrensis Eversus " (II. 209) : — " The breeches used by
" the Irish was a long garment, not cut off at the knees,
" but combining in itself the sandals, the
" stocking, and the drawers, and drawn
" by one pull over the feet and thighs.
"It was not flowing (to use the words of
" Tacitus), but tight, and revealing the
" shapes of the limbs : not
" unlike what Sidonius
" describes : —

A closely-fitting dress their limbs compresses,
No trailing robe their legs conceals.' "

This fashion continued in use to
the time of Lynch, who tells us
(II. 211) that the people generally
abandoned it before 1641, partly in
consequence of the exhortation of
the clergy — which implies that that
part of the Irish dress bordered on indelicacy — and partly
of their own accord. But I do not find any statement
that this combined garment was used in very early ages.
It may be worth mentioning that there was an old canon
of the Irish church, which is still extant, forbidding the
clergy to wear those close-fitting trousers. The figures
on the shrine of St. Manchan (p. 204, supra) have no
trousers : but they wear long kilts reaching below the
knees, with legs and feet bare.

Fie. 242.

Showing the titflit trews or trousers,
with a/allaiim or short cloak, dyed
olive -green. (From an illuminated
copy of Giraldus of A.D. 1200. From
Wilde's Catalogue, p. 311.)

*Ton. Hib. ill. x.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 200.

The trousers, as has been said, usually went below the
ankles. But in some figures on the high crosses it termi-
nates immediately below the knee, like the Irish knee-
breeches of our own day : and two of the figures of the
S.-E. cross of Monasterboice wear breeches terminating
just above the knees, where they are closely bound, and
fitting skin-tight on the thighs.

Leggings of cloth, or of thin soft leather, were worn,
probably as an accompaniment to the kilt. They were
called ochra or ochrath. In " Mac Conglinne's Vision " (88)
a person is mentioned as having " ochra encircling his
shins." It will be observed that this word ochra is almost
identical with the Latin term ocrea applied by the Romans
to their leggings. The Irish leggings were laced on by
strings tipped with findruine or white bronze, the bright
metallic extremities falling down after lacing, so as to form
pendent ornaments. Bove Derg's cavalcade had all of
them strings [with tips] of findruine hanging from their
ochraths* The ochra reached about to the ankle : for in a
passage in one of the ancient Gaelic Triads it is mentioned
that there was a has or handbreadth between the shoe and
the lower edge of the ochrath.\

I think it likely that the trousers and kilt were not
worn together : at least in all the kilted figures that have
come down to us the legs are bare. As bearing on this
point it is worthy of remark that there are many passages
in our ancient literature showing that it was pretty usual
with those engaged in war to leave the legs naked : a
fashion perpetuated by the Scotch to this day. In the
ancient account of the battle of Mucrime (fought a.d. 250)
the jester Dodera says to Maccon, the leader of one side : —
" Eoghan [one of the leaders of the opposing army] will
" seek thee through the battle, and if he catch sight of thy
** legs [colptha, legs or calves] he will strike thee down."J

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 157. t #>«?., 107.

X Silva Gad., 350 : Rev. Celt., xm. 441.

210 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

And a little farther on we are told that " through the host
" Eoghan saw Maccon's two calves which were as white as
" the snow of one night " — the whiteness being noticed as
a matter deserving praise.

That it was customary to leave the legs naked is also
shown by such personal names — or nicknames — as Niall
Glunduff (black-knee) which was the name of a brave king

Fig. 243.
Croup showing arms and costumes of the sixteenth century. Irish soldiers and
peasants, from a drawing by Albert Durer in 1521, preserved at Vienna. Over the
two soldiers is an inscription in German : " Here go the war-men of Ireland beyond
England." Over the three peasants : " Here go the poor men of Ireland beyond
England." Between the two is the date a.d. 1521. (From Kilk. Archocol. Journ.,
1877. p. 396, where the original drawing is reproduced.)

of Ireland (a.d. 916-919) : Amergin Glungel, of the white
knee (gel, white) ; Brocshalach Crion-Ghluinech,* of the
withered knee ; Irial Glunmar (big-knee) f : Gliin-iarainn
(iron-knee). Eber Glunfhind was so called — says the
Book of Lecan — " because he had white marks on his
knee " {find, white). J Scott gives a corresponding expla-
nation of the cognomen of one of the Mac Gregors of
Scotland of two centuries ago, " Gregor Ghlune Dhu, Black

* Silva Gad., 527, top line : Rev. Celt., xvi. 273.

f Rev. Celt., xvi. 411, \ Ir. Texte, in. 409,

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT

211

" Knee, from a black spot on one of his knees, which his
" Highland garb rendered visible," like Nial GlundufL*
It was considered a blemish to have dark-coloured knees,
as we see from a passage where it is said of a splendid-
looking young man, that his dark-coloured knee was his
only blemish. On the other hand, to have white legs
and knees was considered a
point of beauty, as in case of
Lugaid Maccon mentioned
last page.

As illustrative of all that
precedes, two series of cos-
tumes of the years 1521 and
1600 respectively are pre-
sented here : pp. 210, 211.

Fig. 24s. Fig. 246.

Irish Costumes, A.D. 1600, (From map of Ireland published by Speed in 1611.) Figure 244,
gentleman and lady of the high classes. Figure 24s. persons of the middle rink. Figure 246,
peasants (Speed, after the fashion of Englishmen of the time, calls them " wilde Irish.")

Underclothing. — Both men and women wore a garment
of fine texture next the skin. This is constantly mentioned
in the tales, and, whether for men or women, is denoted by
the word Mine or line [2-syll.], which is now the common
Irish word for a shirt. It was usually made of wool or
flax. It is said of St. Columkille that — by way of morti-
fication— he never wore linen or wool next his skin.f But
sometimes it was made of silk, occasionally of satin, highly

* Rob Roy, Introduction. t Three Irish Homilies, 123.

212 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

ornamented. One party of Queen Maive's forces wore
" pure- white shirts [Unti glegela] next their skin "* : and
such expressions are very common. Sometimes a silken
shirt was shot with threads of gold. In the Battle of
Moylena, (p. 129) the hero Fraech Mileasach who was
surprised sleeping in his tent, started up and had to fight
for life in his " shirt of many devices ornamented with
threads of gold." Very often the shirt is called caimse,
a word which in Cormac's Glossary (p. 33) is derived
from the Latin camisia. All these notices about shirts
refer to the higher classes : whether the lower order of
people wore shirts is a matter on which I have found no
information.

Girdles and Garters. — A girdle or belt (Ir. criss) was
commonly worn round the waist, inside the outer loose
mantle, and it was often made in such a way as to serve
as a pocket for carrying small articles. We read in the
Tripartite Life that on one occasion St. Patrick met six
young clerical students having their books in their crisses
or girdles. Sometimes a bossan or purse (also called
spardn) was hung from the girdle, in which small articles
were kept, such as rings. f The girdles of chiefs and other
high-class people were often elaborately ornamented and
very valuable. In the Brehon Law the value of a bo-aire
chief's girdle is set down as three seds or cows, which
might represent £40 or £50 of our present money : and
those of higher chiefs and kings were still more costly. J

Garters were worn, sometimes for use, and sometimes
for mere ornament, or to serve both purposes. There are
two words for a garter, ferenn and id ; and the use of the
article is made quite clear by the explanation given in
Cormac's Glossary (p. 72) : — " Ferenn, a garter (id) which
is round a man's calf." Cormac goes on to say that the

* Miss Hull : Cuch. Saga, 119 : LL., 55, a, bottom, and b, top.
t Kuno Meyer, in Rev. Celt., XII. 460 : LL, 250, a, 23, 3i,
I Br. Laws v. 417.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 213

ferenn was made of different materials according to the
rank of the wearer, and he instances the garter of a king
as made of gold. This agrees with an expression in an
ancient panegyric written on th? hero Couri mac Daire,
king of South Munster in the first century, in which it is
stated that he gave his bard, among other valuable pre-
sents, garters of gold.* But this word ferenn was also
used, according to Cormac, to denote a girdle : — " Ferenn "
— he says — " is also a name for a girdle (criss) that is
round the man " : and he gives as an instance " the snow
reached the men's girdles " (ferna), referring to the snow
the druids brought down by magic in their contest with
St. Patrick at Tara. The Tripartite Life relates this
incident fully, which bears out the correctness of Cormac's
reference : the expression used in the Tripartite being
cotoracht [in snuhta] fernu fer, " so that [the snow] reached
the ferna or girdles of the men."f

Gloves. — That gloves were commonly worn is proved
by many ancient passages and indirect references. The
common word for a glove was lamann or laminn, from
lam [lauv], ' the hand or arm ') ; which is the word still in
use. Cormac (p. 100) clearly defines laminn, when he
derives the word from laim-inn, i.e. ' arm-end,' because —
as he says — " the end of the arm is clothed by it." And
in the mediaeval tract on Latin declension, edited by
Stokes (p. 4, No. 34), the meaning is made equally clear,
where lamann glosses the Greek word " chirotheka."
Sometimes the word used was lamagan, which is a
diminutive form. Another word for a glove was braccaile,
which Cormac's Glossary (p. 19) also explains : — [From]
" brace, a hand, and cail, a case [a case for the hand],
i.e. a lamann or glove " : exactly corresponding with the
Greek word given above, chirotheka, ' hand-case.'

We often find notices of people wearing gloves. In
one passage of the old tale called the Acallamh it is

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 152 f Trip. Life, 56, line 2.

214 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

incidentally mentioned that two persons closing a contract
by joining hands had first to remove their gloves, showing
how usual it was to wear them in common life (see vol. I.,
p. 182, supra). In the " Vision of Mac Conglinne " (p. 90),
an imaginary personage is spoken of as having " two
glove < on his hands" (cona di lamainn bd lamaib). St.
Patrick, when traversing the country in his chariot, wore
gloves when necessary.*

They appear to have been common among all classes —
poor as well as rich. One of the good works of charity laid
down in the Senchus M6r is " sheltering the miserable,"
which the gloss explains, " to give them staves and gloves
and shoes (lorga, lamanna, cuaraind) for God's sake."f
The evangelist depicted in the Book of Kells (fig. 230,
p. 197, supra) wears gloves, with the fingers divided as in
our present glove, and having the tops lengthened out
beyond the natural fingers.

Sometimes gloves were highly ornamented. In the
Voyage of Maildune we are told that a certain lady in one
of the islands visited by the voyagers, wore gloves on her
hands " with gold embroidery " {lamanna co n-6rphill imma
lamaib). % Besides the two names already given for gloves,
there were two others, which appear to be very old words : —
Bracand, which is given in Cormac's Glossary (p. 27), and
derived from brae, a hand : and mana ma in O'Clery's
Glossary (from man, a hand : Corm. 108) : both which the
glossaries explain as meaning gloves.

As to material : probably gloves were made, as at pre-
sent, both of cloth and of animal skins and furs. We have
an example of this last, where gloves were on one occasion
made from part of a fur mantle worn by St. Molaise of
Devenish.§ The importance and general use of gloves as
an article of dress are to some extent indicated by their
frequent mention and by the number of names for them.

* Trip. Life, 295, 9. % Rev. Celt., x. 65.

f Br. Laws, in. 19. § Silva Gad., 33.

CHAP. XXIl] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 215

Head Gear. — The men wore a hat of a conical shape,
without a leaf, called a barred [barraid], a native word, of
which the first syllable, ban, signifies top, and according
to some, the second, id, is from the Irish eda, dress ; in
which case barred would mean ' head-dress ' or " head
cover.' But the word exists in several other languages,
as French, barrette ; Spanish, birreta ; Italian, berretta ;
and German, pirete ; all meaning a head-covering of some
kind : which makes one doubt that the second syllable of
the old Irish name is from eda. The word at also occurs in
Old Irish documents for a head-covering, and of course
is the same as the English hat, both derived from Norse
hattr : but at has several other meanings in Irish which will
be referred to farther on (p. 240).* The helmet and its
designations have been treated of under " Warfare."

Among the peasantry, the men, in their daily life,
commonly went bare-headed, wearing the hair long behind
so as to hang down on the back, and clipped short in
front. Sometimes men, even in military service, when not
engaged in actual warfare, went bare-headed in this
manner. In the panels of one of the crosses at Clonmac-
noise are figures of several soldiers : and while some have
conical caps, others are bare-headed. Camden describes
Shane O'Neill's galloglasses, as they appeared at the
English court in the sixteenth century, as having their
heads bare, their long hair curling down on the shoulders
and clipped short in front just above the eyes.f

Married women usually had the head covered either
with a hood (caille, pron. cal-le) or with a long web of
linen wreathed round the head in several folds. This last
is probably what was designated in ancient writings by the
word callad [cal-la] : a term different from caille, though
no doubt derived from the same root. In the Feast of
Dun-nan-gedh it is related that a certain queen cried

* See also Ware, Antiqq., 177.

t See Joyce, Short History of Ireland, p. 409.

2l6

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

aloud in a fit of grief, and wrung her hands, " and cast her
royal callad into the fire in presence of all." This word
is now obsolete in Ireland, though it is retained in Scotch
Gaelic to signify a cap or wig. But the other word caille
is still used in Ireland for a hood or veil, from which again
comes caillech (the veiled or hooded one), a nun : a different
word from caillech, an old woman. It should be remarked
that the veil was in constant use among the higher classes,
and when not actually worn was usually carried, among
other small articles, in a lady's ornamental hand-bag.

There was another word for a
woman's head-covering — melt
— which had grown old in the
ninth century, and which in
Cormac's Glossary (page 120)
is explained by cop-cailli, a
woman's hood. The head-
dress of a woman was also
sometimes called cenn - barr
(' head-top ') as in the Tain
bo Fraich (p. 148, 2o) : and in
a Gloss on a portion of the
Brehon Laws (iv. 28, 22) it is
called cenbar no caille — ' head-dress or head- veil.'

Foot- Wear. — The most general term for a shoe was
brdc, brdcc, or brog (plural broga), which was applied to a
shoe of any kind : it is still the word in common use, and
it is correctly perpetuated in sound by the well-known
Hiberno-English word brogue. The brog was very often
made of untanned hide, or only half-tanned, free from hair,
and retaining softness and pliability like the raw hide.
This sort of shoe was also often called cuardn or cuarog,
from which a brogue-maker was called cuardnaidhe
[cooraunee]. A fox once stole St. Ciaran's brogues and
proceeded to make a meal of them ; .but was caught just
when he had eaten the ears and thongs : these must have

Fig. 247.
Portion of " a light gauzy woollen veil,
of the most delicate texture" (Wilde).
Found on the body of the woman men-
tioned at p. 180, sufra. From Proc. Roy.
Ir. Acad., IX. 103.)

CtfAP. XXIl] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 1\j

been of untanned hide* Shoes of untanned hide are worn
to this day in the Aran Islands. Mac Conglinne (p. 8),
before beginning his journey to Cork, made for himself two
pointed cuarans of * brown leather " of seven doubles — >
meaning seven folds or layers of hide in the sole — for his

Fig. 249.

Ancient Irish shoes, of tanned leather, in National Museum, Dublin. Figure 248 is a complete
shoe, formed of a single piece. Figure 249 represents the upper only : it had a separate sole,
which is gone : the ornament at top is a separate figure, and is merely an enlargement of the
decoration at the top of the heel. The opus Hibernicum on the strap in the middle of this shoe
betokens Christian origin but great antiquity. (From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 284.)

long walk. When he arrived at the guest-house of the
Cork monastery he took off his cuarans, and having washed
his feet in the bath-tub, he next washed the shoes in it —
the usual plan of cleaning the mud off shoes of this kind.
The cuaran had generally a single sole ; but sometimes
two or more thicknesses were used, as we see in the case

* O'Grady, Silva Gad., 3, bottom.

2l8 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

of Mac Conglinne. This shoe had no lift under the heel.
The whole shoe was stitched together with thongs cut
from the same hide.*

There are two other words for a shoe common in
ancient writings, as or ass and maelan : but these appear
to have been applied to a more shapely shoe than the
cuaran ; made of fully tanned leather, and furnished with
a serviceable sole and heels. Many passages could be
quoted showing that shoes were made of tanned leather :
but the subject of tanning will be taken up again in
chapter xxvi., p. 367. One example will suffice here : —
We find it related that on one occasion St. Molaise gave
some students, among other articles of clothing, " thick

bark-soaked brogues as
if of tanner's leather. "f
Most of the shoes pre-
served in the National
Fic.aso. Museum are of tanned

Small portion of a panel, showing the sandals under leather " but SOUie are

the feet, with the rosettes. (From Book of Kells:
Dr. Abbott's Reproductions, Plate XXXIV.) of Untamied llide.j

Maelan is a diminutive of mael, blunt, and means a
shoe or sandal with a wide rounded top — not pointed. A
shoe of this shape is sometimes called ass or as (pi. assa,
assai) and occasionally we find mael-assa, i.e. blunt-topped
assa or shoes. Another compound of this word applied
to a shoe is folasai, which is given in Cormac's Glossary
(p. 76) : and O'Clery gives folasa as equivalent to " shoes."
A shoe was also sometimes called iallachran (iall-acrann,
' thong-shoe ') which in O'Clery's Glossary is given as
equivalent to broga, i.e. shoes. Still another name for a
shoe, according to O'Clery's Glossary, was foirtchi,
connected with fortcha, clothing of any kind.

Most of the figures depicted in the Book of Kells and
on the shrines and high crosses have shoes or sandals,

* See Ware, Antiqq., 178. t Silva Gad., 33.

\ Wilde, Catalogue, 280.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 219

though some have the feet bare. One wears well-shaped
narrow-toed shoes seamed down along the instep, some-
thing like the shoes here represented (figs. 248, 249), but
much finer and more shapely. Some have sandals con-
sisting merely of a sole bound on by straps running over
the foot : and in all such cases the naked toes are seen.
On many of the sandals there are what appear to be little
circular rosettes just under or on the ankles, one on each
side of the foot — perhaps mere ornaments. They are seen
in the figure of the angel, p. 197, supra ; and more plainly
in fig. 250 on the opposite page, both from the Book of Kells.

From a passage in the story of Da Derga's Hostel
(p. 189) we may infer that the shoes or sandals were
often fastened to the feet by two or three or more straps
across the instep. In this passage the sandals (brdic) of
a gigantic warrior are compared to two currachs or hide-
boats, each with five thwarts or cross-benches, referring
evidently to the five fastening straps : a record which,
as we see, is corroborated by the figures in the manuscripts
and on the crosses. The shoes of the higher classes were
often highly and beautifully ornamented ; as we know,
partly from the records, and partly from the specimens
preserved in museums : as illustrated in figures 248, 249,
and 251.

In the tales we often find it mentioned that persons
wore assa or maelassa or sandals of silver or of findruine
(white bronze) . On one of the islands visited by Maildune
and his people they see a lady richly dressed approaching
them, with two sandals (da maelan) of silver on her feet.*
Dermot, king of Ireland (a.d. 656-664), saw a lady in a
chariot with two pointless shoes (da maelassa) of white
bronze on her feetf : and any number of such references
might be given. Such sandals must have been worn only
on special or formal occasions : as they would be so
inconvenient as to be practically useless in real everyday

* Rev. Celt., ix. 491 ; and xxiv. 129, I0. f O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 160

220

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

life. This seems also to be indicated by the fact that in
at least one shoe — namely that of which measurements
are given below — the sole was fastened on by leaden
solder, and would at once give way under any rough
usage, such as walking. As confirming this idea of
temporary and exceptional use, we have in the Museum
a curious pair of (ordinary leather) shoes — shown in the
illustration — connected permanently, so that they could

only be used by a per-
son sitting down or
standing in one spot.
In whatever way
and for whatever pur-
pose the metallic
shoes were used, they
must have been pretty
common, for many
have been found in
the earth, and some
are now preserved in
museums. There
were tradesmen, too,
who made and dealt
in them ; as is proved
by the fact that about
the year 1850 more than two dozen ancient bronze shoes
were found embedded in the earth in a single hoard near
the Giant's Causeway. One of these was presented some
years ago to the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy
(now the National Museum), the dimensions of which
were: — 13^ inches long; breadth, 4.3 inches; height at
heel, 2\ inches ; height of instep, 3f inches ; weight, 9f
ounces. This was larger than an- ordinary shoe or slipper,
no doubt to allow for a thick woollen stocking ; or a wisp.*

* Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., V. 27, 28. For another bronze shoe, see Ulst.
Journ. Archseol., iv. 23.

Fig. 251.

A pair of shoes permanently connected by straps: the two
soles and the straps are cut out of one piece. Most ingeniously
and beautifully made. (From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 287.)

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 221

The custom of using bronze shoes descended far into
Christian times. In the National Museum, Dublin, may
be seen a shoe of this kind, of thin hammered bronze,
engraved all over with an ornamental pattern (not the
ofus Hibernicum) , and with the name " St. Brigit, patroness
v of Kildare " (in Latin), dated 1410.

The finding of bronze shoes, and in such numbers, is a
striking illustration of how the truthfulness of many old
Irish records, that might otherwise be considered fabulous,
is confirmed by actually existing remains.

Sometimes people placed soft wisps of hay or fine
straw in the shoes under the feet. This we know from the
Senchus Mor, which provides that if a man is delayed in
the performance of certain legal functions by such neces-
sary things as " changing the wisp of his shoe " (dlui
n-assa : see for dlui, vol. I., p. 224), i.e. removing the old
wisp and putting in a fresh one, he is exempt from blame
and responsibility. The gloss on this makes the matter
clear : — " That is, while the cleric is changing the wisp of
" his as or his curan, i.e. a wisp of straw which is between
" his foot and his shoe [brog) when his shoe (curan) is
" hurting him."* A passage from an old Irish tale is
quoted by 0'Curry,f in which Dill, the famous blind druid
of Ossory, is made to say, "lam putting incantations on
the wisp which is in my shoes ; " preparing some spell
(see vol. 1., p. 224).

Laws relating to Dress. — Whenever dress came under
the eye of the Law there was much particularity. This
happened sometimes when it became necessary to set forth
the privileges of persons of different classes, as in the case of
children in fosterage. On this point the following regula-
tions are laid down in the Senchus Mor. Whenever a boy
had clothes of washing materials he should have two suits,
so that one might be worn while the other was in the wash.

* Br. Laws, i. 268, 7 ; 269, 8 ; 301, 2S.

f Man. & Cust , 1. 207, aa (and correction, p. xviii, bottom).

222 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The sons of kings, when in fosterage, were to have satin
mantles, dyed scarlet, purple, or blue : the scabbards of
their little swords should be ornamented with silver, and
there should be brass rings on their camdns or hurling
sticks : while the sons of lower grade chiefs had tin
scabbards. The children of the ard-ri or of a provincial
king should have their mantle fastened with a brooch
ornamented with gold, bearing a crystal : and those of
inferior kings with ornaments of silver. The sons of chiefs
were to be dressed in red, green, and brown clothes, and
those of inferior ranks in grey, yellow, black, and white.
The Law goes on to lay down many other arrangements
for the dress of foster-children of various social grades, the
quality depending on the grade : and all were to dress
in their best on Sundays and festival days.* We must
suppose that the regulations made compulsory here for
children in fosterage were merely what were commonly
carried out by their fathers and mothers in their own
homes.

3. Personal Ornaments.

Legendary Origin. — In the ancient Irish tales and other
records, referring to both pagan and Christian times, gold
and silver ornaments, especially gold, are everywhere men-
tioned as worn by the upper classes : and these accounts
are fully corroborated by the great numbers of objects of
both metals found from time to time in various parts of
Ireland, and now preserved in the Dublin Museum, and
elsewhere. Gold naturally figures more prominently in
the old literature than silver : and so well was the general
custom of wearing gold ornaments recognised, that the
legendary annalists, after their . manner in such cases,
thought it necessary to assign a distinct origin for it. We
are told that King Tigernmas (who first smelted gold in
Ireland : vol. 1., p. 69) was the first to introduce orna-

* Br. Laws, n. 147, 149.

CHAP. XXTl] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 223

merits of gold and silver : that another king, Muinemon,
first caused necklets of gold to be worn round the necks
of kings and chiefs ; and that a third, Fail-derg-doid
(whose name signifies " of the red-ring-arms or ringers "),
was the first to cause rings of gold to be worn on the
hands of chiefs in Ireland. Perhaps these records are a
dim traditional memory of the institution by these
monarchs of certain orders of nobility or knighthood
distinguished by peculiar gold ornaments : for we know
that in Ireland there were knightly orders marked by
some such badges (see vol. I., p. 99) . Most of the ornaments
described in this chapter are mentioned as in use in
Christian as well as in pagan times ; and records of them
are found in ecclesiastical writings as well as in the lay
literature. The manufacture of gold and silver ornaments
was of native growth. M. Salomon Reinach, a Continental
scholar, who has carefully examined this question, says of
the gold ornaments in the Dublin National Museum : —
" Of objects of gold attesting imitation of Greek or Roman
models there is no trace."*

In the National Museum there is a great collection
of ancient artistic ornamental objects, some of pure gold,
some of silver, and some of mixed metals and precious
stones. All, or nearly all — of whatever kind or material —
are ornamented in various patterns, some simply, some
elaborately. Those decorated with the peculiar patterns
known as opus Hibernicum or Irish interlaced work
(described in vol. 1., p. 545) were made in Christian times
by Christian artists, and are nearly all of mixed metals
and precious stones. Those that have no interlaced work,
but only spirals, circles, zigzags, lozenges, parallel lines,
&c, are mostly of pagan and pre-Christian origin, many
of them dating from a period long antecedent to the
Christian era. Nearly all the gold objects, except closed
rings and bracelets — and most even of these — belong to

* Rev. Celt , xxi. 75.

224

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

this class — made in pagan times by pagan artists. All
the articles of gold are placed in one compartment of the
Museum, and they form by far the largest collection of the
kind in the British Islands : eleven or twelve times more
than that in the British Museum.*

Rings and Bracelets. — Among the high classes the
custom of wearing rings and bracelets of gold, silver, and

findruine (white bronze)
on the fore-arm, wrist,
and fingers — including
the thumb — was uni-
versal, and is mentioned
everywhere in ancient
Irish literature. The
words for a ring,
whether for finger or
arm, are fail (pi. fdilge) :
fdinne [faun-ye] : nasc,
which was applied to a
ring, bracelet, collar, or
tie of any kind — obvi-
ously cognate with Latin
nexus, a tie : and some-
times flesc and tinde.-f
The word id was applied
to a ring, collar, circlet,
or chain ; thus Moran's
judgment-collar was
called id M or din. The ordnasc and ordus were rings for
the ord or thumb : the dornasc was for the wrist (from
dorn, the shut hand) : the fiam was worn round the neck.
Still another name for a bracelet or circlet or ring was

Fig. 253.

l-'igure 252, Irish Bracelet or Armlet, of solid gold.
It is double the size of the picture, of beautiful shape
and Workmanship, and weighs 3H oz. Many of the Irish
bracelets were of gold, like this : but many also were
bronze, one of which is shown in figure 253. Both ill
National Museum. From Wilde's Catalogue, pp. 53
(Gold) and 570.

* At the end of this chapter will be found a short list of the gold objects
in the National Museum, Dublin. See vol. I., p. 556, for a comparison of
the gold collections of the Dublin and British Museums.

t Tinde, Corm. 58, under "Doss": flesc, Keat., 162.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 225

buinne or bunne [2-syll.]. These several names were no
doubt applied to rings of different makes or sizes : we
know for instance that fail and fdinne are distinguished
in the Tain bo Quelna* : but these distinctions have been
in many cases lost.

A passage in the Bruden Da Derga describes nine
harpers, each with a crystal ring {fail) on his hand, and a
thumb-ring (ord-nasc) on his thumb. The lady Bee Fola,
going through a wood, sees a young warrior whose two
arms were covered with bracelets (failge) of gold and
silver up to his elbows, f According to the Book of Rights
(p. 7) when the provincial kings attended the supreme
monarch at the meeting of Ushnagh, each
was bound to wear on his hand a bunne
niad d'or dearg, a ' hero's ring of red gold,'
which, on the breaking up of the assembly,
he left on his seat as a sort of tribute
and mark of respect to the high king. So fig.2S4.

jealous were the monarchs of this privilege ££!!£*£
that on one occasion a provincial king was j"the Na"°"al ,Museum-

* O (From Wildes Catal.,

expelled from the assembly for neglecting Go,d'P-SL|
to bring his ring. It was the custom with- some warriors
to wear a ring of a certain kind for every king they had
killed in battle. Lugaid Laga (or Lewy Law), a famous
Munster champion, wore seven bunne in commemoration
of seven kings he had slain at different times : whence
King Cormac (whose father Art was one of the seven)
says of him : — " In case of Laga his hand does not conceal
that he has slain kings. "J

Both men and women belonging to the highest and
richest classes — as for example King Nuada's wife, a
Leinster lady — had the arm covered with rings of gold,
partly for personal adornment and partly to have them

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust , 90 : LL, 54, a, 33.
t O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 161.

% ibid., 11. ^56, x^^.

226 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

ready to bestow on poets, musicians, story-tellers, and
ollaves of other arts, who acquitted themselves satisfac-
torily.* Cailte, once travelling through Connaught with
the little musician Cas Corach, meets a chief's wife with
her attendants. She asks him who the little man was :
" The best musician in Erin or Alban," said he. " He must
be very skilful," replied she, " if his music is as good as
his countenance." So the little harper took his timpan
and played a tune, which so charmed her that she gave
him the two gold fails she had on her wrists, f This custom
is like that of ladies of the present day, who often wear
many thin bracelets together on the wrist — though not to
give them to poets or musicians. Circlets of gold, silver,
or findruine were also worn round the legs above the ankle :
but these have been already noticed. Fully answering to
all these entries and descriptions we find in the National
Museum in Dublin, and in other museums, gold and silver
rings and bracelets of all makes and sizes : some pagan,
some Christian.

Precious Stones and Necklaces. — Ireland produced gems
of many kinds — more or less valuable — which were either
worn as personal ornaments by themselves — cut into shape
and engraved with patterns — or used by artists in orna-
mental work. Precious stones are often mentioned in
ancient Irish writings, the term commonly used being lec-
logmar or lia-logmar : lee or lia, ' a stone ' : Idgmar, ' very
costly, precious ' (from log or luach, ' price '). In Kerry
were found — and are still found — " Kerry diamonds,"
amethysts, topazes, emeralds, and sapphires : and several
other precious stones, such as garnet, were found native
in other parts of the country. J In crannoges and pre-
historic sites in various parts of the country, have been
found beads, rings, and other small ornaments, of such

* Man. & Cust., 169 : Bee Fola, 196, 197.

f Man. & Cust., 11. 169, 170.

% Ware, Antiqq., 172 : Petrie, Tara, 195.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 227

stones as red jasper, rose-coloured quartz, jet, amber,
diorite, &c*

A pearl was usually designated by the word sed [shade],
old form set : but this word, as we shall see in chapter
xxvii., sect. 4, was also applied to a cow regarded as an
article of value or exchange ; and it was often used to
designate a gem or jetvel of any kind. Sed or sead is still
in use in this last sense. Several Irish rivers were formerly
celebrated for their pearls ; and in many the pearl mussel
is found to this day. Solomon Richards, an Englishman,
who wrote a description of Wexford about the year 1656,
speaking of the Slaney, says : " It ought to precede all
" the rivers in Ireland for its pearle fishing, which though

Fig. 255. Fig. 256. Fig. 257.

Beads or studs of jet. In National Museum. Used as buttons or fasteners, or strung together
for Necklaces. (From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 241.)

" not abundant are yet excellent, for muscles are daily
" taken out of itt about fowre, five, and six inches long, in
" which are often found pearles, for lustre, magnitude, and
" rotundity, not inferior to oriental or any other in the
" world."f O'Flaherty (Iar C, 53) states that in the Fuogh
river or Owenriff, flowing by Oughterard in Galway,
" muscles are found that breed pearles " ; and to this day
they are often found in the same river. In Harris's Ware
(Antiqq., 172) it is stated that pearls are found in the fresh-
water mussels of the Bann, as well as in those of several
streams of Tyrone, Donegal, and elsewhere ; and Harris
goes on to show that a present of an Irish pearl was made
to Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, by Gillebert, bishop

♦See an article by Mr. Knowles in Kilk. Arch. Joum., 1879-82, p. 522.
fKilk. Arch. Joum., 1862-3, p. 0.1.

228 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

of Limerick, about 1094. The same authority (Antiqq.,
p. 178) quotes a record of Nennius that the kings of the
Irish wore pearls in their ears : but he gives no reference,
and I have not been able to find the original passage in
Nennius. Petrie says that he has not found the use of
pearls in any Irish ornament older than the fourteenth
century* : and I do not remember seeing them mentioned
— or at least any stones that could be identified with
pearls — as used in personal ornament, in any of the old
Irish writings ; though there are several rivers and places
in Ireland that derive their names from scds or precious
stones.f

Of the various ornaments worn on the person, the
common necklace was perhaps the earliest in use. Neck-
laces formed of small
shells are common among
primitive people all over

the world, and they have
Fio. 258. Fig. 259. . , , .

been found with skele-

Gold Beads: portions of Necklaces: natural size.
In National Museum. (From Wilde's Catalogue, Gold, tOnS Under Cromlechs in
P- 37)

several parts of Ireland,
of which specimens may be seen in the National Museum
in Dublin, belonging to prehistoric ages. In historic times
necklaces formed of expensive gems or of beads of gold
were in use in Ireland. The word for necklace in Cormac's
Glossary is cuibrech-braiget (or cuimriug-braigef), i.e.
' neck-binder ' {cuibrech, a yoke or binder : brage, modern
braghad, the neck, gen. braigef) : but this has long gone
out of use, the present term being ursgar-bhraghaid
[ursgar-vraw-id]. Cormac notices the necklace under the
word base, which he states was an old term denoting ' red ' ;
and he goes on to say that it was also a name for a neck-
lace, but that the necklaces called base were properly those

* Stokes's Life of Petrie, p. 305.

t For more information on Irish pearls and on places taking their names
from them, see Joyce, Irish Names of Places, 11. 375.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSQNAL ADORNMENT 220,

made of " draconic beads " (dona mellach dracondai).*
This alludes to the draconite or dragon-stone, a red jewel-
stone, which, according to the legend perpetuated by Pliny
and Solinus, was taken from the brain of a living dragon.
These dragon-stones are mentioned in even an older Irish
authority than Cormac's Glossary — the Fled Bricrenn : and
in a manner that shows it was considered very beautiful
and valuable. When Cuculainn visited Ailill and Maive
in their Connaught palace, a golden goblet of wine was
given to him, and two dragon-stones the size of his two
eyesf : and elsewhere in the same old tale a splendid-
looking young hero is described with ocht n-gemma deirg
dracondai for lar a da imlisen : [the brightness of] " eight
" gems of red dragon-stone in the middle of his two eye-
" pupils."

Whether real dragon-stones found their way to Ire-
land in those early ages is a question that cannot now be
determined with certainty. Indeed the words of Cormac's
Glossary, quoted above, would seem to imply that the
necklaces in use in his time with the name' of base were
made of gems which were not real dragon-stones, but
only stones like them. Still we see, from the Glossary
and from the other passages quoted above, that this stone
was known in Ireland : and as there was communication
with the Continent from very early ages, it is quite possible
that real dragon-stones may have been occasionally used
among the higher classes of the Irish.

I do not know if carbuncle is mentioned as having
been worn on necklaces in Ireland : but according to the
records it was much used in artistic metal work : and it
is very often noticed in Irish writings. The Irish name
was carmogal, with some slight varieties of form : —
carmhogal, carbunculus, Zeuss, 42, 8. The house built

* Corm. Gloss., 20 ; Ir. Text in Three Ir. Glossaries, p. 7.
f Ir. Texte, 1. 284, 285 : Henderson, 79 : see also Voyage of Bran,
1. 8f verse 12.

23O SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

by Bricriu for Concobar mac Nessa was ornamented with
gems of carmogal (co n-gemaib carrmocail)* In Tara, as
we find mentioned in the old account (Petrie, 192), there
were a hundred and fifty drinking-vessels ornamented
with gold, silver, and carmogal ; and part of the stipend
paid by the king of Ireland to the king of the Gailenga
consisted of twenty splendid bridles adorned with red
bronze and carmogal.] According to Petrie (Tara, 195)
the word carmogal was " applied loosely by the ancient,
" Irish to any shining stone of a red colour, such as garnet,
" a production of the country " : but as in the case of
dragon-stone, real carbuncle may have found its way
hither ; though no doubt in the greater number of cases
the stones called carmogal were only imitations.

There was a sort of necklace called an episle or epistil.
In the " Vision of Mac Conglinne " (39, 10) certain persons
are mentioned as sitting round a fire, each having seven
episles round his neck : and the celebrated judgment-collar
of the just judge Morann, which is called a sin in Cormac's
Glossary (p. 152), and id eleswhere, is called " a sin or an
epistil that was round the neck for declaring truth," in a
later copy of the same Glossary. It is also called eibistil
in an ancient treatise on Irish ordeals in the Book of
Ballymote, where moreover there is the legend that Morann
got it from the Apostle Paul.J It seems obvious that this
term made its way into Irish literature under Christian
influences : and that it originally meant a few verses from
one of the Epistles enclosed in a little case or box, and
hung round the neck as part of a necklace : as Roman
Catholics now wear a scapular.

Torques or Muntorcs. — Besides the necklaces properly
so called, there were various kinds of gold and silver
ornaments for wearing round the neck, of which perhaps

* Fled Brier., 2, I?: Ir. Texte, 1. 254, 1St l6.

f Bk. of Rights, 267, verse 5. For other examples, see Man. & Cust.,
II. 190, top ; and Tain bo Fraich, 137. J *r- Texte, in. 208.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 231

the best known was the torque (Ir. tore). The torque was
often formed of a single square or triangular bar of gold
from which the metal had been hollowed out along the
flat sides, so as to leave four, or three, ribbons along the
corners, after which it was twisted into a spiral shape,
something like a screw with four, or three, threads. There
is one in the Museum only half made, having three leaves
or ribbons the whole length, untwisted. But they were
formed in other ways, as may be seen by an inspection of
those in the Museum. Torques are repeatedly mentioned
in our literature, sometimes by the simple name tore, but
generally by the word muntorc,
i.e. ' neck-torque,' from muin,
the neck. When the great
King Cormac mac Art (a.d.
254) was arrayed in his kingly
robes at the Feis of Tara, he
wore his muntorc of gold about
his neck* : and we read that
when King Eochaid Airgthech

(A.D. 298) WaS buried, hiS jeWelS Gold torque: in National Museum:

1 j 1 • , r-r i5# inches in diameter : found in 1810 in

were placed on his stone comn, a mound at Tara. From PetrieS Tara.

among which was his silver p,l8l')

muntorc.] In the Irish version of the Aeneid it is stated
that one of the presents Aeneas gave Dido was a muntorc
oir : Williams, the editor, translates it ' golden necklace ' :
but it was not a necklace properly so called. J There
are in the National Museum in Dublin many muntorcs
or various shapes and sizes. Some are barely the size
of the neck, while others are so large that when worn
they extended over the breast almost to the shoulders :
and there are all intermediate sizes. A number of gold
torques are figured in a group at p. 13, vol. I. . of this
book, of which the two large outer ones were found at

* Q'Curry, Man. & Cust., n. 180. f Voyage of Bran, I. 48, 52.

J Zeitschr. Celt. Phil., 11. 434, „

232 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Tara in the year 1810. (The largest is shown separately
here in figure 260.) The one represented in figure 261 is
of unusual make, being formed by twisting a single
plate of gold, and having two apples or balls of gold
at the ends. The custom of wearing torques, as well as
rings and bracelets, was in ancient times very general, not

Fig. 261.

Gold Torque, half the size of the original, which is now in the National Museum:
found near Clonmacnoise. (From Wilde's Catalogue, Gold, p. 74.)

only among the Irish, but among the northern nations,
both of Europe and Asia, especially the Gauls, as all who
have read Roman history will .remember. The statue of
the Dying Gladiator has a torque round the neck, almost
the same as some of those in our museums.*

• A fact first noticed by Robert Ball, ll.d., in a paper read before the
Roy. Ir. Acad, in 1854, and published in the Proc, VI. J53. For torques,
see Petrie's Tara, 181-4 : the article in Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1883-4, p. 182 ;
and Wilde's Catalogue, Gold,

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 233

Crescents, Gorgets, or Necklets. — The word muince
[moon-ke] denotes a neck-circlet, from muin, the neck.
It was used in different applications, as for instance to
denote the ferrule of a spear, and also the collar round
a greyhound's neck : but it is as a personal ornament
that the muince concerns us here. The word seems to
have been applied to almost any kind of neck ornament.
Thus Maildune, entering a certain house, saw " a row of
" muniorcs of gold and silver, like [in size] to the hoops of
" a vat " : but a few lines farther on, in the paragraph
where the same incident is re-told, one of these muntorcs
is called a muince* Nevertheless the necklets that we
find constantly mentioned in the ancient tales by the
names muince are to be generally understood as golden
gorgets or collars for the neck, worn by both men and
women, now often conveniently called " crescents." Thus
a lady is described as wearing " a muince of burnished gold
round her neck "f : and when Conn the Hundred Fighter
was preparing to engage in the Battle of Moylena, he put
on the various articles of his kingly apparel : and among
the rest, his muince round his neck.J

These golden crescents are of three main types. The
first is quite flat, thin, and brightly burnished. Most
of those of this kind are ornamented in delicate line
patterns, which are thus described by Wilde (Catalogue,
Gold, 10) : — " The ornamentation, which is very minute
' and elaborate, was in this, as in almost all similar
' specimens, evidently effected by a series of fine chisel-
' edged punches, the indentations made by which can in
' some instances, be observed on the plain reverse side.
' The lines which surround the edges would however
' appear to have been produced by the graver." But it
is probable that all the lines were produced by punches,
as Mr. Johnson — an experienced goldsmith — has stated

* LU, 23, a, 34 and b, 4 : also Rev. Celt., ix. 477, 478.

j Man. $c Cust., n. 160 and note. J Ibid., 179.

234 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

was the case with the line-ornamentation of another
class of gold objects (vol. L, p. 566, supra). Crescents
of this kind are often called by the name lunula or
lunette. Figures 262 and 263 represent two of those
beautiful objects, of which there are now more than
thirty in the National Museum.

Fig. 262.

Gold Crescent, Mttinct, or Necklet of the first type, one continuous bright plate : sometime*
called lunula or lunette. Diameter 9 inches: opening for the neck, %yi inches: weight, ■$% oz.
Found near Killarney. Now in National Museum, Dublin. (From Wilde's Catalogue, Gold, p. II.)

Any thin strip or plate of metal, whether of gold,
silver, or findruine (white bronze), was called land or lann,
i.e. 'blade': and if it was smooth and polished, it was
usually designated niam-lann [neev-lann], ' lustrous-blade.'
This term was often applied to those bright flat crescents

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 235

or muinces now under consideration. Each of the seven
horsemen who formed the retinue of the fairy chief Bove-
Derg wore " a niam-lann of radiant gold round his neck."*
It will be seen farther on that a long strip of gold or other
metal for the forehead was also called lann.

The SECOND type, and by far the most elaborate, is
dish-shaped in general make, convex on one side, concave

Fig. 263.

Another specimen of gold Crescent of first type : 7 inches in diameter : the
opening, S/i inches : weight, 18 dwts. In National Museum. (From Wilde's
Catalogue, Gold, p. 14.)

on the other : covered all over with ornamental designs.
The illustrations (on next two pages) give a good idea of
the general shape, but represent the ornamentation only
imperfectly. There are five specimens of these gorgets
in the Museum, all of very thin gold. Both the general
convex shape and the designs were produced either by
stamping, or more probably by hammering with a mallet

♦Man. & Cust., II, 157, note, col 2, line 1.

236

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

and punches on a shaped solid mould. The designs are all
raised from the surface (with corresponding hollows on
the back) ; and in this respect they differ from those of
the other two kinds of crescent in which the lines are
indented. The patterns and workmanship on these are
astonishingly fine, showing extraordinary skill of mani-
pulation : they are indeed so complicated and perfect that

Fig. 264

Cold Muincc, Crescent, or Gorget of the second type : the largest and most
beautiful of this kind in the collection. " The arched or lunated portion " — says
Wilde — "consists of three elevated rolls, with rows of conical studs on each— four on
the upper, and three on each of the two others. A very minute rope-shaped fillet
occupies the sunk space between each two elevations." Diameter n inches : weight,
16^ oz. Found in County Clare. Now in National Museum. (From Wilde's Cata-
logue, Gold, p. 12.)

it is difficult to understand how they could have been
produced by mere handwork with moulds, hammers, and
punches. Yet they could have been done in no other way.
The circular bosses at the ends of these gorgets deserve
special notice. Two of them are shown half-size at page
238. They were made separately from the general body

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 2^

of the crescent, to which they are securely fastened : and
the ornamentation on them is of extraordinary delicacy
and beauty. Each of the circular ornaments forming the
rows between centre and edge consists, in one specimen, of
three delicate raised concentric circles, in another of six,
and in a third of seven, each series of circles round a
central conical stud or button, with point projecting out-
wards : and in the centre of the whole boss is a large

Fig. 265.

Another specimen of gold Crescent of the second type: now in National Museum.
Nearly n inches in diameter : weight, j'/i oz. (From Wilde's Catalogue, Gold, p. 25.)

projecting stud of the same shape : all of pure gold. Each
boss consists of two saucer-shaped discs, fastened (not
soldered) together all round the edge, with the convex
sides* outwards, so as to enclose a hollow space. Wilde
thus describes the disc shown in fig. 266 {i.e. the fr,ont disc
of the two that form the complete boss) : — " It is com-
" posed of a very thin plate, most elaborately tooled, and
" hammered into a high centra} umbo, surrounded by nine

238

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

' cones, each encircled with a series of minutely-raised
" lines of the most delicate tracery. A transversely
" decorated bur surrounds the edge, and another of a like

'description encircles the central elevation."*

Of the five gorgets of this class in the Museum, Wilde
truly observes : — " It ma)' with safety be asserted that
" both in design and execution, they are undoubtedly the
" most gorgeous and magnificent specimens of antique
"gold work which have as yet been discovered in any
" part of the world."f In weight they vary from four to

Fig. 266.

Fig. 267.

Two of the gold Bosses (front view) at the ends of the Crescents of second type : described on
pp. 236-7-8. Drawn half size. (From Wilde's Catalogue, Gold, p. 26.)

sixteen ounces : and taking material and workmanship
into account they must have been of immense value in
their time.

The necklets of the THIRD kind, of which the Museum
contains five specimens, are of a semi-tubular make, the
plate being bended round so as to form, in some specimens,
about a half tube, in others less than half. The gold is
much thicker than in those of the other two types. The
one represented in fig. 268, which is the largest and most
perfect of the five, is ornamented at the ends with a
punched herring-bone pattern. In an adjacent case of

* Wilde, Catal., Gold, p. 26.

f/did., p. 19.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 239

the Museum are five models of the type of these five real
ones, of which the originals — all pure gold — were found in
Clare in the great hoard mentioned below.

All the muinces of the three types were intended, and
were very suitable, for the neck. The inside circular-
opening is in every case of the right size, and on account
of the flexibility of the plates they can be put on and

Fig. 268.

Gold Crescent or Necklet of the third type: in National Museum: described
above: 7 J4 inches across on the outside: opening, $yi inches; weight, a little over
70Z. (From Wilde's Catalogue, Gold, p. 34.)

taken off with perfect ease, even though the opening at
the ends is only a couple of inches, or less. What Wilde
says of those of this third kind (fig. 268) — which he set
down as gorgets — applies to all : — " As, owing to its shape
" and material, it is very flexible, it can be easily passed
" round the neck by bringing one end forward and pressing
"the other backwards."* This he found by actual trial —
as any one else may do.

'* Wilde, Catal., Gold, p. 34.

240 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

As to the splendid crescents of the second type (figs.
264, 265), the elaborateness as well as the exquisite beauty
of the bosses at once settles the question as to how they
were worn. When on the neck the ends were in front, so
as to exhibit the bosses to full advantage : and of course
all the other necklets were worn in the same manner.
Indeed the more simple necklets — those of the first and
third types — show, of themselves, that this was the manner
of wearing them : for where there is ornament at all, the
ends are much more highly, decorated than the rest, as
may be seen in the illustrations.

The opinion of Sir William Wilde and others, that the
crescents of the first and second types (figs. 262 to 265) were
diadems and worn on the head, will be examined farther
on (p. 251).

The Do-at and the Muince-Do-at. — In connexion with
this part of our subject, we now come to an Irish
descriptive epithet, do-at, used as part of two compound
terms, and — so far as I am aware — of only two : — muince-
do-at and bunne-do-zt, which are often met with in the
old tales to designate, respectively, two — and only two —
classes of objects.

At each extremity of all the muinces or crescents of
the three types is a disc or boss or button — seen in
the illustrations — generally circular, or nearly so : very
elaborate in one of the types, simple in the other two.
Their primary use was as fasteners, to catch the orna-
mental string by which the necklet was secured. These
terminal appendages were known in ancient Irish records
by the name of at. In Zeuss, 67, 21, ait glosses ' tuber ' :
and to this day it has the same meaning, namely, a
' swelling ' of any kind : but the special sense here is a
terminal knob, button, or disc. In accordance with this we
find these gorgets — of whatever kind — designated muince-
do-at, ' the necklet of the two ats or terminal discs ' (do,
two : do-at has the same form in the nom. and gen.)

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 241

Ferceirtne the poet, lamenting the death of his master
Curoi-mac-Daire, king of South Munster, states that he
received as presents from him, among other precious
articles, many a muince-do-at*

The Bunne and the Bunne-do-at have now to be con-
sidered. The word bunne [2-syll.], with various forms^

Fig. 269.

Fig. 270.

Fig. 271.

Three examples of the gold Bunne-do-at or fibula, all drawn half size: all in National Museum.
Figure 269, hollow; weight, 2% oz. Figure 270, solid: over 3^ oz. Figure 271, hollow : 5;^ or,
(From Wilde s Catalogue, Gold, pp. 53, 55, 57.)

buinne, buinde, bunde, bouinde> has several significations.
It denotes : — I, a wave or stream : 2, a branch : 3, a tube
or anything like a tube or cylinder ; for instance the pipe
of a spout, a musical pipe, the snout or horn of an anvil
(ur-buinde), the round, thick edging on the top of a wicker
basket, or any such twisted or corded rim ; and in the
Rennes Dinnsenchus it is used to denote a man's shin-

♦Man. & Cust., 11. 179.
R

242

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART I II

bone* : 4, a ring or circlet, either completely closed up
or having a narrow opening or gap at one side. We
are concerned here only with the last two applications
(3 and 4). That bunne was applied to a hand- or finger-
ring is placed beyond doubt by this fact : — that while in
one part of the Book of Lecan we are told that Lugaid
Laga had seven bunncs of gold on his hand or fingers, in
another part of the same book, when the statement is
repeated, they are designated seven rings {fdilge) of gold. f
Under this name gold and silver rings of various forms
are often mentioned. Among the treasures promised by

Fig. 272.

Gold Bimnt-do-at : in the National Museum : the largest of the whole collection : drawn one-third
size. The buttons, or discs, or do-ata, arc- unusually large — each 5 inches in diameter. The whole
ornament is 11 inches in length : weight, nearly 17 oz. (From Wilde's Catalogue, Gold, p. 58.)

Queen Maive to Ferdiad to fight Cuculainn is " a great
reward in rings" {buinne)%: and in the Book of Rights
(p. 6, 16) we read of a bunne of red gold for a king's hand.
In the same Book of Rights (p. 75) we find mentioned
mantles, each with a bunne, d'or, which O'Donovan explains
" a ring-clasp of gold " : and in the Voyage of Maildune
a splendidly -dressed lady wears a bunne of gold round
her hair. This brings us to the consideration of a class
of gold articles in the National Museum : open rings with
ats or buttons at the two ends, now commonly called

. *Rev. Celt., xvi. 44.

t O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 177, bot. : see also p. 225, supra.
%lbid., 414, 415, bot.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT

243

fibula, of which three typical illustrations are given on
p. 241. Other examples are on pp. 242-3-4.

These have been somewhat of a puzzle : all the more
so inasmuch as they are far more numerous and more
varied, both as to shape and size, than any other class of
articles among our gold antiquities. There are such
numbers of them that they must necessarily have been
mentioned in the records, as well as the other gold
articles : but no one has hitherto identified their Irish
name. There are altogether about 150 of them, varying
in size from the great specimens pictured in figs. 272 and
275 down through all gradations to the two diminutive
ones shown in their real size in
figs. 273 and 274. As in case
of other articles of native manu-
facture, some have been found
half made — left for some reason
unfinished, like the torque men-
tioned at p. 231, supra* But
however they vary in pattern
all have the disc or button on
each of the two ends, already noticed in connexion with the
crescents. Seeing then that the terms muince-do-at and
bunne-do-at were anciently applied to two classes of gold
objects, and that there are two, and only two, classes now
in the Museum to which the epithet do-at would apply, one
}he muinces or necklets, the other the objects now under
consideration, it obviously follows that the " fibula " are the
very ornaments called bunne-do-at in the ancient writings.
A plain ring, whether closed or open, was a bunne or
buinne simply : an open ring with the two terminal
buttons was a bunne-do-at. f

* See for example Journal of Cork Archaeological Society, 1902, p. 230.

•f It is right to state that, so far as I am aware, this explanation of
muince-do-at and butme-do-at, and their identification, with the actually-
existing objects, have not been given before, and that I am entirely-
responsible for them. On all this see also Appendix, infra.

Fig. 273. Fig. 274.

Two specimens of the very small gold
Bunne-do-at: full size: originals in the
National Museum. (From Wilde's Cata-
logue, Gold, p. 63.)

244 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

That the bunne-do-at was used as a personal ornament
is obvious from the way in which it is mentioned in the
tales : the size and value of course depending on the rank
and means of tne wearer. In the list of precious articles
belonging to the usurping King Eochaid Airgthech (a.d.
298), and buried with him, are included his two fdils*
wrist-rings or bracelets, his muintorc, and his two bunne-
do-ats* : and each individual in the retinue of Bodhbh
Derg wore a bunne-do-at worth thirty ungas or ounces of
gold.f From the two last entries we may conclude that
these articles were sometimes worn singly and sometimes

Fie. 275.

Solid gold Bunne-do-at, drawn one-third size. Now in the Museum of Trinity
College, I Hii.lm : 33 oz. So far as is known, the heaviest of its kind in existence.
<From Wilde's Catalogue, Gold, p. 60.)

in pairs. The old writer, when describing this retinue,
probably exaggerates its magnificence : but yet — in regard
to the " bunne-do-at worth thirty ungas of gold," equal
22} oz. Troy (see chap, xxvii., sect. 3) — it should be
remarked that there is not necessarily any exaggeration,
inasmuch as the Trinity College bunne-do-at figured here
is much heavier, weighing 33 Troy ounces. The bunne-
do-at was used partly as an ornament and partly as a
sriark of affluence like many valuable articles of the

* Voyage of Bran, I. 48, u ; 52, 7.

t Man. & Cust., II. 157, -where bouinde-do-at is translated 'twisted
ring.' There is no English word to translate this Irish term : " two-disc-
ring," though exact, is cumbrous. It would probably be better to transfer
it to English as it stands— bunne-do-at; as Petrie does, with his habitual
caution. He queries whether the bunne-do-at is not a bracelet : Roun<)
Towers, 109.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 24$

present day. It was probably worn on the breast at
one side, suspended from a button like that shown at
p. 206, supra, fig. 241, or if there was a pair, one was placed
on each side. The question as to its use as money will be
discussed in chap, xxvii., sect. 4.

Circular Gold Plates. — Among the gold ornaments in
the National Museum are a number of very thin circular
plates, with raised ornamental patterns punched from the
back, varying in diameter from 1^- inch up to 4 inches.
Fig. 276 represents one of these, 3-5- inches in diameter,
found near Ballina in Mayo.
All of them have the two holes
at the centre for fastening on
the dress. According to Wilde
they are often found in pairs :
and they were worn on the
breast, like the bunne-do-ats, as
mere ornaments, and as a mark
of opulence. Petrie, in an article
in the Dublin Penny Journal
U. 244), says: — "The figures of
" the kings sculptured in relievo
* on the great stone cross at

" Clonmacnoise, are represented with round plates of this
"description, placed upon the breast."*

Brooches. — The brooch was worn by both men and
women, and was the commonest of all articles of jewellery.
It was used to fasten the mantle at the throat and was
fixed crosswise. In the descriptions of the warriors in the
Tain in the Book of Leinster, nearly all wore brooches of
gold, silver, fitidruine, or iron. The value of the brooch —
like that of the bunne-do-at— depended on the rank and
means of the wearer. The poorer people wore a plain

Fig. 276.

Circular gold Plate. One of those in the
National Museum. (Prom Wilde's Cata-
logue, Gold, p. 83.)

* For Bishop Gibson's story of the finding of one of these plates near
Ballyshannon, through the description given by an Irish bard in a song : see
Wilde, Catalogue, Gold, 82 : and Dub. Pen. Journ., 1. 244.

246 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

one of iron or bronze, with little or no ornamentation :
but kings, queens, and other persons of high rank wore
brooches made of the precious metals set with gems and,
in Christian times elaborately ornamented with the peculiar
Irish interlaced work. These must have been immensely
expensive. That the descriptions given of brooches in old
Irish writings are not exaggerated we have ample proofs
in some of those now preserved in our Museums, of which
the Tara Brooch, figured in vol. I., p. 562, is the most
perfect.

What is called the Dalriada brooch was found in 1855
by a man digging in a field near Coleraine : it is now pre-
served in the National Museum. It is chiefly interesting
as being of pure gold, in which probably it is unique. The
circle is 2\ inches in diameter, and the pin is 5 inches
long : total weight 2\ oz. The ornamentation is of the
usual Christian Irish character, but not at all so elaborate
as that of the Tara brooch. In Dr. Petrie's opinion it is
not older than the end of the eleventh or the beginning of
the twelfth century.* It is figured and described in the
Ulster Journ. of Archaeol., iv., p. I.

The general run of brooches had the body circular,
from two to four inches in diameter, with a pin from six
to nine inches long. But some were much smaller, while
others again were larger and longer, and reached in fact
from shoulder to shoulder. These great brooches are
often noticed in the records. In the Story of Etain in
the Book of the Dun Cow,- a certain mounted warrior is
seen with a brooch (ed) of gold in his cloak reaching to
his shoulders at both sides. In the Bruden Da Derga,
Keltar of the Battles (whose residence is figured in vol. I.,
p. 85) had his cloak fastened with a cuaille or stake-
brooch, which reached from one shoulder to the other.
These descriptions are corroborated by the Brehon Law,
which mentions a fine for injuries caused by the points of

* Proc Roy. Ir. Acad., vi 302.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 247

brooches extending beyond the shoulders* : and still more
decisively by the existence of very large brooches in the
Museum, as mentioned in vol. I., p. 22.

These large brooches were generally heavy. Queen
Maive's brooch of gold (i.e. ornamented with gold) which
fastened her mantle, weighed according to O'Curry's cal-
culations about 4 lb. troy (or more correctly about 3 fb.J.f
This of course cannot be insisted on as historical fact :
but it shows that the writers were familiar with large
and heavy brooches.

The various names applied to a brooch will be
exemplified in the following notices. One of the most
common, and probably the earliest, was dele or delg,
which primarily signifies a thorn. In the story of the
Tain, Laegaire the Victorious is described as having a
delg of gold fastening his cloak at the breast. When
Queen Macha of the Golden Hair gave orders for the
building of Emain she took the golden eo [yo] or brooch
from her neck, and with the long pin marked the outline
of the palace-rath. £ This term eo was in very general use.
Another word was cassan, a diminutive of cas, a twist,
which evidently refers to some peculiarity of make,
probably in the pin : King Concobar's son Causcraid had
his cloak fastened with a silver cassan. In another part
of the Tain, three warriors are described as having
tanaslaidhe [tonnaslee] of gold in their cloaks : and the
nine comrades of Cormac Connlingas had their mantles
fastened with nine tanaslaide.% The brooch with this
name must have been long and slender : for tana means
slender and thin. There was a very large circular brooch
which was called a roth [ruh], i.e. a wheel, either from its
great size, or because it was made with radii or spokes
like a chariot-wheel. In the story of the Bruden Da Derga

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 163. f Ibid., 102.

X Corm. Gloss., 63 (under " Emain " Keat. 247.
§ Stokes, Da Derga, 175.

248 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

we meet with notices of such brooches. Conari Mor, king of
Ireland in the first century, is described in a prose passage
as wearing a mantle [of silk] which " is even as the mist
" of Mayday. Diverse are the hue and semblance each
" moment shown upon it : lovelier is each hue than the
" other." This cloak was fastened with a roth or wheel-
brooch of gold, so large that it covered his whole breast,
from chin to waist. In the accompanying poetry the same
brooch is called a delg*

Another word for a brooch much in use is bretnas.
Queen Maive once saw a lady wearing a speckled cloak
in which was a round heavy-headed bretnas] : on one of
the islands discovered by Maildune, he saw a lady richly
dressed wearing in her mantle a silver bretnas with chains
of goldj : and in the Palace of the Little Cat he saw a row
of bretnases of gold and silver with their pins fixed in the
wall and their heads outward. The word duille, which
literally means a leaf, was applied — commonly with the
termination nd or nn — to a large brooch of a special make.
Queen Maive's great golden brooch was named duillend-
delc, ' leaf-brooch ' : and in a passage already quoted
Cuculainn wears a great dulenn at his breast. The last
term I will mention is milech : in the story of the Bruden
Da Derga one of the champions is described as wearing a
silver milech in his cloak§ ; and Mac Conglinne (p. 9, 27)
arraying himself roughly for his journey, fastens his cloak
in front with an iron milech.

Illustrations of brooches of the usual Irish type have
been already given (vol. I., pp. 21, 562). Two others of
a different make are represented here, figs. 277, 278.

That elaborate and costly brooches continued to be
made at least as late as the end of the twelfth century is
proved by the following stanza (quoted by O'Curry) of an
Irish poem written about 11 90 by an Ulster poet, Gillabride

* Stokes, Da Derga, 202, 203, 204. For the Roth croi, vol. I., p. 59.
t Man & Cust., 11. no. J Ibid., 11. 159. § Ibid., 137, 13S.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 249

mac Conmee : — " The gold brooch (dealg-oir), though it
"gets the praise when the artist makes it lustrous by his
"art, it is to the artist the praise is really due, who has
" beautified the brooch."*

The brooches mentioned in this article are all Celtic,
some pre-Christian, others made in Christian times ; and
they were as common among the Celts of Scotland as
among those of Ireland. Numerous beautiful specimens

Fig. 277.

Fig. 278.

Specially-shaped Brooches. Figure 277, bronze brooch, natural size, pin turning on
a hinge: one of the most beautiful bronze articles in the Museum, both as to design and
workmanship. Ornamentation on the ends produced by punching or hammering from
behind. Fonnd in a crannoge III Roscommon. Figure 278, bronze spring brooch,
serpent pattern, natural size, also in National Museum. Both of great antiquity.
(From Wilde's Catalogue.)

have been found in Scotland, many of which are figured
and described in Dr. Joseph Anderson's work " Scotland
in Early Christian Times " (Second Series).

The Lann, Blade, or Plate. — It was customary to wear
a band or ribbon of some kind round the forehead to
confine the hair. It was generally of some woven fabric ;
and it will be mentioned farther on that a charioteer wore

*Man. & Cust., II. 168.

250 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

a bright yellow gipne or fillet in this manner as a distinctive
mark. Among the higher and richer classes the band was
often a very thin flexible plate, strip, or ribbon of burnished
gold, silver, or findruine. This was what was called a
lann or land, i.e. ' blade,' or more commonly niam-lann,
' bright-blade ' : and we have seen (p. 234) that the same
terms were applied to the bright golden crescents for
the neck. The lann is very often referred to in the old
literature. In the story of Da Derga (p. 289) three men
are mentioned as wearing tedra lanna 6ir for airthiur a
cind, " three plates of gold on the front of their heads " :
in the next page (290) nine others wear similar ornaments :
and in the Acallamh (Ir. Texte, iv. 185) a woman is
mentioned having a lann d'dr buidhe re hetan, a " blade
of yellow gold on her forehead." In one of the eighth-
century Irish Glosses on St. Paul's Epistles to the
Corinthians (I., chap, ix., ver. 24), the Irish commentator
thus explains the Latin word brabium (the prize in a
race) : — " i.e. the lann which is sought therein is the
remuneration of the soldier's service."* Several long
thin gold plates are to be seen in the National Museum,
no doubt of the kind and use referred to in the records.
There is one beautiful thin ribbon less than a quarter of
an inch wide and five feet long, with an at or button at
each end for fastening, which was probably wound round
and round the head, passing in front over the forehead,
to confine the hair.

The minn or diadem (treated of below) and the lann
or plate were always distinguished : for example, in the
Brehon Law (v. 382, 18; 383, 22, 23), a lady's ornamental
tiag or hand-bag is mentioned as containing, among other
articles, a mind 6ir and land Sir, i.e. a " golden diadem,"
and a " golden lamina or thin plate " (either for neck or
forehead) .

* Stokes and Strachan, Thesaur., 1. 565.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 251

The Minn, Diadem, or Crown. — Kings and queens wore
a diadem or crown, commonly called minn or mind : often
designated minn oir or mind n-oir, ' diadem of gold ' :
but often also called ban or cenn-barr [kan-bar]. This
last, meaning ' head-cover,' was also, as we have seen, the
usual name of a helmet. That minn means ' diadem '
there can be no question, for it is used to explain
" diadema " in the eighth-century Glosses of Zeuss. On
account of the designation minn oir, ' golden diadem,' it is
usually described as made wholly of gold : but this, as we
shall see, has arisen from a misconception. The minn,
nowever, was not confined to kings and queens, but was
worn by men and women belonging to all the higher
classes, probably indicating rank according to shape and
make, like the coronets of modern nobility. It was not
worn in common, but was used on special occasions : a
lady usually carried her minn-oir in her ornamental work-
bag, along with other such valuable or ornamental articles,
ready to be used at any moment.*

As there has been much misconception regarding the
Irish minn, it will be well to look into the question somewhat
closely here. Wilde, in his Catalogue (Gold, pp. 12 et seq),
assumes that the crescents of the first tw) types already
described (figs. 262 to 265, pp. 234 to 237) are the objects
designated by the Irish term minn or mind : and states
his opinion — an opinion not originated by him however —
that they were worn as diadems ; in which he is followed
by Dr. Frazer of Dublin, and by others : but those of the
third kind (fig. 268, p. 239) he sets down as gorgets. He
does not however put forward the diadem idea quite
positively, as is indicated by several expressions of doubt,
such as : — " While the precise use and mode of wearing
" the lunulas or moon-shaped plates (fig. 262, p. 234) are
" questions open to discussion, no doubt can exist as to
" the object of the articles termed ' gorgets ' " (fig. 268,

* See O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 113,

252 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

p. 239).* But none of these Irish crescents are formed for
head-wear, for they do not make any approach to the
shape of the head, as any one who tries to fit them on will
find out for himself. And to make matters worse, in order
to force one of them into position, it would be necessary
to have " the flat terminal plates applied behind the ears "f
[and turned inwards] ; which, besides the unnatural wrench
necessary to bend them back on each occasion, and the
obvious violent incongruity of the whole adjustment, would
have the effect — as M. Reinach observes in the passage
quoted below — of completely hiding the most beautifully
ornamented portions of the crescents (as in fig. 264). More-
over, it is incomprehensible why a use should be assigned
to one type of crescent different from that for the others,
as they have similar flat outlines — differing only in non-
essential details : all three are equally suitable for the neck,
and all three equally unsuitable for the head.|

But it is needless to follow this matter farther : one of
these crescents — of whatever type — is no more fitted to
be worn on the head than a stocking is to be used as a
glove. Hear what a common-sense and learned foreigner
— M. Salomon Reinach — who has no preconceived notions,
says on this point : — " The Irish crescents should be con-
" sidered as collars or gorgets. Frazer, following [Wilde
" and] others, has had the idea that they were diadems,
" and assimilated them to decorations of that kind which
" ornament the heads of the Roman empresses on coins.
" But the form of the extremities suffices of itself to con-

* Wilde, Catal., Gold, p. 30.

+ These are Wilde's words. Ibid., p. 12.

% Sir William Wilde is sometimes mistaken in his opinions regarding
Irish antiquities, as he is in the present case : for Irish antiquarians of
those days had not the advantages and facilities now available to us.
But he has done great service to Irish archaeology by the publication of
his Catalogue of Irish Antiquities, and of his two Essays on Irish Medical
Science, in connexion with the Census Reports : service which I think
has hardly received due acknowledgment. How much I owe him is well
evidenced in this book.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 253

" demn this explanation."* O'Curry too, who has at great
length examined this question,! pronounces decisively that
the minn is not a crescent. His words are (Man. & Cust.,
II. 193) : — " That the mind-oir was not an ordinary land,
" that is, a frontlet or a crescent of gold, must be at once
" acknowledged, when we find both mentioned together as
*' different articles belonging to one and the same person,
"■ and when, besides this fact, it will be shown that, whilst
" the land was worn either at the neck or on the forehead.
*' the mind invariably covered or surrounded the whole of
4t the head."

Let us now inquire what the Irish minn really was.
There are two circumstances that have helped to lead
antiquarians astray on this question. One is the repre-
sentation of Roman empresses on coins — as mentioned by
M. Reinach above — in which they wear a crescent on the
front of the head : from which some have jumped to the
conclusion that the same fashion must have prevailed in
Ireland : and to illustrate this supposed Irish custom there
is actually in Gough's Camden (in. 476) a picture of a
lady Wearing a crescent-ornament or diadem evidently
drawn from a Roman coin, and having nothing to do with
Ireland. The other misleading circumstance is the term
minn-oir, ' diadem of gold,' which is constantly used, and
which many persons took to mean that the minn was
made wholly of gold — no mixture of any other material :
and as the crescents are all pure gold, this was considered
to indicate that a crescent was a minn. But the term
minn-oir merely means that it was ornamented with gold ;
a. mode of expression found everywhere in all sorts of
Irish literature. We read of steeds having bridles and
reins of gold : Cuculainn's chariot had " a frame of tin ": a
chariot had " iron wheels " (meaning of course shod with

* Translated from M. Saloman Reinach's " Les Croissants d'or
Irlandais," Rev. Celt., xxi. 75.

t In Lects. xxvm. and xxix. of his Man. & Cust.

254 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

iron rims) : camans or hurling-sticks are described as "of
silver " : chariot-shafts are " of white bronze " : all which
mean that the several articles were mounted or ornamented
with, or partly made of, the metals — the unmixed metals
being impossible. Such expressions are so numerous that
references are needless.

The minn was an article wholly different from a
crescent of any kind. It was not a plate of gold, but a
regular crown or cap of elaborate workmanship, made of
a combination of various materials, and so formed as to
cover the whole head : all which will be obvious from the
ollowing quotations and references. The barr or minn of
Brunn the son of Smetra, mentioned in the " Adventures
of Nera,"* and designated as the " mionn n-oir which the
king wears on his head," was a wonder of workmanship,
one of " the three chief articles of manufacture in Erin."
This same mionn n-oir is described in another story
relating to the same adventure, as " a cathbarr of the pure
" purple of eastern countries, with a ball of gold above it as
" large as a man's head, and a hundred strings around it of
" mixed carbuncle, and a hundred combed tufts of red
" burnished gold, and stitched with a hundred threads of
" findruine."-\ Here it will be observed that the mionn
n-oir is described as a diadem made of mixed materials, not
of gold only. It is not meant of course that this gorgeous
description should be accepted as literally true : but it
shows that the writer had something in view very different
from a crescent of gold.

In the Tain it is related that on one occasion Cuculainn,
seeing a number of maidens coming towards him headed
by one beautiful lady with a mind-n oir on her head, whom
he took to be Queen Maive, flung a stone from his sling,
which struck the golden minn, and broke it into three
-pieces. I How could this be if it was a plate of tough gold ?

* Rev. Celt., x. 218, line 71.

| O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 200, 201, 202. J Ibid., 196, top.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 255

The manner in which Queen Maive's diadem is spoken of,
too, indicates an article delicately made and easily soiled.
During the march of the Connaught army north to prose-
cute the war of the Tain, King Ailill and the queen each
wore a golden diadem — mind-oir. Queen Maive, as the
story tells us, had nine splendid chariots for herself and
her attendant chiefs, her own in the centre, with two
abreast in front, two behind, and two on each side, right
and left ; and — in the words of the old tale — " the reason
" for this order was, lest the clods from the hoofs of the
" horses, or the foam-flakes from their mouths, or the dust
" raised by that mighty host should, strike and tarnish the
** golden diadem [mind-oir] on the head of the queen."*
All this elaborate precaution could hardly be needed for a
simple plate of gold.

But a still better idea of the size, general shape, and
use of the minn-oir is given in the very pretty legend of
Queen Mairennf : which shows that it was made to encircle
and cover the whole head. Dermot, king of Ireland (a.d.
544-565), had two wives, Mugain, who was barren, and
Mairenn Mael, who had children. Mairenn was quite bald,
and always wore a diadem — minn-oir — to hide the blemish
(see p. 182, supra) : and the barren Mugain was filled with
jealousy and hate for the fruitful Mairenn. Once upon a
time at the assembly of Tailltenn, when all were seated in
state according to rank, the men on one side with the king,
and the women apart on the other side with the two queens,
Mugain, burning with jealousy, called to her a bitter-minded
female satirist or jester [bancdinte, vol. I., p. 454, supra), and
promised her whatever reward she asked, to pull the diadem
off Queen Mairenn's head where she sat before all the
assembly. The satirist went to Queen Mairenn and asked
for a present (a usual request from a poet) ; but the queen
said she had nothing to give. " You shall have this for me

* LL, 59, last four lines.

f O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 193 : Silva Gad., 89.

256 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

then," said the satirist, seizing the diadem and lifting it
off her head. The poor queen in her agony and shame
at being thus publicly exposed, cried out : — " God and
St. Ciaran help me in this need ! " whereupon, quick as
lightning, says the legend, and before anyone had time to
notice the blemish, a beautiful crop of bright golden hair
sprang from her head in ringlets and fell in glorious masses
down over her shoulders, so that the whole assembly were
struck with wonder and delight. For a long time after
that incident Queen Mugain was in disgrace.

In numerous other old authorities the minn or mind is
mentioned in terms implying that it covered the whole
head. In the tenth-century version of the story of King
Labra the mariner, who, like Midas, had horse's or ass's
ears, we are told that he constantly wore a " mind n-ordha
upon his head " to hide the deformity,* which certainly
could not be done if the minn was a crescent placed on
the top front of the head. Moreover, a little farther on in
the tale, the same mind n-6rdha is called a cathbarr or
helmet : cathbarr imom cenn, " a helmet round my head,"-
as the king expresses it.

All that has been said is borne out by the form of
expression often used when the minn is mentioned. In
the Acallamh it is related that St. Patrick and his com-
panions see a band coming towards them with two warriors
at their head. One wears a cathbarr or helmet, the other
a mind-6ir : and in both cases the same words are used,
im a chenn, " round his head," " encircling his head "f :
im or imm, circum, circa, Z., 654, 20. This shows that the
minn was not a mere lunula or ornament on the front of
the head, but a covering for the whole head.

Fully confirming the preceding literary testimonies,
comes the most unquestionable evidence of all, the actual

* Prof. Kuno Meyer in " Otia Merseiana," vol. hi., 1903. P- 46, where
he edits the story (about King Eochaid) with translation.
j Stokes, Acallamh, Ir. Texte, IV., pp. 162, 235.

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT

257

representation of a native crown worn by an Irish king,
seated, carved on one of the panels of the south side of
the Durrow high cross, which was erected about a.d.
1010.* It is reproduced on the cross in Miss Stokes's
book, " The High Crosses of Castledermot and Durrow,"
from which the illustration here has been copied. The
original crown of which this is a representation was about
five inches high, quite flat on top, with a slender band
all round, above and below, the
two bands connected by slender
little fillets or bars, about two
inches asunder. It covers the
whole head like a hat, and
there are two bosses over the
ears, three or four inches in
diameter, f

The Irish crown varied in
shape however ; but in no case
did it resemble a crescent or
lunula. It is pretty certain that
some had rays or fillets standing
up detached all round. Crowns
of this kind, belonging to the
O' Conors, kings of Connaught,
as represented in the thirteenth-
century fresco-painting in Knockmoy Abbey, are shown
in vol. 1., p. 59. They are probably native Irish, though it
is just possible that these particular forms might have
been adopted under Anglo-Norman influence. That some
such crown however existed in Ireland at an earlier
period is shown by the literature. In the " Vision of Mac

* For this date, see the above-named book of Miss Stokes, p. 11 bot.,
and 12 top.

f See description of this figure in Miss Stokes's High Crosses of Castle-
dermot and Durrow, p. 10 : but she is certainly mistaken — led astray I
suppose by Wilde — in calling this crown a lunula : to which it bears not
the least resemblance.

Fig. 279.

Crowned Irish Kin?, seated, with

shield, sword, and spear ; a dog on each

side. (From the High Cross of Durrow.)

258

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

Conglinne " (p. 89, 10) a person is described as wearing a
crown of seven corns, ' horns,' or fillets ; and in another
part of the same tale (123, 31 ; 152, 2s), a crown of twenty-
seven fillets is mentioned.

The crescents, then, are not minus. There is in fact no
such thing as a tninn or diadem in the National Museum ;
and I suppose there never will be, for the good reason
that such a complex and delicate object would not hold
together if buried in the ground.
The metallic parts would indeed
remain ; and there is good reason
to believe that two relics now in the
National Museum are of this class.
One of them — a beautiful enamelled
article — is figured by Miss Stokes
in Plate xix., fig. 2, of vol. xxx.,
Trans. Royal Irish Academy, and
described by her at p. 290, same
vol., where she records the opinion
that it is a portion of an Irish
radiated crown. It is figured in
outline here : but a proper idea of
its exquisite workmanship and
beauty of colouring can only be
obtained by viewing either the
object itself or Miss Stokes's coloured
representation mentioned above. Mr. Kemble (quoted by
Miss Stokes, Early Christian Art, p. 53) says of this and
the other corresponding object : — " For beauty of design
" and execution [they] may challenge comparison with
" any specimen of cast bronze work that it has ever been
" my fortune to see."

It is said that an " Irish crown " was found in 1692 at
the Devil's Bit Mountain in Tipperary. This " crown "
was first figured by Dermot O'Connor in the Preface
(p. v.) to his translation of Keating's History of Ireland,

Fig. 380.
Enamelled metallic object in the
National Museum : believed to be
a ray or fillet of a crown : drawn
half size. (From Miss Stokes, In
Trans. Royal Ir. Academy, XXX„
Plate XIX., fig. 3.)

CHAP. XXII] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 25O,

from which it was reproduced in the Dublin Penny Journal
(i., p. 72, a.d. 1832). But we know that O'Connor wilfully
perverted Keating ; so that no reliance can be placed
either on the story told by him or on the picture. The
illustration here shows O'Connor's delineation, which is
not like any Irish crown. Indeed, Wilde plainly hints
his opinion that it is a perverted picture of a drinking-cup
(Catal., Gold, p. 8, note).

The word Asionn appears for the first time as meaning
a diadem in O' Flaherty's Ogygia, from which it was copied
into various other standard works, including O'Brien's and
O'Reilly's Irish Dictionaries. But in a communication to
the Athenaeum of 24th
August, 1 90 1, 1 have shown ^I^^^n.

that there is no such word J^^^^^^^^>

as asionn. It was merely J^ m^M^^S^m^=,^

a printer's error. €^KBi P^^^^^^^^^^P
O' Flaherty, in his manu- ^^i ^^^^^^^^^^^^
script, wrote Mionn : but ^^^ ~"*^

as the Irish capital M is FlG-28'-

Conjectural drawing of an object erroneously
Often Written and printed supposed to be an Irish crown. Stated to hare

been found at the Devil's Bit Mountain in 1693.

in such a form as to re-
semble the Irish As, the printer changed O'Flaherty's
Mionn to Asionn : and so this spectre of a word has
haunted Irish literature ever since. Of course O'Flaherty
did not see a proof ; for such a glaring error could not
have escaped him.

Earrings. — Men of the high classes wore gold earrings.
This custom has been recorded by Nennius, as we have
seen (p. 228, supra) ; and it is noticed in Cormac's Glossary
(p. 8) under the word aunasc, an earring, a word which he
correctly derives from nasc, a clasp or ring, and aue, a form
of 0, an ear. After this he remarks that the aunasc was
" a gold ring which is round the fingers or in the ears of
the sons of nobles." As au-nasc properly means " ear-ring,"
O'Curry thinks the insertion here of " the fingers " a

260 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

corruption of Cormac's text.* But it is not necessary to
suppose this, as such extensions of meaning are common
in all languages. The passage as it stands merely
shows that similar rings were often worn on ears and
fingers, so that the name of one got extended to the
other. In the ancient tales these ornaments are often
mentioned. In the Bruden Da Derga, King Conari's
juggler wears " ear-rings (u-nasca) of gold round his
ears."f And a little farther on the king's nine harpers
wore ear-clasps of gold round their ears : but here the
word for ear-ring or ear-clasp is au-chuimriuch.

From the names given to
earrings, as well as from the
manner in which they are
mentioned, it is plain that the
ears were not pierced ; but a
thin elastic ring was clasped
round the ear ; and from the
lower extremity of this another
little ring was suspended (like

Ancient Irish fold Earrine, one of a pair that represented in fig. 282) .
found in County Roscommon. ■»-> • • 1 1 J

For cuimnuch, as already
remarked (p. 228), means literally ' binder ' : au-cuimriuch
' ear-binder ' : and au-nasc means much the same thing :
nasc, Lat. nexus, a bind or tie (see page 224, supra).
Accordingly, as the Da Derga story tells us, each of King
Conari's nine harpers wore an au-chuimriuch round (im)
each ear "J : and the chief juggler wore ear-clasps (u-nasca)
round (im) his ears.§ In Cormac's Glossary the au-nasc
is defined nasc-aue, ' binder of the ear ' : and it is said to
be worn " in the ear " : but this latter expression is quite
consistent with all that is said here.

The mention of Irish earrings by Nennius, and by
Cormac under their proper name aunasc, may be classed

* Man. & Cust., n. 186. % Man. & Cust., 11. 147, note 214.

f Ibid., 11. 145, note 206. § Ibid., n. 145, note 206.

CHAP. X.XIl] DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 261

among these remarkable confirmations of the accuracy of
the Irish historical romances, so far as incidental details
are concerned, mentioned in vol. 1., p. 9, supra, and in
other parts of this book.

Golden Balls for the Hair. — Both men and women some-
times plaited the long hair ; and at the end of the plait
they fastened a thin, light, hollow ball of gold, which was
furnished for the purpose with little apertures at opposite
sides. Sometimes these balls were worn singly — probably
behind — and sometimes in pairs, one on each side. In the
Book of the Dun Cow the fairy king Labraid (who was
sitting in state) is described as having yellow hair, with
" an apple (ubull) of gold enclosing it."* And in another
part of the same book we are told that Cuculainn had
" spheres (cuache) of gold at his two ears into which his
hair was gathered, "f The lady Bee Fola, going through
a wood, saw a young warrior magnificently attired, and
among other ornaments he had " two balls of gold [da
" ubuill oir] on [the ends of] the two divisions of his hair,
" each the size of a man's fist. "J Ladies followed the same
fashion : but they had several very small spheres, instead
of one or two large ones. Eochaid Feidleach once saw a
lady richly attired : on her head were two golden yellow
tresses, each plaited into four locks, on the end of each of
which was a mell, i.e. a little ball or bead : so that this
lady wore eight little balls altogether.§

As corroborating all these accounts, there are in the
National Museum a number of these golden balls, found
from time to time in various parts of Ireland. They are
all hollow and light, being formed of extremely thin gold :
and each has two small circular holes at opposite sides by
means of which the hair was fastened so as to hold the
ball suspended. Each is formed of two hemispheres,

* Sick Bed, Atlantis, 11. 103 : also Man. & Cust., 11. 192.

f Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-1, p. 377, last line : and Fled Brier., 65.

% Bee Fola, 177. § Da Derga in Rev. Celt., xxir. p. 14.

262 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

which are joined with the greatest accuracy by being
made to overlap about the sixteenth of an inch, and very
delicately soldered — so that it requires the use of a lens to
detect the joining. The largest of these balls is & inches
in diameter, and weighs 2^oz. (figured separately in vol. I.,
p. 21) : so that we see the old story-teller was right enough
in describing the two balls worn by the young hero as "the
size of a man's fist." Those in the Museum vary in size
from 3^ inches down to about two.

Fig. 283.

Hollow gold Balls, as described in text : erroneously represented as a necklace in Wilde's Catalogue,

Gold, 35, from which this illustration has been taken.

Wilde* conjectures that these balls were worn as neck-
laces, which they certainly were not : for no such form of
necklace is referred to in any of the records ; and in order
to support the conjecture he gives an engraving of eleven
of them (found in various localities) arranged, according to
size, and connected by a string, as a necklace, as seen here.

The corroboration of the truthfulness of the old records
by existing remains has been frequently noticed through-
out this book ; and this is a very striking example, inasmuch
as the custom of wearing gold balls on the hair seems
so strange that it might not unnaturally be set down as
the invention of story-tellers, if their statements were not
supported (see " Corroboration " in Index).

* Catalogue, Gold, p. 34.

CHAP. XXIlj DRESS AND PERSONAL ADORNMENT 263

4. Short rough classified List of the Gold Objects in the
National Museum, Dublin.

More than 30 crescents of the first type (figs. 262, 263) ; five of the
second (figs. 264, 265) ; five of the third (fig. 268).
Seven hollow balls for the hair (fig. 283).

Great numbers of bracelets and rings of various shapes and sizes
(figs. 252, 253, 254).

A number of long thin bright plates and ribbons.

About 150 open rings called Bunne-do-at (figs. 269 to 275).

About 50 very small open rings without the ats or buttons (mentioned
at p. 385, below.)

About a dozen thin circular plates with patterns, all with two holes
for fastening (fig. 276).

About two dozen torques of different sizes (fig. 260).
A number of small ornamental beads for necklaces, of various
shapes (figs. 258, 259).

Four amulets (vol. 1., p. 385).

An open spiral, i\ inches long and 1 inch in diameter, with nine
spires, formed of one square wire.

Besides these there are a number of small objects not classified.

(The total weight of all these articles is about 590 oz., which is
twelve or thirteen times the weight of the collection of gold antiquities,
from all England and Scotland, in the British Museum. See vol. 1.,
P- 556.)

Models. — In 1854 an immense collection of gold articles were found
in a stone cist under a small clay mound near Quin in the County
Clare, most of them slender delicate rings of the kind called bunne-
do-at. In one glass-case of the National Museum there are gilt-brass
models of a portion of this find, consisting mainly of about 100 bunne-
do-ats, and five crescents of the third type.*

* In 1896 a number of important gold antiquities were found at
Broighter in Deny. They were purchased by Mr. Robert Day, f.s.a.,
m.r.i.a., of Cork, who sold them to the British Museum. They are at
this present time the subject of litigation. The question is whether they
should not be restored to Ireland, their natural home. See an account
of them by Mr. Arthur Evans, f.s.a., in Archasologia, lv., 391, 408 ; and
another by Mr. Robert Cochrane, f.s.a., m.r.i.a., in Journ. Roy. Soc.
Antiqq , Ireland, 1902, p. 211. (For more on this, see Appendix.)

Cniamcnt : composed from the Book of Kells.

CHAPTER XXIII

AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE

Section i. Fences. .

tVER since that remote time when legend and
history begin to give us glimpses of the
occupations of the inhabitants of this country,
we find them engaged in agriculture and
pasturage. For both of these purposes open
land was necessary ; and accordingly, the
clearing of plains from wood is recorded in the reigns of
many of the early kings as a public service worthy of
special notice. But there was always more pasturage
than tillage.

Farm Fences. — In very remote times, when the popula-
tion was small and the land was mostly common property
(as pointed out in vol. I., p. 184, supra), there was little
need for fences, and the country was mostly open, so
far as it was free from forest and bog. But in cours? of
time, as tillage gradually increased, and private property
in land became more general, it was more and more
necessary to fence off the portions belonging to different
individuals. Fences are referred to in our oldest literature :
and how important they were considered appears from the
number of regulations regarding them in the Brehon Law.
The general terms for a fence are ime, fdl, felmae, and aile.
When two or more persons came into possession of
adjacent farms, it became their duty to fence off their
portions, if not fenced off already. As each fence between

264

CHAP. XXIIl] AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 265

two farms would be common property, arrangements for
joint action were laid down in the law, so that each man
should execute his own part of the work. In making the
fences they had to be up to time. Three days were
allowed for marking out the land : in five the fencing was
to be commenced : in ten days the fence should be com-
pleted, except the blackthorn crest at top, which was to
be finished in a month.

Four kinds of farm-fences are specified in the Law : —
First, a trench (Irish dais, pron. clash) with the earth piled
up on one side as a high embankment (called mur, or fert,
or clad, pron. cly), a kind of fence still used all through Ire-
land : Second, a six-foot stone wall of dry masonry, which
is still very general in stony districts in the west and
south : the Third was formed of logs laid horizontally and
securely fastened : the Fourth consisted of pointed stakes
standing six feet above the ground, and six or eight inches
asunder, bound securely by three bands of interwoven
osiers, and having a blackthorn crest on top. The top of
each sharp stake should be blunted by three blows of a
mallet. No man was directly compelled by law to make
his fences of any particular height or pattern, or to have
them put up by a certain time. But there was indirect
compulsion ; for supposing a lawsuit to arise on a question
of trespass or such like, the person owning — or part
owning — the fences should be able to show that they
were constructed as specified in the law, both as to make
and time, otherwise the suit was pretty sure to go against
him. If a fence was carelessly constructed so that some
stake; were too sharp-pointed at top, or that sharp spikes
projected from the sides, the owner was liable for damages
in case cattle got injured.*

* All the preceding regulations will be found in Br. Laws, iv. 71 to 77,
113, 115, and Introd., cxxi. cxxxiii : and vol. in. 291. Some are also
noticed in the general literature : for instance, the thorn-crest is mentioned
in Mac Conglinne, 86 ia,

266 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE tpART ill

Territorial Boundaries. — Fences such as these were too
slight and temporary to serve as boundary marks between
large districts. Various landmarks of a more enduring
kind were assigned for them, some natural, some put down
artificially. Suppose a dispute arose as to the exact
limits of two adjacent territories, whose boundary had
been marked out in times past, the Law (iv. 143)
enumerate and recognises twelve different marks, by
one or more of which the boundary might be recovered
and defined. Among these are : — a " stone-mark," i.e. a
large pillar-stone ; an " ancient tree " of any kind, or the
stump and roots of an old oak, after the tree had fallen
and disappeared ; a " deer-mark," namely, the hair-marks
left by deer or cattle on the trees of a wood, or the hair-
marked footpath made by them along a plain ; a " stock
mark," i.e. stakes in the earth, or the ruin of a mill, or an
old bridge under water ; a " water-mark," i.e. a river, lake,
or well ; an " eye-mark," i.e. a straight line fixed by the
eye between any two of the preceding which had been
ascertained for a certainty, but which lay some distance
asunder ; a " defect-mark," i.e. a place or line along which
there was no cultivable land, such as a declivity, a sedge, a
stony vale, or the track of a disused road ; a " way-mark,"
i.e. a king's road, or a carriage-road, or a cow-road (see
PP- 393 to 395» below) ; a " mound-mark," i.e. a [great]
mound or ditch or foss " or any mound whatever," such
as that round the trunk of a tree.

Pillar Stones and Ramparts. — That Pillar-stones were
regarded as an important means of marking boundaries
is shown by their frequent mention in the records. We
are told in one law-tract that when certain tribe chiefs had
taken possession of a district, they " erected boundaries or
placed pillar-stones there " ; and in another place that after
land has been enclosed a hole is made in the ground on
the boundary, into which is put the "chief's standing-stone,*

* Br. Laws, iv 7, ,7; 9, 9; 19, t, ,».

CHAP. XXIII] AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 267

in order that his share there may be known." It is stated
in Cormac's Glossary (p. 84, " Gall ") that adjacent settlers
are not considered as neighbours till their properties are
provided with pillar-stone boundaries. The custom was
so general that a legendary origin is assigned to it in the
Coir Antnann, which says that a certain chief named Failbe
[Falvy] " was the first person by whom of old in Erin a
pillar-stone was erected to be set as a boundary " : whence
he was called Failbe Fdl-Choirthech, i.e. 'of the pillar-stone
boundaries.'* We have seen that a stone set up to mark

IV.. 2S4.

Pillar-stone, about 10 feet high, now called Cloch-fada-na-gcarn, the 'long stone of the cams,' in
the centre of a rath beside Carnfree, the inauguration place of the O'Conor kings, near Tulsk, in
Roscommon. (From Kilk. Arch.-eol. Journ. for 1870, p. 250.)

a boundary was sometimes called a "stone of worship " :
corresponding with the pillar- stone god Terminus wor-
shipped by the Romans (see vol. I., p. 277).

Boundary pillar-stones are found standing all over the
country. But pillar-stones were erected for other purposes,
of which the most usual was as a monument over a grave
(for which, see chap, xxxi., sect. 5, infra), a practice that
prevailed in Christian as well as in pagan times. Battles
were often commemorated by pillar-stones as well as by
earns and mounds. Sometimes pillar-stones were set up

*Ir. Texte, in. 293. For other notices of pillar-stones as boundaries
s-ee Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1867, pp. 5, 6 : and 1899, 221, 12.

268

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[rART III

on raths, of which a fine example may be seen beside
Kilkee in Clare : another is illustrated in fig. 284. It has
been already mentioned that pillar-stones were sometimes
erected as idols. Many of the standing-stones still
remaining have a hole through them from which they

are commonly called
" holed-stones," but the
use of these is a mystery.
Pillar-stones are called
by several Irish names: —
coir the [curha] ; coirtlie-
cloch (which is a duplica-
tion, for clock is a 'stone') ;
gall; gallan; and legann.
As to the term gall, of
which gallan is a diminu-
tive, Cormac's Glossary
tells us that pillar-stones
were called "gall"
because they were first
erected in Ireland by the
Gauls ; and as a matter
of fact we have in Irish
legendary literature
accounts of a colony of Gauls coming in very early times
to Ireland. As to many or most of the pillar-stones now
remaining in the country, it is often hard or impossible to
tell, in individual cases, for which of the above-mentioned
purposes they were erected*

•It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that the custom of erecting
unhewn pillar-stones for various purposes prevailed among most ancient
nations: and such stones are found still standing all through Europe and
Asia. Holed-stones are also very general, but, as in Ireland, their original
purpose is unknown. " The standing-stones or menhirs " [of the world
generally] — says Sir John Lubbock (p. 107) — " were no doubt generally
erected in memory of some particular event, the majority being in fact tomb-
stones of prehistoric times." See also Wood-Martin, Pagan Ireland,
p. 307 : and Joyce's Irish Names of Places, vol. 1., pp. 95, 342. Cromlechs,

Fig. 285.

' Holed-stone," near Doagli, County Antrim. (From
Kilk. Archieol. Journ. for 1887-8, p. 78.)

CHAP. XXIII] AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 269

Many of the great mounds or ramparts also still exist :
and there is generally a popular legend that they were
rooted by an enormous enchanted black pig. One of the
largest of all is that in the valley of the Newry river, which
separated the sub-kingdoms of Oriell and Ulidia, and
which will be found fully described in the Ulster Journal
of Archaeology — new series — for 1897. Great artificial
dividing dykes are found in every part of the world, some
historic like the Roman wall in Britain, and some pre-
historic. Offa's Dyke dividing England from Wales is a
grand example : but the most stupendous artificial dyke
in the world is the great wall of China.

2. Land, Crops, and Tillage.

Classification of Land. — The Brehon Law (iv. 277)
specifies three main divisions of " superior arable land,"
recording in this respect an Irish custom in general use in
former times : — First : " arable land which takes precedence
of all lands," i.e. land of the very best kind, which pro-
duces " everything good " — corn, and milk, and flax, and
glaisin, and roid (see, for these dyeing plants, pp. 358, 359,
infra), and sweet herbs, and requiring no manure. There
are no " sticking plants," i.e. no briars nor burdocks (which
stick to one's clothes), so that if a horse should graze on it
none of these sticking plants will be found on its mane or
tail. Rich land of this kind is often called " land of three
roots " (tir [or talamh] tri meccon) : " the richest soil, which,
" according to the Irish notion of the present day, is always
" known by the presence of three weeds, remarkable for
" their large roots, namely the thistle, the ragwort, and the
" wild carrot."* Second : hilly arable land which is well
watered ; groves and copses of ash-trees grow here and

dykes, pillar-stones, &c, are treated of in Lubbock's Prehist. Times,
chap. v. For full information on holed-stones, with many illustrations,
see Wakeman's Handbook of Ir. Antiqq., 3rd ed., by Mr. Cooke, p. 14.
* Petrie, Round Towers, 218, note f.

270 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

there ; and the parts of it that are tilled produce good
crops. Third : labour-requiring arable land ; what is called
axe-land, which requires much labour, but which, when
well worked, produces good crops freely.

Besides these three divisions of good land, the text
gives three divisions of " weak land," or arable land of an
inferior kind, viz. : — Land in which fern grows : upland
with much heath and furze : and lastly, black land with
bog on the surface, not absolutely beyond tillage. After
this enumeration the values are set forth in milch cows.

Manure (Irish ottrach) is very often mentioned in the
Laws, showing the importance attached to it. A dung-
heap is called in Cormac's Glossary crum-duma, which
O'Donovan translates ' maggot-mound,' from cruim, a
maggot, and duma, a mound. The manure mentioned
in the Brehon Law was chiefly stable-manure : and the
law-tract (iv. 277) mentions also the application of shells
(sltg, a shell : pi. slige) to land to improve it.* This last
law-tract (p. 279) , following old custom, enumerates eleven
different things that add to the value of land, and estimates
in seds or cows the amount added by each, or at least the
amount to be taken as a basis of calculation. Of these the
most important are : — a wood properly fenced in : a mine
of copper or iron : the site of an old mill [with millrace
and other accessories, rendering easy the erection of a new
mill] : a road [opening up communication] : situation by
the sea, by a river, or by a cooling pond for cattle.

Digging for Water. — Various passages both in the
Brehon Laws and in general Irish literature show that
the ancient Irish understood the art of obtaining water
by digging deeply into the ground. It must have been a
pretty common practice moreover, for the annalists assign
a legendary origin for it, a thing they never did except

* The use of shells as a land-improver, is well-known : it will be
found noticed in the Ulster Journ. Archaeol., iv. 271 : and Boate, Nat.
Hist., p. 161, mentions it as common in his time.

CHAP. XXIII] AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 27 1

where the custom was general. The Four Masters say,
under a.m. 3991 : " It was by this king (Fiacha Finailches)
" that the earth was first dug in Ireland in order that water
" might be in wells." The Coir Anmann (p. 395) assigns
the discovery to a different person : — " Findoll Caisirni,
" which epithet means cisternae or ' earth-rending ' : for he
" was the first person by whom of old the earth was dug
" to make a pit in which water was found at every time."
The Greeks similarly assigned the origin of their custom
of digging for water to their old hero Danaus, king of the
Argives.

The Coir Anmann (p. 381) states that the Fir Domnann
(a tribe of the Fir Bolgs), during their slavery in Greece,
were condemned by the Greeks to dig deeply into the
earth to obtain water. There were in Ireland experts who
pretended to discover by a sort of divination the proper
places to dig for water. In the story of the siege of
Knocklong we read that when the Munster army were
perishing with thirst, their king called in the aid of the
famous druid Mogh Ruith (for whom see vol. I., pr. 231,
supra) , who hurled his spear high into the air, and directed
his disciple Canvore to dig at the spot where it fell. He
did so : and the water burst forth in a copious stream,
which relieved the army. That same fine well exists to
this day, and is universally known by the name of Tober
Canvore, Canvore's well.* This practice is alluded to in
a more unquestionable authority, the Brehon Laws
(iv. 209, 9), where the gloss on the law of the rights of
water has an expression implying that a stream of water
was sometimes obtained by digging for it.

Crops. — Most of the native crops now in use were then
known and cultivated : chief among them being corn of
various kinds, f Corn in general was denoted by the words

* See Irish Names of Places, 1. 103. I found the name familiarly
used : but the people — at least those I spoke to — knew nothing of the
legend.

+ Kitchen-garden vegetables have been already noticed (p. 148, supra).

272 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

arbar [arrar or arroor], and ith [ih] ; besides which there
was a special name for each kind. In the " Vision of Mac
Conglinne " (p. 98) eight different kinds of grain are
enumerated and named ; but some of these were mere
varieties. These eight occur also in a 14th century Welsh
poem. We know for a certainty that wheat has been
cultivated in this country from the most remote ages : for
we find it constantly mentioned in our ancient literature :
of which an interesting illustration will be found in the
record of the death of the two princes in Mailoran's mill,
p. 333, below. The most common native Irish word for
wheat is cruithnechi [crunneght], which in Cormac's
Glossary is derived from cruith [cruh], blood-coloured
or red, and necht, clean : the first part of this derivation
is probably correct, but necht is a mere termination. The
etymology, however, sufficiently proves the interesting fact,
that the wheat cultivated in the time of the venerable King-
bishop Cormac — 1000 years ago — was the very same as
the Irish wheat of the present day ; for every farmer
knows that the old Irish wheat — now fast dying out —
is distinguished by its red colour.

It is worthy of remark that in several other languages,
wheat — as Pictet shows (Les Origenis, I. 261) — has been
named from its colour, not indeed from its redness as in
Ireland, but from its whiteness as compared with other
kinds of corn. As one instance, may be mentioned the
English word wheat, which Pictet shows is only another
form of white. Three other native Irish words for wheat
are dagh, mann, and tuirenn.

The observations made about the early cultivation of
wheat apply equally to oats (Irish coirce, pron. curk-ya) ;
numerous references to its cultivation and use are found
in our most ancient literature. In modern times, before
the potato became very general, oats formed one of the
principal articles of food of the people, as it did of old
(p. 141, supra). Barley (Irish edrna [orna]) and rye (Irish

CHAP. XXIII] AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 2/3

scgal [pron. shaggal : Lat. secale]) were cultivated, and
formed an important part of the food supplies.

Corn was cut with a sickle or reaping-hook, anciently
called serr or searr [sharr], which in Cormac's Glossary
(p. 149) is derived from Latin serra. Mac Firbis explains
serr by carrdn, which is the present Irish word for a reaping-
hook. Many specimens of reaping-hooks have been found
in Ireland, some of bronze and some of iron, which may be
seen in the National Museum in Dublin. They are all
small, and cutting with them must have been slow work.
Those of bronze are very ancient — probably beyond the

Fig. 286. Fig. 287.

Ancient Irish bronze reaping-hooks. Fig. 286 is of beautiful workmanship, 6!»' inches long. It
was fitted with a handle, which was fastened in the socket with a rivet. Fig. 287 is of much the
same construction ; a little imperfect at the top : 7 inches long. Both now in the National Museum,
Dublin. (From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 527.)

reach of history. The iron ones are hardly so old ; but
still they have the look of great antiquity. Meadow-grass
was cut with a scythe anciently and still called speal [spal] :
but an ancient manuscript explains serr (sickle) by speal,
a scythe* ; which may perhaps be taken to indicate that
anciently there was little or no difference between a scythe
and a sickle.

Corn was reaped as it is at present by cutting the
stalks off at the bottom. But the fact that a cliab buana,
' reaping-basket,' is mentioned in some of the tales,f would
lead us to think that in very remote ages — in the bronze
period — the reaping was sometimes done — as it was, and

*Corm. Gloss., I49. t Da Derga, pp. 198-9.

274 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

is, elsewhere — by cutting off only the tops with the grain,
which were brought away in the basket : leaving the straw
to be dealt with separately. If this supposition is correct,
it explains the smallness of the reaping-hooks represented
above.

The corn, while in sheaves, was stacked in a haggard,
which was called ithlann, corn-floor or corn-yard. The
word always applied to a corn-rick is cruach, which in
Cormac's Glossary (p. 44) is derived from a verb meaning
' to sew,' because "it is sewed all round." From this we
learn that the people stacked their corn carefully after
reaping, and covered the rick with thatch which they
fastened by twining or interweaving with ropes of some
kind, probably hay-ropes, or what we now call sugans.
People do the same still in many parts of Ireland.

Corn was threshed with a flail (suist), often on the floor
of the kiln-house,* but more commonly on a regularly
prepared threshing-floor near the kiln. In one corner was
a little pit or hollow in the floor into which the grain was
swept as it was threshed out, and which Adamnan (131)
mentions by the Latin name fossula, ' little pit.' A pair of
threshers sometimes stood face to face, sometimes side by
side : as we see at the present day. The Book of Aicill
has a series of rules for estimating the compensation for
injuries to bystanders by an accidental stroke or by
the head of the flail flying off,f as I have often seen the
buailtedn or ' striking-stick ' fly off with the latter-day
threshers when the gad or tying-withe broke. To get
rid of chaff (cdith : pron. caw), the women winnowed
the corn by hand, using a winnowing-sheet called caetig
or cditeach.%

* Br. Laws, m. 221. Adamnan (p. 131) calls the threshing-floor by
the usual Latin name excussorium.

f Br. Laws, in. 221 : se? also v. 159.

% See Todd, Book of Hymns, 17, note 54 : cditeach, in O'Reilly : de-
rived from the same root as cdith

CHAP. XXIII] AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 275

Farm Implements. — Most of the common implements
employed in farm-work at the present day were used by
the ancient Irish, though no doubt they were somewhat
different in make. The sickle, scythe, and flail have been
already noticed. The use of the plough was universal.
The old word for it was arathar [arraher], which in
Cormac's Glossary (p. 7) is derived from I .at. aratro, to
plough, as he derives the Irish dr, tillage, from Lat. aro :
but all these Irish and Latin words are cognate, and are
not derived one from another, but from an older original.
The word arathar is now quite obsolete ; and the present
name for a plough is cechta [kaighta], which is also an
ancient word. Several of the parts of the plough are

Fig. 288.

A two-horse or two-ox yoke, of timber, 3 feet 9 inches long. Found in a bog in County Monaghan.
(From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 243)

mentioned in the old records. The coulter or ploughshare
was called socc, which is the word still used. That it was
made of iron we know from many passages — so many that
it is unnecessary to refer to instances.

The plough was generally drawn by oxen : but some-
times by horses : — " St. Ciaran had fifty tame horses for
tilling and ploughing the ground."* Nevertheless when
we find ploughing mentioned in old Irish writings, it is
nearly always oxen that are in question. The ploughman
(airemk, pron. arrev) had to see that the several oxen were
taken day after day in turn ; and if, under certain circum-
stances, anyone worked an ox out of his turn without
the knowledge of the owner, he was liable to be fined.f

*Feilire, 61, bottom. fBr. Laws, III. 271, I7.

276 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Cormac's Glossary (p. 43) mentions the cuing or yoke, and
says it was so called " from the hold {congbaiJ) it takes of
the oxen " ; and he notices also the essem, a rope or strap
" uniting one yoke to the other, or to the ox, or to the
oxen " (p. 64). The ploughman held each ox by a halter
(Irish cennos, pron. kennos), and he also carried a sharp
goad (Irish brot), " so that " — as the law tract expresses
it — " the ox may be mastered."* I find no mention in old
documents of " ploughing by the tail," which, in com-
paratively recent times, was so prevalent when horses were
employed, f

For breaking clods of clay in a ploughed field farmers
used a clod-mallet called forcca or farcha, which means a
mallet of any kind : it had a wooden handle, the head no
doubt being also made of wood. J They used a spade
(rama) and a shovel (sluasat), both fixed on wooden
handles — as noticed in the Brehon Laws (in. 205) — and
both probably made of iron. Elsewhere in the laws
(iv. 335) a shovel is called by another name samtach.
In Cormac's Glossary (p. 78) the word for a spade is fee,
which is still in use even among the English-speaking
people of many parts of Ireland, who call a spade jack or
feck. Rama and sluasad are also retained as living words
for spade and shovel : but the former gets the diminutive
form rdmhan, often shortened to ran, both pronounced
rawn. A rake was used, which, as far as we can judge
from the description of it given in Cormac's Glossary
(p. 147), must have been much the same as that used at
present. There it is stated that " it touches the ground "
[when in use], and that " its handle is through a hole."
It was, of course, made of wood. It is called in the
Glossary rastal, which is the word still in use.

* Br. Laws, 111. 269 ; iv. 304, 305, 306, 307.
t See Irish Names of Places, 1. 237.
X Br. Laws, iv., 335.

CHAP. XXIIlJ AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 277

3. Some Farm-Animals.
Cows. — From the most remote ages, cows formed one
of the principal articles of wealth of the inhabitants of
this country ; they were in fact the standard of value, as
money is at the present day ; and prices, wages, and
marriage portions were estimated in cows by our ancestors
(see chap, xxvii., p. 385, infra). As might be expected,
therefore, they are constantly mentioned in ancient Irish
literature of all kinds ; and they are made the subject of
special and important consideration in the Brehon Laws.
The most general Irish word for a cow is bo, not only at
the present day, but in the oldest manuscripts : in one of
the eighth-century mss. of Zeuss it glosses bos, with which
it is also cognate. In Cormac's Glossary a passage is
quoted from the Senchus Mor to illustrate the word ferb
as another name for a cow.* The term buar was applied
to kine in general, derived from bo. A bull is called in
Irish tarbh [tarruv], a word which exists in cognate forms
in many languages : in the three Celtic dialects — Old Irish,
Welsh, and Cornish — it is found in the respective forms of
tarb, taru, and tarow while the old Gaulish is tarvos ; and
all these are little different from the Greek tauros, and
Latin taurus. Damh [dauv], an ox, is evidently cognate
with Latin dama, a deer. How it came to pass that the
same word signifies in Irish an ox, and in Latin a deer, it
is not easy to explain, f The chief use of the ox was as a
draft and plough animal, for which see " Oxen " in Index.

* Corm. Gloss., p. 71 ; the original passage of the Senchus M6r, quoted
in the ninth or tenth century in the Glossary, may be seen in the present
edition of the Senchus M6r (Br. Laws, 1. 64, 65), where " teora ferba fira,"
' three white cows,' are mentioned : one of the evidences of the antiquity
of the published edition.

f The transfer of a name from one species of animals or plants to
another is a curious phenomenon, and not unfrequently met with. The
Greek phegos signifies an oak, while the corresponding Latin, Gothic, and
English terms — fagus, boka, and beech — are applied to the beech-tree ; and
I might cite several other instances. See this question discussed in Max
Muller's Lectures on the Science of Language, Second Series.

278 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The words dairt and colpa, meaning a heifer, will be
found mentioned in connexion with grazing (pp. 282-3
farther on) and with standards of value (chap, xxvii.,
p. 386) : and mart, an ox, at p. 127, supra. The usual Irish
word for a calf is gamuin, modern Irish gamhan [gowan].
Cormac's Glossary (61) gives the old word dedel as also
meaning a calf : and loig or laogh [lay] was still another
name. The word gamhan must not be confounded with
its derivative, gamhnach [gownagh], which, according to
Cormac's Glossary, means ' a milking cow with a calf a
year old ' ; but which in modern Irish is used to signify
simply a stripper, i.e. a milk-giving cow in the second year
after calving. White cows with red ears carried a fictitious
and fancy value ; and we often find them mentioned both
in the Tales and in the Lives of the Saints. They are
also noticed in Cormac's Glossary (p. 72, under " Fir ").

Pigs. — In point of value to the community, pigs came
next to cows, and were of more importance to the general
run of people than horses. They were kept by almost all,
so that they were quite as plentiful and formed as valuable
an industry in those days as at present. It has been
already stated that pork was valued as food by all persons,
from the highest to the lowest ; and the supply was fully
equal to the demand. The usual Irish word for a pig was
and is still, muc or mucc : a boar was called tore. A very
young pig was a banb or banbh [bonniv], a word which is
still known in the anglicised forms of bonniv or bonny, or
with the diminutive, bonneen or bonniveen — words used in
every part of Ireland for sucking-pigs. But an older
word for a little sucking-pig was cumlachtach, as given
in Cormac's Glossary (p. 39). There were many other
names for pigs : O'Davoren enumerates eight : but they
need not be given here.*

It was cheap and easy enough to feed pigs in those
days. Forests abounded everywhere, and the animals

* See Stokes, Three Irish Glossaries, Preface, 1. and lxv.

CHAP. XXIII] AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 279

were simply turned out into the woods and fed on mast and
whatever else they could pick up. Wealthy people — chiefs
and even kings, as well as rich farmers — kept great herds,
which cost little or nothing beyond the pay of a swine-
herd (muccaid, pron. muckee) : and they gave no trouble,
for, except in winter, they remained out day and night,
needing no sties or pens of any kind, being sufficiently
sheltered by the trees and underwood. But in winter
they were kept in sties, called in Irish muc-fhoil [muckole],
as already stated (p. 41, supra). The special time for
fattening was autumn, when mast abounded ; a practice
mentioned by Adamnan (p. 135), whose words imply that
the fat pigs were slaughtered at the end of autumn : so
that few had to be kept in sties during winter. The
Brehon Law mentions pigs feeding on mast (Irish mes
or meas : pron. mas), in wood-covered land : and an
expression in another part of the Law implies that wood-
land for hog-feeding was sometimes private property, and
was of value.* But woodland was generally a part of the
" commons " (1. 187, supra), where every member of the
sept was free to send his pigs to feed.f

When woodland was not convenient, or when for any
other reason pigs had to be kept and fattened at home,
they were fed on corn or sour milk, and on offal of
various kinds : these were managed chiefly by women.
A pig kept at home was called a " sty-pig " (Irish muc-
crai : era, a sty). J In Cormac's Glossary (p. 27, " Bacur ")
mention is made of " braiches round which pigs go " : and
in another part of the same Glossary (105) is noticed a
" lotar or trough in which are brachles." Braiches and
brachles both signify the grains or refuse from brae or
braich, malt (p. 117, supra) : and from these expressions
we learn that the custom of feeding pigs on malt-grains,
now so familiar near breweries> was also practised by the

* Br. Laws, u. 367, bottom ; in. 39, bottom ; and iv. 103, s.

I Br. Laws, iv. 257, last par. % Ibid., 11. 367, bottom ; 369, top.

280 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

ancient Irish : for we have seen that brewing was then
very common.

The old Irish race of pigs were long-snouted, thin-
spare, muscular, and active : and except when fat they
could scour the country like hounds. There are many
indications in old writings that they were often wicked
and dangerous, ready to charge and attack when pro-
voked ; and sometimes they inflicted fatal wounds. In
the Book of Ailill are a number of regulations providing
for damages for injuries inflicted by pigs, taking into
careful account whether there was provocation or not.
For instance it is stated that when an idler provokes a pig,
in consequence of which it " charges out on him," and
wounds him, the owner is exempt.* In the remote forests
there were plenty of wild pigs : and we have many
references to them in our literature. In the twelfth
century Giraldus gives us this testimony : — " In no part
" of the world are such vast herds of boars and wild pigs
" to be found." (Top. Hib., I. xix.)

Sheep were kept everywhere, as they were of the utmost
importance, partly as food, and partly for their wool : and
they are constantly mentioned in the Brehon Laws as
well as in general Irish literature. There was in Ireland
a many-horned variety, which however has been long
extinct. f The common Irish word for a sheep was, and
is, cdera, gen. cderech.

Trespass by Animals. — When two or more tenants held
farms next each other, the Law lays down minute regula-
tions for the trespass of all kinds of domestic animals, and
enumerates many circumstances to be taken into account
in fixing fines. Among these is the presence or absence
of " the caretaking which the Law requires."! H the
animals had not been properly cared, full fines were
exacted for trespass ; but if it could be proved that due

* Br. Laws, in. 243, 245. t Wilde, Catalogue, 249.

J Br. Laws, iv. 87, top line.

CHAP. XXIII] AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 28 1

care had been exercised, the fine was mitigated. The
following were some of the precautions that should be
taken. Hens should have a hood (cocholl), i.e. a heavy
rag tied partly on the back and partly up the neck and
head. In other cases their wings were clipped, and their
feet were tied with spancels, i.e. simply bits of twine, or
their claws were covered with rag boots. A goat should
be hampered by having some kind of leather cover — called
a brogue or shoe in the Law — tied on each leg : the legs
of yearling calves should have a spancel (urcholl) : there
should be a herdsman with cows, and a shepherd with
sheep. At night all animals should be in their proper
enclosures, pigs in a sty, horses in a stable (or properly
fettered if left outside), and cows in a bawn or enclosure.
Pigs should have a yoke (Irish srathar, pron. srahar) or
tie on the back and legs. Pet pigs were, as we might
expect, notorious for their mischievous propensities ; and
they were very ingenious moreover, for they commonly
found an opening through the fence into the neighbour's
field, and in this manner showed the way to the whole
herd, which were quick enough to follow their pioneer.
Accordingly the Law lays down as much fine for a pet pig
as for two other animals, for the first offence ; as much as
for three for the second ; and as much as for four on the
third occasion.*

4. Herding, Grazing, Milking.

Herding and Grazing. — The old word for a cowherd was
bochaill or buachaill, which glosses bubulcus (' herdsman ')
in one of Zeuss's eighth-century glosses (p. 183, 5). In
Cormac's Glossary (p. 20) it is derived from bo, a cow, and
cail, keeping : a ' keeper of cows ' : but in modern times
the word buachail has come to signify ' boy ' simply without
any reference to occupation. Another old name for a
cowherd was boare or boaire [bo-ar-e : 3-syll.], literally

* For all these see Br. Laws, iv. 87, 109, in, 117, 119.

282 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

' cow-carer.' The boare of Ross, king of Ulster a.d. 248,
was Bairche or Boirche ; and from him were named
Beanna Boirche [Banna Borka], ' Boirche's Peaks,' now the
Mourne Mountains in Down, because he herded the king's
flocks there.* The account in the Dinnsenchus adds that
when herding, his favourite look-out point was the summit
of Slieve Slanga, now Slieve Donard, the highest of the
range ; from which he could see southwards as far as the
Dublin and Wicklow Mountains, and northwards as far as
Cloch-a-stookan, or the Giant's Causeway.

There were special keepers of cows, of sheep, of swine :
swineherds have been treated of elsewhere. At the present
day a shepherd is called aedhaire and treudaighe [aira,
traidee]. As an aid to herding, bells were sometimes
hung round the necks of cows and sheep. Animals thus
furnished are said — in the gloss to the Senchus Mor — to
be " privileged " (Irish uaisli : singular uasal : literally
' noble '), which meant nothing more than that they were
distinguished above the rest of the herd.f There was a
fine for removing the bell. Such bells have continued in
use till this day : and in the National Museum may be
seen many specimens, some no doubt modern, but some
very old.

The nature and use of " commons " have been already
explained (vol. I., p. 187, supra). The commons pasture
was generally mountain-land, usually at some distance
from the lowland homesteads ; and it was grazed in
common and riot fenced in. Each head of a family
belonging to the tribe or fine had the right to send his
cattle on it, the number he was entitled to turn out being
generally in proportion to the size of his farm. In regu-
lating the right of grazing, animals were classified, a cow
being taken as the unit. The legal classification was
this : — two geese are equivalent to a sheep ; two sheep
to one dairt, or one-year-old heifer ; two dairts to one

* Trip. Life 423. f Br. Laws, 1. 127, 4; 143, middle.

CHAP. XXIII] AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 283

colpthach. or two-year-old heifer ; two colpthachs to one cow ;
a cow and a colpthach equal to one ox. Suppose a man
had a right to graze a certain number of cow; on the
common : he might turn out the exact number of cows,
or the equivalent of other animals, any way he pleased,
so long as the total did not exceed the amount of his
privilege.*

When several persons had grazing farms lying adjacent
to each other, or when they grazed their cattle on a
common, they often employed one herdsman to attend
to all, who was paid by contributions from the several
owners, each giving in proportion to the number of his
cattle. This is what was called comingaire [4-syll.],
i.e. ' common herding,' from ingaire or gaire, herding ;
and under this name it is mentioned in the Brehon Law.
The gloss on the Senchus Mor says that all those owning
the cattle should be "in brotherhood with each other, "f
and that each one is to be faithful [to the others] : by
which is meant that a man, while looking specially after
his own cattle, should, so far as he reasonably could, have
an eye to those of his neighbours. In the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries it was usual for all the people of a
village or townland, after putting down the crops in spring,
to migrate to the uplands with their families and cattle,
living there in temporary settlements during the summer,
and returning to their homes in the beginning of autumn
in time to gather in the crops. An upland settlement of
this kind was called a buaile [booley] : and the custom
was known as booleying by Anglo-Irish writers, several of
whom have described it. Probably this custom descended
from early times, for it is noticed in the gloss to the
Senchus Mor, in the first volume of the Brehon Laws,

P- I33-+

* Br. Laws, iv. 101, bottom. f Br. Laws, i. 143.

% For more information about " booleying," see Irish Names of Places,
vol. 1., p. 239.

284 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Remnants of the old regulations regarding the use of
commons land survive in many parts of Ireland to the
present day. There are still " commons " — generally
mountain-land — attached to village communities, on which
several families have a right to graze their cattle according
to certain well-defined regulations ; and there are bogs
where they have a right to cut peat or turf — a right of
turbary, as they call it : and if an individual sells or other-
wise disposes of his land, these rights gi with it. Grazing
in common was lately found, by the Congested Districts
Board, in full operation in Clare Island, and in re-
arranging the land there they wisely left the old custom
undisturbed. A curious instance existing near Swords,
seven miles from Dublin, has been described by Judge
Kane in a letter which has been published in the Journal
of the Roy. Soc. of Antiqq., Irel., for 1890-91, pp. 81, 82.
The arrangement for the classification of animals in regard
to the right of grazing continues also in force in many
parts of the country : the present unit being commonly the
colpthach, i.e. a cow : now called by the people a " collop."
I know one place in Limerick where the people still speak
familiarly of a man owning so many collops of grass on
the adjacent mountain-common. During the winter, when
grass was scarce, cows were often fed on straw — and
probably on hay — as at present.*

Farm Life and Milking. — The people of Ireland, not the
farming classes merely, but the general community, were
early risers, and went early to bed : of which many
examples might be cited. One of the geasa or pro-
hibitions of the king of Ireland enjoined that while at
Tara he should be always out of his bed at sunrise. The
two daughters of King Laegaire while living in Cruachan,
came out at sunrise to wash their hands, according to their
custom. The bondmaid of Dubthach, St. Brigit's father,
milked the cows at sunrise. From a statement in the

* Br. Laws, in. 151, J?_

CHAP. XXIII] AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE 285

Book of Ailill it would seem that the active working-day
in the houses of farmers began at sunrise and ended when
the cows came to their stalls : and in the houses of chiefs
it began when the horse-boy let out the horses in the
morning, and ended at bed-time.* A picture of the usual
custom of the farmer's homestead in the evening is seen
in an incidental entry in the story of the Voyage of the
O'Corras, where the three robbers proposed to postpone
their evil work go d-tiosdis ba ocus innile an bhaile da
n-drasaibh ocus da n-ionnadaibh bunaidh — " till the kine
" and the cattle of the homestead should come to their
" byres and their proper places, "f Women always did the
milking, except of course in monasteries, where no women
were employed, and the monks had to do all the work of
the community.

From the custom of milking early the word ambuarach
has come to signify early in the morning : from buarach,
a cow-spancel, and that again from bo, a cow : am-buarach,
' in spancel-time.'J The buarach or spancel was made
then as now of a stout rope of twisted hair, about two feet
long, with a bit of wood — a sort of long-shaped knob —
fixed at one end, and a loop at the other end into which
the knob was thrust so as to fasten the spancel round the
two hind legs of the cow. That they used a spancel — and
a strong one too, with a big knob — in the old times is
shown by a story in the Dinnsenchus. An able-bodied
idle fellow, roaming about, met a girl herding her cows in
the evening in a lonely place, and attempted violence.
But he reckoned without his host : for she turned on him
and knocked him down with a blow of the wooden end of
her spancel, and then twisting the strong hair-rope tightly
round his neck, choked him.§

* Br. Laws, in. 419.

t Rev. Celt., xvi. 36 : Old Celtic Romances, 403, 404.
X Rev. Celt., xiv. 428, „, 437. See the word buarach in this sense
in LU, 61, b, top line.

§ Rev. Celt., xiv. 31 : LL, '* Contents," 43, b ; and Text, 167, b, j6.

Sculpture i

i a Capital : Priest's House, Glcndalough : Bcranger, 1779.
(From Petrie's Round Towers.)

CHAPTER XXIV

WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE

Section i. Chief Materials.

imber. — All the chief materials for the
work of the various crafts were pro-
duced at home. Of wood there was
no stint : and there were mines of copper,
iron, lead, and possibly of tin, which were
worked with intelligence and success.
We know that in early ages Ireland abounded in
forests ; so that wood as a working material was plentiful
everywhere. Even in the time of Giraldus Cambrensis —
the end of the twelfth century — when clearances and
cultivation had gone on for a thousand years, the greater
part of the country was clothed with trees. He says : —
" Ireland is well wooded and marshy. The [open] plains
are of limited extent compared with the woods."* The
common Irish word for a tree was, and is still, crann : a
wood is coill or fid. The Brehon Code (iv. 147), in setting
forth the law for illegally felling trees, divides them into
four classes, with a special fine for each class : —

1. " Chieftain " trees (airigh feada) : oak (dair) ; hazel
(coll) ; holly (cuileann) ; yew (ibur) ; ash (uindius, more

* Top. Hib., 1. iv

286

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 287

commonly called fuinnse, fuinnsecnn, or fuinnsedg) ; pine
(ochtach or giumhas) ; apple (aball).

2. " Common " trees : alder (fernn) ; willow (sail) ;
hawthorn (sceith) ; mountain-ash, or rowan-tree, or quicken
tree (caerthann) ; birch (beithe) ; elm (learn) ; and another
which is not known from its Irish name, idha.

3. " Shrub " trees : blackthorn or sloebush (draidean or
droigen) ; elder or boor tree (trom) ; white hazel (finncoll) ;
aspen (crithach, lit. ' shaking ') ; arbutus (caithne) ; and
two others not known from their names, feorus and
crann-fir.

4. Bramble trees : fern (raith) ; bog-myrtle (rait) ;
furze (aiteand) ; briar (dris) ; heath (fraech) ; ivy (eideand) ;
broom (gilcach) ; gooseberry (spin).

The commentator on the Law proceeds to state the
qualities or circumstances that give each of the " chieftain "
trees its " nobility." The oak : its nobleness in size and
appearance, and its meas or acorns (for feeding swine :
Irish dearcan, an acorn). Curious, no mention is made of
its bark, which was very valuable for tanning (see p. 367,
below). The hazel: its nuts (see p. 155, supra), and its
wattles, for building wicker-houses. The apple : its fruit
and its bark — which was probably used for tanning. The
yew : its noble structures : i.e. the value of its timber for
ornamental furniture, household vessels, and building.
This tree was produced in great abundance : so much so
that Giraldus Cambrensis records an opinion that the
poisonous juices and exhalations of the yew-trees seriously
checked the increase of bees. The holly : because it was
made into chariot-shafts ; and for another reason, but
here the Irish statement is unintelligible to me. The
ash : " supporting a king's thigh " : i.e. probably it was
used in making the king's throne ; also " half the furniture
of arms " ; that is, the handles of spears were made of
it. The pine : because its wood was used in making
puncheons.

288 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Among the various materials mentioned in the Senchus
Mor is whalebone, which is called the fabra or ' fringe-
bones ' of a mil-mor or whale. The gloss says that it was
used for making saddle-trees and the bottoms of sieves :
and also occasionally for hoops of [small] vessels when
suitable wood-hoops were not to be had.*

Metals. — The metallic weapons and tools preserved in
our museums are generally either of bronze (sometimes
brass, occasionally copper) or iron. The bronze objects
far outnumber those of iron, which is partly explained by
the fact that iron rusts and wastes away much more
quickly than bronze. It is generally recognised that the
three materials — stone, bronze, iron — represent three suc-
cessive stages of human progress : that is to say, stone in
its use as a material for tools and weapons, is more ancient
than bronze, and bronze than iron. But there was no
sudden or well-marked change from one to another : they
all overlap. Stone was used in a primitive stage when
bronze was not known ; but it continued to be used long
after the introduction of bronze. So bronze was used for
some long period before iron was known ; but continued
in use long after the discovery of iron. And more than
that : all three were used together down into Christian
times.

That the ancient Irish were familiar with mines, and
with the modes of smelting and of extracting metals of
various kinds from the ore, is shown by the frequent
notices of mines and mining both in the Laws and in the
general literature. The Law (iv. 279) enumerates eleven
things that add to the value of land, among which is a
mine of copper or of iron. The Senchus Mor mentions a
penalty for digging a silver mine without the permission of
the ownerf ; from which we may infer that a mine was, or
might be, the private property of the owner of the land : a
fact which is still more clearly stated in the Book of

* Br. Laws, i. 125, I0; 135, last paragraph. f Ibid., 1. 167, 171.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 289

Aicill.* An ancient Irish ms. tract of the Brehon Laws,
quoted by Petrie (R. Towers, 219), gives the pay of the
delver who digs copper ore. When Connall Cernach was
fighting the men of Connaught, while retreating in his
chariot, he came to a river. " There were miners washing
ore " (batar mianaighe ac nige mianaigh) in the river above
him : and he difficulty he experienced in finding the exact
fording place and crossing the turbid and troubled water
enabled his pursuers to overtake and kill him.f Here the
washing of ore is mentioned as quite an ordinary occur-
rence ; and in many others of the oldest Irish tracts the
smelting of ore is frequently referred to as a matter very
familiar. The hard breathing of champions fighting is
compared to the bellows-blowing of smiths smelting ore
{tuaircnech nan goband ic meinlegad miannaig : LL. 218,
b, 6 bot.). The plain now called the barony of Fermoy
in Cork must have been famous for its mines, for it
was anciently known as Magh meine, the ' plain of
minerals. 'I

The truth of all this documentary testimony — and
much more might be adduced — is fully confirmed by
evidence under our own eyes. Sir Richard Griffith — in
his Report to the Royal Dublin Society, 1828 — remarks
that the numbers of ancient mine excavations still visible
in every part of Ireland, prove that " an ardent spirit of
mining adventure " must have pervaded the country at
some remote period. He instances old copper mines at
Mucruss near Killarney, and at Ballydehob in Cork, old
coal mines at Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, and the lead mines
of Milltown in Clare, the oldest mines perhaps in Ireland.^
In these last many rude tools were found, such as oaken
shovels and iron picks of extraordinary size and weight.
O'Halloran also, in the Introduction to his " History of

* Br. Laws, in. 203.

f Death of Conall Cernach in Zeitschr. fur Celt. Phil., 1. 108.

% O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 1. 215.

2QO SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Ireland," mentions the antique mining shafts on the Wes-
tropp estate in Limerick, near the Shannon : and very
ancient copper mines have been found at Knockmahon
in Waterford.*

The usual Irish words for smelting metals were brtith
and berbad [bruh, berva], both of which signify ' boiling.'
A smelter was called bruithneoir [bruhnore], meaning, as
O'Clery's Glossary expresses it, " a man [employed in]
" boiling or melting [ag bearbhadh no ag leaghadh] gold or
silver or metal." Bruth and caer were both applied to a
mass of any kind of metal. Of the detailed smelting
processes of the Irish we have very little knowledge. But
we know that, whether these arts grew from within or were
brought hither by the first immigrants, the Irish miners
successfully extracted from their ores all the native metals
then known, f

In Ireland as elsewhere copper was known before
iron. It was almost always used as bronze, which will
be treated of at page 297, farther on. We have unques-
tionable documentary evidence — such as the " Confession of
St. Patrick " — that iron was in familiar use in Ireland in the
fifth century of the Christian era : and as we learn from
Tacitus that the Caledonians used iron swords in his time,
it is certain that this metal was known in Ireland at least
as early as the first century : probably much earlier.
According to tradition the iron mines of Slieve-an-ierin^
east of Lough Allen in the County of Leitrim (Sliabh-
an-iairn, the mountain of iron), were worked by Goibniu,
the great Dedannan smith ; and it is now as celebrated
for its iron ore as it was when it got the name, long ages
ago. In the Book of Rights we find it repeatedly stated
that masses of iron were sometimes given as tribute to
kings. In the old tale of the Death of Goll and Garbh,
from the book of Leinster, steel is mentioned under the

* See Brash's Article on Ancient Mining in Ireland, Kilk. Archaeol-
Journ., 1S70-1, p. 509. j See Wilde's remarks : Catalogue 350-7.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 2QT

name of criiaid [croo-ee], which means ' hard ' ; and hence
came the name of Cuculainn's sword, criiadin, a diminutive
form of criiaid. Among the pagan remains found in a
earn at Loughcrew were many specimens of iron imple-
ments, all, as might be expected, very much corroded by
rust. One was " an iron punch five inches long with a
" chisel-shaped point bearing evidence of the use of the
" mallet at the other end."* This was probably used for
punching the patterns on gold ornaments (vol. I., p. 566,
supra) .

The Irish word for iron is not very different from the
English : — iarann, Old Irish form iam [both pronounced
eeran], and the word exists in various forms in Welsh
and in several of the northern languages ; such as Gothic,
cisarn ; Old High German, isarn ; Anglo-Saxon, iren ;
Welsh, heyrn.

Sir Robert Kanef says that tinstone has been found
only in the auriferous soil of Wicklow. But Smith, in
his " History of Kerry " (p. 125), states that he 'found
near the lake of Killarney an ore which contained tin :
and, according to Sir Richard Griffith, tin occurs in
combination with lead and zinc in Dalkey, near Dublin.
There is a very ancient tradition recorded by Nennius
as well as by native Irish writers, that one of the
" Wonders of Ireland " was the four metallic circles
surrounding Loch Lein or the Lake of Killarney, viz.
a circle of tin, a circle of lead, a circle of iron, and a
circle of copper! : which, so far as tin is concerned, is
corroborated by Smith's experience. But whether tin
was mined at home or imported from Cornwall — or
both, as is more likely — it was constantly used in making
bronze: and often without any mixture. "The ores of
" lead seem to occur in more places than those of any

* Fergusson, Rude Stone Monuments, 218.

t Industrial Resources, p. 210.

J Irish Nennius, 220. See Kinahan's Geol. Irel., p. 357.

292 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

" other metal."* The mines were worked too, so that
the metal was sufficiently abundant : the very old lead
mines of Milltown have been noticed at p. 289. Zinc,
which was chiefly used in making brass, was also found,
commonly in connexion with lead. Gold and silver have
been already treated of.

2. Builders.

From the most remote times there were in Ireland
professional architects or builders, as there were smiths,
poets, historians, physicians, and druids ; and we find them
often mentioned in our earliest literature. Even the very
names of the mythical builders of Tara, Emain, Ailech,
and other royal residences have been preserved.

There were two main branches of the builder's pro-
fession : — stone-building and wood-building. An ollave
builder (1. 442, supra) was supposed to be master of both,
and, in addition to this, to be so far acquainted with many
subordinate crafts as to be able to " superintend " them,
as the Law (v. 95, 4) expresses it : in other words, to be a
thorough judge as to whether the work was properly
turned out by the several tradesmen, so as to be able to
pass or reject as the works deserved : all which resembles
what is expected from architects and builders of the
present day.

The most distinguished ollave builder of a district was
taken into the direct service of the king, and received from
him a yearly stipend of twenty-one cows, answering to a
iixed salary of £250 or £300 of the present day : for
which he was to oversee and have properly executed
all the king's building and other structural works. In
addition to this he was permitted to exercise his art foi
the general public for pay : and as he had a great name,
and had pknty of time on hands, he usually made a large

• Kinahan, p. 348.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 293

income. In one of the Brehon Law tracts,* there is a
curious classification of the works an ollave builder might
undertake, with the payment fixed for each, as taken
separately : nineteen classes in all, which are as follows : —
The two most important — (i) Building in stone and
{2) Building in wood — are named first, as he was to be
thorough master of these : six cows each. (3) Ibroracht,
i.e. ' yew- work ' : six cows. (4) Cook-house or kitchen-
building : six cows. (5) Mill-building : six cows. Con-
structing the three following — (6) [large] ships : (7) barcas
or ordinary small ships ; and (8) currachs or wicker boats :
four cows each. (9) Making wooden vessels, namely
vats, tubs, keeves of oak, and small vessels : four cows.
(10) Uamairecht, conjectured to be ' cellar-making ' (nam,
>a cave) ; perhaps making the subterranean stone-house
under a rath (see p. 56, supra) : two cows. Constructing
the three following — (11) causeways ; (12) stone walls ;
(13) clochans or stepping-stones across a river : two cows
each. For the three following — (14) carvings in. wood
(rinnaighecht , pron. rinneeght) ; (15) crosses ; (16) chariots :
two cows each. For these three — (17) wickerwork houses ;
(18) shields ; (19) bridges : two cows each. Builders of
the inferior grades (below the ollave) had correspondingly
lower fees.

It will be observed that in most of the above there is
an absence of distinct specification as to quantity or time,
as to who supplied materials, or paid the workmen, &c. ;
but, as in many others of the Brehon Law provisions, all
this was regulated by custom, which was at the time so
universally understood and recognised that it was not
considered necessary to put it in writing. As illustrating
the systematic way in which the Law attempted to pro-
vide for all such matters, it is worthy of remark that the
permanent stipend of twenty-one cows received by a builder

* Br. Laws, v. 93, 95 : Petrie, Round Towers, 346 : O'Curry, Man.
& Cust., 11. 52, et seq.

294 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

from the king was calculated on the above charges, in this
way : — Full fees allowed for the first two works (stone-
building and wood-building) : six cows each ; and one-
sixth fees for all the others combined, i.e. one-sixth of 54 :
9 cows ; which with the first twelve make 21 cows. Some
of the handicrafts mentioned in the above list will be
noticed in the present chapter : others have been or will be
dealt with in other parts of this book.

By far the most celebrated of all the ancient architects
of Ireland was the Gobban Saer, who flourished in the
seventh century of our era, and who therefore comes well
within historic times. The best accounts represent him as
a native of Turvey near Malahide, north of Dublin : and
he is mentioned in the Lives of many of the Irish Saints
as having been employed by them to build churches,
oratories, and houses, some of which still retain his name.
This great builder fills a prominent place in all sorts of
Irish literature from his own time downwards ; he is men-
tioned in the eighth-century poem referred to in vol. L,
p. 230, supra — almost contemporary with himself ; and t©
this day the peasantry all over Ireland tell numerous
stories about him.*

3. Braziers and Founders.

Dan [dawn] is a general word for any art, science, or
trade : and aes-ddna [' men of art '] is applied to those
skilled in such arts. In the commentary on the Senchus
Mor (Br. Laws, 11. 119), smiths, carpenters, shield-makers,
physicians, and poets, are called collectively aes-ddna : but
most commonly the term aes-ddna meant poets. Some-
times an artisan was termed simply dan : but there were
of course different epithets to distinguish the various
callings. It was however usual to restrict the applica-

* Almost everything that is known of his authentic history has been
brought together by Dr. Petrie in his Round Towers, 385-7. Several
popular stories about him will be found in the Dublin Penny Journal.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 2g5

tion of dan to a poem or poetry : whence a poet was often
called fer-ddna, ' man of poetry.'

The word goba, gen. gobann [gow, gowan], is applied
to a worker in iron — a smith : cerd or cerrd [caird], to a
worker in brass, gold, and silver — a brazier, goldsmith, or
silversmith : saer to a carpenter, builder, or mason — a
worker in timber or stone. Sometimes a bronze or brass-
worker was called umhaidhe [oovee], from* uma (p. 297,
infra). These are the usual applications : but as the arts
and trades sometimes overlap, so the words are often
applied in somewhat more extended senses : for example,
Culann, the mighty smith of the Red Branch Knights, is
called a cerd in the Book of Leinster.* Still they are
generally distinguished, especially in Christian times : and
we find goba and cerd sharply defined in a passage of
the Tripartite Life (266, 267), specifying the duties of
St. Patrick's household, where we are told that his three
smiths (gobainn : pi.) made bells for him (which at that
time was smithwork, as they were made of hammered
iron), while his three braziers (cerdae : pi.) made chalices
and other brazen and bronze vessels for the altar. The
three classes of artists are also well distinguished in a
passage in the " Battle of Moyrath " (p. 103), in which the
skill of cerdae, gobainn, and saeir (all three words plural) is
praised. The three mythical artisans of the Dedannans,
the brothers of Diancecht the physician (1. 261, supra),
were Goibniu (gen. Goibnenn) the goba or smith, who made
their spearheads and swords : Creidne the cerd, who supplied
rivets for the spears, hilts for the swords, and bosses and
rims for the shields : and Luchtine the saer or carpenter,
who made their wooden and wicker shields and spear-
handles, f A goba and a cerd are distinguished also in the
Brehon Law rule (ill. 193), that goods found in a kiln, a

* LL, 63, a, 22; b, ,7.

J Corm. Gloss., 123, under " Nescoit." See also Man. & Cust., 1.
246, 248, 249.

296

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

kitchen, a forge, or a mill, left in charge of the owner,
if they were unconnected with the proper business of
the place, were forfeited : and the particular instance of
this rule given is: — If gold, silver, or bronze was found
in the forge of a goba (blacksmith), it was forfeited :
because these materials had no connexion with the
business of a smith, but belonged to that of a cerd.

The word ctrdd glosses acrarius
in Zeuss (page 60, 43) : and in
the form of caird — which exactly

Tig. ?8c,.

Fig. 290.

Bra/iers' or Goldsmiths' Anvils. Fig. 289 is the natural size, and is much worn : the little shallow
holes were for riveting. (From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 523.) Fig. 290 is 3 inches high, and 1J4 inch
thick. Two of its corners form right angles : one is rounded : one bevelled : so as to suit the
different shapes required. (From Kilk. Archxol. Journ,, 1885-86, p. 538.)

represents the sound — it has held its place as a living
word in Scotland, even among speakers of English, but
it is applied to a tinker : —

" Her charms had struck a sturdy caird,
As weel as poor gut-scraper."

Burns.

Aerarius, which, according to the glossator of twelve
hundred years ago, is equivalent to cerdd, signifies literally
a ' worker in brass ' ; and, curiously enough, this corre-

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 297

sponds exactly with the description the caird gives of
himself in Burns's poem : —

" My bonnie lass, I work in brass,
A tinkler is my station."

The work of a cerd proper has been dealt with in the
chapter on art.

We have already seen that the ancient Irish were very
skilful in metallic art. Metallic compounds were carefully
and successfully studied, copper commonly forming one
of the ingredients. The most general alloy was bronze,
formed of copper and tin : but brass, a compound of
copper and zinc, was also used. The Irish name for
copper was uma, gen. umai, whence the Irish word umaide
or umhaidhe [oo-vee], one of the names of a brazier — a
bronze- or brass-worker ; for this word uma is used also
to denote both bronze and brass. Thus, according to the
Tripartite Life, the chieftain Dare gave St. Patrick a
caldron of uma, which it is pretty certain was made, -not
of pure copper, but of bronze ; for all the caldrons still
preserved are of that alloy. There were several special
terms for different alloys, each no doubt designating a
compound of certain metals in definite proportions ; but
the exact compounds referred to by some of these terms
are unknown to us.

There were two chief kinds of bronze, red and white,
or rather reddish and whitish. The red bronze was called
derg-uma {derg, red) or cred-uma (for I take it that these
two words mean the same thing) and sometimes cred,
simply ; and the white was called finn-uma (finn, white)
or findruine [fin-dnna], two terms that also seem to me
to be identical. Findruine was much more expensive
than creduma, and was kept for the finer kinds of work.
Assuming that the ancient Irish pinginn or penny repre-
sented in those times a value equivalent to that now
represented by 6s. 8d. of our money — which may be

f 6s. 8d.

represented J

1 3s. 4d.

in present 1

I y. *d.

value by

1 is. 8d.

298 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

taken as approximately true — a statement in an ancient
authority quoted by Petrie (" Round Towers," 219) enables
us to assign value on a similar basis to one ounce of each
of the following metallic materials : —

1 oz. of finn-uma, findruine, or white bronze
r oz. of derg-uma, creduma, or red bronze
1 oz. of zinc ......

1 oz. of lead ......

The difference in value between the two kinds of
bronze is recognised in the tales : as when Queen Maive
estimates the comparative merits of the three heroes : —
" The difference between creduma and findruine is between
" Loegaire Buadach and Conall Cernach ; and the difference
" between findruine and red-gold is between Conall Cernach
" and Cuculainn." Accordingly she proceeds to give effect
to her judgment by presenting the three heroes with three
goblets of values according to merit.* The red bronze may
be seen in the spear-heads and caldrons in the National
Museum, and the findruine or white bronze in the orna-
mental shrines, and other ancient works of art. Many
of the spear-heads and other bronze articles belong to a
period some centuries before the Christian era.

Metal-casting is very often referred to in general terms
in our literature, showing how familiar it was : and through
these incidental references we get now and then a glimpse
at the artists' tools and appliances. The workmen used
charcoal for their fires, that made from birch-wood, as we
have seen (vol. 1., p. 565, supra), giving the greatest heat
then attainable, sufficient — with the help of a flux — to
melt all ordinary metals. They used a ladle (Irish liach)
to pour out the melted metal ; and it had to be used
carefully, for the Book of Aicill (Br. Laws, in. 213) has a
series of provisions for accidents, mentioning damages for
injuries to persons or animals during casting, and also

* Fled Brier., p. 75-79, and 93-95-

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 299

during the process of mining. All this indicates how
generally metal-founding was practised.

A moulding-compass used by founders was called
luaithrinu [loo-rin], compounded of luath [looa], ashes,
and rinn, a point. In Cormac's Glossary this
word is used characteristically in describing
the whirlpool of CoireBrecain,
where he says the waters
whirl round " in the likeness
of moulding-compasses"
[fo cosviailius luaitlirinde)*
showing how familiar the im-
plement was in the ninth and
tenth centuries. The exact
use of the moulding-compass
and the origin of its name, are
instructively illustrated in a
legendary story quoted from
an ancient manuscript by
O'Curry.f Mac Enge, a shield-
maker, was employed to make
shields for the Ultonians, and
had exhausted all his patterns
(for each chief had a special
design for himself: see vol. I.
p. 125, supra) when Cuculainn
came to him for a shield, and
demanded a design different
from all the others. While
the artist was puzzling his brain trying to invent a new
device, a man having in his hand a small fork with two
sharp prongs came up to him and said : " Spread ashes
(luath) on the floor of your workshop " : which he did.
Then the man planted one prong of the fork in the ashes

#Corm. Gloss., 41 : Th'ee Irish Glossaries, 13.
t Man. & Gust., r. 329.

Fig. 291.

Ornamental inlaid hook,
natural size. Possibly for
suspending a sword. The
scroll-work indicates that
it belongs to Christian
times (voi. I., p. 551). Now
preserved in the National
Museum. (From Wilde's
Catalogue, p. 572.)

See next page.

Fig. 292.

Spear-head, now in
National Museum,
where many equally
or more beautiful are
preserved. Others
of very graceful
form, and of admi-
rable workmanship,
are figured in voi. l»
pp. 107, no, in, sh-
pra. (From Wilde's
Catalogue, p. 499)
See next page.

300

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

Fig. 293.

Vm. 294.

and with the other described circular devices for the hero's
shield. Accordingly luaithrindi or luaithrind, ' ashes-
engraver,' was thenceforward the name of this sort of fork
or compass.

The exquisite skill of the ancient Irish braziers is best

proved by the articles
they made, of which
hundreds are preserved
in our Museum. Two
illustrations are given on
last page (figs. 291 and
292); a beautiful speci-
men of enamelled metal-
work is described at page
258, supra, and shown in
fig. 280 ; and others will
be found in various parts
of this book. As to the
hook represented in' fig.
291, Wilde describes it
as " one of the t most
"beautiful specimens of
"inlaying bronze with
"silver and some dark
" metal (after the fashion
" of the ancient niello)
" which has yet been
" discovered in Ireland."
The gracefully - shaped
spear-heads, which, in point of artistic excellence, are fully
equal to any of those found in Greece, Rome, or Egypt,
were cast in moulds : and we have not only the spear-
heads themselves but many of the moulds, usually of stone,
proving — if proof was needed — that all these articles were
of native manufacture. In one glass case in the National
Museum there are more than forty moulds for celts, spear-

Fig. 295.

Stone Moulds. Figs. 293 and 294 in National Museum.
DuMin: fig. 295 in the Belfast Museum. (From Wilde's
Catalogue, pp. 91 and 392.)

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 30I

heads, arrow-heads*, &c. : some looking as fresh as if they
had been in use yesterday. Probably clay- and sand-
moulds were used ; but these would not be preserved.* The
old cairds were equally accomplished in making articles of
hammered bronze, of which the most characteristic and
important are the beautifully-formed caldrons — many of
exquisite workmanship — made of a series of bronze plates,
hammered into shape and riveted together. Of these
numerous specimens may be seen in the National Museum.
One will be found figured at page 125, supra (fig. 215), and
another in vol. I., p. 21, fig. 13. In both of them the heads
of the rivets project outwards so as to form ornamental
conical studs, a kind of ornament used in other metal-
work, as in the bronze trumpets and gold gorgets. But
all caldrons had not these cone-headed rivets. A hand-
some dish, hammered into shape with great skill from a
single flat piece of bronze, is shown on fig. 196, p. 71,
supra.

4. The Blacksmith and his Forge.

In a state of society when war was regarded as the
most noble of all professions, and before the invention of
gunpowder, those who manufactured swords and spears
were naturally looked upon as very important personages.
In Ireland they were held in great estimation ; and in the
historical and legendary tales, we find smiths entertaining
kings, princes, and chiefs, and entertained by them in turn.
We know that Vulcan was a Grecian god ; and the ancient
Irish had their smith-god, the Dedannan Goibniu, who
figures in many of the old romances. It sometimes was
considered an additional distinction in a chief or warrior
to be a good metal-worker. Fergus mac Roy, to show
his fitness for the duty of rearing the infant Cuculainn,
enumerates his accomplishments, and among other things
says, " I am a good craftsman. "f Smiths, like the men

* See Wilde, in Catalogue, 392. t Miss Hull, Cuch. Saga, 19.

j02 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

of other arts and professions, were of different grades :
an ollave-goba or prim-goba (' prime-smith ') or flaith-
goba (' chief-smith ') being of the highest rank. We find
these distinctions often mentioned in both secular and
ecclesiastical writings,* showing that they were real, and
universally understood and acknowledged.

Cerdcha or cerddchae originally meant a workshop in
general, derived, according to Cormac's Glossary (p. 46,
" Ca ") from cerd, an artisan, and ca,. a house : " artisan-
house.' In " Three Fragments of Irish Annals " (p. 223),
it is applied to the workshop of a fuller of cloth : and in
Zeuss (60, 44) it glosses the Latin officina, a workshop of
any kind. But its most usual application was to a forge :
and it is still so applied, and pronounced cartha (the first
syll. long, as in car). A forge was in old times regarded as
one of the important centres of a district. If, for instance,
horses whose owners were not known were impounded
for trespass, notice had to be sent to the dun or fortress of
the nearest lord, to the principal church, to the fort of the
brehon of the place, and to the forge of the smith (Br.
Laws, iv. 107) ; and in like manner notice of a waif should
be sent to seven leading persons, among them the chief
smith of the district {ibid., III. 273). For forges were
places well frequented, as they are at the present day,
partly by those who came to get work done, and partly
by idlers. And sometimes individuals took a nap with
comfort and laziness, as we know from this provision of
the Book of Aicill : — that if any one who had business
at the forge fell asleep while waiting for his turn, it was
the duty of the smith or the bellows-blower to awaken
him when dangerous showers of sparks were flying
about, otherwise they were liable (with some limitations)
for any injury that befell him (Br. Laws, in. 191, and
note 2).

* For instance, Br. Laws, in., p. 273, 22i Oss. Soc, iv. 299, lS; and
Stokes, Lives of SS., 235.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 303

The anvil [inneoin : pron. innone) was placed on a
block or stock (cepp : pron. kepp) : in cepp i mbdi ind
inneoin : " the block on which the anvil is set " (LL.
35, 0> 5)- The anvil must have been shaped something
like those in use now ; with a long projecting snout on
the side : for in a passage in Cormac's Glossary (p. 135)
describing an ugly-looking giant, it is said : " His nose is
larger than the urbuinde [oorbinne] or ' anvil-snout ' of a
smith." The anvil was large and heavy, as we may infer
from the following story. On one occasion King Ochy
Moyvane, passing by a large forge, saw his five sons
standing inside : and wishing to test their courage, he
quietly set fire to the building and shouted to them to
save the smith's property. Four of them took out small
and portable things ; but Niall seized the heavy and
valuable articles and removed them one by one, among
them the bellows and the anvil-and-block, while the house
was blazing round him.* This young prince subsequently
succeeded his father, and is well known as Niall of the
Nine Hostages. Yet the anvil of those times could not
have been as massive and firm as the present ponderous
anvil : for in the Book of Aicill provision is made to meet
the case of the sledge (Irish ord) breaking or injuring the
anvil, or the sledge itself breaking on the anvil, either
through the carelessness of the sledger, or because the
smith held the red-hot iron in an awkward positionf : all
which would indicate that neither anvil nor sledge had the
solidity or weight of those now in use.

If the anvil was not well secured on the cepp or block,
it was liable to slip off during working : or the sledge
might slip off the anvil if struck awkwardly ; or the
head of the sledge might fly off the handle if fastened
insecurely ; or the whole sledge might slip from the hand
of an awkward sledger ; or two sledges might come into

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 1. 147 : LL, 35, a. See for another version
Rev. Celt , xxiv. 195. f Br. Laws, ill. 191.

304 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART HI

collision : in any one of these cases injury to persons
might result, for which the Law (in. 189) made provision
for compensation by the person in fault. So far as I am
aware no ancient blacksmith's anvil is to be seen in any
of our museums ; but small braziers' anvils made of bronze
have been found, two of which are figured at p. 296, supra.
Another small anvil like these was found in a crannoge in
Ulster. Ancient anvils, especially large ones, are rare in
all parts of the British Islands.

The smith held the red-hot iron in a tennchair [tinne-
her], pincers or tongs. In the " Voyage of Maildune,"
as the boat approached an island inhabited by gigantic
blacksmiths, the adventurers heard the thundering sound
of smiths' hammers striking a red-hot mass of iron on the
anvil : and as soon as the smiths saw the boat one burly
fellow rushed out with a great piece of glowing iron in the
tongs (tenchoir) and flung it after the curragh* : which,
however, it missed. A similar incident befell St. Brendan
as related in his Voyagef : and both remind us of Ulysses'
escape from the Cyclops. While the smith held the
glowing iron on the anvil, another person struck it with the
ord or sledge ; and sometimes two persons were sledging
at the same time (Br. Law, ill. 189). It is to be presumed
that the smith used a hand-hammer like those of the
present day.

Making and fixing of rivets (seman or semman, a rivet}
was part of the work of either smith or brazier, but the
brazier usually put them in spear-heads and swords. In
some of the swords and spear-heads in the museum, the
rivets still remain.

A water-trough was kept in the forge, commonly called
umar, and sometimes telchuma ; but this last word is also
used to denote a barrel or puncheon. The smith kept a
supply of wood-charcoal in bags, called cual craing, or

* Rev. Celt. x. 53 : Old Celtic Romances, 145.
t Brendaniana, 161.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONfe 305

cual craind, i.e. " coal of wood."* I do not know if coal
from the mine was used : but the distinctive term cual
craing would seem to imply that it was : and besides, as
already remarked (p. 289, supra), very ancient coal mines
have been found near Ballycastle. The smith wore an
apron commonly of buckskin, like those smiths wear
now.

The last of the smith's appliances to be noticed is the
bellows. The Irish name for a smith's bellows is builcc or
builgg [bullig], which is merely the plural form of bolg, a
bag, like the English bellows ; in the Book of Leinster
the plural article is in one place brought in, na builgg, * the
bags ' ; all indicating that, in Ireland as in other countries,
the primitive bellows consisted of at least two bags, which
of course were made of leather. Why two bags were used
is obvious — in order to keep up a continuous blast ; each
being kept blowing in turn while the other was filling.
This word builcc the Irish continued to employ for their
bellows, even in its most improved form, just as we now
call the instruments we have in use " bellows," though this
word originally meant ' bags,' like the Irish builcc. The
following passages relating to the use of the forge-bellows
will give us some idea of its construction. In the story of
the " Courtship of Emer " we are told that when Cuculainn
and the other heroes went to be trained by Domnall, the
great Scotch instructor in military and athletic exercises,
he set them to practise, in the first instance, on a bellows,
and on a spear, as a sort of preliminary exercise to attune
their muscles properly for learning — what they came to
learn — the special and more difficult battle-feats : — " they
were taught by him " — says the old text — " one thing on
" the flagstone of the small hole, namely, to blow bellows
" (foseted cethar bolcc) : they had to work on it till the soles
" of their feet were all but black or livid : and [they were

* Telchuma and cual (or cuail) craing. LL, 35, a, « . see also vol. 1.,
p. 565, supra.

306 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

" taught] another thing on a spear, on which they were set
" to climb np."*

An independent and probably older authority is part
of an elegy on a smith by his wife quoted in Cormac's
Glossary (which itself belongs to the ninth or tenth century),
in which occurs the following passage : — " The red flame
" of his furnace mounted up to the roof : sweet were the
" murmurs that his bellows (a di bolg) used to chant to the
" hole of his furnace. "f

In the Book of AicillJ the rule is laid down that if
sparks from a smith's fire injured a bystander under certain
circumstances, the bellows-blower was liable for damages
if he had blown with unnecessary violence, so as to scatter
showers of dangerous sparks : but if he had done so by the
direction of the smith, then both were liable in equal
shares.

These passages will enable us in a measure to recon-
struct the old Irish smith's bellows, and exhibit the mode
of working it. From the Brehon Law extract last quoted
we see that in every forge there was a special bellows-
blower, who blew strongly or gently as occasion required,
sometimes directed by the smith. From the passage in
the " Courtship of Emer," where the heroes are set to blow,
we may infer that the bellows were worked with the naked
feet, that it took some time to learn how to do so, and that
the bellows was large and laborious to work, since it taxed
the strength of mighty heroes. That it was large and
heavy we know also from the story of Niall at p. 303.

* The original Irish of that part of this passage relating to the bellows,
as printed by Kuno Meyer, is this : — Forceta leiss aill for lice detcain [edon]
foseted cetharbolec : noclistis fuiri iarom napdar dnba na glassa a fond
(Rev. Celt., xi., pp. 444, 445) Another version of the same passage,
slightly but not materially, different, will be found in the Stowe MS.,
D, 4, 2, fol. 82, b, col. 2, line 8, in the Roy. Ir. Academy, Dublin.

f The original Irish of the above passage, as printed by Stokes, is
this : — For bir ifraig dercc anis ; babinde nochantais dord friderc aneis
afli bolg (Three Ir. Glossaries, 32 : Corm. Gloss. 124).

% Br. Laws, in. 191.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 307

The passage in Cormac's Glossary speaks of the sweet
murmurs of the bellows blowing through the " hole of
the furnace " ; while that from the " Courtship of Emer "
gives us a somewhat closer view by the expression " the
flagstone of the small hole " [lice, a flagstone : derc, a
hole : diminutive dercan, with its genitive dercain, a small
hole). All this means that the smith's hearth or furnace
was constructed of flags, in one of which was a small hole
through which the pipe directed the air-current from the
bellows into the fire. It is doubtful whether this smali
hole was in the under flag on which the fire was placed,
or in the bottom of one of the side-flags : but it is an
interesting fact that at the
present day, in some parts
of Ireland, the fire in ordi-
nary dwelling - houses is
often blown — as I have
seen done — with a small
fan-bellows up through an
aperture in the hearthstone
by means of a pipe run-
ning from the blowing in-
strument under the floor
to the aperture.

The name given to the bellows in Cormac's Glossary
— di bolg, " two bags " — indicates that the bellows in view
here had two separate chambers lying side by side. Each
of these must have consisted of an upper and an under
board with sides of leather : and in the under board of
each was a simple clapper-valve as in our present kitchen-
bellows. From each chamber extended a pipe, the two
pipes uniting into one which was inserted into the hole
in the flagstone. The two chambers were placed close
to each other, and there must have been a short crossbeam
or lever (aa in fig. 296) turning on a centre pivot, with its
two ends loosely fastened to the two backward projections

Fig. 296.

Conjectural plan of double or two-chambered
force-bellows. The bellows-blower stood with his
feet on Bis, and his face towards the fire. AA, the
cross-beam or lever, turning on its centre-fulcrum.
CC, clapper-valves in bottom boards. The rest of
the diagram explains itself.

308

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

of the upper boards. The bellows-blower stood on top,
one foot on each board (at bb), and pressed the two down
alternately. As each was pressed down, and its chamber
emptied through the pipe, the other was drawn up by its
own end of the cross-beam, and the chamber was filled
through the clapper-valve at bottom : and thus the
chambers were compressed and expanded in turn so as
to keep up a continuous blast. There was a cross-bar
fixed firmly above the bellows for the blower to grasp
with his hands, so as to steady him and enable him to
thrust downwards with his feet when a strong blast was
required, like a modern bicyclist when mounting a hill.
But there was another and a better sort of bellows,

having four chambers,
as we see by the name
employed in the
" Courtship of Emer "
— cethar-builcc, ' four
bags ' (of which the
ceihar-bolcc of the
above extract is the
genitive plural). This
was probably con-
structed and worked
in something like the following manner as partly shown
in the plan : it is indeed impossible to conceive how
four chambers could otherwise be brought into play. The
fire was blown from the two chambers bb by pressure
of heavy weights like the present smith's bellows. The
two chambers aa were worked by the bellows-blower,
who stood on them with his face towards the fire. When
one of the chambers aa was pressed down, it filled the
chamber b in front of it through a pipe communicating
with an opening in the bottom board of b (with clapper-
valve) : and the other chamber B was similarly filled in
its turn. The function of the chambers aa was to keep

Fig. 297.

Cordectural plan of quadruple or four-chambered force-
bellows. The two pipes through which the chambers AA
kept the chambers BB 611ed are shown : also the four clapper-
valves (by little dotted circles) In the four under boards.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 309

the two bb filled : the function of bb was to blow the
fire. This cethar-builcc, or four-chambered bellows, gave
a more uniform blast than the two-chambered one. But
it was much harder to work : and this doubtless was the
reason why old Domnall selected it for the heroes, in
order to make sure that, as they needed hard exercise,
they should have enough of it.

A bellows — no doubt a very large one, or more
probably several worked together — was also used in
smelting, as we know from the following comparison in
Cormac's Glossary, a part of his description of the Spirit
of Poetry disguised as a monstrous giant : — " Like the
" blowing of a bellows smelting ore (oc berbad mianaig),
" was the drawing in and the puffing forth of his breath :
" sledge-hammers would not strike from a glowing mass
" [of iron] such a shower of fire as his lips struck forth."
The comparison of the hard breathing of champions or
animals fighting, to the blowing of a smith's bellows,
is very common : — Rabulgsetar a n-6li ocus a srona
mar bulgu goband i certchai : " their cheeks and their
noses puffed out like the bellows of a smith in a
forge."*

It may be as well to finish this subject here with what
there is to say about the domestic bellows. This was
totally different in make and mode of using from the
forge-bellows, as well as from our present common kitchen-
bellows. The Senchus Morf mentions a bellows among
the domestic utensils of a chief's house ; but the name
used is not builcc but trefet, i.e. ' blower.' The gloss upon
this (Br. LL., I. 145) explains it thus — bringing in two other
names : — " Trefet of a chief's house means the teite, namely,
" that which keeps turning round, and through it the fire is
" blown through the leather : or [as another derivation]
" it [trefet] refers to the strong fet or pipe through which
" the fire is blown in each chief's house ; i.e. the seitiri

* LL, 104, a, ,, I Br. Laws, i. 126, ?. 127, 7.

310 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

" or blower." So far the gloss. Seitiri, as we know, is
derived from sett, to blow : and the idea put forward in
this alternative derivation in the gloss is that trefet is
shortened from tre-feit, which means ' through the pipe,'
from tre, through, and fet or fead, a pipe. From this
description we must conclude that the bellows used in
private houses was one of those made to blow by revolving
fans inside. This is further indicated by the fact that in
the law-tract it is not called builg (' bags '), though three
other names are applied to it — trefet, teite, and siitiri.
This form of bellows is still occasionally met with, but
the body is now made of lacquered tin instead of wood
and leather. Moreover, among the English-speaking Irish
people it is not called a " bellows " but a " blower," which
is the exact equivalent of the old Irish term seitire, or in
its modern form seidire [shaidera], and which is indeed
the very term used by O'Donovan in his translation of
the Senchus Mor (Br. Laws, i. 127, 7).

5. Carpenters, Masons, and other Craftsmen.

Carpenters. — We have seen how carefully handicrafts
were classified by the ancient Irish, as set forth at page 293,
supra. Some of these were sufficiently important and
engrossing to give exclusive employment to separate
tradesmen : but it is probable that in case of others the
same craftsman worked at two or more of them as occasion
arose. Woodworkers of whatever kind do not figure near
so prominently in the ancient literature as smiths and
braziers : yet they must have been more numerous, for
there was more work to be done in wood than in metals.
One important source of employment for carpenters was
the building of houses, which in old times were nearly
always of wood. A carpenter who devoted himself to
house-building was called ailtire, from an old word alt,
meaning a house : and this branch of the business was

CHAP. XXI V] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 311

called ailtirecht* Accordingly O'Davorenf defines an
ailtire as saor denma tighi, ' a house-building carpenter.'

It has been already stated that the yew-tree was
formerly very abundant. Its wood was highly valued
and used in making a great variety of articles : so that
working in yew was regarded as one of the most important
of trades. It required great skill and much training and
practice : for yew is about the hardest and most difficult
to work of all our native timber : and the cutting tools
must have been particularly fine in quality. Yew-work
was called ibraracht, modern form iubhraracht [yooraraght] ,
from ibar or iubhar, the yew-tree. Various domestic
vessels were made from it (p. 69, supra), and it was used
for doorposts and lintels and other prominent parts of
houses, as well as for the posts, bars, and legs of beds
and couches, always carved. In the most ancient of the
tales we often find mention of houses ornamented with
" carvings (aurscartad) of red yew " J : and even so late as
the first half of the thirteenth century this custom is
recorded in the following words written by the Ulster poet
Mac Conmidhe in his poetical description of the cathedral
of Armagh : — " Upon the arches of this white- walled church
are clusters of rosy grapes carved from ancient yew."§
So high was the estimation in which these ornamental
carvings in yew were held that the Brehon Law has a
special provision for their protection, prescribing fines for
scratching or otherwise disfiguring the posts or lintels of
doors, the heads or posts of beds, or the ornamental parts
of any other furniture. || It is probable that bows for
archers were made of yew as well as of other wood ; but I
have not met with any passage mentioning this.

Among other tradesmen, there were the dualaidhe
[doolee] or painter (from dual, a brush) ; the rinnaidhe

* Br. Laws, v. 106, 7i and note ; and 107, 9> I4.

f Three Ir. Gloss., 54 : Br. Laws, vi., Glossary, " Ailtire."

t O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 57. § Ibid., 58. || Ibid , 57.

312

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

[rinnee] or metal engraver (from rinn, a sharp point, a
sharp-pointed instrument) ; and the erscoraidhe [erscoree]
or wood-carver.* Carvers were in much request and
exercised their art in the highest perfection — as we have
seen — on yew-wood.

Various Tools. — Besides other tools mentioned else-
where in connexion with certain special arts and crafts,
the following, chiefly used by wood-workers, may be dealt
with here. They are often noticed in Irish literature, but
more frequently in the Brehon Laws
than elsewhere. The
old Irish wood- and
metal - workers seem
indeed to have used
quite as many tools
as those of the pre-
sent day.

There were two
names for a saw,
turesc and rodhb
[rove], of which turesc
is still used. Some-
times it was called serr; but this term was more commonly
applied to a scythe or a sickle : the point of resemblance
between saw and sickle being the teeth on the edge.
Sawing (with a rodhb) is mentioned in the Agallamh
(p. hi) as a specially noisy work: and the derivation
of turesc in Cormac's Glossary (p. 161) makes plain the
mode of working : from tain's, across, because — says the
Glossary — " it cuts everything across." In the crannoge
of Cloonfinlough in Roscommon were found deer- horns
neatly sawn in preparation for further manufacture.

There were — as at the present day — several kinds of
axes and hatchets variously shaped, and used in different
sorts of work, as may be seen by the number of names

* O'Cuny, Man & Cust., n. 209, 21Q,

Fig- 298. Fig. 299.

Stone hatchets, of very hard close-grained stone. Fig. 298
is very large and heavy, being 8^ inches long. Fig. 299 is
S% inches long, beautifully made, and highly polished.
<From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 80.)

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 313

for them, and the manner in which they are often dis-
tinguished. The common hatchet used in the workshop
was called tuagh [tooa], which seems to be a general name
for a hatchet or axe of any kind : it was applied not only
to the hatchet used by tradesmen, but also to a battle-axe.
In all forms of axe, the metallic head was fixed on the
handle, the same as now, by wedging the wood through
the era or opening in the iron or bronze. The head, too,
of the carpenter's axe, if not securely fixed, was liable to
fly off ; and if this occurred through carelessness, the Law
(in. 175) laid down a rule regarding compensation when a
bystander was injured. Great numbers of bronze axes
are preserved in the National Museum, Dublin. The
carpenter's hatchet was probably like some of those
figured in vol. I., p. 119, supra. Two primitive stone
hatchets belonging to prehistoric times, are shown on last
page : the originals are in the National Museum, Dublin.
The Crith Gabhlach, in enumerating the various articles
that a brewy or keeper of a house of public hospitality
should have always ready, mentions three kinds of axes :— .
a fidchrann [feecran], a fidba [feeva], and a Mail [beeal].*
The Mail was used in felling and clearing wood. Bishop
Olcan, we read, went looking for a place in which to settle,
with his " Mail on his shoulder "f ; of course to clear a
space from trees and bushes. Fid, the first syllable in
both fidchrann and fidba, means wood, and chrann or
crann in the former means a tree or a wooden handle.
A fidba, or, as it is sometimes called, fodb [fove], was
something like our bill-hook : we find it mentioned in
the Crith Gabhlach as used in making wooden fences. J
Again in the Book of Aicill, a decayed king is quaintly
said to retain only " the kingship of the three handles, the
" handle of his flail, the handle of his Mail, and the handle

* Br. Laws, iv., 310, I2> I3. t TriP- Life, 136, 30.

J Br. Laws, iv. 315, I9i 20. See also Senchus Mor, in vol. 1. 124, I4_IS.
and Gloss, 141, top lines.

3H SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

" of his fidba." In the Dinnsenchus* it is said that a man
named Raigne cut down a wood with his bacc and his
spade, showing that the bacc was a felling axe. It was
something like the present hedge-cutter's bill-hook. The
word b/rc or bacc means a ' bend ' (in this case a hooked
blade fixed on a handle) ; and the gloss on the Brehon
Law mentions a bac as used for cutting ivy.f

A tdl [tawl] or adze — i.e. an axe having the edge
across or at right angles to the line of the handle — was
used for special sorts of work ; as, for instance,. in making

wooden shields ; and of course,
in cooperage. It was an exceed-
ingly common tool, as it is con-
stantly mentioned in all sorts ot
records. More than one histo-
rical personage had the epithet
Mac Tdil (' son of an adze ')
affixed to his name, to denote
F|G- 3°°- that his father was one oi

Bronze adze: in National Museum:
4H inches wide along the edKe. (From thOSe WOOd - WOrkerS who USed

Wilde's Catalogue, p. 523.)

the adze.
An awl, by whatsoever tradesman used, was called
menad or meanadh [manna], which is still the Irish word
all through Ireland : but in Munster it takes the form
meanatha [mannaha]. The fanciful derivation of menad,
given in Cormac's Glossary (p. 108), is very suggestive : —
from mlu [meen], small, and dith [a], sharp, as if the
word was contracted from min-dith, ' small-sharp.' The
old Irish carpenters used an auger and called it tardthar
[tarawher], a name which is still in use. In Cormac's
Glossary the word is * fancifully analysed as if contracted
from dair-uath-air [dar-oo-ar], meaning ' the oak hates it
(dair, oak : tiath, hatred) : " because," as the Glossary
adds — " of its cuttingness, for it cuts through the oak.'

* Folklore, in. 480. f Br. Laws, v. 488, n ; 489, 25.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 315

The Crith Gabhlach, enumerating the tools that ought
to be in the house of every brewy, includes a tarathar.

Irish carpenters and others used compasses which they
named gabulrind [gowlrin], a word given in Cormac's
Glossary* as the equivalent of the Latin circinus (a 'pair
of compasses '). The Irish term is quite descriptive, being
compounded of the two words, gabal, a fork, and rind or
rinn, a point : that is to say a fork with two points.
Among the pagan relics found under
a earn at Loughcrew are many combs
engraved with circles by a compass,
and also a bit of iron having all the
appearance of being the leg of a
compass.f The large circles on
some of the flat golden gorgets
(p. 234, supra) were obviously
made with a compass: all going
to confirm the truthfulness of
the records.

Fig. 301. Fig. 302. Fig. 303. Fig. 304 •

Figs. 301, 302, ahd 303 are small primitive stone hammers. (From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 79.)
Fig. 304 is a bronze hammer, found in Sligo : 6 inches long : well worn from work. (From Kilk.
ArchEeol. Journ. for 1885-6, p. 538.)

The mallet used by carpenters, fence-makers, and other
workmen, was generally called farcha or forcha. In the
year 512 (FM, A.D. 503), Lewy, king of Ireland, was killed
by lightning at a place thence called Achad-farcha, a name

* Corm. Gloss., p. 30: Irish text in Three Ir. Gloss., p. 9,
t Fergusson, Rude Stone Mornurcjits. p. 218.

3l6 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

which is commonly translated the ' Field of lightning,' but
which primarily means the ' Field of the mallet.' Indeed
the very words used by the Four Masters and other
annalists are (in English) " having been struck by a mallet
of lightning " (forcha-teinntighe) : the idea being the same
as that of the Scandinavians, who armed their god Thor
with a lightning hammer. A sledge was called ord : an
ordinary hammer was lamh-ord (' hand-sledge ') : but some-
times cas-ord, now generally made casur [cossoor]. The
cas in this, which means ' twisted ' or ' bended,' probably
refers to the " claw," so that a casord or casur would be a
' claw-hammer.' This is in some measure borne out by
the fact that the word mailin was used to designate
another kind of hammer, no doubt one without a claw :
for mailin means bald or bare : a " bare or clawless little
hammer."

Carpenters used a rungenn or runcan, a plane : a
slightly different form of the name is found in the Brehon
Law, where it is stated that the posts of the doors and
beds of certain classes of houses were finished off with
a rungcin [rungkeen], which O'Curry understood as a
moulding-plane.* In the Story of Tain bo Fraich (138),
139, bot.) in the Book of Leinster, one of the houses of the
palace of Cruachan is described as having decorations of
red yew " with variegated planing " (Jo m-brecht-runcain).

Workers in wood used a sort of press called cantair,
either for straightening wood or forcing it into certain
shapes — after being softened probably by water or steam, f
In Stokes's Irish Glosses on Latin Declension cantair is
the word used to explain the Latin troclia : and O'Reilly
gives cantaoir as a name for any sort of press. The ancient
Irish builders used a crane of some kind for lifting heavy
articles, as is proved by the following sentence in Cormac's
Glossary describing a very repulsive-looking giant :—

* Man. & Cust., II. 29, bottom.

I O'Curry, in Stokes's Irish Glosses on Lat. Decl., p. 60, No. 239.

CHAP. XXI V] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 317

" cuirre ina corr aurocbala a dhd gruad, " rounder than a
lifting-crane his two cheeks."* Here the Irish word cor-
responding to " crane " is corr, which is still the name of any
bird of the crane kind : and it is applied in this passage
to the machine, exactly like the English word crane, on
account of the long beak. The comparison of the giant's
cheeks to the lifting-crane refers to the rounded or bulging
shape of the body of the machine.

The lathe and other turning-wheels were well known
and employed for a variety of purposes. The Brehon
Law (v. 107) when setting forth the privileges of various
classes of craftsmen has tornoire or turners among them,
explaining that these are the men " who do tornaireckt or
turning." A much older authority, an eighth-century
Irish glossator, in his remarks on Ps. II. 9, explains a
potter's wheel as " a round wheel {roth cruind) on which
the cerda or potters make the vessels. "f Mr. Johnson, in
his observations on ancient Irish gold-work, states that he
found the cups of one gold fibula marked with three eon-
centric circles so true as to " have all the appearance of
being done on a lathe."J Once the lathe was known it
would of course be used on wood : and in the crannoge
of Cloonfinlough in Roscommon were found, among many
workshop remains, a quantity of shavings exactly such as
would be left by a turner. § The Irish word for a lathe
is deil [dell], which is used by Keating|| ; and at the pre-
sent day, speakers, whether using the Irish or English
language, call a lathe a dell. But I have not found the
word in any very old documents.

Chisels of a variety of shapes and sizes were used by
wood-workers : of which the following illustrations will
give a very good idea : the originals — which are all of

* Corm. Gloss., 135, bottom : Irish text in Three Ir. Gloss., p. 36, ^
t Stokes and Strachan, Thesaur., 1. 23 : see also p. 79, supra.
X Proc. Roy. Acad., 1893-6, p. 782. § Ibid., vol. v. p. 211.

|| See "Deil" in Glossary of Atkinson's Three Shafts.

3i8

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

bronze — are preserved in the National Museum. It has
been suggested by Sir John Lubbock that many of the
smaller and thinner bronze celts were used as chisels.
The Four Masters use the word fonsura for a chisel.* A
large number of bronze gouges are preserved in the
National Museum ; but I have not found any special
Irish name for a gouge. Among the collection of bronzr
tools found at Dooros-Heath in King's County (p. 320,
infra) are three gouges with the regularly curved edges,
well adapted for excavating and paring wooden bowls and

Fig. 305.

Fio. 306.

Fir.. 307

Fig. 309.

Figures 305, 306, 307, anil 308. bronze chisels : figure 309, a bronze gouge. All in National Museum.
(From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 521 J

gobletsf : and about the same time another was found in
Wexford.J The bronze of these and of all the other cutting
instruments in the King's County collection is excessively
hard. It may be observed that bronze can be made almost
or altogether as hard as steel by hammering.

Sharpening. — For sharpening edged tools and weapons,
the people used a whetstone, which is called in Cormac's
Glossary (p. \2)cotud, literally meaning ' hard,' and defined
"a//£ or stone on which iron tools or weapons are ground":
but it is often called lee, which is the general name for a

•O'Donovan, Suppl., 647. t Pioc. Roy. Ir. Acad., IV. 240.

J Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., iv. 369.

OHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 319

flat stone, just as we now sometimes call a whetstone
" a stone " for shortness. The whetstone is very often
mentioned in the Brehon Laws (as in V. 485, line 7 from
bottom). But they had also a circular grindstone which
was turned on an axis like those now in use. The
grindstone was called liom-broii [leev-vrone], ' sharpening
millstone,' and also lic-limad [lic-leeva], 'stone of
grinding' — corresponding exactly with the English name
" grinding- stone " : and it was turned round by means of
a cranked handle. The crank was called ruiti\ which

Fig. 310

Specimen of dry or mortarless masonry : portion of the wait of Caller-
more, near Kilnaboy, in Clare. The stones are in their natural state —
unhaminered. (From Mr. Westropp's Article on Prehistoric Stone Forts
of Northern Clare, Kilk. Archaeol. Journ. for 1896, p. 367. To illustrate
observations at p. 323, infra,

is defined in connexion with the grinding-stone in a gloss
on a sentence of the Book of Aicill (Br. Laws, III. 295)
in a manner that leaves no room for doubt as to what
it was : — " Ruitech, i.e. the thing which runs well from
"him and to him [i.e. from and to the person turning it],
" namely the crooked stick." A grindstone was one of
the numerous articles which a brewy was bound to have
in his house (Br. Laws, IV. 311). Mr. Wakeman records
that in 1872 some whetstones and two circular grindstones
were found in a crannoge in Fermanagh, the larger one
eight inches across.*

* Kilk. ArclirCol. Journ , 1872-3, p. 320..

320

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

Remains of Ancient Workshops. — It is worthy of remark
that the remains of ancient workshops or factories belong-
ing to several trades have been discovered from time to
time in different parts of Ireland. About the year 1820 a
brazier's workshop was turned up in a place called Dooros-
Heath, in the parish of Eglish near Birr in King's County*
where great quantities of gold-coloured bronze articles

~jt££C

Fig. 311.

Clochan-na-Carraige, the ' Stone house of the Rock,' on the Great Island of Aran, Galway Bay.
Pagan circular stone house : round outside : inside it is quadrangular, and 19 feet long by 7^ feet
broad, and 8 feet high. Walls of dry masonry, converging by overlapping till closed at top by a
single stone. Two apertures in roof served for windows and chimney. (From Petrie's Round
Towers, p. 130. To illustrate what is said at p. 323, infra). For a Christian house of similar
construction, see p. 323, infra.

were found — bells, spearheads, celts, trumpets, gouges, and
soforth : also whetstones, flat, convex, and concave. That
this was a workshop is shown by the fact that many of the
articles were unfinished or only half made, while some
were mended : and there was one lump of unworked
bronze — mere material * The remains of a glass factory

* See Mr. Thomas Cooke's intelligent article on this find: Proc. Roy
Ir. Acad., iv. 423 : see also same vol., p. 239.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 321

will be found mentioned at p. 33, supra ; and an old work-
shop of a family of goldsmiths near Cullen in Tipperary
is described in vol. 1., p. 556, supra. In parts of Ulster
where flints are common, flint workshops are sometimes
turned up, with vast numbers of finished and half-finished
flint articles.* Ancient Gaulish workshops of various
crafts have in like manner been lately found in France. f

Masons and their Work. — A knowledge of the use of
lime-mortar and of the arch was introduced by St. Patrick
and his foreign missionaries. Before his time the Irish
built their stone structures of dry masonry : and not
knowing how to construct an arch they brought their walls
to converge in a curve — like the ancient Greeks and
other nations of antiquity — by the gradual overlapping
of the flat-lying stones. Numerous specimens of their
handiwork in this department of ancient art still remain,
especially in the south and west, in the beehive-shaped
houses and stone cahers, which show much skill in fitting
the stones to one another so as to form very close joints.
Even after the introduction of Christianity the old pagan
fashion of building was retained in the erection of many
of the ecclesiastical structures : and stone oratories belong-
ing to those primitive ages are still to be seen in various
parts of the country, built without mortar and converging
upwards by the overlapping of the stones. The outer wall
of the cashel enclosing the little hermit-monastic establish-
ment on Inishmurray is of dry masonry and in all respects
like the pagan cashels. (See fig. 313 farther on.)

Although the Irish did not employ lime (Irish ael) in
making mortar till the fifth century, it was used as a
whitener in pagan times (p. 63, supra). They made lime
by burning limestone or sea-shells in a lime-kiln much
as is done at the present day : but I find no notice
of a kiln for this purpose till far into Christian times —

* Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1883-4, p. 120.

f De Jubainville, La Civil, des Celtes, p. 130.

332

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

yet still before the Anglo-Norman invasion- viz. in
1 145, wnen " a lime-kiln, which was sixty feet every way,
" was erected opposite Emain Macha by Gillamacliag, suc-
" cessor of Patrick, and Patrick's clergy in general."* The

Fig. 312.

Round Tower of Dcvenish Island, in Lough Emc : 8s feet high. To illustrate what
is said next page as to beauty of outline and general shape. (From Petrie's Round
Towers, p. 360.) Round towers are figured also in chap, x., vol. I., supra.

Annals record the erection in 1163 of another lime-kiln —
which they call tene-aoil (literally " fire of lime " — pron.
tenneel), seventy feet square, by the abbot of the Columban
monastery of Derry — Flaherty O'Brolchain — and his clergy-
But the erection of these great structures indicates long-

* Reeves, Churches of Armagh, p. 38.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 323

existing previous knowledge of lime-kilns and of the art
of constructing them. There can be no doubt that sea-
shells were used for making lime in the old times : this
was Petrie's opinion* : and we know that they were turned
to this use in the time of Elizabeth : Docwra, in his
" Narration," says : — " Cockleshells to make a lyme wee
"discovered infinite plenty of, in a little island in the
" mouth of the harbour [at Derry] as wee came in."

Fig. 313.

Stone house on Church Island, Valentia, Kerry. Example of a Christian oratory, built of
uncemented stones, with walls converging-, after the old pagan fashion (see figure 311, supra).
Interior dimensions, about 19 feet by n feet. Near it, on the same little island, is a circular pagan
clochan, or stone house. (From Journ. Antiqq. Irel. for 1900, pp. 152, 155.) To illustrate observations
at p. 321, supra.

Numerous structures erected in Christian times, but
before the invasion, with lime-mortar, still remain all over
the country, chiefly primitive churches and round towers.
It is only necessary to point to the round towers to show
the admirable skill and the delicate perception of grace-
fulness of outline possessed by the ancient Irish builders.
A similar remark might be made regarding many of the
ancient churches, especially those called Romanesque, for
which that part of Petrie's Round Towers relating to
churches may be consulted.

* Stokes's Life of Petrie, p. i6j.

324 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Blessing the Work. — In old times it was a custom for
workmen, on completing any work and delivering it over
finished, to give it their blessing. This blessing was called
abarta, " and if it was omitted, the workman was subject
" to a fine, to be deducted from his hire, equal to a seventh
" part of [the cost of] his feeding." These are O'Donovan's
words, which are merely an expansion of the explanation
of abarta, given in Cormac's Glossary (p. 9). The same
rule is laid down in the Senchus Mor, from which the
explanation in the Glossary was borrowed (see Br. Laws,
1. 133). This custom is mentioned in the " Small Primer,"
where bendacht (' benediction ') is used instead of abarta*
It would appear also that the first person who saw the
work after it was finished was bound to give it a blessing
on pain of fine : and it was specially incumbent on women
to bless the work of other women. The custom has
descended to this very day : for the peasantry on coming
up to people engaged in work of any kind always say
" God bless your work," or its equivalent in Irish, go
m-beannuighe Dia air bhur n-obair.

6. Protection of Crafts and Social Position of
Craftsmen.

Artificers of all kinds held a good position in society
and were taken care of by the Brehon Law. Among the
higher classes of craftsmen a builder of an oratory or of
ships was on the same level — in respect to honour-price
and dire-fine — with an aire-desa, the lowest rank of noble :
that is to say he was entitled to the same compensation
for any injury inflicted on him in person, honour, or
reputation. In like manner a chariot-maker and a wooden-
house-builder, and some others, ranked with the tanist,
or intended successor to a bo-aire chief. And similar
provisions are set forth in the law for craftsmen of a

• Br. Laws, v. 98, „ , 99, ,,.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 325

lower grade.* Elsewhere it is stated that the artist who
made the articles of adornment of precious metals for the
person or household of a king was entitled to compensation
for injury to person or property equal to half the amount
payable to the king himself for a like injury.f But the
most striking illustration of the estimation in which handi-
craft workers — especially artists of all kinds — were held,
occurs in the Brehon Law (v. 383), where, prescribing the
fine for the retention or loss of an embroideress's needle,

Fig. 314.

Beautiful window of Castledermot Abbey. (From Miss Stokes's High Crosses of Castledetmot and
Durrow, p. 7.) To illustrate the statements about the skill ol Irish masons, at p. 323, supra.

the text winds up with this statement : — " For every
"woman who is an embroideress deserves more profit
" than even queens." These are a few examples of the
provisions found in many parts of the Brehon Law for
the protection of craftsmen and the recognition of their
proper position.

As illustrating this phase of society we sometimes find
people of very high rank engaging in handicrafts. One of
St. Patrick's three smiths was Fortchern, son of Laegaire,

* Br. Laws, V. 103-109 : see also Petrie's Tara, £08, note 8.
t O'Curry, Man. & Cust., ir. 205.

\26

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

king of Ireland. Beoan, the father of St. Mochoemoc,
and another Beoan, father of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise,
though both of royal descent, were famous carpenters*
But, on the other hand, a king was never allowed to

Fig. 3x5.

Doorway of Kalian Church, King's County : dating from about the middle of the
eighth century. Specimen of skilled mason-work to illustrate what is said at p. 323,
supra. (From Petrie's Round Towers, p. 246.)

engage in manual labour of any kind (vol. I., p. 60, supra).
Many of the ancient Irish Saints were skilled artists. In
the time of St. Brigit there was a noted school of metal-
workers near her convent, over which presided St. Conleth,
first bishop of Kildare, who was himself a most skilful

* Cambr. E versus, II. 173.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 32?

artist.* St. Daig or Dega of Iniskeen in Louth was a
famous artificer. He was chief artist to St. Ciaran of
Saigir, sixth century, and he was a man of many parts,
being a cdird or brazier, a goba or smith, and besides, a
choice scribe. In the Martyrology of Donegal it is stated
that " he made 150 bells, 150 crosiers : and also [leather]
cases or covers for sixty Gospel Books," i.e. books con-
taining the Four Gospels. Elsewhere we find it seated
that he made " covers or cases for books, some plain, but
others covered with gold, silver, and precious gems."f

In the muinnter, or familia, or household of St. Patrick,
there were several artists, all of them ecclesiastics, who made
church furniture for him. " His three smiths (gabaind)
expert at shaping," were Macecht, who made Patrick's
famous bell called Finn-faidhech or ' sweet-sounding ' ;
Laebhan ; and Fortchern, who was son of King Laegaire.
His three brasiers (cerda ; or, as Evinus calls them in Latin,
tres fabri cerarii, ' three copper-smiths ') were Aesbuite,
Tairill, and Tasach. In the Tripartite Life it is stated
that " the holy bishop Assicus {i.e. Aesbuite) was Patrick's
" coppersmith {faber ereus), and he made altars and quad-
" rangular tables, and quadrangular book-covers (leber-
" chometa : lit. * book-preservers ') in honour of Patrick."!
We have already seen how highly scribes and book-illumi-
nators were held in esteem. It is to be observed that
nearly all the artists selected by St. Patrick for his house-
hold were natives, though there were many foreigners in
his train, some of whom he appointed to other functions :
a confirmation of what has been already observed, that he
found, on his arrival, arts and crafts in an advanced stage
of cultivation.

In common with most civilised people of old time the
Irish attempted to fix by law the wages of workmen and

* Todd, St. Patrick, 26.

f Stokes, F6ilire, 131 : O'Cl. Cal., 223 : Adamnan, 115, note c : Petrie,
Round TowttS, 202. { Trip. Life, 97 ; FM, a.d. 448.

32«

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART itl

artists : . the rates are laid down in the law, but, as might
be expected, they vary a little as given in different
authorities. The Senchus M6r states that for making a
lann oir, i.e. a gold head-band or necklet of gold, the

Fig. 316.

West front of stone-roofed church at Killaloe, the burial-place of Murkertagh O'Brien,
king of Munster, and afterwards king of Ireland (died A.D. 1119). An example of skilled
mason-work. See observations at p. 323, supra. (From Pctrie's Round Towers, p. 278.)

caird or artist should be paid in silver one-ninth of the
value of the finished article* : and for making a gold ring
on:-twelfth of its value in silver. A legal commentator,
quoted, by 0'Curry,f says : — " The law tells us that the

* Br. Laws, n. 415.

f Man. & Cust., II. 205.

CHAP. XXIV] WORKERS IN WOOD, METAL, AND STONE 329

" weight of the lann-oir in silver was paid to the cerd for
" making it " : one of the many proofs — if proofs were
needed — that these articles were made by native artists.
In another part of the Senchus Mor (Br. Laws, I. 133) it is
stated that the price for making any article is one-tenth
of its value with food and drink. The Glossator of the
Heptads has this remark : — " The payment of all handi-
" craft, namely, the tenth of everything made, is the price
" of making " (Br. Laws, v. 215) : and in this part of the
Laws there are many statements to the same effect. The
rule of the tenth was very general, and it was observed in
many crafts down to recent times. A little more than a
century ago the bakers of Dingle in Kerry charged one-
tenth of the value of bread for baking.

No individual tradesman was permitted to practise till
his work had been in the first place examined at a meeting
of chiefs and specially-qualified ollaves, held either at
Croghan or at Emain, where a number of craftsmen candi-
dates always presented themselves. But besides this there
was another precautionary regulation. In each district
there was a head-craftsman of each trade, designated sai-
re-cerd [see-re-caird], i.e. ' sage in handcraft.' He presided
over all those of his own craft in the district : and a work-
man who had passed the test of the examiners at Croghan
or Emain had further to obtain the approval and sanction
of his own head-craftsman before he was permitted to
follow his trade in the district.* It will be seen from all
this that precautions were adopted to secure competency
in handicrafts similar to those now adopted in the pro-
fessions.

Young persons learned trades by apprenticeship, and
commonly resided during the term in the houses of their
masters. They generalfy gave a fee : but sometimes they
were taught free — or as the law-tract expresses it — " for

* Keating, 419, from old authorities.

33° SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART 111

God's sake." When an apprentice paid a fee, the master
was responsible for his misdeeds : otherwise not. The
apprentice was bound to do all sorts of menial work —
digging, reaping, feeding pigs, &c. — for his master, during
apprenticeship.*

CHAPTER XXV

CORN MILLS

Section i. History.

very early Irish tradition, transmitted through
ancient manuscripts, assigns the erection
of the first watermill in Ireland to the
illustrious King Cormac mac Art (reigned
a.d. 254 to 277). The story is that he
had a beautiful cumal or bondmaid whose business
it was to grind corn with a quern. In order to relieve
her from this heavy drudgery, the king sent across
" the sea " for a saer-muilinn — a ' mill-wright ' — who
constructed a mill on the stream of Nith, flowing
from a well named Nemnach (' sparkling ') beside Tara.
This account is given by Cuan O'Lochain, chief poet of
Ireland, who died a.d. 1024, in a poem on Tara preserved
in several of our ancient manuscripts. It is given in
Petrie's Tara, p. 143 : the passage relating to the mill
will be found at p. 147. O'Lochain's poem was copied
into the present existing manuscripts from much older
books. The well Nemnach still exists, though not now
known by its old name : it was identified more than
sixty years ago by Petrie and O'Donovan (see Plan of

* Br. Laws, iv. 237, and note 1.

CHAP. XXV] CORN MILLS 331

Tara, p. 81, supra). It is remarkable that this ancient
written record is corroborated by a vivid oral local
tradition of the present day, which gives some details
not in the written account, one of which is that King
Cormac obtained the mill-wright from the king of Scot-
land. But here the modern tradition is probably wrong,
as it appears that watermills had not been introduced
into Britain by the Romans so early as the third century.
According to the same oral tradition the name of the
imported mill-wright was Mac Lama. It is an interes'ing
fact that there has been a mill on the spot time out of
mind in possession of one family named Mac Lama,
having descended from father to son ; but in modern
times they have translated their name to Hand (Irish
lam, a hand). It has been always called the mill of
Lismullin (the ' fort of the mill ') : and the place, which
is a mile north-east from Tara, retains the name Lismullin
to this day.*

Whatever amount of truth or fiction may be in the
tradition of King Cormac's mill, we have ample evidence
that f om a period soon after the advent of St. Patrick,
watermills were in very general use all through Ireland,
and were an important factor in daily life, both in the
monasteries and among the people in general. Each
muilenn or mill was managed by a skilled muilleoir
[millore] or miller. Mills and millers are mentioned in
the oldest Irish literature ; and monastic mills are mixed
up with the Lives of many of the early Irish saints. In
the Tripartite Life (p. 211, 6) there is a passage in which
St. Patrick is made to prophesy of certain streams in the
present County Waterford that there never would be mills
on them. In the Lives of very many of the early saints,
we find it recorded, among their other acts, that they built
mills at their monasteries. Cogitosus's Life of St. Brigit,
written in the tenth century, mentions a millstone (molaris

* This account has been taken from Petrie's Tara, p. 162 et seq.

332 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

lapis), showing that there was a mill in connexion with
her nunnery in Kildare. St. Brigit died A.D. 523. The
mill built at Fore, in the present County Westmeath, by
St. Fechin, in the seventh century, which is recorded in
his Life, is noticed by Giraldus Cambrensis ; a mill has
been kept up there from the saint's time to the present
day ; and it is still called St. Fechin's mill. There was
a mill at the monastery of Mailman at Tallaght which
is frequently mentioned in old Irish writings.* The annals
record the burning of St. Ciaran's mill at Clonmacnoise,
A.D. 954. In the Story of the Boroma in the Book of
Leinster, we are told that certain persons who went in
pursuit of St. Moiling (seventh century) found him at a
place called Fornocht laying out the site of a mill.f
Cormac's Glossary (p. 109) — written in the ninth or tenth
century — speaks of the mill-shaft and of the millstones,
which, it says, were larger than the stones of a quern :
and the passage goes on to say that the mill was driven
and the corn ground by water-power. Elsewhere (p. 41)
in the same Glossary the motion of the great whirlpool
of Coire-Brecain is compared to the whirling of mill-
paddles : all showing how common mills were in his
time. Mills and millers are also often mentioned in the
oldest of the tales : as for instance in the " Feis Emna "
(or " Feast of Emain "), in the " Voyage of Maildune," in
the " Fled Bricrenn," in " Da Derga's Hostel," and in the
" Courtship of Emer " — in so many indeed that references
are needless : and in one passage a warrior's spear is
compared to a mol muilind, the ' wheel-shaft of a mill."
Many of the tales, in which mills are spoken of as objects
very familiar, are quite pagan in character, and originated
according to the best authorities, in the seventh or eighth
century.

A most interesting notice of an ancient Irish mill
occurs in connexion with an undoubted historical event,

* F6ilire, p. 8, bottom. f O'Grady, Silva Gad., 423.

CHAP. XXV] CORN MILLS 333

the death, a.d. 651, of Donogh and Conall, the two sons
of Blathmac (one of the joint kings of Ireland — 656 to
664), who were slain by the Leinstermen at " the mill of
Mailoran the son of Dima Cron." This event, which
created a great sensation at the time, is recorded in the
Annals of Tigernach, as well as in those of Ulster, of
the Four Masters, and of Clonmacnoise, and it is com-
memorated in the form of a short story in an Irish MS.
in the Bodleian Library, which has been published and
translated by Kuno Meyer in " Hibernia Minora " : but
the storyteller's version differs from the annalists' record
in some important details, though non-essential for our
purposes. On a certain occasion the princes were pursued
by Mailoran and his party, who determined to kill them.
They succeeded in wounding them, near the mill, on which
the brothers took refuge among the works, beside the tnol
or shaft : but the pursuers forced the woman who had
charge of the sluice to let the water run, so that the mill
was set going, and the young men were crushed to death
in the works. A contemporary poet composed a poem
on this event, in which he apostrophises the mill in the
following strikingly vivid stanza : —

" O mill, what hast thou ground ? Precious thy wheat !
It is not oats thou hast ground, but the offspring of Kervall

[i.e. the princes].
The grain which the mill has ground is not oats but blood-red

wheat ;
With the scions of the great tree (Kervall, their ancestor), Mailor-

an's mill was fed."

Mageogheghan, in his translation of the Annals of
Clonmacnoise, says that " Donogh and Connell were killed
" by the Lynstermen near Mollingare, in the mill of Oran
" [or Mailoran] called Mollenoran." This mill was situated
on the little river that runs from Lough Owel to Lough
Iron, near the point where the river is now crossed by a

334 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

bridge ; and the place still retains the name of Mullenoran.
It is curious that a mill existed there from the time of the
death of the princes — and no one can tell how long before
—down to the end of the eighteenth century ; and there
are some old people still living there whose grandfathers
saw it in full work.*

Tigernach and other annalists record that a celebrated
pillar-stone called Lia Ailbe, which stood at Magh Ailbe,
now Moynalvy in Meath, fell down in the year 999 (998,
FM) : and that from this lia, Malachi the Great, king of
Ireland (a.d. 980-1002), made four [pairs of] millstones.
When St. Columkille dwelt at Clonard under St. Finnen
(d. 549), they ground their corn with a quern, which the
students worked in turn. But it seems plain that after
Columkille settled in Iona, he had a watermill erected.
Adamnan speaks of the grain, of the kiln, and of grinding
the corn : and though he does not tell us expressly what
sort the mill was, he uses an indirect expression that points
to a watermill. Speaking of an incident in the life of
Columkille, he says it occurred at a spot " where a cross
" was afterwards erected and fixed in a millstone, which
" may be seen to this day "f [i.e. about a.d. 697 : a century
after its erection). Innes suggests that this millstone was
a quern. But it must have been a large and heavy mill-
stone belonging to a watermill to give sufficient support
to a stone cross — a conspicuous long-standing memorial.
Add to all these early notices that a mulenn or mill is
mentioned in the St. Gall glosses of Zeuss (p. 778, 2o) —
seventh or eighth century — at which time the name
mulenn, which is used in the Irish passage copied by
Zeuss, and which was borrowed from Latin, had become
well naturalised in the Irish language. We may then take
it for certain that watermills — howsoever derived — were in

* See O'Donovan in FM, at a.d. 647. The above poem is in the FM,
i., p. 263 : and it is also quoted by the annotator of the F6ilire, p. 88.
t " Crux molari infixa lapidi," Adamnan, m. xxiii. (p. 231).

CHAP. XXV] CORN MILLS 335

use in Ireland from the earliest ages of Christianity : but
there is as yet no sufficient evidence to prove that they
were known in pagan times.

2. The " Eight Parts " of a Mill.

The Brehon Laws took careful cognisance of mills,
descending to minute particulars, in order to determine
how far the law of distress applied to them, as well as to
fix the amounts of fines and compensations in case of
accidental damage or injury to persons. In the Senchus
Mor* there is a ver}^ interesting enumeration of the " Eight
Parts " of a mill, viz. — i. The water : 2. The upper mill-
stone : 3. The shaft : 4. The supporting-stone : 5. The
shaftstone : 6. The wheel : 7. The axis : 8. The cup or
hopper. It will be useful to make a few observations on
all these, in accordance with the explanations given in the
commentaries and glosses,! and with various passages in
other Irish writings.

First : The en or water consisted of three parts : —
The spring (topur or tobar) : the mill-race (tuinidhe : pron.
tunnee), from the spring to the mill-pond : and lastly the
mill-pond itself. We see from this that in those times the
water for a mill was brought from the head source along a
channel or mill-race, much the same as at present, till it
flowed into a pond, natural or artificial, where it was
stored till wanted, when the sluice was raised and the
wheel set going. The mill-pond was as familiar an object
as the mill, and we find it very often noticed, sometimes
by the name linn (which means a pool of any kind), and
sometimes by the special name toiden or taidhin. St.
Moiling is mentioned as being on a certain occasion in
his toiden, % where he often stayed, standing in the water
merely to mortify himself.

* Br. Laws, 1. 125. \ Ibid., 141.

\ Sjlva Gad. : Irish text, p. 377, ,.

33& SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

According to the Brehon Law, anyone constructing a
mill could bring the necessary supply of water through the
intervening farms belonging to his neighbours, acquiring
the ground needed for the mill-race by compulsory pur-
chase, and paying the compensation fixed by law : a
provision which anticipated by centuries the modern
statutes by which persons are compelled to sell any
portion of their lands required for certain public works,
such as railways. " Every co-tenant " — says the law-
tract on the ' Right of Water ' — " is bound to permit the
" other co-tenants to conduct the water [required for a
" mill] across his land "* : " and this " — says the gloss on
the text — " is the second instance in the Berla F&ne
" speech where the Law commands a person to sell his
" land though he should not like to do so."f But certain
lands — as the tract goes on to say — were exempted from
compulsory purchase, such as a fair-green, the land
belonging to a church, the land round a king's residence :
water could not be brought through these under any
circumstances. In some exceptional cases, where the
passage of the water would benefit instead of injuring the
owner, the land had to be given without compensation.
The owner of the land, when compelled to sell, might take
direct payment, or he might choose, as compensation, to
have a share in the mill — i.e. the use of it for one or more
of the rotation days (p. 345 below).

Second : the upper millstone, which is called liae and
clock in the law text : but the general name for a millstone
was, and is still, bro, gen. brdn [brone], or cloch-mhuilinn.

Third : the mol [mull] or shaft ; that is, the shaft or
axis of the mill-wheel. Mol is still the living word for a
mill-shaft.

Fourth : the supporting stone, or lower millstone ;
called indeoin or inneoin [innone].

* Br. Laws, iv. 213. f Ibid., 215.

CHAP. XXV] CORN MILLS 337

Fifth : the herinthiu or shaftstone, which is described
in the gloss as the little stone which is under the head of
the mol or shaft, and on which the mol turns.

Sixth : the paddle-wheel or mill-wheel, which is called
oircel [urkel]. The gloss, in explaining this word, says : —
" over its eel or paddle the water flows." Here the whole
wheel is called oircel, and the single paddle eel : but in a
passage in the " Fled Bricrenn " (p. 67) the paddle is called
oircel. In this last passage Queen Maive, speaking of
Cuculainn's impending attack on her army, says " he will
" grind us to mould and gravel . . . like as a mill of ten
" paddles grinds very hard malt." This is instructive as
giving us an idea of the number of paddles, and as inti-
mating that a mill-wheel with ten paddles was considered
a moderately powerful one. The present name for a mill-
wheel is roth [ruh], which properly signifies any wheel.*

The seventh part was the axis [of the revolving
millstone] which is called milaire [millere]. This is
explained in the gloss, " the burden of the mol or shaft,
i.e. the gamul." Milaire is now the usual word for the
pivot on which the millstone turns.

The eighth " part " was the cup or hopper, so called
from the Irish verb cup, to drop ; " because it cups or drops
" the corn out of itself into the upper millstone, i.e. the
" tual, i.e. the perforated iron."

From the above description (especially the expression
" over its eel or paddle the water flows ") we see that the
water-wheel here under consideration was an overshot one,
and revolved round a horizontal mol, shaft, or axis ; that
the millstones lay flat ; that the upper or revolving one
moved on a perpendicular milaire or axis : and that the
motion of the shaft was communicated to this axis by
cog-wheels.

The writer of the Battle of Moyrath (p. 257), describing
two mighty heroes grasping each other and whirling
* Corm. Gloss., p. 143

33^ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

rapidly round in mortal struggle, says : — " They might be
compared to the huge wheel of a mill at rapid grinding."
From this and many other such passages in the tales, as
well as from the manner in which mills are often mentioned
in the Senchus M6r and Cormac's Glossary, and especially
from the story of the destruction of the two princes in the
works of Mailoran's mill, it may be inferred that some at
least of the old Irish mills were fairly large and powerful.
The law-tract (on the " Right of Water " : Brehon Laws,
iv., p. 219) affords an idea of the cost of what may be
considered as an average-sized mill, which is set down as
a cumcd, i.e. three cows, equal to £40 or £45 of our money.
This is the expense of the mill alone, and does not include
the cost of the building.

3. Small Mills.

But a small light mill of much simpler construction
was also in use, portions of which are represented in
fig. 317. In this little mill the shaft stood vertically,
and the wheel horizontally at the lower end of it.* The
pivot or gudgeon at the bottom of the shaft worked in
a hole in stone or iron, fixed firmly beneath. The two
little millstones — which were not larger than querns — were
placed horizontally on the top of the shaft, of which the
lower one was fixed moveless, by means of the surrounding
frame, and the axle (or a round iron bar, a continuation of
the axle upwards) passed through a hole in its centre in
which it turned freely without disturbing the stone. The
top of the axle or bar was fixed firmly in the upper stone,
which turned with it. A simple contrivance for slightly
altering the distance between the two stones enabled the

* Much of the description that follows is abridged from the accounts
given by many eye-witnesses, as they saw little mills of this kind working
in Ireland and Scotland within the last 250 years : as quoted by Mr.
Robert Mac Adam in an interesting article by him on " Ancient Water-
mills " in Ulster Journ. Archseol., vol. iv., p. 6.

CHAP. XXV]

CORN MILLS

339

operator to grind coarse or fine. There was an opening
near the centre of the upper stone with a hopper or open
box fixed over it (often called the Ml or mouth), through
which the grain was supplied : and the flour or meal, as
it escaped at the edges of the
stones, was received in a cloth of
some kind.

The water was directed through
a spout in a powerful stream
against the little spoons or
paddles, and turned the wheel
round very quickly, ioo revolu-
tions or more in a minute ; the
wheel whirling with it the axis
and the upper millstone. All this
corresponds with a passage in
the " Montgomery mss.," written
in the seventeenth century, quo-
ted by Mr. Mac Adam in his
article. This passage also indi-
cates that these mills were very
common in Ulster : —

rfV*

FIG. 517.
Mill shaft and wheel, found near Bally-
money, in Antrim. Length of shaft, 6
feet 6 inches : diameter of paddle-wheel,
3 feet 3 inches. (From Ulster Journal ot
Archaeology, IV., p. 6.)

[From a bog near Newtownards in
Down] " issue many rills and streams
. . . ; and on them each townland
almost had a little miln for grinding
oats, dryed in potts or singed and
leazed in ye straw, which was ye old
Irish custom, the mealle whereof called
greddane was very cours. The milns

are called Danish or ladle milnes ; the axeltree stood upright,
and ye small stones or querns (such as are turned with hands) on
ye top thereof : the water wheel was fixed at ye lower end of ye
axeltree, and did run horizontally among ye water ; a small force
driving it."

These little mills were common in other parts of Ire-
land also, and fifty or sixty years ago they were in full
work all over Connaught, and probably also in Munster.

340 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The Irish-speaking people, to distinguish them from mills
of a larger and better kind with vertical wheels, gave
them the expressive name of muileann ton re talamh,
" molendinum podex ad terram " (' mill with backside
to the ground '). The Connaught people when speaking
English called them " gig-mills."* These descriptive details
regarding small mills are given here from late authorities ;
first, because there is hardly any early literature that
enters into particulars regarding their construction and
mode of working ; and secondly, because it is pretty
certain they descend from ancient times, like many other
Irish institutions.

Little mills of this kind, which did not call for much
skill, and were very inexpensive, no doubt existed from
the earliest period, as well as the larger and more expensive
ones. They are not Danish, as they are called in the above
extract : for the Danes, who did not begin to arrive till
the ninth century, had nothing to do with the introduc-
tion of mills, which, as we have seen were known and
worked in Ireland long before their time. The popular
tradition attributing them to the Danes, referred to by
Mr. Mac Adam (p. 14 of his Essay), counts for nothing;
for we know that similar popular traditions attribute all
the raths and lisses, as well indeed as most other important
works, to that people ; so that the erroneous name " Danish
raths " — like " Danish milnes " — was quite prevalent until
very lately (see p. 65, supra). .f

The truth is, as Professor O'Reilly has shown in his
instructive article on " Ancient Horizontal Water-mills,
Native [Irish] and Foreign " (Proc. R. I. Acad., 14 April,
1902), the little mills of the pattern here described have
been found in use, not only in Norway, Sweden, and the

* Ulster Journ. of Archaeol., v. 91.

t This tradition or opinion of the Danish origin of the little Irish
mills is adopted without further inquiry by Messrs. Bennett and Elton
in their History of Corn-Milling.

CHAP. XXV] CORN MILLS 341

British Isles, including Ireland, but also in France, Spain,
Italy, Roumania, Greece, the Holy Land, Asia Minor,
and even Western China. Where the knowledge of them
originally came from it seems now impossible to tell. We
are. only concerned here to assert that howsoever or when-
soever they got introduced into Ireland, they were not
brought hither by the Norse invaders.

Ancient mill-sites and the remains of old mills have
been found in various parts of Ireland buried deep in bog
or clay, always beside a stream, many presenting appear-
ances of very remote antiquity. Some are small horizontal-
wheel mills like those just described ; some are the remains
of larger mills with vertical wheels. In most of those sites
millstones have been found, of various sizes up to three
feet in diameter : and there is often a long narrow oaken
trough or shoot — generally hollowed out from a single
tree-trunk — for conveying the water to the wheel. Parts
of the framework surrounding the mill, with the flooring,
also remain in some of these old sites, mortised together,
but never fastened by nails : the woodwork of all generally
of oak. Sometimes a large cistern is found : one, for
instance, 15 feet by 7, and 20 inches deep ; from which
the immediate water-supply was led by the shoot to the
little wheel : another is described in Stokes's " Life of
Petrie," p. 126.*

4. Drying and Grinding.

Preparatory to grinding, the corn had to be dried in a
kiln, which was, and is, called in Irish dith, gen. dtha [aw,
aw-ha]. The oven containing the fire was called sorn or
som-na-hdtha, ' oven of the kiln.' It was heated by fire-

* For these old mills see the article on ' Ancient Irish Water-mills "
by Mr. Prim, in Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1849-51, p. 154 : see also the
vols, for 1860-61, p. 347 ; and 1899, pp. 221 and 223, 8. and Professor
O'Reilly's Notes on Horizontal Water-Mills, Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1902.
All in addition to Mac Adam's Article in Ulster Journ. Arch., vol. iv.

342 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

wood ; and it required some skill and experience to
manage, for, if overheated, the kiln might take fire or the
corn be scorched. On one occasion when St. Ciaran, dur-
ing his residence in St. Enda's monastery in Aran, was
drying corn, the kiln caught fire. There was a specially
experienced man in charge of the kiln. St. Aengus the
Culdee, when resident in Tallaght disguised as a working
man, had charge of the kiln for some time. A usual plan
was to put the grain in a sort of twig-basket or sieve which
was held over the fire, while a man kept stirring it up, till
the whole basketful was sufficiently dried. The basket
was called in Irish laetn ; and Latin writers of the Lives
of Irish Saints refer to it as rota de virgis contexta, ' a rota
or round sieve woven of twigs.' Adamnan (p. 88, 2) calls
the drying kiln by the Latin name canaba.*

A more primitive way of drying, which was practised
down to recent times, was by burning or roasting the corn
in the ear. A woman — sitting down at her work — took a
handful of unthreshed corn in the left hand and a short
stick in the right : she then set fire to the ears, which
blazed up ; and watching the right moment, when the
outer husk or chaff was burned off, but before the fire had
time to reach the grain, she struck off the burning top with
the stick. Most country-women could do this work with
more or less skill ; but it would seem that certain women
followed it as a sort of trade ; and constant practice made
them dexterous, so that they separated the grain very
quickly. Corn burned off in this manner was called
loisgredn [lusgraun], i.e. ' something burned,' from loisg,
to burn : and the practice must be an old one, for many
places in Ireland are still called by names derived from
this word — such as Loskeran near Ardmore in Waterford,
probably commemorating the fact that at some former
time a professional corn-drier lived there, f In Ulster

* See Adamnan, p. 88, note c, and p. 362.
f See Irish Names of Places, 1. 238.

chAp. xxv] corn mills 343

and Scotland scorched corn is called graddan, as stated
in the Montgomery MS. above (p. 339), from the Gaelic
gread, to burn (with which the English gridiron and
griddle are connected) ; and the Scotch and Ulster
peasantry greatly preferred graddan bread (which has a
slightly burnt taste) to that made from kiln-dried corn.
Martin (p. 204) says that in his time, 1703, corn could
be dressed, winnowed, ground, and baked, in one hour
after reaping (see also Carmichael's " Carmina Gadelica,"
1. 254).

The ground corn came from the mill in the form of
whole-meal. If different qualities of bread or of porridge
were required, this meal was sifted in a criathar [criher] or
sieve, which, as well as the baking, was always done by
women, as already remarked.

The Brehon Law provided for personal injuries in
mills, caused by culpable negligence. In case any one
was injured in a kiln during the process of drying, four
persons are mentioned in the Book of Aicill, one or more
of whom might be liable for damages : — The man who
splits the firewood, the man who kindles the fire, the man
who puts on the firewood (i.e. tends the fire), and the man
who dries the corn.*

When the upper millstone was badly set, it was liable,
in its rapid revolution, to break from its fastening and slip
off the lower one : and so to injure persons looking on
or engaged in the work. The Book of Aicill lays down
rules for compensation in such cases, and mentions three
persons, of whom one, two, or all three might be liable
according to the apportionment of the blame : — the owner
of the mill, the mill-wright who constructed it, and the
person engaged in grinding, f Sometimes accidents
happened from the too great force of the water : and
here again the proper assignment of liability is provided
for.

* Br. Laws, 111. 265. f Ibid., in. 281 283

344 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART Hi

5. Common Properly in Mills.

A mill was a usual appanage to a ballybetagh or
ancient Irish townland, and went with it on sale or other
transfer, as is proved by records of many ancient grants
and purchases of land. Written into the spare blank pages
of the Book of Kells are several such grants, some in Irish,
some in Latin : and in the Registry of Clonmacnoise are
similar documents. One of those in the Book of Kells
records that in the middle of the eleventh century, the
munter or family of Kells made a grant of Ballyheerin
with its mill and with all its land, and Ballycoogan with all
its land and with its mill, to God and St. Columkille,
meaning that they were granted to St. Columkille's
monastery at Kells.* In the Charter of Newry in which
King Murkertach O'Loghlin granted several townlands
to the monastery there, about the year 1101, this expres-
sion (in Latin) occurs : — " These lands, with their mills
" [molendinis], I have confirmed of my own proper gift
" to the said monks, "f Several other such grants of town-
lands of about the same period, f in which mills are included,
might be mentioned. All the mills in question here were
large ones with vertical wheels.

The mill belonging to a ballybetagh or townland was
often owned by several families in common, all of whom
had a right to the use of it, according to the amount of
their several shares. " Whenever a mill was to be erected
for the use of neighbours " — writes Dr. O'Donovan in an
instructive note on the Brehon Law tract on the Right
of Water§ — " It was left to the option of the persons
" concerned (who were generally the inhabitants of the
" three nearest lands) whether they would all join in con-
" structing the works and conducting the water thereunto,

* Irish Arch. Misc., 1846, p. 129. f Dub. Pen. Journ., I. p. 102.

X For which see Irish Arch. Misc., 1846, pp. 127-160.
§ Br. Laws, iv. 220, 221

Chap, xxv] corn mills 345

" or let all be done by one man, who was to pay his
" neighbours for conducting the water through their lands.
" If the neighbours had assisted in forming the mill-pond,
" mill-race, and other works, they were entitled to certain
" days' grinding at the mill." In order to assign the
number of days belonging to each partner, there was a
regular rotation extending over three weeks, i.e. eighteen
working days* ; and the usual arrangement was that the
several owners or claimants had the use of the mill on
certain days of those eighteen, according to their several
claims ; at the end of which the rotation began again and
went on in the same order. An outsider could get his corn
ground by purchasing for a sufficient time the right of one
or more of the owners. When one rich man constructed
the mill with the consent of the neighbours, he paid all
expenses, both of purchase and work, and then the mill
belonged to him. In this case he ground his neighbours'
corn for payment, which usually consisted of a certain
proportion of the corn or flour : commonly a tenth (see
p. 329, supra).

Sometimes a man who had a share in a mill had a kiln
of his own, and dried his corn at home ; and occasionally
a kiln, as distinct from a mill, was owned by several people
in common. A brugaid or brewy always had a mill and
kiln on his premises — a thing we might expect, from the
quantity of provisions he needed. In connexion with most
monasteries was a mill for the use of the community.!

6. Querns and Grain-Rubbers.

A grinding machine much more primitive and ancient
than the water-mill was the quern or hand-mill. It was
called in Irish bro, gen. bron [brone] : and often cloch-bhron
[cloch-vrone] : clock, a stone : but both these terms were
also applied to a millstone. An older term was meile

* Br. Laws, iv. 215-219 : see also Introd., clxi ; p. 305, 2S. and vol. 1
217, 227 t See Br. Laws, iv. 309, a6. ani 305, 2S. 315, Ifi

34<S

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

[melle : O'Clery's Gloss.], evidently cognate with English
mill and the corresponding terms in other languages.
Querns were of various forms : sometimes the grinding
surfaces were fiat : sometimes the under surface was con-
vex and the upper concave : sometimes the reverse — pot-
shaped. In all cases the upper stone worked on an axis
or strong peg fixed in the lower one, and was turned
round by one or by two handles. The corn was supplied

at the axis-opening
in the centre of the
upper stone, and
according as it was
ground between the
two stones flowed
out at the edge.
Sometimes it was
worked by one per-
son, sometimes by
two, who pushed the
handles from one to
the other. In ancient
times it was — in
Ireland — considered
the special work of
women, and especi-
ally of the cumal or bondmaid, to grind at the quern :
and so generally was this understood that in Cormac's
Glossary (p. 42) a cumal is explained : " a woman that is
" grinding at a quern ; for this was the business of bonds-
" women before [water-] mills were made." Querns were
used down to our own day in Ireland and Scotland ; and
they may still be found at work in some remote localities,
especially to grind malt secretly for making pottheen or
illicit whiskey.

The almost universal use of querns is proved by their
frequent mention in the Brehon Laws and other ancient

Fig. 318.

Upper stone of a quern : 18 inches in diameter : ornamented
with sculptured cross. In National Museum. (From Wilde's
Catalogue, p. 107.)

CHAP. XXV] CORN MILLS %\J

Irish literature, as well as by the number of them now
found in bogs, in or near ancient residences, and especially
crannoges. Some of these are very primitive and rude,
showing their great antiquity.

In comparatively modern times mill-owners who ground
the corn of the people of the neighbourhood for pay looked
on the use of querns with great dislike, as taking away
custom. Quern-grinding by the poorer people to avoid
the expense of the mill was regarded as a sort of poaching;
and where the mill belonged to the landlord he usually
gave orders to his miller to break all the querns he could
find ; so that the people had to hide them much as they
hide an illicit still nowadays.*
In Scotland laws were made in
the thirteenth century to com-
pel the poor people to abandon
querns for water-mills, all in the
interests of landlords and other
rich persons. It was the same
in England: in 1556 the local r ,t ' '. . .

o J J Complete pot-shaped quern : 9 inches

lord in one of the western !" dian£" -,1" Tf National *!useum'

(From Wilde s Catalogue, p. 108.)

counties issued an order that no

tenants should keep querns " because they ought to grind
at their lord's mill."f But these laws were quite ineffec-
tive, for the people still kept their querns. Pennant and
McCulloch found them in general use in the Scottish
Highlands and islands at a recent period.

When two women worked the quern, they sat facing
each other, and passed the handle, or both handles, quickly
from hand to hand. They ground oats always in the husk
and afterwards silted it. Before grinding— in the absence
of a mill-kiln — the corn was very often dried in an iron pot
over a fire, and was kept constantly stirred round to pre-

*Dub. Pen. Joum., iv. 295, where there is an interesting and instructive
article on this subject : see another good article in Kilk. Archseol. Joum.,
1858-9, p. 352. f Roberts, Social Hist., p. 323.

348

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

vent scorching. Quern-grinding was tedious work : for it
took about an hour for two women to grind 10 lb. of meal.
In Scotland, oatmeal or a preparation from it, is called
broes or brose, which is probably a plural form from bro,
the Gaelic name of the quern. It is hardly necessary to
say that the quern or handmill was in use among all the
ancient peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa : and that it
is still extensively employed where water-mills have not
found their way.

The most ancient grinding-machine of all, and most
difficult and laborious to work, was the grain-rubber, about
which sufficient information will be derived from the
illustration. Several of these primitive grinding-machines
may be seen in the National Museum : they are still used
among primitive peoples all over the world.

Grain-rubber: oval-shaped : 16 inches lone. (From Wilde's
Catalogue, p. 104.)

^p*i**i>

Sculpture on a Capital: Priest's House, Glendalough: Beranger, 1779k
(From Fetric t Round Towers.)

Ornament on leather case of Book of Armagh. (From Petric's Round Towers,

CHAPTER XXVI

TRADES AND INDUSTRIES CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING

Section i. Wool and Woollen Fabrics.

hearing. — Clothing, as may be anticipated, gave
rise to many industries, in Ireland as in all
other civilised countries. Of these, the most
important was that connected with wool. The
Irish name of wool was olann or oland, which
is still in use. The wool was taken from the
sheep with a shears, which, from the manner
in which it is. mentioned, must have been much like those
used at present. The usual old Irish name is demess,
which is explained in Cormac's Glossary (p. 55) in a
manner that clearly indicates the make of the article
itself. He says that it was so called from mess, an edge ;
and that demess signifies ' two edges ' ; for — he goes on to
say — it has two knives, and the knives have two handles.
This shows that the old Irish wool-shears was like the
present hedge-shears. The demess is mentioned in the
story of the Feast of Bricriu (33 and 162), which throws
back the knowledge of the instrument to a still earlier
date. In the Brehon Law (iv. 310, 12) it is called dias,
which means ' a pair,' that is to say, a pair of blades.
A small hand-scissors was also in use, and known by
the same name. We read in the Tripartite Life (p. 103)

349

350 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

that St. Patrick tonsured the druid Caplait : " and Patrick
put the deimess round his hair." This old name is still
used for a shears, in the modern form deimheas, which
is pronounced djeeass. About the year 1849 an ancient
iron shears was found in a tumulus at a place called
Seskin in the County Kilkenny.* The process of shearing
was called lomrad, from lorn, bare.

Preparation lor Spinning. — The shearing appears to have
been done by men : but after this the whole work up to
the finished cloth was regarded as specially pertaining to
women : except fulling, which was often or mostly men's
work. After being sorted, the wool was greased (belad,
greasing), adding to the natural oiliness, which rendered
it more easy to remove the grease altogether in the next
process — scouring. After scouring it was teased or mixed
(cutnusc or bocad, i.e. ' mixing '). It was next combed or
carded twice, first roughly, and a second time more care-
fully and finely. The carding [chad, pron. keera : from
cir, a comb) was done by hand : the woman sitting down
while at work, and using a pair of cards, much the same
probably as those in use for hand-carding now. A quantity
of wool lay at her feet in a sort of bag called a pes-bolg
(which the gloss dervies from pes, a foot : ' foot-bag '), from
which she drew handfuls as needed. The second carding
turned out the wool in the form of soft little loes, locks or
rolls (a l-loaib, ' in locks ' : lo, a lock of wool) fit for spinning,
just as wool-carders do at the present day.j

Spinning. — In those times spinning was done, in Ire-
land as elsewhere, by the distaff and spindle ; for the
spinning-wheel was not invented till the fifteenth or six-
teenth century. The wool or flax in preparation for
spinning was wound and fastened loosely on a rock or
distaff called in Irish cuigeal [quiggail]. From the distaff
the material was drawn off gradually, with the help of the

* Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., i. 9.

t Br. Laws, n. 369, 371, 417, 419 : O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 115.

CHAP. XXVI] TRADES CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING 351

left hand, by the spindle or spinning-stick, which was held
in the right hand and manipulated dexterously so as to
twist the material into thread, and wind it on the spindle
according as spun. When one spindle was full, the operator
began with another. The spindle used for flax was called
in Irish fertas : that for spinning wool was called snimaire
[sneemara or sneevara], lit. ' spinner,' from snim, modern
Irish sniomh, spin.* But there seems to be some con-
fusion in the gloss in the use of these words — fertas and
snimaire ; and at any rate, the distinction is now forgotten.
That a part at least of the process of spinning was often
performed by bondmaids appears from the derivation given
in Cormac's Glossary (p. 14) for abras, a word which was
applied to yarn of any kind, or to the material for making
thread, rolled on the rock or distaff. He derives it from
abra, a bondmaid, and feis, hand-produce : abra-feis (con-
tracted to abras), because it is — as the Glossary goes on to
say — " the hand-produce of a bondmaid."

The abras or thread ready for weaving was rolled "up
in balls (Irish certle, equivalent to Latin glomus, a clew or
thread-ball : Z, 68, s), on which it was wound from the
spindles according as these got filled. The following
quotation from the Law gloss makes matters clear : —
" Abras, i.e. the material finished [as thread or yarn] and
" wanting only to be woven, i.e. the white balls [na certle
" gela], i.e. white thread."f The fact that the thread,
" wanting only to be woven," i.e. ready for weaving, was
white, points to the wool in its natural colour, and is a
confirmation of the statement made farther on, that woollen
material was dyed in the piece.

Weaving. — The thread was woven into cloth in a hand-
loom, nearly always by women : and like all the rest of the
cloth-making process, it was a cottage industry. The
complete weaving machinery or loom had two beams :

* Br. Baws, 1. 152, I0, „. 153, I4.

1 Ibid., I. 152, „; 153, «.

352

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

the larger one called gar main (and sometimes gae-mathri),
and the other lu-garmain or 'smaller beam' (/#, small);
which O'Curry believes to have been the front beam on
which the warp was rolled up to be woven, and from which
it was unrolled as the weaving went on. Accordingly he

Fig. 322.

Fin. 323.

Fig. 324.

Fig. 323

Specimens of ancient Irish weaving. In 1780 the body of a woman, covered with antique articles
of clothing, all wool, was found, buried in hard gravel, under 4% feet of bog. Figs. 321 and 322
represent portions of two of these. Fig. 323 la part of a long web. made of goat's hair, not exactly
woven, but tied or knotted together, as sl,-..u in the illustration. The hairs are across, or at right-
angles to the length. Found in Cavan, under 14 feet of bog. With this was found a fine plaited or
woven woollen band, portion of which is shown in fig. 324. Fig. 325 is portion of a coarse woollen
cloth, of which there is a whole suit in the National Museum. It appears from these and other
specimens that certain loom-adjustments of the warp, commonly supposed to be of modern inven-
tion, were known to the ancient Irish weavers. (From rroc. Roy. Ir. Acad., IX. 103, 104; and
Wilde's Catalogue, 295 and 325.)

calls it the " rolling beam." The principal beam must
have been large : for we find it recorded that a certain
widow cooked a calf in her house for St. Brigit with a fire
made from her garmain, as she had no other fuel ; and the
massive spear of a hero, like that of Goliath, is sometimes
compared^— in Irish tales — to a weaver's beam. In the

chap. Xxvt] Trades connected with clothing 353

Annotations of the Feilire of Aengus* mention is made of
the " nin of a garmain, i.e. the ' fork ' or ' mouth ' on the
head of a weaver's beam," which refers to some peculiarity
of construction.

What were called the " swords " (claidim), or weaving-
rods (slata figi), were long laths used during the process of
weaving, which were nearly or altogether as long as the
beam : for in the Bruden Da Derga it is stated that the
three great swords of three champions were each longer
than a claidem n-garmnae, ' the sword of a weaver's beam.'f
These swords or laths are what O'Curry calls " heddles," a
word used in this application in his own early days in
Clare. J The warp was called dluth [dluh] : and the weft
or woof innech.§ While the woman was weaving she used
a feith-geir [feh-gair], " which put a smooth face upon her
weaving " : and which is represented by the sleeking-stick
or " rubbing-bone " still used by hand- weavers. ||

The piece of woven cloth had usually a border or
fringe (corrthar, pron. curher), which was sometimes woven
with the whole piece and formed part of it : and some-
times separately and afterwards sewed on. In this last
case it was woven with a short light claidem or lath, alto-
gether apart from the loom, something like the crochet, or
netting or meshing work of modern times : and weaving
ornamental borders or long scarfs in this manner was
practised by ladies of the higher ranks as they practised
embroidery. We read in the Tain that once when Queen
Maive was in her chariot, a strange lady suddenly appeared
sitting beside her : and " what the woman was doing was,
" weaving a border (corrthar) with a claidem or lath of
" findruine [findrinne] or white bronze."^

* Feilire, p. 66, and note a ; and " Ninach " in Glossary.
f LU, 95, a, 33 : and Man. & Cust., n. 148, note 221
X Man & Cust., n. 116.

§ Corm. Gloss., 95 : the weft is also called eanglaim in O'Cl. Gloss.
|| Man. & Cust., 11. 116.

1J Man. & Cust., 11. no, note 71 LL, 55, b, 32. See also corrthair in

354 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Fulling. — A fuller of cloth was called ciormhaire
[keervara], literally a comber (from cior, a comb) ; or
fucaire [fookera], or ucaire, from fucad or ucad [fooka,
ooka], to full, and there were persons who practised this
as a distinct trade. In the Irish Annals it is recorded that
Cerbhall [Kerval] king of Leinster was on one occasion
riding a spirited steed through Kildare ; when, passing the
shop of a fuller, it happened that a man was sent out to
blow the fuller's congna or horn : and the horse shied and
started at the sudden sound, so that the king was wounded
by his own javelin, of which he died (a.d. 909).* This
incident tells a plain story. The fuller began his opera-
tions on each occasion whenever his materials were
prepared, fulling a large quantity at a time, and he fulled
his neighbour's cloth as well as his own— for pay of course.
When he was ready to begin, he sent out his man to blow
the horn at the door, as a signal for the people to bring
in their cloth. The custom of tradesmen blowing a horn
for such purposes continued to a period almost within our
own memory, of which an example, in case of a different
trade, may be seen in the beginning of the story of " The
Whiteboy " in the Dublin and London Magazine, vol.
for 1826, pages ys, 74.

2. Flax and its Preparation.

The preparation of flax is described in old Irish

authorities, especially in the Brehon Law, though not in

such detail as that of wool. One of the names of this

plant is still preserved in a great number of the Euro-

Corm. Gloss., 44. Besides the special references given here, see for the
whole of these details of weaving, Br. Laws, I., pp. 150-153 : and O'Curry,
Man. & Cust., n. 116, 117. In the Highlands of Scotland they still pre-
serve most of the ancient methods of manufacturing cloth, from the wool
up, including dyeing, as may be seen by the brief, but very interesting,
description of the processes as carried on by the Highland women within
the last forty years given in Carmichael's Carmina Gadelica, 1. 298, 306,
308, 310.

* Three Fragments, 223, notes c and d. We now know that congna
means an antler or horn.

CHAP. XXVI] TRADES CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING 355

pean languages, the forms slightly varying, but all
derived from the root lift. The Greek word is linon ;
Latin, linum ; English, linen and linseed ; A. -Sax., lin ;
Russ., lend ; &c. This shows that it was cultivated by
the western Aryan people since before the time of their
separation into the various nationalities of Europe.

The Celtic tribes who first set foot on our shores,
brought a knowledge of the plant and its cultivation
with them ; and corresponding to all the names given
above, is the Irish lin [leen], which is still the word in
universal use for flax. Besides the evidence of philology,
our own records show that linen was manufactured in
Ireland from the earliest historic times. It was a very
common article of dress, and was worked up and dyed
in a great variety of forms and colours, and exported
besides in large quantities to foreign nations. So that
the manufacture for which Ulster is famous at the present
day, is merely an energetic development of an industry
whose history is lost in the twilight of antiquity.

The flax, after pulling, was tied up in sheaves and
dried. It was then steeped, as at present, to rot the
woody fibre ; and after remaining a sufficient time in the
water it was taken up and spread out to dry. After a
still further and final drying, over a fire it was beaten
with a smachtin or flax mallet, to break up the brittle
woody covering of the flax fibre. In order to remove
this, the operation of scutching (flescad) came next, which
was done with a scutching-stick called flesc or flesc-lin.*
In the commentary on the Senchus Morf this process
gets another name — ailgubad. More than half a century
ago, scutching was called cloving by the English-speaking
people of the south of Ireland, where flax-growing and
linen-weaving still lingered on from the days of old : and
the forked scutching-stick or flesc-lin — which was always

* Br. Laws, i. 152, I5; 153, 2I . Man. & Cust., n. 116.
f Br. Laws, 11. 368, line 3 from bottom.

35^ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

worked by women — was called a " cloving-tongs " : the
word " clove " being merely the Irish clomh or clobha
[clove, clova], one of the names for a tongs. But the
whole industry — which I saw in full work — is now dead
and gone. After the flescad or scutching came what was
called in English in modern times, " hackling," to divide
the fibres into finer filaments, which brought away tangled
masses of tow. This was done by drawing it with the
hand over the points of a number of strong steel needles
fixed closely in a little frame : a work done by certain
persons as a special trade. This hackling process is not
mentioned in the old account in the law from which the
description and names of all the other processes given here
are taken : but the flax must have been subjected to it.
Next came spinning into thread with a distaff and a
spindle, or in later times with a spinning-wheel, which
is still found at work in the homes of the peasantry in
some parts of Ireland. The thread was made up in
hanks or skeins, boiled in home-made potash, and spread
in the sun to bleach on a grassy spot called a tuar or
bleach-green. Lastly, it was wound up into balls or clews
(certle) and woven into calico or linen.*

3. Dyeing.
Dyestuffs and dyeing in general. — The beautiful illumi-
nation of the Book of Kells, the Book of Mac Durnan, and
numerous other old manuscripts, proves that the ancient
Irish were very skilful in colours : and it will be shown here
that the art of dyeing was well understood. The dyestuffs
were not imported : they were all produced at home : and
so important were they considered that among the blessings
believed to fall on the country during the reign of a just
sovereign, the Book of Leinster and other ancient authorities
enumerate " abundance of dyestuffs."f

* For all this about flax, see Br. Laws, 1. 150-153 : and O'Curry, Man.
& Cust., 11. 121, where a good abstract of the processes is given.

J Rennes Dind. in Rev. Celt., xvi. 281 : O'Curry, MS. Mat., 528, top.

CHAP. XXVI] TRADES CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING 357

In this Book of Leinster passage the word used for
dyestuffs (in general) is ruaman (gen. ruamna) : and hence
the Four Masters (vol. I., 42, 5, 6) use the verbal form
ruamnad [roomna] for dyeing of any colour — though, as
we shall see, ruam primarily means red : " whence comes
ruamnaig, reddening, or blushing, and ruanaid, red." The
word ruam, as it is written in one copy of Cormac's
Glossary, or main as it appears in another, is stated in
the Glossary* to be " an herb (luss) that gives colour to
the face until it is red " (derg) : and in the Coir Anmann
we are told that a person named Diarmait Ruanaid, i.e.
' Dermot the Red,' was so called from " ruan," which " is
a plant (lus) that produces colour on the face."f In an
old tract in the Book of Ballymote the tree or bush
called rois — which is understood to be the elder-bush —
is designated " the reddening of faces." Ruam is the
alder-tree, more commonly called fearn or fearnog : and
as this plant is used in dyeing a reddish brown, it may
be concluded that the words ruam, ruaim, ruan, ruain,
which we find in the authorities, are all different forms of
the name for the alder-tree.

It has been already stated that the Irish people were
fond of bright colours : and they wore in fact clothes of
all the chief colours then known. But only in a few
cases have descriptions of the processes of producing the
dyestuffs and of imparting the colours come down to us,
and even those we have are often not very precise or
clear. The people understood how to produce various
shades by the mixture of different colours, and were
acquainted with the use of mordants for fixing them.
One of these mordants, alum, is a native product, and
was probably known in very early times. J Dyeing was
what we now call a cottage industry, i.e. the work was
always carried on in the house : as I saw it carried on

* Corm., p. 144 : Three Ir. Gloss., 39. f Ir- Texte, III. 345, 347.

X Sullivan, Introduction, 402.

35$ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

in the homes of Minister more than half a century ago.
In the cultivation of the dye-plants, men might take a
part : but the rest of the process was considered the
special work of women, so that men seldom assisted.
In the actual dyeing of the cloth, even the very presence
of man or boy was considered unlucky, and liable to mar
the process, as is shown by the legend of St. Ciaran given
at p. 360 below. It appears from the same story, as well
as from what is said about white balls of yarn at p. 351,
supra, that cloth was dyed in the piece, the wool being left
of the natural colour till after weaving and fulling. But
woollen cloth was often worn without being dyed at
all — just with the shade it brought from the back of
the sheep.

Ground Colour. — There were two main stages in the
process of dyeing. The first was imparting a ground or
foundation colour of reddish-brown, which was done by
steeping and boiling the cloth with the twigs of the ruam
or alder. " Ruadh " (red : pron. roo) — says O'Clery's
Glossary — " i.e. ruamann, the first dye or tinge, or the
" stuff that gives it and prepares for the second or last . . .
" no colour [can be given] without ruamann." In later
times this preliminary colouring was called in English
riming, from ruaim. After this the cloth was ready for
the second stage — imparting the final colour : which was
done by boiling it with the special dyestuff.

Black. — The dyestuff for black was a sediment or
deposit of an intense black found at the bottom of pools
in bogs, called dubh-poill, i.e. ' black-stuff of the poll, hole
or pool.' It always contained more or less iron, which
helped in the dyeing. Boiled with this, the cloth acquired
a dull black colour : but if some twigs or chips of oak were
added, the colour produced was a glossy jet black, very
fixed and permanent.

Crimson. — A crimson or bright-red colour was imparted
by a plant anciently called rud or roid, which required

CHAP. XXVI] TRADES CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING 359

good land, and was cultivated in beds like table vege-
tables, requiring great care.* It was probably a species of
the plant called bedstraw. In the Senchus Mor provision
is made for dividing the home-stock of this dye-plant, or
rather of the prepared dyestuff, in proper proportions
between husband and wife in case of separation,! which
shows that it was of much value (see p. II, supra). The
several stages of preparation are indicated by distinct
terms. First, the plant as gathered from the beds : second
stage, trilsens : third stage, scriplins% : fourth and last
stage, the dyestuff, which was a sort of meal or coarse
flour of a reddish colour.§ Some sort of crimson was also
produced from lichen as mentioned below.

Blue. — To dye the cloth blue, after it had been rimed,
it was boiled with a dyestuff obtained from woad, called
in Irish glaisin [glasheen] : the Irish word evidently a
descendant of the Gaulish name of this plant — glastum.
Pliny records that the ancient Britons used the glastum to
dye their bodies blue. The name glaisin, which has long
fallen out of use, was also applied to the prepared dye-
stuff. The glaisin was cultivated in beds, and was a very
valuable crop, requiring great care and watching during
growth.|| In vol. I., p. 216, supra, has been mentioned a
celebrated lawsuit brought about by sheep eating a crop
of glaisin.

That the dye of glaisin was blue is indicated by the
name, which is a diminutive of glas. This word glas was
however applied to several shades of colour, as for instance
to the green of fields and to bluish-grey coloured eyes.
But it was also applied to pure blue, as is shown by many
ancient passages, as for instance the Voyage of Bran,

* Br. Laws, iv. 277, I0. f Br. Laws, 11. 421.

% See Scriplin and Trillsen in Atkinson's Glossary to Br. Laws. From
the authorities he quotes one may conjecture that the trillsen was a
little wisp of the dried plants : and the scriplin a larger bundle in a
further stage of preparation.

§ Br. Laws, 11. 421 : see also MS. Mat., 528, 29. || Br. Laws, 11. 371, bot.

360 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

where in one place (1. 9. is) the word glas is applied to
" the hue of heaven." But as to glaisin, the colour it
imparted is placed beyond dispute by a legend in the Life
of St. Ciaran in the Book of Lismore. On a certain day,
when he was a boy, his mother was about to dye some
cloth with glaisin : — " Then his mother said to him — ' Out
with thee now, Ciaran ' : for " — continues the old Irish
narrative — " they did not deem it right or lucky to have
" men [or boys] in the same house in which the cloth was
" dyed." Ciaran walked out, saying in a childish pout as
he went : — "I wish that there may be a dark grey stripe
in it." Accordingly when the cloth was taken out finished,
every piece had a dark grey stripe [which spoiled it].
Again the glaisin was prepared and the cloth was boiled :
and this time — on account of some other words spoken by
Ciaran — it came out whitish. A third time the glaisin
was prepared : and the boy's mother said to him : — " Now
" Ciaran do not spoil the glaisin any more, but give it a
" blessing." He did so : and this time the cloth came out
dyed a beautiful intense blue (gorm).* Here the word
applied to the colour produced by glaisin is gorm, which
means pure blue. The legend attributes to a miracle
what must have been a usual occurrence : failure by some
mismanagement, followed by success after more careful
manipulation.

In the preparation of dyestuffs from glaisin there were
four distinct stages as in case of the roid plant. First, the
plant as gathered from the bed : second, a stage called cro
or cru : third, a second stage of cro : fourth, the fully-
prepared dyestuff, which was in lumps or cakes. But
what the first and second cro states were we do not know.
Here also, as in the case of roid, the law provides for the
proper division of the glaisin between husband and wife
if they should separate, f

* Stokes, Lives of SS., 266.

f For all this see Br. Laws, 11. 419

CHAP. XXVI] TRADES CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING 361

Purple was called in Irish corcur, which answers to the
Latin -purpura by the usual change from p to c. Purple
cloaks, purple flowers, and purple colour in general, are
very often mentioned in Irish writings, such as the
Tripartite Life, the Book of Rights, the Tales, &c. ;
showing how familiar this colour was. Purple dyestuff
was obtained from a species of lichen, and also from a
cockle-fish. In one of the pages of an ancient manuscript
now in Turin, is a passage written by an Irish hand in the
beginning of the ninth century, and published by Chevalier
Nigra in his Irish Glosses, which proves that at that early
time the Irish were acquainted with the art of dyeing
purple by means of a lichen. The gloss which the Irish-
man wrote in explanation of the Latin text is this : —
Donaib caircib, edon, ar is di lus bis forsnaib caircib dogniiher
in chorcur buide : which is in English " from the rocks, that
"is to say, because it is from a plant which is found on
" rocks the yellow purple is made." (In Sullivan's Introd.,
p. 643, the word buide of this gloss is misprinted bailie).
There is even a more direct notice of rock-purple in a poem of
the Agallamh (in LL) in praise of Aran Island in Galway bay,
in which it is mentioned that purple-lichens (corcra) grow
on the rocks there (Silva Gad. 109, i9: Irish text, 102, 7).

The knowledge of dyeing from rock lichen was never
lost, but was continued from generation to generation
down to recent times. When Martin visited the Scottish
Western Islands in 1703, the people there dyed " a pretty
" crimson colour with a scurf scraped off rocks and sub-
" jected to proper preparation." Joseph Cooper Walker
tells us that in his time — the beginning of the last
century : — " The purple was obtained from the coarser
" kind of arcell [or orchil] growing on rocks, which, being
" steeped in urine, and made up into balls with lime, pro-
" duced a beautiful purple. Considerable quantities thus
" made up are frequently sold in the market at Dingle."*
* Memoirs of the Irish Bards, 11. 264

362 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Walker also mentions, in the same passage, that " a fine
" bright crimson dye was obtained from a finer kind of
" lichen resembling a thin white scurf, which they scraped
" from the rocks, dried, and reduced to powder, then infused
" in urine for three weeks or a month."

I cannot find any ancient Irish authority in which
mention is made of purple being obtained from shellfish.
But we may infer from several circumstances that this
branch of the dyeing art was known to the ancient
Irish. Mr. Franci Joseph Bigger, in the " Proc. Roy. Ir.
Academy," vol. for 1893-96, p. 727, gives an interesting
account of the remains of a prehistoric settlement in
Connaught in which were whole heaps of a species of
whelks called purpura lapillus — which we know are used
to this day for dyeing purple in Ireland and elsewhere.
He found all the shells broken uniformly at one particular
point — just the point inside which was situated the elon-
gated little sac containing the purple colouring matter :
evidently with the object of extracting the precious little
globule. In the time of Joseph C. Walker (about 1800) this
method of dyeing purple — from " periwinkles and limpets "
— was practised in the eastern Irish counties, as also on
the opposite coast of Wales. He states (Ir. Bards, II. 265)
that the shell was broken at a particular point at the back,
very delicately, so as not to bruise the fish, and with a
bodkin they picked out what he calls a " white vein," which
yielded a few drops of the colouring liquor. This they did
several times in succession at proper intervals, the fish
renewing the liquor after each occasion. All this corre-
sponds exactly with what Mr. Bigger found : so that the
knowledge of this process has descended from prehistoric
times to our own day. In like manner this process has
been perpetuated from old times in Wales ; for we know
that Bede (Eccl. Hist., 1. i.) records that in his day the
Britons (or Welsh) produced a most beautiful purple
colour from shellfish. The reader will scarcely need to

CHAP. XXVI] TRADE? CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING 363

be reminded that the celebrated Tyrian purple was
produced in a similar way.

The purple dyestuff, however obtained, was produced
in very small quantities, so that it was extremely scarce ;
and the colour was excessively expensive in Ireland as
elsewhere : on the Continent in old times it was worth
thirty or forty times it weight in gold. Partly for this
reason, and partly for its beauty, purple was a favourite
with kings and great chiefs, so that writers often designate
it a royal or imperial colour.

Saffron. — Until recent times linen was dyed saffron,
probably with the crock or saffron plant (Lat. crocus),
which was the simplest of all the dyeing operations. But
I do not find this mentioned in any ancient authority.

Popular Knowledge of Dyeing. — The Irish peasantry of
the present day, as well as the Highland Scotch, possess
considerable knowledge of the stuffs — chiefly obtained
from herbs — used in imparting various colours, and are
skilled in simple dyeing : knowledge and skill that have
descended to them from old times. In Donegal they dye
woollen cloth yellow with the tops of heather ; and light
brown with peat soot : and in various parts of Ireland —
as well as in Scotland — they use a sort of lichen called
crotal, that grows on rocks, to impart a reddish brown.
In the County Mayo a species of moss is used for dyeing
stockings a reddish brown : and they also dye stockings
black with the roots of the blackberry bush.

4. Sewing and Embroidery.

Needle and Thread. — The thread used for sewing was
generally of wool : all the sewing on the various articles
of dress found on the body of the woman mentioned at
p. 352, supra, was done with woollen thread. In primitive
ages fine filaments of gut were often used. The sewing-
thread was kept in the form of a certle, clew, or ball, like
that for weaving ; and women sewed with a needle

364 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

furnished with a cro or eye as at present. From an early
age needles were made of steel, but in primitive ages of
bronze. In those days a steel or bronze needle was
difficult to make ; and its value may be estimated by
the fine imposed in the Brehon Law on a person with
whom a needle was pledged, for withholding it when the
owner demanded it back and tendered the loan. For a
common needle it was a dairt or yearling calf ; for a needle
used in the ornamental work on mantles, it was a colpthach
or two-year-old heifer ; and for an embroidering needle,
an unga or ounce of silver.* The word for a needle was
sndthat [snaw-hat], which is still in use : it is derived in
Cormac's Glossary (p. 150) from snath [snaw], a thread,
and sit, a road or way, i.e. sndth-shet [snaw-hait], ' thread-

=====a_ - road,' because the

==========— thread passes

F.C.,* through the cro or

Two bronze needles, natural size. These, with a large eVC The first part

number of others, are now in the National Museum, Dublin. . .

(From Wildes Cataloeue, p. M7.) 01 thlS deOVatlOn

(from sndth) is correct, but the second is fanciful. Bronze
needles are now often found, which, judging from both
material and shape, must be of great antiquity, f

Dressmaking. — Needlework was most commonly prac-
tised in ordinary dressmaking. A dress in general,
whether for man or woman, was denoted by etach or
idach, and sometimes by dillat : and there were, as at
present, professional dressmakers — always women — called
etidach, in modern Irish eadaigheach [aideeach], a word
derived from etach. The old Irish dressmakers were
accomplished workers. The sewing on ancient articles
of dress found from time to time is generally very
neat and uniform, like that on the fur cape mentioned at
p. 189, supra, which Mr. Mac Adam describes as " wonder-
fully beautiful and regular."

* Br. Laws, v. 381, 383 : see also O'Curry, Man & Cust, II. 112, 117.
J Kilk, Archseol. Journ., vol. 1., p. 260 : Wilde, Catalogue, 546.

CHAP. XXVI] TRADES CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING 365

When women were at needlework, or any such em-
ployment, they kept their materials in a light wooden
workbox called a cusal : cusals, says the law-tract, were
" little crannoges or wooden boxes in which women kept
their abras or working materials in old times."*

Embroidery was also practised as a separate art or
trade by women. The common word for an embroiderer
was druinech : but another term sometimes used was
greusaidhe [graissee], which however more usually meant
a shoemaker. An embroiderer kept for her work, among
other materials, thread of various colours, as well as silver
thread, f and a special needle. The
design or pattern to be embroi-
dered was drawn and stamped
beforehand by a designer on a
piece of leather, which the em-
broiderer placed lying before her
and imitated with her needle : or F,G- 337-

. . _ . _ . Specimen of antique (prehistoric) Irish

aS It IS expressed With perfect needlework. A deerskin dress. C(Aer-

1 1 ,f 1 . 1 iiijf a human body, found, 10 feet deep,

clearness by the glossator, who, in«bo*inGaiway, ima*. w»wwed

„____-___ 4. i„_ __ j-u _ __, ,_ „r 11 together in this manner with fine gut.

commenting on the name of the st*ches very regular an u,™^ se,
article (" the pattern of her needle- !"c,ric'sf desRcrfion J" £"j" ™£

V ± Journ. for 182s, p. 433. (From Wilde s

work ") given in the Senchus Mor, catalogue. P. 277)
says : — " She [the embroiderer] can the more easily perform
" her handiwork by having the leather pattern before her
" with the picture of the needlework upon it."| This curious
and interesting record indicates the refinement, carefulness,
and artistic skill of the old Irish embroiderers. This art
of stamping designs on leather, for other purposes as
well as for embroidery, was carried to great perfection
as we know from the beautiful specimens of book covers
preserved in our museums (see vol. 1., pp. 32, 488).

* Br. Laws, in O'Curry, Man' & Cust., 11. 117.

f Br. Laws, I. 151, u. 153, 7 from bottom ; and v. 315, top : see also
Man. & Cust., 11. 119, top.

I Bt. Laws, 1. 151, „ . 153, 3o . see also Man. & Cust., 11. 117.

366 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

It was usual for the most eminent of the Irish saints
to have one or more embroiderers in their households,
whose chief employment was the making and ornamen-
tation of church robes and vestments. St. Patrick kept
three constantly at work, namely, Lupait (his sister) ;
Cruimtheris, a lady of royal birth ; and Erca, the daughter
of Dare, the chief who granted Armagh to St. Patrick.
St. Columkille in like manner had a special embroiderer,
namely, St. Ercnait or Coca, from whom is named Kilcock
(Coca's Church) in the County Kildare. She is described
in a note in the " Feilire of Aengus " as " the embroideress,
" cutter, and sewer of clothes to St. Columkille and his
" disciples."*

Embroidery was practised in Ireland in pre-Christian
times, and was a well-recognised art from the earliest
period of legend : for we are told in the Dinnsenchus that
Aengus the Firbolg, who gave name to Dun Aenguis on
the great island of Aran, had a daughter Maistiu, who
was embroideress to the famous Dedannan chief Aengus
of the Bruga : " she was the first person that formed the
" figure of a cross in Erin, [namely] on the breast border
" of Aengus's tunic."f From her also was named the
historic fort of Mullach-Maistenn or Mullamast near
Athy in Kildare — the ' summit of Maistiu.' We know
from many ancient authorities that Irish ladies of the
highest rank practised needlework and embroidery as an
accomplishment and recreation. For this purpose they
spun ornamental thread ; and in the Brehon Laws the
distaff is constantly spoken of as among the articles in
the possession of ladies. In the " Feast of Bricriu " (p. 83),
it is casually mentioned, and as a matter of course, that
the wives of the great heroes had their needles at the
feast, and brought them about with them, no doubt with

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 123. St. Ercnait is commemorated in
the Feilire on the 8th Jan. ; but the above note, quoted by O'Curry, is
not in Stokes's Feilire under that date. f O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 122.

CHAP. XXVI] TRADES CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING 367

other articles, in the little bag mentioned below. When
Cuculainn came to the house of Fergall Monach at Lusk
to woo his daughter Emer, he found the young lady on
the lawn before the house with her foster-sisters, whom
she was instructing in needlework and embroidery.*

Ladies' ornamental handbag. — Ladies carried a little
ornamental handbag, or workbag, called iadach or tiag,
or more usually ciorbholg [keerwolg], ' comb-bag,' like the
modern reticule, which contained certain choice articles of
daily use, and which was closed at the mouth by a string.
The handbag of a queen or of a chieftain's wife contained,
among other things, a minn or diadem of gold, a lann or
thin band of gold (for the forehead or neck), a veil, a silk
handkerchief, needles, and thread both woollen and silver
for embroidery, f

5. Tanning.

The art of tanning leather was well understood in
ancient Ireland. The name for a tanner was sudaire
[soodera], which is still a living word. Oak bark was
employed in tanning, and in connexion with this use was
called coirtech [curtagh : Lat. cortex], as we find the word
used in the Laws : whence comes the verb coirtighim, I tan.
It is laid down in the Law (iv. 149) that the penalty for
stripping as much bark from another person's oak-tree as
would tan a cow-hide was a pair of women's shoes worth
half a screpall, and for as much as would tan an ox-hide
a pair of men's shoes worth a screpall. A distinction is
also made as to the amount of the circumference of the
tree that is stripped : and whether the bark had been
taken off in the " killing months " or in the " non-killing
months." In the Irish Life of St. Columkille it is stated
that at Kells there was an oak-tree which was greatly
revered, because the saint had at one time lived under it :

* Courtship of Emer, 71 : Man. & Cust., 11. 122.
f Man. & Cust., II. 113, 114, quoting Br. Laws.

368 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

but it was blown down by a storm. "And a certain
man " — says the narrative — " took some of its bark to tan
" [leather for] his shoes : but when he put on the shoes, he
" was smitten with leprosy from sole to crown " — in punish-
ment for the desecration.*

By the process of tanning, the hide was thickened and
hardened, as will be seen from the passages quoted below.
The tanned leather was of a reddish or reddish-brown
colour, as we find by several old passages. In the " Voyage
of Maildune," the thieving cook calls his boat curuch nua
co n-derg codail, " a new curragh [covered] with red hide,"
i.e. " tanned hide " (codal, a hide ; derg, red). Teigue the
son of Cian made a " large curragh which took to cover
it forty ox-hides of hard bark-soaked red leather " (do
dhoinn-lethar chruaid choirtigthe : donn, a reddish-brown). f
Hence also in the Latin Life of St. Brendan, his vessel is
described as covered with cow-hide rubricatis in cortice
roborina, ' tanned in oak-bark,' where rubricatis, though
signifying ' tanned,' literally means ' reddened. 'J

6. Workers in Leather, and the articles they made.

Tanned leather was used for various purposes, one of
the principal being as material for shoes ; but we know
that shoes were also made of untanned hide (see p. 216,
supra). Curraghs or wicker-boats were often covered with
leather (see below pages 423 and 424). A jacket of hard,
tough, tanned leather was sometimes worn in battle as a
protecting corselet : and in connexion with this use, one of
the oldest references to leather — in the lay literature —
occurs in the Book of the Dun Cow, in the story of the
Demon Chariot of Cuculainn. The hero is described as
placing around him " his champion battle-girdle outside
"of [a jacket of] hard, tanned, smooth leather of the
" shoulder of seven ox-hides of yearling heifers, so that it

* Stokes, Lives of SS., 176. f Silva Gad., 386, a7; Irish Text, 343, 26.

% Navig. St. Brend. Card. Moran, 90 : O'Donohue, 119.

CHAP. XXVI] TRADES CONNECTED WITH CLOTHING 369

" extended from the waist of his side to his armpit. It
" [the jacket] was put about him to repel lances and
" sword-points, and spikes, and spears, and darts : because
" they used to fly off him the same as if they had been
" shot against a rock."* The word lethar in the Irish of
this extract, which is still the word for leather, is of
course cognate with the English word.

Bags made of leather, and often of undressed skins,
were pretty generally used to hold liquids : a practice
which is alluded to in Cormac's Glossary (p. 104) in the
explanation of lesan as "a [leathern] bolg or bag in
which ale is kept." Adamnan (p. 155) relates that one
of Columba's disciples, preparing for a voyage from Iona
to Ireland, took among other things, a leather milk-bag
(utrem lactarium) to bring a supply of milk in his boat :
but before using it he put it to steep for a night in the
salt water at the strand to soften it, placing some large
stones on it to prevent the tide current from carrying
it away. In the Latin narrative of the " Voyage of
St. Brendan " such bags are often mentioned. On one
occasion he directs his crew to bring on board a number
of skin-vessels (utres : sing, uter) filled with water. A
leathern bottle was commonly called in Irish petit [pot].
Maildune and his companions, when leaving a certain
island, put a quantity of ale into fiaits and brought them
to their curraghf : and in an old Irish translation or para-
phrase of 1 Kings xxv. 18, we read, " The women gave him
five sheep, two hundred loaves, and two paits of wine."J
But fait is also used to denote a pot of any kind. There
was a sort of leather wallet or bag called a crioll, used
like a modern travelling-bag to hold clothes and other
soft articles.§ In Brocan's Hymn occurs the expression
dobert dillat i crioll, " he put a garment in a crioll."

* Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1870-1, p. 426: LU, 79, a, 36.

f LU, 23, b, l and a. J Sullivan, Introduction, 358

§ Silva Gad., 75, s Irish text, 71, ^

370 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The parts of every article made of leather were joined
together by stitching with thongs. A maker of leather
bags was called criollaidhe [creelee] (sometimes written
cliaraidhe) from crioll, " a leather bag stitched with
thongs" ("Man. & Cust.," II. 117). A leather-bottle
maker was most commonly called a pattaire [pottera], i.e.
a maker of paits or bottles : sometimes also called sutaire
or sudaire* We have seen that a maker of cuarans or un-
tanned-leather shoes was called cuardnaighe [coorawnee].
The usual name for a shoemaker was, and is still, greu-
saidhe [graissee] : but an older name was cairem, gen.
caireman, pi. cairemain.] O'Clery explains cairemhain
by greusaighthe, shoemakers. But cairemain was applied
to a maker of leather bottles, as in the Brehon Law, v.
106, 17 ; where also in lines 20, 21, the word is explained
as people " who properly sew the round bottles." The
word sutaire or sudaire [3-syll.], cognate with Lat. sutor,
was sometimes applied to a shoemaker : but it more usually
signified a tanner. From the preceding it will be seen
that the several terms applied to leather-workers of
different kinds were a good deal interchanged one with
another. Those tradesmen in leather-work who stitched
with thongs, namely, the leather-bottle maker, the shoe-
maker, and the leather-wallet maker, worked with a pair
of thongs, forming a stitch with each alternately, the
workman, while using the free end of one, holding the
end of the other between his teeth : exactly like the
Egyptian shoemakers as they are depicted in stone and
brick records. All this we know from some details given
incidentally in a passage of the Brehon Laws (v. 81, top,
and line 18).

The artistic uses of leather in making covers for books
and embroidery patterns have been already mentioned.

* Br. Laws, v. 80, top line. f Rev- Celt., III. 97.

Sculpture on Chancel Arch, Monastery Church, Glendalough.
(From Fetrie's Round Towers, 1845 )

CHAPTER XXVII

MEASURES, WEIGHTS, AND MEDIUMS OF EXCHANGE

Section i. Length and Area.

)IKE other ancient peoples, the Irish fixed their
standards of length-measures, for want of
better, mostly, but not exclusively, with
reference to parts of the human body.
The troigid [tro-id] or foot was the length
of a man's foot, which was counted equal
to twelve ordlachs — thumb-measures or
inches : ord or ordu, a thumb, now ordog :
so that this troigid was practically the same as the
present English foot. It was so constantly mentioned
that it may be considered as the unit for all moderate
measurements. Sometimes the space was measured out
by the actual length of the person's foot : Conall, the
son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, measures the site of
a church for St. Patrick, " sixty of his [own] feet " in
length.*

The following table of long measures, which is given
in the Book of Aicill,f may be taken as the one in most
general use. The grain, i.e. the length of a grain of

* Trip. Life, 71.

f Br. Laws, m. 335.

37i

372 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

wheat of average size, was the smallest measure used by
the Irish : —

3 grains,

4 inches, . .
3 palms,

12 feet,

12 rods or fertachs,

12 forrachs in length by\

6 forrachs in width /

I ordlach or inch,
i bas, palm, or hand.
i troighid or foot.
i fertach or rod.
i forrach.
i tircumaile (i.e.
' cumal-land ').

According to this table a tir-cumaile [teer-cummala]
was equal to a space 576 English yards long by 288
broad : that is, about 34^ English acres. A cumal repre-
sented three cows (p. 385, infra) ; and a tir-cumaile (land
for a cumal) was as much land as was considered sufficient
to graze three cows. This almost exactly agrees with the
statement in vol. 1. p. 40 — from a different source — that
a ballybetagh (which contained 3600 English acres) was
allowed for 300 cows : one of the many illustrations of the
general consistency and accuracy of the old Irish records.
When English ideas and practices began to obtain a
footing in Ireland, after the Anglo-Norman Invasion,
various other measures of land were adopted, the most
general of which was the acre. Land was commonly
estimated in acres and ploughlands according to the
following table* : —

120 acres, i seisrech or ploughland.

12 ploughlands, . . i baile, bally, or townland.
30 bailes, i tuath or triucha.

As all Ireland contained 184 tuaths (vol. I., p. 40), this
gives the (old) Irish acreage of the whole country as
184 x 30 x 12 x 120 = 7,948,800. There are, we know,
20,815,460 English acres in all Ireland, which gives the
old Irish acre a little more than rz\ of the present English

* Comyn's Keating, 113.

"HAP. XXVIl] MEASURES ANt> WEIGHTS 373

acre : exactly bearing out Keating's words : — " The acre
" of the measure of the Gaels is twice or thrice greater than
" the acre of the division of the Galls or English now."*
All this is on the supposition that in the old estimate the
whole surface was included, waste as well as arable land.
There is some vagueness in all these calculations, which
may account for the fact that within recent times the
Irish acre is more than once and a half the size of an
English acre.

Various other length-measures were in use in ancient
Ireland. A ceim [kaim] or step was 2| feet : " the lawful
step is two feet and a half," says the Gloss on the Law
(iv. 215), which gives the full pace (deis-ceim : pron. desh-
kaim), 5 feet. But in another law-tract on the " Division
of Land," the full pace is given as 6 feet, making the single
step 3 feet.

For small measures the has [boss] and the dorn [durn]
were in constant use. The has or " palm " was the width of
the hand at the roots of the fingers, which was fixed at
4 inches. The dorn or ' fist,' with the thumb closed in
(called mail-dom, ' bare-fist '), was 5 inches : with the thumb
extended (called airtem-fist) , 6 inches. f We constantly
meet with such measures as " a cow 20 fists in girth," " a
spear-handle 12 fists in length."

In a part of the Law (iv. 77) relating to fences and
their measurement, a foot differing from the tabular one
given above is mentioned : not the length of the whole
foot, but as far as the separation of the big toe. This foot
was considered as 10 inches : but it was rarely used.

* Joyce's Keating, p. 37. For the political subdivisions of Ireland, see
vol. 1., pp. 39, 40, supra : and for various other modern land measures, see
Ware, Antiqq., 224 ; Sullivan's Introduction to O'Curry, 96 ; Reeves'
paper " On the Townland Distribution of Ireland," Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad.,
vii. 473 : " On the Territorial Divisions of the Country," by Sir Thomas
Larcom, prefixed to the " Relief Correspondence of the Commissioners of
Public Works " : and Joyce, Irish Names of Places, 1. 241.

f Br. Laws, 11. 241.

374 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE fpART I]"

Lengths and distances were often roughly indicated by
sight and sound : a custom that prevailed among nearly
all ancient peoples. A chief named Coirbre promised
Cuangus all the territory he could see to the north of
Sliab Cise, near Assaroe at Ballyshannon, as a reward
for expelling St. Patrick* : and many other examples of
this sight-measurement might be given. But distances
were much oftener estimated by sound. In connexion
with the law of distress certain distances, called in the
Senchus M6r " magh-spaces," were made use of : and the
old commentator defines a magh-space to be " as far as
" the sound of the bell (i.e. the small handbell of those
" times] or the crow of a barn-door cock could be heard. "f
In the " Second Vision of Adamnan " it is stated with
regard to a certain church that " neither the saints nor the
" angels come nearer to it than where one hears the voice
" of a bell that is struck at the church."J

A man felling a tree was " bound by law to give
warning as far as his voice could reach," so as to avoid
danger to cattle or people.§ In some places these old
measures are remembered in tradition to the present day.
In the parish of Termonmaguirk in Tyrone there is an
old burial-ground called Relig-na-man (Irish Reilig-na-
mbari), the ' cemetery of the women,' where none but
women are buried. It is about half a mile from the
church-ruin of Termonmaguirk, and the people of the
place give this traditional account of its foundation.
The body of a certain woman of bad character was
brought to be buried in the church of Termonmaguirk ;
but St. Columkille forbade it, and directed that the body
should be buried at a spot where the sound of a bell
struck at the church began to go out of hearing : and
he left an injunction that this new cemetery (now Relig-

* Trip. Life, 149. J Rev. Celt., xn. 425.

f Br. Laws, n. 107, 109. § Br. Laws, ill. 227.

CHAP. XXVIlj MEASURES AND WEIGHTS 373

na-man) should never be entered by a living woman or by
a dead man.*

The crow of a cock and the sound of a bell, as distance
measures, are very often met with. The " glockenklang "
or bell-clang was also used by the ancient Germans to
measure distances. f

Other vague modes of estimating lengths were used.
A certain legal distance is laid down in the Law (iv. 139)
as being as far as a youth could cast a rod. The legal
size of the faithche [faha] or green round a house depended
on the rank of the owner, and the unit of measure was the
distance a man could cast a spear standing at the house
(p. 61, supra). Very often the human face is taken as
the standard of size of a ring or crescent of gold — or
silver — to be given as a tribute, or fine, or present. In
the Battle of Rossnaree (25) it is stated that the Clanna
Dedad of Munster proposed to give to Concobar, king
of Emain, among other valuable things, " the breadth of
his face of red gold," as an inducement to refrain from
invading them. Many other like instances of this standard
might be cited. We may form some vague idea of the
value of such a ring or crescent from an expression in
an ancient poem quoted in Cormac's Glossary (p. no) : —
" Seven ounces of refined gold for my great friend's noble
face. "J So in the Welsh tale of Bran wen the daughter of
Llyr, Bendigeid Vran offers the offended hero Matholwch
a plate of gold of the breadth of his face to appease his
anger.§

2. Capacity.

The standard unit of capacity adopted by the Irish was
the full of a hen-eggshell of moderate size, which perhaps
was as good a standard as could be found at the time.

* Reeves, Adamnan, 283.

f Stokes (in Rev. Celt., xn. 440) refers for the use of the glockenklang
to J. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthumer, 2te Ausg. 76.

% See other instances in Mesca Ulad, 55 ; and Book of Rights, 243.
§ Mabinogion, 30.

37$ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC Llf E [PART III

Beginning with this there is given in the Book of Aicill*
the following table of measures of capacity : —

12 hen-eggshell-fulls, = i meisrin.

12 meisrins, . . = i ollderbh.

12 ollderbhs, . . = i olpatrick or oilmedach.

Another measure, the olfeine, is half an olpatrick : but one
of the law-tractsf gives an olfeine as two olpatricks. I
find by actual trial that twelve times the full of an average-
size hen-eggshell will fill a modern imperial pint ; so that
a meisrin was equivalent to a pint, an ollderbh to 12,
and an olpatrick or oilmedach to 144 pints. But there
seems reason to think that the olpatrick was sometimes
reckoned as one-fourth of this size, namely, as containing
36 pints.

A sellann, equal to four eggshells, was often used in
measuring honey : it occurs frequently in the Rule of the
Culdees : in which also a bochtan, equal to 12 eggshells, is
mentioned as a measure for ale, milk, or whey. J

A miach or sack was much used in measuring corn
and malt : and fines for trespass were estimated, and
payments of various kinds were made, in sacks, so that
the miach must have been always much of the same
size. As a standard of value it will be mentioned at
page 386.

As there were vague measures in length, so also in
capacity. In measuring honey in large quantities four
sizes of vessels are often mentioned. A " milch-cow
vessel," or barrel, was one which, when full, a person of
ordinary strength could lift as high as his knee : a " heifer-
vessel," which he could raise to his navel ; a smaller
" heifer- vessel " to his loins ; and a " dairt (or still smaller)
heifer- vessel," which he could raise over his head.§

* Br. Laws, in. 335, bottom. f Br. Laws, in. 337, note i.

J Reeves, Culd., 84, 85 : and Corm. Gloss., 134, under " Pinginn."
§ Br. Laws, iv. 165, note 2.

CHAP. XXVII] MEASURES AND WEIGHTS 377

3. Weight.

The smallest weight used was a grain of wheat. We
read indeed, in an ancient Irish passage in the Book of
Ballymote quoted by Petrie (R. Towers, 218), that there
was a smaller weight called an atom : 24 atoms in a grain :
but this is evidently fanciful, like some of the minute time
divisions (p. 387, infra). An attempt was made to render
the grain-standard definite and uniform by these two
regulations : — First, the grains should be taken from wheat
that grew in " land of three roots," i.e. land of the best
kind (p. 269, supra). Secondly, the grains should be in a
medium condition as to dryness. The following is the
table of weight founded on the average grain of wheat* : —

8 grains, 1 pinginn or penny of silver.

3 pinginns, . . 1 screpall.

24 screpalls, . . 1 unga or ounce.

The pinginn and screpall will be again under notice in
section 4 (p. 381).

The unga or ounce (576 grains of wheat or about 432
grains Troy) was the standard used in weighing metals. The
word seems to have been borrowed from the Latin uncia.
That the Irish did not borrow the standard itself, but had
it from the most ancient times, appears from the fact that
there was an older native word mann for the ounce. In
the ninth century the word unga had come into general
use, and mann had become obsolete, so that Cormac
thought it necessary to explain it in his Glossary : —
" Mann, that is unga or ounce." A verse is then quoted
from Sencha, a celebrated law-giver and poet of far remote
time, to show its application : and the Glossary adds : —
" Mann then is ' bright,' that is, a refined ounce."f

♦Petrie, Round Towers, 218, top : Corm. Gloss., 134, under "Pfssfre."
Prof. Ridgeway reckons that four of those wheat-grains were equal to three
grains Troy. f Corm. Gloss., no : Irish Text in three Irish Gloss., 29.

37^ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

There was a weight called dirna, of which the exact
value is not known. It was very much greater than the
ounce, as we know from the poem of Colman Mac Lenine,
in which an ounce is contrasted with the much heavier
dirna.* From an old passage quoted in Cormac's Glossary
(72, " Fir "), it would seem that a dirna of silver was the
value of a white cow. In Petrie's R. Towers (p. 219) is a
quotation from the Brehon Laws in which a weight called
a dinnra is mentioned, and it is stated that a dinnra of
red bronze contains six ounces. Probably dirna and
dinnra are the same : one being changed to the other
by metathesis.

The pound weight was used, and was designated by
the word pun, which is probably a loan-word from Lat.
pondus. From a passage in the Story of Mongan in the
Book of the Dun Cow, it would appear that a pound of
silver had twelve ounces and a pound of gold nine. Said
Mongan to the poor scholar : — " Go now till you reach the
" sith [shee] of Lethed Oidni, and bring me a precious
" stone which I have there : and take for thyself a pound
" of white silver [pun findairgii] in which are twelve
** ounces . . . thou wilt [also] find a pound of gold, in
" which are nine ounces."f But perhaps pun here means
merely a mass or lump.

From numerous references in the old writings, we learn
that the ancient Irish had balances of different kinds and
sizes, and with different names. The most usual Irish
term for a balance, and also for the beam of a balance, was
med or meadh [ma], which is the word in general use at the
present day. Cormac's Glossary (p. 134) explains the word
puincern [punkern] as meaning two things : — First, a cern
or dish for measuring a commodity called sella (probably
some kind of corn) : Keating has a " a cern of arbhar or
corn " (p. 78, supra) : second, " a beam for weighing cattle,

* Corm. Gloss., 10, u : O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 245.
t Voyage of Bran., 1 55, 95

CHAP. XXVII] MEASURES AND WEIGHTS 379

namely, the notched beam." Here the author plainly
implies a distinction between a plain beam and one that
was notched (indmeach) ; and he takes care to explain
that the beam called puincem used for weighing cattle
was a notched one. But it appears from other passages
in the glossary that there were smaller notched beams
for weighing lighter commodities. Thus puingcne (p. 134)
is explained " a screpall or scruple of the notched beam " :
and again under " cimb " (p. 39) this quotation is given
from the Bretha Nemed : — " A cimb or tribute of bronze
since I placed the bronze in the notched balance." I take
it that the balance with a " notched beam " (tned indmeach)
was a steelyard — a balance having a single weight movable

Fig. 328 «

The small steelyard found in use by Thomas Dineley in the seventeenth century.
(From Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1858-9, p. 56.)

along a graduated beam from notch to notch, which by its
distance from the fulcrum or suspension point indicated
the weight of the commodity — identical with our modern
steelyard. As bearing upon this point it is well to observe
that an old steelyard of bronze was found in 1864 in
a rath near Ballyshannon in Donegal, ornamented and
carefully graduated : the material — bronze — indicating
great antiquity.* Thomas Dineley, an Englishman,
travelling in Ireland in the seventeenth century, found
a " stilyard " in use for weighing foreign coins, of which
he gives an illustration (reproduced here, figure 328) :
probably a descendant of the ancient puincem.

Another balance, which must have been small, is
noticed in Cormac's Glossary (p. 134) in these words :—

* Proc. Roy. Ir. Academy, vin. p. 476.

3^0 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART nI

" Pissire [peeshere], that is, a broad-headed beam for
" weighing one pinginn of weight. One pinginn then is the
" burden of that beam." From the epithet ' broad-headed '
we may conclude that it was a steelyard. Pissire is derived
from piss [peesh], an old name for the pinginn or penn}^
Still another kind of balance was called laithe [lay-he],
always used in this plural form (sing, laith). It is
explained in Cormac's Glossary, but more fully by
O'Clery in his Glossary : — " Laithe, a balance for weigh-
ing gold or silver." From an expression in Cormac's
explanation (etir laithe Lugba, ' between the scales of
Lugba '), as well as from the fact that the plural laithe
is always used (like our " scales "), we may infer that the
balance so designated was the ordinary scales of two
dishes. We know that the Irish had balances of this
kind ; for on one of the Monasterboice crosses there is
a representation of the general judgment in which the
Archangel Michael is seen weighing souls in a two-dish
balance : the dishes being deep like bowls. A small
bronze balance of this kind — now in the National
Museum — beautifully finished, was found in i860 in an
excavation at Kilmainham near Dublin : and another
about the same time in a crannoge in Ulster.* The
Kilmainham one however is probably Danish.

4. Standards of Value and Mediums of Exchange.

In early stages of society in Ireland, as in all other
countries, buying and selling and other commercial
transactions were carried on by means of payment in
kind : and there is hardly any description of valuable
articles that was not used for this purpose. It will be
seen in many parts of this book that payments were made
for purchases, tribute, fines, &c, in cows, sacks of corn,
salted pigs, butter, mantles, and so-forth : the parties

* Proc. Roy. Ir. Academy, vn., p. 156, „, and p. 368.

CHAP. XXVII] MEASURES AND WEIGHTS 381

determining the values according to the customs of the
place. But mixed up with this barter in kind, gold and
silver told out by weight, and — after the middle of the
eighth century — silver coins, were used as mediums of
exchange.

That the Irish were acquainted with the use of coined
money, at least as early as the eighth century, is proved
by the records ; and indeed might be anticipated without
the help of records, inasmuch as there was in those times
much intercourse, both by traffic and missionary enterprise,
between Ireland and the Continent, where coined money
was then in constant circulation. A celebrated Irish poet
named Rumann, who died a.d. 747, once paid a cuairt or
professional visitation (see vol. I., p. 449, supra) to the
Galls or foreigners of Dublin, and composed a poem for
them. They at first refused to give him anything, but
ultimately agreed that he should name his own reward
whereupon he demanded two pinginns from every good
Gall and one from every bad Gall. The result was that
to a man they gave him two pinginns each.* Half a
century later we have another record indicating a familiar
acquaintance in Ireland with the use of coined money.
There is extant a letter written about the year 790 by the
illustrious churchman and scholar, Alcuin, to Colcu the
Wise, head of the great school of Clonmacnoise, stating
that he had sent, with the letter, a number of sicli (small
coins), some from himself and some from his great master
Charlemagne, and a quantity of pure olive oil (then scarce
in Ireland) for use in religious rites.

The coins in circulation among the Irish were the
pinginn and the screpall (or, as it was often called, the steal),
both of silver : according to the authorities quoted by
Petrie (R. Towers, 218, 219), the pinginn weighed 8 grains
of wheat, and the screpall was equal to 3 pinginns and
weighed accordingly 24 grains ( = 18 grs. Troy). It is

* Petrie, Round Towers, 353.

382 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

curious that in another and older authority, Cormac's
Glossary (134, under " Pisire "), the weight of the pinginn
is given as 7 grains : which Petrie (R. T., 220) conjectures
may mean that while 8 grains was the normal weight, the
pinginn then in circulation usually weighed only 7, on
account of wear. According to M. d'Arbois de Jubainville,
the screpall is mentioned in one of the St. Gall eighth-
century glosses : which is the oldest Irish notice of it yet
discovered.*

The two words screpall and sical, both meaning the
same coin, are borrowed from the Latin scrupulus and
siclus (this last being itself borrowed from the Hebrew
shekel). In Professor Ridgeway's opinion they were

Fig. 339. Ik;. 310.

Irish bracteatc coins : now in the National Museum, Dublin.

(From Petrie, Round Towers, p. 278.)

borrowed from the Latin before the time of Constantine,
i.e., before the beginning of the fourth century a.d. But
the Irish had more than one native name for the screpall,
which we find in various forms in the different authorities :
puingene, opuingc, oiffing, faing, fang. Cormac's Glossary
(p. 134) gives the native word piss [peesh] as another name
for a pinginn-weight.

Many specimens of the pinginn and of the screpall
are preserved in the National Museum. The pinginns are
what are called " bracteate " coins, i.e. struck only on one
side ; but the screpalls are impressed on both sides.

We have seen that the Irish were familiar with the use
of coins in the eighth and ninth centuries ; and the question

* Rev. Celt., xvni., p. 114.

CHAP. XXVI] MEASURES AND WEIGHTS 383

has often been debated whether they coined money for
themselves before the tenth century. It would be certainly
strange if they did not, seeing that they had such constant
intercourse with Britain and the Continent in the early
centuries of Christianity ; and they were — as we have
seen — in advance of most nations of Europe in the Middle
Ages in artistic metal-working. There is one circumstance
that strongly favours the opinion that they had a native
mint, namely, that they had a coin with a native name,
crosdc or crosdg, which — both coin and name — fell out of
use when the pinginns and screpalls had become well
established as the Irish currency. The name — which
signifies " little cross " — indicates that it was stamped on
the side with the figure of a cross. That this was a very
ancient native coin, quite independent of pinginns and
screpalls, is rendered pretty certain by three circum-
stances : — First, the native name crosdc ; secondly, that it
fell out of use when the coins with the borrowed names
" pinginn " and " screpall " came into use ; and, thirdly^
and most strongly of all, that in point of value it did not
fit in with the tabular arrangement of these two last-named
coins, for, according to the native records, it was equal to
" two pinginns and a quarter of a pinginn," that is to say,
it weighed eighteen grains.* But at any rate this matter
of coinage is comparatively unimportant as affecting
civilisation, for it has been pointed out that some of the
greatest nations of antiquity did not coin money, or coined
it only at a late period of their career.

From the very beginning of our records gold and silver
were used as a medium of exchange, sometimes as ingots,
but more commonly in the form of rings, bracelets, and
other ornaments. They were weighed by the ounce, f
which, as we have seen, was equal in weight to 576 grains
of wheat, or to 432 grains Troy ; and there is the best

* See " Cros6c " in O'Donovan's Supplement to O'Reilly ; and Br. Laws
v. 437, f For instances see Irish Miscell., 1846, pp. 133, 143, 147.

3^4 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

reason to believe that, in order to facilitate interchange of
this kind, gold and silver rings of various forms, as well as
other gold and silver ornaments, were generally or always
made of definite weights. Notices of this custom are
found everywhere in the literature. In Cormac's Glossary
(p. 22), a briar is defined as " a pin of one ounce of gold."
At a.d. 1 150 the Four Masters record that Murkertagh
O'Loghlin, king of Ireland, gave the abbot of Deny,
among other presents, " a gold ring [fail 6ir) in which
were five ungas " : in the next year (1151) Cu-Uladh
O'Flynn gave the same abbot " a ring of gold in which
were two ounces " : and Turlogh 0' Conor king of Ireland
gave the archbishop of Armagh " a gold ring of twenty
ounces." In an ancient document in the Book of Armagh
certain payments are made for a purchase, among them a
muince or necklet of three ounces of gold.* St. Finnen
once found a gold ring, and gave it to a chief as the price
of a certain slave's freedom, for which an ounce of gold
had been demanded : the ring was weighed, and it was
found to contain exactly an ounce, f Such examples might
be multiplied indefinitely. That this custom existed in
Ireland is rendered all the more certain by Caesar's record
that in his time the people of Britain " used brass or iron
rings fixed at a certain weight as their money. "J But in
Ireland, gold, as being comparatively abundant, was used
instead of the inferior metals. What is even more to the
point, the practice seems to have been universal in other
countries : — " I have already shown " — says Professor
Ridgeway (p. 399) — " the universality all over the world
of making gold ornaments after a fixed weight. "§

It may be considered certain that in Ireland the open
gold rings called bunne-do-at (now often called fibula :

* Trip. Life, 341. t Stokes, Lives of SS., 225, bottom.

J Commentaries, v. xv.

§ See also on all this M. de Jubainville in Revue Archaeologique, 1888,
on " Des Bijoux et de l'argenterie employes comme prix d'achat."

CHAP. XXVII] MEASURES AND WEIGHTS 385

see p. 241, supra), as well as other gold ornamental
articles, were used as money. But besides those called
bunne-do-at, there are in the National Museum, a great
number — fifty or more — of very small open gold rings, from
i to f inch in diameter, without the terminal knobs or ats :
they are bunnes simply, not bunne-do-ats. One is figured
here, its natural size, and another is shown in the upper
part of fig. 21, vol. 1., p. 33, supra. These, from their great
numbers, and from their simple, unornamental construc-
tion, have all the appearance of having been used mainly
as currency. Professor Ridgeway has carefully investigated
this question in his work " The Origin of Metallic Currency
and Weight Standards," and he has fixed on
the weight of the smallest specimen in the
museum — 15 grains Troy — as the standard.
He shows moreover that all the larger rings
in the Museum are very nearly multiples of fig. 331.

. _,, «... . - . Gold bunnl or

this. These little rings then were used in rin*. tun **»: open.

,. . . . , . but without the do-

ordinary business transactions, as we use «*. used as money.
coins now. As the crosoc weighed 18 grains M^um!"6™
of wheat, i.e. 13.5 grains Troy, it is likely JJJJ ST™*
that it was intended to be in accordance with
this standard : in other words, that the smallest of these
little rings represented the value of a crosoc. Gold rings
offered in payment were tested, as we see in case of the
ounce ring cited above, paid for the slave's freedom : just
as they now weigh gold coins in banks.

A full-grown cow, or ox, was in ancient times a very
general standard of value, not only in Ireland, but all over
the civilised world : and was considered equal in value to
one ounce of gold. In this case — as an article of pay-
ment— a cow was in Ireland generally called a sed [shade].
Cows or seds were very often used both in actual payments
and in estimating amounts. Next above the sed was the
cumal, which was originally applied to a bondmaid : but
the word came to be used very generally to signify the

386 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

value of a bondmaid, which was counted as three seds.
The words sid and cumal are however sometimes used
very loosely to denote variable values. Thus in one of
the Law Glosses it is stated that the best sid is a milch
cow, and the worst sed a dartaid or yearling heifer* : and
in Cormac's Glossary (p. 29), under the word clithar-sit,
there is a sort of classification of sids. So also the cumal :
in a certain Law Gloss a cumal of six cows is mentioned.!
But the text generally draws attention to exceptional cases
of this kind : and in all ordinary statements of value in
these standards, a sed may be taken as a cow, and a cumal
as three seds. I

For general convenience it was laid down that where
the payment for anything was half a cumal or less, it might
be legally made in one kind of goods — cows, or horses, or
silver : from half a cumal to a cumal, it should be in two
kinds : above a cumal, in three. Whenever horned cattle
were given in payment, one-third of them should be oxen ;
when horses, one-third should be mares ; and silver payment
should include one-third of manufactured articles. But under
mutual agreement payments might be made in any way.§

A miach or sack of corn — generally of oats or barley —
which for convenience sake must have been always made
of uniform size — was very often used as a standard of
value : it is indeed adopted in the Brehon Law as the
almost universal standard in estimating fines for trespass,
and payments for grazing. || Thus for trespass over a full
fence there was a fine of four miachs of oats or barley : the
price that purchased the grazing of certain lands is twelve
miachs : and the expense of feeding cattle under certain
circumstances is a miach for every animal per month. ^

* Br. Laws, iv. 29. See also 11. 277, bottom ; and ill. 43, bottom,
t Ibid., iv. 25, „.

X See " Sed " in the Index to vol. v. Brehon Laws.
§ See for all these arrangements, Br. Laws, ill. 151, 153.
|| Br. Laws, iv., all through the tract on Judgments of Co-Tenancy,
p. 69. If Br. Laws, iv., pp. 83, 105, 107.

CHAP. XXVII] MEASURES AND WEIGHTS

387

We have no means of ascertaining the exact contents of
a miach : but we know its value ; for it is stated several
times in the Brehon Law that a miach was worth a
screpall of silver.* A miach or sack is often mentioned
as a standard of value, without any intimation as to what
it contains : but in all such cases it is to be understood as
a sack of oats or barley.

5. Time.

In the works of some ancient writers who touch on
technical chronology, such as Bede, Rhabanus, Isidore, &c,
are to be found subdivisions of time, based on the day in
the higher parts, but in the lower descending to such
minuteness as to lead to the conclusion that the smallest
measures were purely ideal, and never intended for prac-
tical application. The ancient Irish also had their time
divisions, with minute denominations, a specimen of which
is given in the Tale of the Battle of Moyrath (p. 109).
This may be tabulated as followsf : —

Names.

Values.

Equivale'nts in our

present time

measures.

^ of a second.

i ostent,

376 atoms,

1 min. 36 sec.

1 bratha, .

564 „

2 „ 24 „

1 pars (part),

1 minuit (minute),

94° »
1,410 „

4 „ ° „
6 „ 0 „

1 pongc (point),

3.525 „

15 „ 0 „

1 uair (hour),

14,100 „

60 „ 0 „

1 cadar (quarter of a day),

•

6 hours.

After this follow a day (called variously in Irish la, Ida, lae,
lathe, dia, die) ; a week (sechtman) ; a month {mi) ; a season

* For instance, Br. Laws, i. 61, note i ; and n. 251, 8.

t See also Moyrath, p. 331. For another statement of Irish time mea-
sures, see Stokes, Trip. Life, Introd., cliv. In the above Table the Irish
atom is sufficiently minute : but the Venerable Bede's smallest measure is
seven or eight times smaller still, being only the thirtieth part of a second,

388 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

(treimse) ; a year (bliadain) ; a saegal or seculum ; an aeis
or aeon. As all but one of the Irish words used in the
first eight items of the above enumeration are borrowed
from the Latin, we may take for granted that the table
itself was borrowed from the Latin writers, but probably
modified. The exception is bratha [braha], a native Irish
word, meaning a ' twinkling of an eye.'

The Irish divided their year, in the first instance, into
two equal parts, each of which was afterwards subdivided
into two parts or quarters. The four quarters were
called — Errach, now Earrach [arragh], Spring ; Samrad,
now Samhradh [sowra], Summer ; Fogmar, now Foghmhar
[fowar], Autumn ; Gemred, now Geimhridh [gevre], Winter :
and they began on the first days of February, May, August,
and November, respectively. We have historical testimony
that games — which will be described in chapter xxix. —
were celebrated at the beginning of Summer, Autumn, and
Winter ; but we have no account of any such celebrations
at the beginning of Spring. These divisions of the year
and the festivities by which they were ushered in originated
with the Pagan Irish, and were continued into Christian
times.

Errach or Spring began on the first of February. This
day was called oimelc, imolg, or imbulc : the first form
oimelc is given in Cormac's Glossary (p. 127, " 6i "), where
it is derived from 6i, a sheep, and melc or melg, milk :
" di-melg, ' ewe-milk,' for that is the time the sheep's milk
comes." That oimelc is the first of February we know
from Peter O'Connell's Dictionary, where oimelc is identi-
fied with Feil Brighde (St. Brigit's feast day), which has
been, and is still, the Irish name for the first of February
all through Ireland, the old Pagan name oimelc, being
obsolete for centuries.

In Cormac's Glossary (p. 151) Samrad, Summer, is
fancifully derived from the Hebrew sam, the sun, and the
Irish rad, a course : " the course which the sun runs : then

CHAP. XXVII] MEASURES AND WEIGHTS 389

most its brightness and its height delight." Whatever may
be the true derivation, the word is obviously cognate with
the English Summer. The first day of May was the
beginning of Summer. It was called Belltaine or Beltene
[beltina], which is the name for the ist May still always
used by speakers of Irish ; and it is well known in Scot-
land, where Beltane has quite taken its place as an English
word : —

" Ours is no sapling, chance sown by the fountain.
Blooming at Beltane, in winter to fade."

— Lady of the Lake.

Another name for May Day, according to Cormac's Glos-
sary (p. 36), is Cedsoman.

Autumn was called Fogmar, Fogamar, or Foghmhar,
which is still its name : according to Cormac's Glossary
(p. 74), Fogamar was also the name of the last month of
Autumn, i.e. October. Autumn began on the ist August,
Lammas day. This day has two ancient Irish names : —
Bron-trogain and Lugnasad [Loo'nasa]. The first is derived
in an old Irish glossary* from trogan, a name for the earth
or ground, and bron, bringing forth : — Bron-trogain, the
bringing forth of fruits by the earth or ground. Bron
properly signifies ' sorrow ' or distress : the idea here
being — in the words of the old Tale of the " Wooing of
Emer "f — " It is then the earth sorrows under [the weight
of] its fruit " (is and do-broni trogan fua torthib). In the
Story of the Agallamh or " Colloquy of the Ancients " — as
well as in the old glossary referred to above — the first
day of August, or the " trogan-month," is identified with
Lugnasad ,1 which is still the Irish name of the first of
August everywhere in Ireland. (See page 439, below
for the origin of this name.)

* Quoted by O'Donovan in Book of Rights, liii.

f Rev. Celt., xi. 443.

\ Silva Gad., 216, 30. and Stokes, Acallamh, line 4760

39° SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Samain, Samuin, or Samhuin [so win], the first of
November, was the first day of Gemred or Winter. The
name is compounded of the two words, sam, which was an
old word for Samrad or Summer, and fuin, an ancient
word for end : that is to say, the end of Summer : " for,"
the old authority adds, " the whole year was [originally]
" divided into two parts — Summer from ist May to ist
" November, and Winter from ist November to ist May."*
The name samain is still used even among the English-
speaking people in Scotland and the north of Ireland, in
the form of sowin or sowins, which is the name of a sort of
flummery usually made about the ist November. The
term gemred for winter is a derivative from the older and
simpler word geim, meaning the same thing.

For certain legal purposes connected with grazing and
trespass, the ancient Irish had another division of the year
into two unequal parts : — the Summer division from the
ist March to the 31st July, five months ; and the Winter
division from ist August to the 28th of February, seven
months, f

O 'Donovan stated in 1847 (Book of Rights, lii) that
the season with which the Pagan Irish began their year
could not (then) be determined. Some years later O' Curry
asserted that according to the authority of an ancient Irish
poem, of which he had a copy, the year began on the
ist February. J We must presume that this is correct ; but
he has not given the stanza in which the statement is
made, and I have never seen the poem.

Occasionally time was measured by the fortnight
(coicthiges : pron. co-keess'). Fothad Airgthech on one
occasion rested on a certain hill " till the end of three fort-
nights." King Concobar — says the " Battle of Rosnaree "
(p. 3) — was ill in Emain " for the time of three fortnights " :
and in another part of the same Tale (p. 19) Sencha says

* Sick Bed, Atlantis, i. 370, note 2 : and Book of Rights, liii.

•j- Br. Laws, iv. 79, 89, 91. J Sick Bed, Atlantis, 1. 370, note 2.

CHAP. XXVII] MEASURES AND WEIGHTS 39I

to Concobar, " I will ask a truce of battle till the distant
end of a fortnight in addition to a month."

The ancient Irish counted time rather by nights than
by days. Thus in the Life of St. Fechin we are told : —
" Moses was forty nights on Mount Sinai without drink,
without food."* In coupling together day and night they
always put the night first : in other words, the night
belonging to any particular day was the night preceding.
In the " Vision of Mac Conglinne " a certain thing is spoken
of as happening on Oidche Domnaig, the " night of Sun-
day," where it is obvious from the context that the night
in question was the night preceding, or what we of the
present day would call " Sunday eve " or " Saturday
night. "f All this is a survival of what appears to have
been the universal practice among the Celtic nations of
old : for Caesar J describes the Gauls as measuring the
lapse of time, not by days but by nights : and calculating
months, years, and birthdays in such a way as to make the
night precede the day. Tacitus§ states that the Germans
also gave precedence to the night, and the same custom
prevailed among the Jews. Traces of all this still remain
in the English language in the words fortnight and
sennight (i.e. fourteen nights and seven nights), and in
such words as Christmas-eve and Hallow-eve. In express-
ing a length of time by nights, the Irish commonly in-
cluded the two nights at the beginning and end, and
hence the word coicthigis for a fortnight, which literally
means " fifteen-night " ; like the Welsh wythnos (" eight-
night ") for a week.

The Irish used the word nomaid or nomad to denote
a time, the length of which has not been precisely deter-
mined. It evidently means nine time-spaces of some kind,

* Rev. Celt., xn. 435. On this custom of measuring time by nights,
see Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 360.

t Mac Conglinne, 18, 20, and 134 : see also Adamnan, 230, last line
but one.

t Bell. Gall., vi. xviii. § Germania, cap. xi.

392 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

from noi, nine. Some take it to mean ' nine nights,' like
the Latin nundinutn : and it has been interpreted ' nine
days,' ' five days and four nights ' ; ' the ninth day.' The
probability is that its meaning varied, so that two or more
of these may be correct.

6. Enumeration.

The decimal system was in general use. The mode
of enumeration was usually the same as we have now in
English, the largest numbers coming first and the smallest
last. The Four Masters give all their dates in this order :
and Keating reads 2628 as " two thousand and six hundred
and twenty-eight." But very often this order was reversed,
both in the old and in the more recent writings. In an
ancient poem quoted by Keating, 197 years is given as
" seven years, ninety and a hundred " : and in another
passage 1130 is read " thirty on a hundred on a thousand."
Frequently the two systems are mixed, and other denomi-
nations besides decimal are brought in, of which the
following are examples : — (432 years), " twelve years and
twenty and four hundred " : (1978), " eight and seventy,
a thousand and nine hundred " : (1130) ships, " ten ships,
twenty, on a hundred, on a thousand." Sean Buidhe
O'Clery calls 1453 years " a thousand years and four
hundred years, and thirteen years, and twice twenty."

It is remarkable that seven is sometimes called " great
six." Thus mdir-sheis-ear is found in old authorities to
denote seven persons, literally " great-six persons." This
custom as well as the word mdir-sheis-ear [more-hesher]
still continues in use.

Sculpture on Window : Cathedral Church, Glendalough : Beranger, 1779.
(From Pctrie's Round Towers.)

CHAPTER XXVIII

LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE

Section i. Roads, Bridges, and Causeways*

oads. — That the country was well provided with
roads we know, partly from our ancient litera-
ture, and partly from the general use of chariots.
They were not indeed anything like our present
hard, smooth roads, but constructed according to
the knowledge and needs of the period, sometimes laid
with wood and stone, sometimes not, but always open
and level enough for car and horse traffic. There were
five main roads leading from Tara through the country
in different directions : and numerous roads — all with
distinct names — are mentioned in the annals. Many of
the old roads are still traceable : and some are in use at
the present day, but so improved to meet modern require-
ments as to efface all marks of antiquity.

The ancient Irish classified their roads in regard to
size and use into seven kinds, which are named and partly
described in an interesting passage in Cormac's Glossary
(p. 141). Cormac gives, as two general terms for a road
of any kind, conair and cai, which are living words at the
present day. The following are the names of the seven
kinds of conairs or ways : they are given here, not in the

393

394 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Glossary order, but generally according to size : — Slige,
Ramut, Bdthar, Rot, Set, Tuagrotd and Ldmrota.

The slige [slee] was the largest of all : it was a main
high-road. Cormac says " it was made for the passing of
" chariots by each other, for the meeting of two chariots
" [of the largest size], i.e. a king's chariot and a bishop's
" chariot, so that each of them may go [freely] by the other."

" Ramut (or ramat) " — says the Glossary — " is greater
" [i.e. wider] than a rot : it is an open space or way which
" is in front of [i.e. leads to] the forts of kings : and every
" neighbour whose land comes up to it is bound to cleanse
" [his own part of] it." A ramat is mentioned in the
Senchus M6r, as subject to certain laws ; and the gloss
gives the following description of it : — " A ramat, i.e. a
" great road to which there is no fence [meaning that it is
" open on both sides] and to which run all small by-roads :
" and the fine for not cleansing the roads has a stay of three
" days."* There is here no mention of a king's fort — as
there is in Cormac's Glossary — from which we may infer
that the ramuts were not used exclusively in connexion
with the residences of kings.

"A Bdthar " [boher] — says the passage in the Glossary
— " two cows fit upon it, one lengthwise, the other athwart :
" their calves or their yearlings fit on it along with them
" [i.e. each calf walking beside its mother] : for if the calves
" were behind them, the cow that followed would gore "
[the calf in front of her]. Bdthar is still the common word
for a road, and the diminutive bohereen or boreen (Irish
bdithrin) is a familiar Anglo-Irish word for a little road
or country lane.

Rot (pron. rote : sometimes written rat), according to
the Glossary, is compounded of ro, great, and set, a way :
i.e. ro-shet [ro-hait], a great set or way — i.e. a road which
is greater than a sit. " A rdt was made for the horses of a
mansion, and there is room on it for a one-horse chariot."

* Br. Laws, I. 233.

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 395

The gloss on the Senchus Mor* defines rot : — " a small (i.e.
narrow road), to which there is a fence " (clad), namely, a
raised bank or " ditch " on each side. Rot, written in
modern Irish rod [road], is still in use, and is evidently
cognate with the English word road : for Cormac's deri-
vation, above, is fanciful.

Set [shate], the Glossary says, is less (i.e. narrower) than
a rot, and is " a path of one animal," i.e. wide enough for
a single cow or horse.

A tuagrota is a small road, a farmer's road, such as he
makes when he is permitted or purchases a right of way
from his farm to an adjacent main road, or to a mountain
for the convenience of sending cattle to graze on it, or of
bringing home turf.

A lamrota (i.e. a. hand-road : 1dm, a hand) is a small
by-road, made for convenience of communication to con-
nect two sliges or main roads. " Ldmhrdd, as much as to
say, rdd Idimh le rdd eile, ' a road beside another road '
(O'Cl. Gloss.).

The five main roads leading from Tara are mentioned
in our oldest authorities, as, for instance, in the Story of
Bruden Da Derga in the Book of the Dun Cow. They
were all called slige. I. Slige Asail [slee-assil] ran from
Tara due west towards Lough Owel in Westmeath, and
thence probably in a north-west direction : it divided the
ancient kingdom of Meath into two equal parts, North
and South, f 2. Slige Midluachra extended northwards
towards Slane, through the Moyry Pass north of Dundalk,|
round the base of Slieve Fuaid near Newtown Hamilton, to
Emain, and on to Dunseverick on the north coast of Antrim
(Faraday's Tain, p. 59), portions of the present northern
highway run along its site. 3. Slige Cualann ran south-
east through Dublin, across the Liffey by the hurdle-bridge

* Br. Laws, I. 233.

f Book of Rights, Introd., lviii : Three Fragm., 77, 8> 9.

% Through the Moyry Pass : see Miss Stokes's Inscr., 11. 28 bot.

396 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

that gave the city the ancient name of Baile-atha-cliath
(the town of the hurdle-ford : now pron. Blaa-clee) : crossed
the Dodder near Donnybrook : then south, still through
the old district of Cualann, which it first entered a little
north of Dublin, and from which it took its name (the slige
or road of Cualann), and on by Bray, keeping near the
coast. Fifty years ago a part of this road was traceable
between Dublin and Bray. 4. Slige Data, the south-
western road, running from Tara towards, and through,
Ossory in the present Co. Kilkenny. This old name is
still applied to the road from Kells to Carrick-on-Suir by
Windgap. 5. Slige Mor (" great highway ") led south-
west from Tara till it joined the Esker-Riada* near Clonard,
along which it mostly continued till it reached Galway.
Portions of this road along the old Esker are still in use,
being traversed by the present highway.

Besides these five great highways, which are constantly
referred to, the Annals and other old documents notice
numerous individual roads. In the Four Masters we find
thirty-seven ancient roads mentioned with the general
name bealach [ballagh], nearly all with descriptive epithets,
such as Bealach Mughna, Mughain's or Mooan's Pass, now
Ballaghmoon, near Carlow. Many of these are still com-
memorated in the names of townlands. This word bealach,
which is not included in Cormac's List of road-names,
though in existence long before his time, is still in use. It
means a pass with a road or path constructed through it.
Another generic word for a road or way is raen or raon.

* Esker-Riada, a long, natural, wavy ridge formed of gravel, running
almost across the whole country from Dublin to Galway. It was much
celebrated in olden times, and divided Ireland into two equal parts, Leth-
Conn (' Conn's half ') on the north, and Leth-Mow (' Mow's half ') on the
south. It may be seen marked on the map in the first volume of this
book (squares 33, 34, 35, 36). The Irish eiscir means a sand-hill, and Had,
travelling by chariot, horse, or boat : Eiscir-Riada, the ' sand-hill of
chariot-driving." For the origin of the names Leth-Conn and Leth-Mow,
see Joyce, Short History of Ireland, p. 131.

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 397

In old times the roads seem to have been very well
looked after : and the regulations for making them and
keeping them in repair are set forth with much detail in
the Brehon Laws/ The Book of Aicill lays down that that
part of a main road {prim-rot) passing through a tuath or
territory belongs more to the king of the tuath than to an
inferior chief of the same tuath whose land adjoins the
road : but that a by-road (for-rot), if bounding or passing
through the minor chief's land, belongs more to him than
to the king of the tuath. If any person injured a road, he
had to pay compensation to the king or chief, or both, of
the territory or district : and for the reason stated, if it was
a main road, the king got a larger part of the fine than the
chief ; but if a by-road, the chief got more than the king.*
Care was taken that the roads were kept clean. According
to Cormac's Glossary (p. 142), a road of whatever class had
to be cleaned on at least three occasions : — the time of
horse-racing, time of winter, and time of war ; which
included clearing of brushwood, of water, and of weeds.:
a statement also found in the gloss of the Senchus Mor.f
The Glossary goes on to say that the road was thus cleaned
in order that neither chariots going on a journey nor
horses going to a fair should be soiled : and it was kept
clear of brambles and weeds lest any one going [on horse-
back] to battle or elsewhere might be upset.

As illustrating the liberal and kindly spirit of the
Brehon Laws, it is worthy of mention : — if a man's farm
was so situated as that there was no way out of it except
through his neighbour's land, he was entitled to purchase
from him a tuagrotae or small roadway ; or if he did not
do so, he could claim a passage in cases of necessity, but
under certain restrictions. If he had occasion to drive his
cattle out through his neighbour's farm, six persons were
to be sent with them to prevent them spreading over the

* Br. Laws, in. 305, 307, 309.

f Ibid., 1. 129, n. See also vol. iv. 145, ^

39$ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

land, three from the owner of the cattle and three from the
owner of the land. This no doubt was mainly intended to
prevent the acquisition of an unlimited right of passage by
long usage.*

We find similar equitable ideas running through the
rules laid down for the public right of way. Under
ordinary circumstances there was a fine for breaking
through fences. But it was justifiable to make gaps in
a man's hedges or fences where it was necessary for the
passage of an army on the march, or of persons bringing a
corpse to be buried, or for the passage of carts bringing
provisions to an army, or for bringing building materials
for a mill, a church, or the fort of a king. No compensation
was allowed for these, provided no other convenient way
could be found : but in all cases the breaches should be
closed up after the passage, so as to leave the fence as
perfect as at first, otherwise it was a case for damages.
This rule is laid down also, which is very characteristic of
the Irish Celt, that in every case permission was to be
asked, which of course was always granted : — " Leave is
" asked about them all, for it is an old maxim with the
" Feini ' every supplication is pleasant.' " If the gap was
not closed, the damages therefor were increased if leave
had not been asked, f

It seems that certain persons were bound to make a
high-road (slige) through a wood if required, in time of
war ; and to make and keep clean a rot at certain other
times : but the statement on this point made by the
glossator gives no information as to ways and means, or
compensation. As an illustration of the favour with which
road-work was regarded by all sections of the community,
it may be mentioned that according to a statement in the
ancient Irish " Life of St. Fechin," when a general three
days' fast was enjoined with a certain object, a fast of two

* Br. Laws, iv. 157, and Introd., cxxxii.
t Ibid., 155, 157.

CHAP XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 399

days and one night was accepted from anyone who was
engaged in making or repairing a bridge, or a causeway
through a marsh.*

From the evidence adduced in this short section, we
may conclude that Giraldus Cambrensis was mistaken
when he asserted — as he did in his " Topography " (I., iv.)
— that Ireland " is truly a desert land, without roads, but
well watered." It may be supposed that he referred to
the uninhabited districts, covered with forest, bog, or
marsh, which were extensive in his time and for long
after : in which case he made no mistake.

Bridges. — There is no evidence to show that the Irish
built stone bridges before the Anglo-Norman invasion.
The Senchus M6r lays down a law for the erection of a
bridge, the gloss on which notices a distinction between
stone and wooden bridges, f But the gloss is of much later
date than the original text ; and no conclusion can be
drawn from this passage as to the erection of stone bridges
before the twelfth century. The Annals relate how Aed
Allen, king of Ireland (a.d. .734-743), on one occasion
stated that he had an intention to build a bridge at
Clonard [across the Boyne], and to build it " marvellously "
{i.e. on an unusually grand scale), " so that my name might
live on it for ever " : % but even this grand bridge was
no doubt intended to be a timber one. Lynch, in his
Cambrensis Eversus (11. 193, top), says : — " I have not
" treated of [ancient Irish] bridges because I have not
" been able to ascertain whether they were of stone or
" of planks."

Droichet, the Irish term for a bridge, is a native word.
Cormac's Glossary (p. 54) gives three alternative derivations
of it, one of which is doroichet, ' he passes,' " for everyone
" passes over it from one side to the other of the water or
" of the trench." The place chosen for the erection of a

* Rev. Celt., xn. 431. f Br. Laws, 1. 125, 9j 135.

% Three Fragm., 15.

400 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

bridge was very usually where the river had already been
crossed by a ford ; for besides the convenience of retaining
the previously existing roads, the point most easily fordable
was in general most suitable for a bridge. Bridges were
very often built of planks laid across the stream from bank
to bank, if it was narrow enough, or supported on rests of
natural rock or on artificial piers, if the river was wide : a
kind of bridge occasionally used at the present day.
There was a plank-bridge across the Shannon in the time
of Brian Boru, near his palace of Kincora, that is, either at
the very place where the bridge of Killaloe now stands, or
near it. For we read in the " War of the Irish with the
Danes " (p. 145), that, shortly before the Battle of Clontarf,
when Mailmora, king of Leinster, retired in anger from
Kincora, a messenger from Brian followed him, and " over-
" took him at the end of the plank-bridge of Killaloe on
" the east side." Sometimes bridges were constructed of
strong hurdles supported on piles. A bridge of this kind
across the Liffey gave Dublin its old name, Baile-atha-
cliath (see p. 396, supra). These timber bridges of the
several kinds were extremely common, and they are
frequently mentioned in old authorities. The fourteenth
abbot of Iona, from a.d. 726 to 752, was Cilline, who was
surnamed Droichtech, i.e. the bridge-maker, from the
number of bridges he got built ; and Fiachna, the son of
Aed Roin, king of Ulidia in the eighth century, was called
Fiachna Dubh Droichtech, Black Fiachna of the bridges,
because " it was he that made Droichet-na-Feirsi and
Droichet-Mona-daimh and others." These must have been
plank-bridges.

Causeways. — In early ages, before the extension of
cultivation and drainage, the roads through the country
were often interrupted by bogs and morasses, which were
made passable by causeways. They were variously con-
structed ; but the materials were generally branches of
trees, bushes, earth, and stones, placed in layers, and

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 4OI

trampled down until they were sufficiently firm ; and they
were called by the Irish name of tochar, now usually
anglicised togher. These toghers were very common all
over the country ; our annals record the construction of
many in early ages, and some of these are still traceable.
Sometimes a togher was covered over with planks laid
across, forming what they call in America a corduroy
road.

2. Chariots and Cars.

Our literature affords unquestionable evidence that
chariots were used in Ireland from the most remote
ages, both in private life and in war. They are men-
tioned constantly, as quite common and familiar, in the
ancient records, both legendary and historical, as well as
in the Brehon Laws, where many rules are set forth
regarding them. In the ancient historical tales in the
Book of the Dun Cow and the Book of Leinster, the
great chiefs, such as Cuculainn, Conall Cernach, Laegaire
Buadach, &c, are constantly described as going to battle
in chariots, each driven by a charioteer. At the Battle
of Crinna, near Slane in Meath, about a.d. 254 (Four
Masters, 226), Teige, the leader of the Munster forces,
used a chariot, and was borne away in it from the
field by his charioteer when severely wounded.* When
St. Patrick was on his journey to Tara in 433, King
Laegaire, as we are told in the Tripartite Life, went
from Tara to Slane with nine chariots to arrest him for
lighting the forbidden fire. We know from the best
authority, such as the Book of Armagh and Adamnan's
" Life of St. Columba," that SS. Patrick, Brigit, Colum-
kille, Declan, &c, journeyed in chariots in their missionary
progress through the country. And as Cuculainn's chario-
teer, Loeg, is celebrated in the ancient tales, so St. Patrick

* Lynch, Cambr Ev., II. 177 : Keat., 326.

402 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

had a charioteer, Odran, who is equally well known in
ecclesiastical history.

The use of chariots continued without interruption
both in military and civil life to a comparatively late
period : and they always formed a prominent feature
of fairs and other public meetings. In the time of
St. Sechnall, fifth century, there was an aenach or fair at
Dunshaughlin, which in spite of the saint's expostulations
was held on the maigen or sacred precinct of the church
(p. 44, supra) ; but — as the legend tells us — the earth
swallowed up thirteen of the chariots with their horses
and drivers, and the rest fled off the field glad to escape
with their lives.* In the next chapter (p. 447) we shall see
the regulations about chariots at the great fairs. Dermot,
king of Ireland, when preparing for the Battle of Culdremne,
a.d. 561, " gathered an immense army of horse, foot, and
chariots."f Adamnan, in his " Life of St. Columba "
(P- 33) > notices the Battle of Ondemone or M6in-M6r,
fought a.d. 563, where the northern Hy Neill defeated
the Dalaradians — a battle also recorded in the Annals :
and the Dalaradian king, Eochaid Laib, " escaped," writes
Adamnan, "sitting in his chariot" (currui insidens).
Chariots played a prominent part in the great Battle of
Moyrath, a.d. 637 : — " The snorting and neighing of their
" steeds bounding under chariots, supporting and com-
" manding the battle around them in every direction "
(Moyrath, 193). Chariots are depicted on several of the
high crosses (dating from the tenth to the thirteenth
century) ; two of which are represented at p. 408, below.
As is usual in case of important articles of every-day
life in constant use, the bardic annalists have assigned an
origin for the chariot : for we find it stated in the Book of
Leinster that the first who invented chariots in Erin was
Righairled, a prince of Munster, fourteenth in descent

* Book of Hymns, 29, 30.

f Cambr. Evers, 11. 177. See also FM., vol. 1., 193, note.

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 403

from Eber Finn, the son of Milesius — long before the
Christian era.*

The usual Irish word for a chariot is carpat (now
carbad), obviously cognate with the Latin carpentum,
which is itself a Gaulish word. Adamnan always uses
the Latin equivalent currus : but classical writers call the
Gaulish and British chariots essedum, which however is
another Gaulish word. For all three branches of the
Celtic people, the Gauls, the Britons, and the Irish, used
chariots. Carpat, as we see, is a native word, coming
directly from Gaulish : but there are at least three other
native terms, for a chariot, all given in Cormac's Glossary
(p. n) : — A, ' a wain, or a car, or a chariot ' : corb, whence
the personal name " Cormac," properly C orb-mac, ' chariot-
son,' i.e. born in a chariot (Corm., 29) : and lastly cul,
whence comes culgaire [3-syll.], i.e. the gdire, ' voice,' or
creaking of a chariot ; and whence also a chariot-maker
was called culmaire, which in the Glossary is denned saor
denma carpait, ' an artificer who makes a chariot ' (Corm.,
pp. 39, 46).

In the old romances there are several descriptions of
Cuculainn's chariot, as well as of those belonging to other
chiefs ; and in these and many other authorities details are
given, from all which we can obtain a good general idea
of the construction of the vehicle. They show, moreover,
what might be expected, that there were varieties in shape,
make, and materials, f The body ^Irish cret) was made of
wickerwork, supported by an outer frame of strong wooden
bars ; and it was frequently ornamented with tin, a practice
which also prevailed among the Gauls. The ordinary one-
or two-horse chariot had two shafts : fertas, a shaft, plural,
fertse, feirse, or feirtse. The shafts were made of hard
wood, often of holly. The charioteer of Orlam, son of

* For more about the use of chariots, see vol. i., pr>. 87, 89, 90, supra.
f See Crowe's Essay on the Irish Chariot, Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-71,
P- 4!3-

404 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Ailill and Maive, on one occasion was employed cutting
chariot-poles from a holly-tree in a wood* ; and in the
Brehon Law we are told that the holly was counted among
the noble trees because the feirse of chariots were made
from it.f O'Donovan translates feirse in this Law passage
by " axle-trees ' : and as holly is extremely hard and tough
it would naturally be used for axle-trees as well as shafts.
But that fertas was the usual word for the chariot-shaft
there is no doubt. St. Brendan says to Iarlaithe (or
Jarlath) of Tuam : " Let a new chariot be built by thee ;
"... and wheresoever the two shafts (dd fheriais) of the
" chariot shall break, there thy resurrection shall be."J
Again in the Fled Bricrenn, Findabair, looking out from
her high-up greenan, sees a hero coming in a two-wheeled
chariot, which she describes to her mother — and among
other things its feirtse or fertas-es — as hard and straight like
a sword.§ Here the feirtsi (pi.) were obviously the two
front shafts : for there was only one axle, and even that out
of sight. Many other passages might be cited in which
the two shafts are described in similar terms. But this
word feirtsi was also applied to the two hind-shafts, on
which the chariot rested when it was put by and thrown
back, as we see in our present carts. On one occasion
Cuculainn, driving his chariot, had a wild ox tied between
the two feirtse behind. ||

In a two-horse chariot there was a pole (sithbe : pron.
sheeva) between the two horses. King Laegaire describes
Cuculainn's chariot as having hard, sword-straight fertas-es,
and a sithbe [with ornaments] of white silver, ^j This pole
is what Caesar calls temo when he describes the Britons as
running along on it standing on the yoke (jugum) while
fighting, and running back again to their seat in the

* Miss Hull, Cuch. Saga, p. 155 : $ Stokes, Lives of SS., line 3495
Lady Gregory's Cuchulain, p. 196 : § Kilk. Archa?ol. Journ., 1870-1,

LL, 68, a, 29. p. 376, l6.

f Br. Laws, iv 151, 3. see also || Ibid., p. 420, M.

p. 287, supra. Vlbid., 376, l6> I7; 4*4, «.

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 405

chariot.* A one-horse chariot had two shafts but no pole.
A two-wheeled chariot, whether with one or two horses,
was in very general use. There was a cuing or yoke
between the two horses — also called mam [maum] — on
which the shafts depended : Cuculainn once broke the
cuing of Conall Cernach's chariot by striking it with a
stone, on which the chariot fell down and Conall tumbled
out so as to dislocate his shoulder.

There were two words for a wheel, roth and droch, both
of which are given in Cormac's Glossary (p. 61), and the
latter corresponding with Gr. trochos. The wheels were
spoked — sometimes six spokes, sometimes eight — and were
from three to four and a half feet high, as we see by several
delineations of chariots on the high crosses (p. 408, below).
They were shod all round, generally with iron : Cuculainn's
chariot, as we are told in the Tain, had rotha iarnaidi,
" iron wheels," i.e. was iron-shod : and many other such
references might be cited, f This corresponds with what
we know of the ancient British chariots, of which some
specimens have lately been found in burial-mounds, with
iron rims on the wheels. Sometimes the Irish chariot is
described as bronze-wheeled : by which is meant that the
wheels were tired with bronze. Some chariots had four
wheels : in the Battle of Rossnaree (p. 19), King Concobar
tells Cuculainn to bring horses and to yoke to them " four-
wheeled chariots " (carfiait chethir Had) : and we know that
four-wheeled chariots were also in use among the Gauls.
The axle pin was fixed immovable in the vehicle, and the
wheels revolved on it, and were kept in their place by
linch-pins. In some of the Latin Lives of the Saints the
linch-pin is called either obex or roseta : now called in Irish
dealg-roithledin [dallag-rolaun], " the pin of the wheel ' :
roithledn, modern Irish for a wheel. J

* Gallic War, iv. xxxiii. xiv. 417 ; and Kilk. Arch. Journ.,

f Miss Hull, Cuch. Saga, p. 176 : 1870-1, 414, I4.
LL, 78, a, 32. See also Rev. Celt., J Adamn., 172, d; 174, g.

406 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

There was commonly an awning or hood overhead,
often called pupall, which is one of the words for a tent,
and is borrowed from the Latin papilio. Cuculainn's
chariot is described as having a pupall cor cor da, a " purple
hood," from which we may infer that it was of some kind
of cloth.* But there was a native word for the hood —
anbluth — to which more than once is appended an epithet
that points to another material as in use. Findabair,
describing the chariots of Laegaire the Victorious and of
Conall Cernach, says in each case that there was anbluth
n-in n-etegndith udsa creit charpait,\ " an awning of the
wings of birds over the body of the chariot," showing that
these great warriors used birds' plumage to roof their
chariots, as ladies did for the roofs of their greenans
(p. 30, supra).

Kings, queens, and chieftains of high rank rode in
chariots, luxuriously fitted up and ornamented with gold,
silver, and feathers. Cuculainn, travelling in his chariot,
orders his charioteer, on the approach of night, to spread
for him the cushions and skins (joirtce ocus forgaimin)
of the. chariot, preparing to sleep on them. J But with
all this, the Irish chariot, like those of the Romans and
other nations, was a rough springless machine, and made
a great deal of noise. They evidently took pride in the
noise : and the more distinguished the person riding in a
chariot, the greater was supposed to be the creaking and
rattle, as is often boastfully remarked by the old Irish
writers, " a chariot under a king " being the noisiest of
all.§

We occasionally come across expressions that enable
us to arrive at some distant estimate of the value of a
chariot. One of the annalists|| mentions a chariot —

* Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-1, 377, „.

t Windisch, Ir. Texte, 1. 365, " Anbluth " : LU, 106, a, 3 and 38.
X Sick Bed : Atlantis, 11. 374, bot. of note.

§ Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-1, p. 414 (noise twice) : Sick Bed, Atlantis,
I. in, 2nd v. || Three Fragm., 45 : and Rev. Celt., xxiv., 59.

CHAP. XXVIIl] LOCOMOTION An£> COMMERCE 40?

evidently rather a good one — two-wheeled, no doubt,
though this is not specified — as worth four cumals or
twelve cows, representing £150 or £160 of our money.
And one portion of the reward promised by Queen Maive
to Ferdiad to fight Cuculainn was a [royal] chariot worth
eighty-four cows — something like a thousand pounds.*

The principal person in the chariot, the warrior or
master, or chariot-chief, was commonly called err or
eirr,\ and sometimes cairpthech (' chariot- warrior ') . The
charioteer or driver was called ara. Loeg, Cuculainn's
charioteer, is described in the Book of the Dun Cow as
wearing a frock (inar) of deerskin, close fitting, so as not
to impede the free action of his arms : over this was thrown
a loose mantle — for-brat, i.e. an ' over-mantle ' (p. 200,
supra). He wore a many-coloured helmet, from which
fell a curtain behind down over his shoulders. Across
his forehead was a gold-coloured band or fillet (gipni),
which was worn as a special mark of a charioteer, or, as
the old account says, "asa token of his charioteership -to
distinguish him from his lord.' 'J Whether the chariot
belonged to an ecclesiastic or a warrior, there was a special
seat for the master, and an inferior one for the charioteer,
as in case of St. Patrick and his charioteer Odran.§ In
the " Phantom chariot of Cuculainn," the charioteer sits in
front of the hero (ar a belaib) . But generally the charioteer
sat on the right of the champion, as we know from Cormac's
Glossary (p. 80), where we are told that fochla is the name
for the champion's seat [in a chariot], which word also
signifies both the north and the left-hand side. (See deas
and tuaith, page 521, infra.) From this term, fochla
fennida (' seat of the champion ') came to signify, in an
extended sense, any distinguished seat at a banquet or

* Sick Bed, Atlantis, II. 375, last par. of note,
f Eirr glosses " curruum princeps " in Z., 255, „,
X For all this, see O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 1. 290 : and Kilk. Arch.
Journ., 1870-1, p. 423.

§ Trip. Life, 219 : Three Ir. Gloss, Pref., xxxix.

408

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

elsewhere. For a like reason the word faitsi, which
signifies south, or right hand, means also the charioteer's
seat (Corm. 80).

On several of the high crosses chariots are carved,
as, for instance, on those of Clonmacnoise, Tuam, and
Monasterboice. The chariots represented here, from one
of the Clonmacnoise crosses, have each only one horse and
one pair of wheels : but two-horse chariots were more
usual, and seem to have been a common vehicle for
travelling.* The chariot ordinarily used in battle had
two wheels and two horses. That four horses were some-
times used is plain from the record in the Annals, of the

Fig. 333.

Ancient Irish chariots on base of cross at Clonmacnoise : ninth century. (From Wood-Martin's Pagan

Ireland, p. 247.) They are also figured in Miss Stokes's Christian Inscriptions, I., PI. xxxiii.

death of a prehistoric King Roitheachtaigh [Rohaghty :
whose name signifies " possessor of wheels "], FM, a.m.
4176, with the remark, " he was the first that drove a
chariot with four horses in Erin."

With rare exceptions, only two persons rode in a
chariot, whether in battle or in everyday life : viz. the
master (or mistress) and the driver : a custom which pre-
vailed also among the Gauls, f Chariots were generally
drawn by horses, especially those of chiefs and military
men. But ordinary persons, and non-military people in

* Two horses : see Fled Brier., 55, 61, 63 : and Bee Fola, 175.
also De Jubainville, La Civil, des Celtes, p. 338.
t De Jubainville, La Civil, des Celtes p. 331.

See

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 409

general, often employed oxen : St. Patrick's chariot was
drawn by two oxen.*

Besides the chariots hitherto mentioned, both for travel-
ling and for fighting, there was a special war-chariot
furnished with scythes and spikes, like those of the Gauls
and ancient Britons, which is repeatedly mentioned in the
Tales of the Tain : most often in connexion with Cuculainn.
It was called carpat serda, i.e. " scythed chariot," from
sen, a saw, scythe, or sickle. It is thus described in the
Book of Leinster : — " The hero of valour [Cuculainn]
" leaped into the scythed battle-chariot, with its iron
" points, with its sharp edges and hooks, with its hard
" spikes, with its sharp nails, projected from its shafts and
" straps and tackle. "f There is a similar description in the
Book of the Dun Cow.J In O'Clery's Glossary is this
entry : — " Searrdha, an edge : carbad searrdha, a chariot
in which were sharp edges or sickles " ; and in another
more ancient authority we read : — " It is why it was
" designated sen da from the iron saws or scythes which
" would be in array out of it."§ These accounts in the lay
literature of the use of the scythed chariot are curiously
corroborated in one of the ecclesiastical pieces, the con-
mentary in the Amra of St. Columkille. In the Amra
itself Columba is designated " chariot through battle " : on
which the ancient commentator utters this remark, or
rather prayer : — " That is, as a scythed chariot {car-pat
" serda), namely, a chariot armed with swords, goes
" through a battle (or a battalion), so may my soul go to
" heaven through the battle (or battalion) of demons. "||

* Trip. Life, 253, 292.

f LL, 78, a, 19 : Miss Hull, Cuch. Saga, 176 : Kilk. Arch. Journ.
1870-1, p. 415.

% LU, 80, a, 22 : Man. & Cust., 1. 300. See also LL, 76, b, A6. and 79,
b, 3. § Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-71, p. 416.

|| Stokes, Amra, Rev. Celt., xx. 149. See the original in LU, 6, b,
30. For scythed- and war-chariots, see De Jubainville, La Civil, des
Celtes, 339-341 : also 382 et seq.

4*0 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFF, [PART lit

Farmers and people in general used rough carts, com-
monly called can, for work of various kinds, but they are
hardly noticed in the ancient literature. The name can,
which is used in Cormac's Glossary (p. 44), is cognate with
Latin carrus and English car. In the Senchus M6r, a
chariot, as denoted by carpat, is distinguished from a can,
which is explained in the gloss as a cart for corn or dung :*
Another old name for a common cart or wagon or wain
was fin [fain], which glosses plaustrum in one of the eighth-
century mss. of Zeuss (Z., 19, 1 : 776, 19). These carts,
whether called fin or can, were drawn by oxen trained
specially for the purpose, as we know by many references.!
They had probably solid wheels — such as the people used
in later times — spoked wheels being expensive.

3. Horse-riding.

Horses were put to the same uses as at present : —
riding, drawing chariots, racing ; and more rarely plough-
ing, drawing carts, and as pack-animals : all which uses
are mentioned in our old literature. The horse is known
by various names. Ech signifies any horse of a superior
kind — a war-horse, a steed ridden by a chief, a chariot-
horse, &c. : cognate with Latin equus, and Greek hippos.
Marc, another word for horse, is explained in O'Davoren's
Glossary, ech no lair, " a steed or a mare " : hence the
common word marcach, a. horseman : marcach, equestor,
Z. 60, 10. Capdll, meaning a horse of any kind — a term
existing in varied forms in several European languages — is
the word now in universal use by Irish-speakers. Gearrdn,
a hack-horse, means equus castratus, a gelding, from gearr,
to cut. In ancient Irish documents this word denoted the
common beast of burden : in the Anglicised form garron,
it was constantly used by the Anglo-Irish writers of the
time of Elizabeth : and garron or garraun is in general use

* Br. Laws, i. 166, 33; 171, t. f For instance, Todd, St. Patk., 167.

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 4II

at the present day in Ireland among speakers of English
to denote a heavily-worked, half-broken-down old horse.
Other terms for a horse, such as fell and gobur, both of
which are given in Cormac's Glossary (80, 83), need not be
dwelt upon. The common word for a foal was, and is,
serrach or searrach [sharragh].

The Senchus Mor provides against " over- tying " or
" over-fettering " of horses when taken in distress ; i.e. it
was forbidden to fetter so tightly as to cause suffering or
injury : for example, the head was not to be held down by
a rope tied to the leg and carried tightly round the neck.*
In every chief's house there was an echaire [eh'ara] or
horse-boy or stable-boy — sometimes called gilla-scuir,
* horse-stud boy ' — who stabled the horses at night, and
let them out in the morning, f

Horses were often let run half wild in droves about the
mountains and plains ; and whenever any were wanted, a
sufficient number were driven home and trained in. A
part of the stipend the king of Hy Blathmaic (the district
round Newtownards in Down) received from the king of
Ulidia consisted of " eight steeds not driven from the
mountains J " : that is to say, not wild, but fully trained
in. Before the Battle of Rossnaree (p. 19), when King
Concobar wanted some horses, he says to Cuculainn : —
" Well, O Cuculainn, let the horses {gaby a) of the plain
" of Murthemni be caught by thee ; and let four-wheeled
" chariots be harnessed to them," which was accordingly
done : for Cuculainn, demigod as he was, subdued and
tamed them on the spot.

Besides grazing in the fields, horses were fed on corn
of various kinds. When the Red Branch heroes in the
palace of Ailill and Maive got their choice of food for
their horses, Cuculainn chose barley grain for his, and
Conall and Laegaire took airthend two years old for

* Br. Laws, i. 169, s; 175, 8. f Br. Laws, 111. 419, bottom.

% Book of Rights, 163.

412 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

theirs : where airthend probably means oats.* An ogaire,
an inferior chief, was supposed to keep a horse which was
used both for working and riding, f The higher classes
of chiefs kept horses for riding exclusively, and others
specially for work — that is, if they used horses for work
at all.

From many passages in the Brehon Laws and other
old writings it appears that horses were often imported,
and that those from Wales were specially prized. Pichan,
the Munster chief, promises Mac Conglinne (p. 44) a gold
ring and a Welsh steed (ech Bretnach) : and again (p. no)
the same Mac Conglinne is promised a Welsh steed out
of every [principal] house from Cam [Ui Neid\ to Cork.
The glossator of the " Heptads " in the Brehon Laws
(v. 221) includes British (i.e. Welsh) mares among the
" foreign curiosities " mentioned in the text. According
to the Book of Rights (p. 82) the king of Munster was
bound to give the king of Ui Liathain, as stipend, among
other things, " a steed and trappings brought from over
sea." In like manner (p. 247) the king of Tara was to give
to the king of Ui Briuin " a noble French steed." Even as
late as the fourteenth century the " Tribes and Customs of
Hy Many " records that a part of the tuarastal of the king
of Connaught to his subject king O' Kelly of Hy Many
was " ten steeds from across the boisterous brine. "J In
the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, those
Irish horses called hobbies were known all over Europe
" and held in great esteem for their easy ample, . . . from
" this kind of horse the Irish light-armed bodies of horse
" were called hobellers."§

Giraldus Cambrensis|| tells us that in his time the Irish
used no saddles in riding. Two hundred years later,
Mac Murrogh Kavanagh had a splendid horse that cost

* Fled Brier., 81. f Br. Laws, iv. 305, ,9.

X Hy Many, 93. See also Stokes, Lives of SS., line 3128, and p. 348.
§ Sir James Ware, Antiqq., p. 166. || Top. Hib., in. x.

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 413

him 400 cows, which he rode with wonderful swiftness
without saddle down a hill to meet the earl of Gloucester* ;
and the custom must have been very general at a still later
time, for laws were made to compel the Irish and Anglo-
Irish to ride like the English — with saddles. Yet this
custom prevailed among the English themselves in early
times, as well as among the ancient Britains, Gauls, and
Romans, f

But from the earliest times the higher classes of the
Irish used a thick cloth called dillat, between them and
the horse. Maildune, on one of the islands, saw a lady
riding, having a " good
adorned dillat under ^P^|* f^?\.

her. "J In another part ■L^^^^Sw%^^^.

of the same tale, a lady *q) W^Kp^|
is seen riding on a horse ;,^£^^^^^^^)^f^ J f
" with an ech - dillat f/nJCaW vlM.^

[' horse- dillat '] under TTj | (CCjTjD IJi 1
her." These two last *~*^wv_^ \"~*

quotations prove too „ ^.333. -

x * Grotesque representation of a horseman, given in the

that ladieS DraCtised Book of Kells. Man's cap yellow ; cloak green, with

* bright red and yellow border ; breeches green ; leg

horSe-riding aS Well aS clothed; foot naked. Dillat yellow. (From Wilde's

rr^-i i '11 r Catalogue.)

men. The dillat often

covered the whole animal, as is seen in the above illustra-
tion taken from the Book of Kells (7th or 8th century) —
and also in fig. 334, p. 417, infra, from the same old book.
This word dillat originally meant an outer cloth, garment,
or loose vest : in the Cymric Glosses of Zeuss it is given as
the equivalent of vestimentum or vestis : and it is applied in
this sense in the following Irish quotation from the Book of
the Dun Cow : — Gabaid-seom dan a dillat n-oenig n-imbi in
laa sin : " He puts his assembly-^7/atf or raiment about him
that day."§ As dillat was originally applied to the cloth

* Joyce, Short Hist, of Ireland, p. 330. f Ware, Antiqq., 159.

% Rev. Celt., x. 63.

§ LU, 81, a, 24 : see "Dillat" in Windisch's Worterb., Ir. Texte, 1. 481.

414 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

thrown over the horse's back, the name was retained even
when the cloth developed into a regular saddle : and dillat,
or in its modern form diallaid, is now the common Irish
name for saddle. Saddles of some kind were often used
by the Irish before the time of Cambrensis, for they are
frequently mentioned in the Book of Rights. The word
used in this book is sadail, which however appears to be a
loan-word from the Norse. Part of the stipend of the Hy
Cennsealaigh from the king of Leinster was ten saddles
(pi. saidle) : and the king of Ireland was bound to give the
king of Luighne, among other things, twenty steeds with
saddles.* The Senchus M6r glossf mentions whalebone
as being sometimes used for making saddle-trees — cldr-
sadall : but this is a late authority.

When the Irish employed the horse as a beast of
burden, to carry things on his back, they used a pack-
saddle. This is mentioned in Cormac's Glossary (p. 153),
under the name sratkar [srahar], which is still used for it,
and which is there derived from sreth, a range, because, as
Cormac says, " it is set on the range of the [horse's] ribs."
The use of the pack-saddle is also mentioned in the " Story
of the Eruption of Lough Neagh " in the Book of the Dun
Cow, where certain persons pack a srathar which is on the
back of a great horse with an immense load of household
goods. J

Two kinds of bridle having two different names were in
use. The single-rein bridle, called srian (Lat. frenum),
was used in horse-riding. This rein (Irish sreth, pron. srah]
was attached to a nose-band, not at the side but at the top,
and came to the hand of the rider over the animal's fore-
head, passing right between the eyes and ears, and being
held in its place by a loop or ring in the face-band (called
drech-ongdas, from drech, face) which ran across the horse's

* Book of Rights, 209, 267. f Br- Laws, 1. 135, last par.

X Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-1, p. 97.

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 415

forehead and formed part of the bridle-gear.* This single
rein was used to restrain merely : it could not be used to
guide, which, as we shall presently see, was done by a
horse-rod. Accordingly a horse for riding is often called
ech-sreine, a " smm-steed."f

The two-rein bridle, called all or fall, was used with
chariot-horses. The charioteer, who sat too far from the
horse's head to use a horse-rod in guiding, had to use
double reins, both to guide and to restrain, like those of
the present day. The two reins were called sreiha (pi. of
sreth), and also aradna (now earadhain or earadhain-srdine) .
The distinction between those two kinds of bridle and their
uses is clearly set forth in a gloss on the Senchus MorJ : —
" Srian, i.e. [having] one sreath or rein : all [so called from
" oil or all, great] because it is greater than the srian on
" account of having two reins on it : it is for the horses of
" the chariot it is used." And this distinction is always
observed in the Tales. Where horse-riders are mentioned
they have srians or single-rein bridles : but in the descrip-
tions of chariots the two horses have da n-all, " two alls,"'
i.e. each steed has one all of two reins. Essi or esi seems to
be another name for the all. Cuculainn says to Loeg : —
Fosta latt essi fostada th' echraidi, which Stokes translates,
" Fasten the securing reins of thy horses."§ Foill Mac
Nechtain tells Cuculainn's charioteer not to unharness the
horses from the chariot ; to which he answers that he is not
going to do so, inasmuch as he still holds the esi and the
aradna in his hands. || The bridle-bit was beilce or beilge
[bailka, bailga], modern Irish beulmhach : from bel or beul,
the mouth.

* Kuno Meyer in Mac Congl., 89, 22. and Glossary.

f Br. Laws, iv. 326, „.

X Br. Laws, 1. 139, bot. Other references to the all and srian, as dis-
tinguished are, : — O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 157, bot. and note, p. 158 :
Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-1, pp. 376, I7; 413, 30,39. 414, 7> l6. Stokes,
Lives of SS., line 317 : Courtship of Emer, 72, top line (LU, 122, b, 10) :
Bee Fola, 175 : Fled Brier., 55 to 63 passim.

§ Stokes in Rev. Celt., xiv. 419, top. || Miss Hull, 149 : LL, 66, b, 7.

4l6 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The bridle was often elaborately and expensively
ornamented. Among the royal tributes of the Book of
Rights (p. 57) we find " fifty steeds with costly bridles."
In the Bruden Da Derga (p. 51) the king's retinue have
" thrice fifty steeds with their thrice fifty bridles of red
enamel (srian cruanmaith) on them." In the Crith Gabhlach
the quality of the bridle is set down as indicating the rank
of the man : — a certain class of chief (brugaid) is stated to
have a riding-steed with a bridle of cruan or red enamel :
another of higher rank (aire-desa), a steed with a bridle of
silver ; and another still higher {aire-tuisi) with one of
gold : meaning in all the cases that the bridles were
adorned with the several materials.* Accordingly, special
provisions were laid down in the Brehon Law (v. 415,
417) for compensation to the owner of a bridle in case
a borrower did not restore it ; from five or six cows up
to eighteen or twenty, according to the rank of the several
owners. In later times the Irish continued or became so
extravagant in ornamenting their steeds that the Anglo-
Irish parliament passed laws to restrain the use of over-
expensive trappings, f

In corroboration of all these accounts, portions of
antique bridles and headstalls have been found from time
to time, with enamelled ornamentation of beautiful work-
manship, some of them now preserved in the National
Museum. Petrie, in one of his letters, has an account of
a headstall found near Boyle in Roscommon, all covered
with a beautiful jet enamel J ; and Miss Stokes pictures
and describes another, still more elaborate, of exquisite
workmanship in coloured enamel.§

Giraldus Cambrensis says that the Irish in his time
(n 85) used a sort of reins that served for both bridle and

* Br. Laws, rv. 311, bot. ; 323, „. 327, l8. f Ware, Antiqq., 160.

\ Dr. William Stokes's Life of Petrie, p. 240, bot.

§ Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., xxx. 291, 293, bot., with plate. For another
of a similar kind, pictured and described, see Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1856-7,
p. 423. For more about enamelled bridles, see vol. 1., p. 559, supra.

CHAP. XXVIIl] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 41?

bit, and did not prevent the horse from grazing.* The
common people generally used a halter, which was, and is
still, called adastar or adhastar [sounded nearly as oyster].
Giraldus states that the Irish did not use spurs, but urged
on and guided their horses with a rod having a hooked goad
at the end. In this he is correct ; for we find frequent
notices of the horse-rod — called echlasc and slatt — in Irish
literature. In the Story of Aed Baclamh, we read that
during a race at Tara, the riders, being dissatisfied with the
pace, lashed their horses with their echlascs.] No mention
is made of spurs, and none were used. This echlasc was
commonly of yew or ash, and must
have been — at least in some cases
— pretty strong and heavy, not a
mere switch : Mailmora, king of
Leinster, when leaving Kincora in
a rage, struck King Brian's mes-
senger with the eachlasc of yew,
" and broke all the bones of his

Grotesque representation of horse-

head."t The rider guided with the "«"• usi»e horse-rod, given in the

Book of Kells (seventh century.)

echlasc by touching one side or the (From wiidvs catalog, P. 3oo.>
other of the horse's head. In the

Tain bo Fraich (p. 137) we read of certain noble riders
having echlascs [with ornaments] of bronze and with
hooked goads (boccan) of gold at the end. In later times
the word echlasc came, by a natural extension of meaning,
to be applied to a whip, or a strong rod with a lash or
scourge at the end, which was used both for striking and
guiding. Maildune, coming to a certain island, saw a horse-
race a good way off, " and the strokes of their echlascs were
heard by him "§ — notwithstanding the distance. Here the
echlasc was no doubt the slatt with a scourge.

In some of the above passages the word for goad is
boccan, which is still in use to denote any hook or crook.

* Top. Hib., in. x. X Wars of GG., 147, top line,

t Silva Gad., 72 : Ir. Text, 68 ; „. § Rev. Celt., ix. 467.

4l5 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

But the more usual word for a goad in the Tales is brot,
and its diminutive bruitne [brit-ne] : " into the horses Loeg
" drove the brot ; he plied the horse-switch (slat) towards
road and wayfaring."* In the " Phantom Chariot of
Cuculainn " we read : — [Cuculainn] " had a goadlet
(bruitne) in his hand with which he urged on the
horses." f

Horse-riders also used a whip (sraigell or srogell : bor-
rowed from Lat. flagellum). In the Bruden Da Derga,
Conaire's three outriders (ritiri) had each a sraigell in hand J:
and another rider is mentioned in the " Vision of Mac Con-
glinne " who grasped a srogell. Srogell glosses flagellum and
flagrum in Zeuss (80, 25 ; 769, i4) ; and O'Clery explains
the verb sroiglim by do sgiursudh, ' to scourge.' Whether
the same rider carried both a rod and a whip is doubtful ;
probably not. The custom of suspending little bells from
the necks of horses is noticed in vol. 1., p. 376.

It would appear that horses, as well as other domestic
and pet animals, were sometimes wholly or partly dyed,
for ornament. In the story of " The Courtship of Ferb,"
we are told that in the train of Prince Mani were fifty
white horses with red ears, yoked in pairs to chariots, and
having their long manes and tails dyed purple§ : and the
circumstance is mentioned as if the practice was usual.
From an expression in the story of young Ciaran (told at
p. 360, supra), we may infer that other animals also were
dyed. When the piece of cloth was taken out of the pot
for the third time, not only was it dyed an intense blue,
but what remained of the colouring liquor in the pot, after-
wards " made blue all the dogs and the cats and the trees
that it touched " (Stokes's Lives of SS., 267). The seven
dogs that accompanied Prince Mani appear to have been

* Death of Goll and Garb, Rev. Celt., xiv. 401.

t Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-1, p. 378, top line. See also LU, 122, b, ^

X O'Curry, Man. & Cust., II. 146, note 212.

§LL, 253, a, 11, 12 ; Ir. Texte, 462, 463 : Leahy, p. 5.

CHAP. XXVIIl] ■ LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 4I9

dyed : for the narrative says that they were of every colour
that could be imagined. See also Sullivan's observations
in his Introd., p. 405, in which he states that dyeing pet
animals is practised in India, where a blue dog is a
favourite.

Horsemen rode without stirrups : and every man was
trained to spring from the ground by an ech-Uim or ' steed-
leap ' on to the back of his horse.* The chief, Dicho,
St. Patrick's first convert, was on one occasion a captive
in Tara with some others. But they made their way out
of the prison by the help of a cleric, and finding horses
ready bridled on the lawn, " they leap on their horses "
(leangait for a n-eochu) and make their escape. This ready
method of mounting continued to the beginning of the
seventeenth century in both Ireland and Scotland : —

" No foot Fitz-James in stirrup staid,
No grasp upon the saddle laid,
But wreathed his left hand in the mane,
And lightly bounded from the plain."

— Lady of the Lake.

It was considered necessary that every young man
belonging to the upper classes should be taught horse-
riding ; and so important was this that even the Brehon
Law interfered, just as the law of our day requires children
to learn reading. The Senchus Mor prescribes, among
other accomplishments, horse-riding " for the sons of chiefs
in fosterage. "f They began very young ; for the same
authority (Br. Laws, 11. 159) tells us that up to the age of
seven years the horse should be supplied by the father :
after that by the foster-father. If the foster-father
neglected this part of the child's instruction, he forfeited
two-thirds of the fosterage fee. A horse was not given
to the sons of the Feini or farmer grades while in fosterage,

* See Silva Gad., 296, x8: and O Conor, Dissert. 70, note.
f Br. Laws, 11. 157, bot.

420 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [pART lit

" for horsemanship is not taught to them " (Br. LL. n.,
p. 161). But the law took care that young farmers should
be taught such things as were considered fit for them (see
I. 441, supra). No doubt the horse supplied for learning
was a commonplace animal : but the Law required that the
son of a king should during fosterage be supplied with a
high-class animal in time of races.*

A simile found everywhere in the Irish and also in
Welsh tales is : — " Like flocks of birds over the heroes'
" heads were the sods thrown up by the hooves [or shoes]
" of the steeds." Another not quite so common : — " Like
" a flock of swans pouring over a vast plain was the foam
" which the steeds flung from them over their bridles."
" Like the smoke from a royal hostel was the dust and
" the breath and the dense vapour, because of the vehe-
" mence of the driving which Laeg gave Cuculainn's two
" horses."f

The period of the introduction of the practice of shoeing
horses among the natives of Europe is not very clearly
determined. The Romans had for this purpose a sort of
sock faced with iron, which could be readily taken off and
put on as occasion required, and which was used only
in rough places. That the ancient Irish protected the
horse's hoofs by a shoe of some kind is plainly shown
by the records. This shoe is called cru in the oldest Irish
documents : it is given with this meaning in all modern
dictionaries, and cru is still the living word for a horseshoe,
not only in Irish, but in Scotch Gaelic and Manx. But
as cru was also used for ungula or hoof,| the inquiry needs
to be conducted with some caution. That the word was
intended to designate a horsehoe in at least some of the
records (which serves our purpose as well as if it was so

* Br. Laws, 11., Pref., xliv.
t Rev. Celt., xiv. 417 : also LL, no, a, top.

J Cru etch glosses ungulus ; Stokes, Ir. Glosses, 442 : crua glosses
ungula in Sg. 46, b, 13 ; Stokes in Rev. Celt., xin., 469.

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 421

used in all) is clear from several passages. In the " Demon
Chariot " we read that showers of sods were thrown up
from the " shoes " of Cuculainn's horses (a chruib nan ech).
Here the word used is cru, which must mean ' shoe,' not
hoof, for a few lines farther on, where the hoof is specially
mentioned, it is called bos* : and accordingly Crowe here
properly translates cru by ' shoe,' and bos by ' hoof.' An
entry in the Four Masters, under a.d. 1384, goes to con-
firm all this : — " Tomaltach Mac Dorcy, chief of Kinel-
" Duachain, was killed by his own knife while he was
" shoeing a horse " (ag cur cru : * putting on a horseshoe ').
It seems plain from the preceding that the ancient Irish
shod their horses : but nothing is known that would indi-
cate the particular form of shoe used. Many specimens of
iron horseshoes may be seen in the National Museum,
generally lighter than the present shoes ; but there are
no data on which to found an opinion as to their age.

Giraldus Cambrensisf says that in his time the Irish
women rode astride like the men, " their legs sticking out
on both sides of the horse " : but I have not found any
confirmation of this. Indeed the dress universally worn
then by women would render it impossible for them to
ride in this manner. It is likely that Giraldus may have
witnessed an accidental and exceptional instance, as we
may sometimes witness now. Four centuries after the
period of his record, Spenser (View, 102) tells us that the
Irish women rode, not astride, but on the wrong side of
the horse, i.e. — as he says — " I meane with their faces
towards the right side" [of the horse]. In this he is
correct ; and the fashion moreover came down from old
times ; for in a delineation of the flight to Egypt sculptured
on the high cross of Moone Abbey, the Blessed Virgin sits
on the ass with her face to the right — i.e. her left hand

* Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-1, p. 376, 2> 9; 377, 2p I0. For bos or has,
' hoof,' see also Fled Bricrenn, p. 58, 8. and " Bass " in Windisch's
Worterbuch. f Top. Hib., in. xxvj.

422 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

towards the ass's head, while St. Joseph leads the animal
by a halter.* The concurrence of these two unquestion-
able authorities, one before the time of Giraldus, the other
after, renders it all the more likely that he is mistaken.

In old times in Ireland, horse-riding as a mode of loco-
motion in ordinary life was not very general. But nobles
commonly rode and were very proud of their steeds and
trappings. Horses were also kept and carefully trained
for sporting purposes, chiefly racing, which, as we shall
see in next chapter, was a favourite amusement. A poet,
praising Sechnasach, king of Ireland (a.d. 664-671), says
that his house was " full of bridles " and " full of horse-
rods " (srianach and echloscach) .f

The ass hardly figures at all in ancient Irish literature,
so that it cannot have been much used.

4. Communication by Water.
The boats used by the ancient Irish way be roughly
classified as of three kindsj : — canoes hollowed out from
the trunks of trees ; curraghs, or wicker-boats ; and ordinary
vessels — ships or boats — propelled by sails, or oars, or both
combined, as occasion required. In the Brehon Law Tract
called the " Small Primer " (v. 105), vessels are classified as
(1) ler-longa, " sea-ships " (ler, the sea), viz. large vessels fit
for long voyages ; (2) barca or barks, small coasting vessels
not suitable for long voyages, which are also called serrcinn
(sing, serrcenn, ' saw-head ') ; (3) curraghs. This classifi-
cation— which is a good one — has reference, not so much
to the vessels themselves as to their several builders, in
order to set forth their privileges ; which explains why
single-piece canoes are not included, inasmuch as they
required small technical skill to make them.

* O'Neill's Crosses, p. 7, and pi. xvii. f Rev. Celt., XIII. 97.

% This general classification will be quite sufficient here : but that
vessels were much varied in shape according to the purposes they were
intended to serve is obvious from the fact that Adamnan mentions ten
different kinds by their Latin names, which may be seen in Adamn.,
176, note b.

CHAP. XXVIIIJ LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 423

The single-piece canoes were very common, especially
in connexion with crannoges, where they were used to
communicate with shore. Many of these have in late
times been found in bogs at the bottom of dried-up lakes
and near old crannoges, varying in length from 50 or 60
feet down to six or eight : and numbers of them may
been seen in the National Museum in Dublin. Adamnan
(p. 176) mentions boats of pine and oak, which the monks
of Iona dragged overland, and then used them for convey-
ing across the water great timbers both for houses and for
ships. These were single-piece boats, and must have been
of considerable size.

The curragh (Irish form curach, connected with Latin
corium, a hide) was the best known of all the Irish boats.

FIG. 335.

Single-piece canoe : in the National Museum, Dublin : 23 feet long ; 2j£ feet broad. (From Wilde's

Catalogue, p. 203.)

It was made of a wicker-work frame, called in Irish cliab-
curaich [cleev-curry], i.e. curach-ba.sket, covered with hides
which were stitched together with thongs.* Some curraghs
had a double hide-covering, some a triple. These boats
are constantly mentioned in lay as well as in ecclesiastical
literature, and also by Continental writers, the earliest of
whom is Solinus in the third century. They are used still
round the coasts, but tarred canvas is employed instead of
skins. They were propelled by oars or sails according to
circumstances. When there were two or more hide-cover-
ings, they were probably placed in contact. A curragh of
one hide was, of course, the least safe : and in the Life of
St. Patrick we are told how an Ulsterman named Mac Cuill,
a converted sinner, committed himself to the sea in a one-
hide boat without oar or rudder, in accordance with a

* See p. 427, line 13, infra ; and p. 370, supra.

424 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

penance imposed on him by St. Patrick, as already
mentioned (vol. L, p. 214). In Muirchu's Latin narrative
of this incident, the boat is called navis unius pellis, while
in the Irish Tripartite Life it is curach oen seiched, ' a
curragh of one hide,' the exact equivalent of the Latin.*
Maildune, intending to make a voyage in the Atlantic, had
a boat of three hides constructed — n6i tre-chodlidi (codal,
a hide) : here the boat is called ndi : but a little farther on
it is called a curach.] Many curraghs were so small and
light as to be easily carried on a man's back from creek
to creek overland, as Giraldus says the Welsh were
accustomed to carry their wicker boatsj : and as people
sometimes do to this day in Ireland.

The mode of constructing curraghs has been described
by foreign as well as by Irish writers. Julius Caesar§ tells
how he had some curraghs made for his use after the
model of those used by the Britons (" ships of the kind
that his knowledge of Britain had taught him ") ; and
twelve centuries later Giraldus describes in similar terms
the Irish curraghs as he saw them.|| But the most detailed
and accurate account we have of the building of a curragh
is in the Latin narrative of the Voyage of St. Brendan.
The Saint and his companions " using iron tools [saws,
" hammers, chisels, &c] prepared a very light vessel, with
" wickerwork sides and ribs, after the manner of that
" country, and covered it with cow-hide, tanned in oak-
" bark (rubricatis in cortice roborina : ' reddened in oak-
" bark,' p. 368, supra), tarring its joints : and they put on
" board provisions for forty days, with butter enough to
" dress hides for covering the boat [whenever the covering
" needed repair], and all utensils necessary for the use of
" the crew."T[ From all these accounts, which might be

* Trip. Life, 222, „. 288, l8. || Top. Hib., in. xxvii.

t Rev. Celt., ix. 459, 460. ^f Brendan., Cardinal Moran, 90 ;

% Descr. of Wales, 1. xvii. O'Donohue, 119.

§ Bell. Civ., 1. liy

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 425

corroborated by many others, we see that curraghs, when
intended for long voyages, were made large and strong,
furnished with masts and solid decks and seats, and having
the hides tanned.*

By far the greatest part of the water-communication
round the coasts and across the narrow seas, as well as in
the lakes and rivers, of Great Britain and Ireland, was
carried on in those early days by curraghs, which indeed
were used also in other parts of Europe. The Anglo-
Saxon Annals and Florence of Worcester relate that
three learned Irishmen, desirous of leading a religious
life, went on board a boat which was made of two or
three ox-hides, and with provisions for a week, and sailing
wherever Providence led them, landed in Cornwall, whence
they were brought to the great King Alfred, f We know
that in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries the Irish sent
numerous plundering expeditions to Britain, as mentioned
in vol. 1., p. 73, et seq. These voyages they made in
curraghs : and Gildas pictures hordes of them as landing
from such vessels (de curicis).%

The native records corroborate these, so far as the
general use of the curragh is concerned. In Cormac's
Glossary (p. 41) we are informed that Breccan, grandson
of Niall of the Nine Hostages, had a fleet of fifty curraghs
trading between Ireland and Scotland, till they were all
swallowed up in the terrible whirlpool near Rathlin Island,
which thenceforward took the name of Coire-Bhreccain
[corrie-vreckan], Breccan's caldron or whirlpool^ When
the Irish chief Mac Con gathered an army in Britain and
Scotland for the invasion of Ireland, leading ultimately to

* See also Silva Gad., 386. t Ogygia : in. xxiv.

% Adamn., 169, note k.

§ This whirlpool, which is still well known, but now called Slugnamara
(' swallow of the sea '), lies between Rathlin and the coast of Antrim. It
was the original Corrievreckan ; but its name was borrowed for the
dangerous whirlpool between the islands of Scarba and Jura, in Scotland,
mentioned in The Lord of the Isles, See Ir. Names of Places, 11. 433.

426 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

the great battle of Mucruime, and the accession of Mac Con
as king, he conveyed them in vessels of various sizes, so
that between Scotland and Ireland " there was " — says the
old account — " a continuous bridge of curraghs "* : and
when — as we read in the story of " The Siege of Etar " —
the Ulster Forces were besieged in Ben Edair (Howth)
by Leinstermen, they sent north requesting their friends
to come from Ulster either by land or "in curraghs "
(i curchaib) to relieve them.f

Many of the ordinary vessels used by the Irish in
foreign commerce must have been large ; otherwise they
could not have traded with Continental ports, as we know
they did (p. 429, farther on). In the Book of Rights (p. 39),
it is mentioned that part of the yearly tribute from the
king of Cashel to the king of Ireland consisted of " ten
ships with beds," as much as to say they were large enough
to contain sleeping-berths.

The most general Irish name for a ship is long ; which
in Cormac's Glossary (p. 105) is derived from the Saxon
lang (Eng. long) ; but it is more likely that both the Irish
and Saxon words are cognate with Latin longa. Some-
times the word lestar (' vessel ') was used. A ship filled
with men for a warlike excursion was often called laech-
lestar, ' hero-vessel ' (laech, hero), which was the Irish term
for a " man-of-war. "J Bare, another Irish word for ship,
is not, as might be supposed, a loan-word from English, for
it is used in our oldest manuscript tales. In the Senchus
M6r§ the word noe is used as an equivalent for curach,
where a " noe of one hide " is mentioned ; and in Cormac's
Glossary (p. 125) the same word is given in the form of
nai, as meaning a ship, and derived from Lat. navis : here

* O'Grady, Silva Gad., 352 bot. ; Ir. Text, 314, top.

f LL, 115, b, 22. For more about curraghs and boats in general, see
Ware, Antiqq., xxiv. : Lynch, Cambr. Ev., chap. xii. : O'Flaherty, Ogyg.
in. xxxiv. : and Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1852-3, p. 71.

% Mac Congl., 34, bot.

§ Br. Laws, 1. 170, top line : see also p. 424, supra

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 427

no doubt, as in many similar cases, the two words are
cognate and derived from a source older than either. This
word noe or nai has been long obsolete : but the diminutive
form noemhog or naomhog, which is pronounced naevogue,
is still in use for a curragh in the south of Ireland. In
Kilkee and elsewhere on the western coast you will see
plenty of canvas-covered curraghs : but they do not call
them curraghs or naevognes : " canoe " is now the word in
Kilkee. It is curious to see the middle v sound, which is
lost in noe, restored in naomhog. Other names for vessels
will be brought in as we go along.

In some old texts the word laidheng [lee-ang] is used
for a boat : and from the expression, " stitched laidheng,"
in one of them, we may infer that it was another name for
a curragh.* In O'Clery's Glossary libheam [livern] is
given as the equivalent of long, a ship. The Irish for an
oar is rdmh or ramha, which seems a loan-word from Lat.
remus. An oar or paddle was sometimes called sluasat,
which is the common word for a shovel. A sail is called
seol [shole] or brat : and a mast, crann, literally a " tree.'
The usual word for a pilot is luamaire [loomere]. For
the names of various other parts of ships and boats, see
" Mac Conglinne," p. 84.

There were two words to denote a fleet of ships or
boats : — hinges [ling-as], which is merely a derivative from
long ; and cobhlach [cowlagh], from cabhal or cobhal, a ship,
which seems connected with, or perhaps borrowed from,
Lat. caupulus, a small ship. What great numbers of boats
were in the fleets that navigated the rivers and lakes may
be gathered from a record of the Four Masters under a.d.
751, of the shipwreck of the people of Dealbhna Nuadhat
in the present county Roscommon, on Lough Ree, when
twenty-nine out of thirty vessels were lost in a storm, and
their crews were drowned with their chief. Tigernach

* Wars of GG., 40, s. Moylena, 45, „.

428 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

records that " the large fleet of Cormac mac Airt (third
century) was over the sea for the space of three years."

Ferry-boats were in common use in rivers ; and they
are often mentioned in the Brehon Laws as subject to
strict regulations. Cormac's Glossary explains the word
ethur or ethar : modern form eithear : both pron. eher) as
a boat that " goes from brink to brink of the river " ;
O'Clery's Glossary gives the same word as equivalent to
arthrach iomchuir, a ' boat for carrying ' or (ferrying) :
and the Senchus M6r gives a similar explanation : —
" Ethur [a boat which] ferries from bank to bank."* These
ferryboats were sometimes owned by individuals, and were
sometimes the common property of the people living round
the ferry. If a church or monastery happened to be near
a river where there was no bridge or ford, the inmates
usually kept a little ferry-boat for their own convenience
and for the free use of travellers, f

A ferry-boat, when not in use, was commonly kept high
and dry on the bank for its better preservation. Where a
boat was common property, it was usually given in charge
to one individual, who was then the regular ferryman.
When it was not so in charge, each person used it as he
needed : but he was responsible for leaving it on the bank
safe and uninjured when he was done with it. Those
using it had to bring it down to the water — or help to do
so — and where possible bring it back again : and the law
is very precise in regulating the fine for any injury in
moving it either way. J We have seen (p. 66) that the
ferry-boat of a crannoge was often kept floating in the
middle of the channel, with connecting ropes extending to
land on both sides. Pleasure boating parties were usual
in those days as well as now ; and young folk were just
as inclined to indulge in boisterous merriment ; of which

* Br. Laws, i. 126, top line.

f Br. Laws, in. 211, l8. Dr. Healy, Irel. Anc. Sch., 427, l6.

J For all these rules about ferry-boats, Br. Laws, in. 209, 211.

CHAP. XXVIIlj LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 4^9

it would seem the Brehon Law was in a way conscious ;
for it prescribes compensation in case the boat was injured
during a pleasure excursion.

5. Foreign Commerce.

Many passages referring to the communication of
Ireland with the outer world in ancient times will be
found scattered through this book : but it will be con-
venient to collect here under one heading a few special
notices bearing on the point. In the native Irish literature,
as well as in the writings of English, Anglo-Irish, and
foreign authors, there are many statements showing the
intercourse and trade of Ireland, both outwards and
inwards, with Britain and Continental countries. To begin
with early foreign testimony : — The island was known to
the Phoenicians, who probably visited it ; and Greek
writers mention it under the names Iernis and Ierne,
and as the Sacred Island inhabited by the Hiberni.
Ptolemy, writing in the second century, who is known to
have derived his information from Phoenician authorities,
has given a description of Ireland much more accurate
than that which he has left us of Great Britain. And
that the people of Ireland carried on considerable trade
with foreign countries in those early ages we know from
the statement of Tacitus, that in his time — the end of the
first century — the harbours of Ireland were better known
to commercial nations than those of Britain.* The natural
inference from these scattered but pregnant notices is that
the country had settled institutions and a certain degree
of civilisation — with more or less foreign commerce — as
early at least as the beginning of the Christian era.

These accounts, and others from foreign sources that
might be cited, are fully confirmed by the native records.
There are numerous passages in Irish literature — in the

* For all the above, see Moore, Hist, of Irel., vol. 1., chap, i., and the
authorities he refers to.

430 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Book of Rights, for instance — in which axe mentioned
articles of luxury, dress, gold and silver ornaments, swords,
shields, slaves, &c, imported from foreign lands. One of
the Law Tracts mentions a foreign axe (probably from
Gaul) as in use in Ireland, and in terms too implying that
it was highly valued.* In another authority, O'Davoren's
Glossary, a foreign axe is noticed in the following curious
terms : — " A foreign axe {Gall-Mail) perfect . . . with its
two black ears : "f and here it is set down as worth sixteen
scripuls, or about the value of a good milch cow. The
following incident in the Life of St. Columbanus is illus-
trative of the intercourse between Ireland and the coast of
Gaul in the beginning of the seventh century : — When the
authorities of Nantes wished to get rid of him by sending
him back to Ireland, in the year 610, there was no diffi-
culty about the conveyance, for they found ready in the
harbour a ship which was " engaged in the commerce of
the Scots."|

A section of the Book of Aicill (Br. Laws, in. 423)
is given up to muir-bretha or ' sea-laws,' namely, those
relating to trading vessels arriving on the Irish coast,
some from Britain, some from Continental countries : a
circumstance that of itself indicates constant traffic by
sea. This section mentions, as one of the mediums of
exchange between the Irish and their foreign visitors,
an " escup-vessel " of wine or of honey : and Cormac's
Glossarj'§ explains a " wine-escop " (epscop or escop-fina)
as being " a vessel for measuring wine among the mer-
chants of the Norsemen and Franks." In the account of
the great triennial fair of Carman in Kildare (see page
444, infra) we are told that there were three markets,
one of which was " a market of foreigners selling articles

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., n. 29, bot.

t Corm. Gloss., xn. : Three Ir. Gloss. 70, under " Cailech."

X Reeves, Adamn., 57, note d ; Lanigan, 11. 282.

§ Corm., p. 67 : see also " Esbicul," p. 69, same Glossary.

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 43 1

of gold and silver," who sold " gold [ornaments] and noble
clothes " : so that the fame of this fair found its way to the
Continent and attracted foreign merchants with their goods.
In the beginning of the fifth century, when St. Patrick,
escaping from slavery — as we are told in his " Confession "
— arrived on some part of the coast of Ireland, he found a
ship about to set sail : engaged of course in commerce.*

This commerce was not confined to the coasts. In
the " Life of St. Ciaran " it is related that on a certain
occasion a cask of wine was brought by merchants to
Clonmacnoise from the land of the Franks, f Wine was
imported too at a much earlier time than this, as we
know from the Memoir of St. Patrick written by Muirchu
in the seventh century, which mentions that when the saint
arrived at Tara on Easter Sunday, a.d. 433, he found King
Laegaire [Laery] and his nobles feasting and drinking
wine in the palace (manducandibus illis et bibentibus
vinum in palatio Temoriae).J

In the native legends and semi-legendary history, as
in the strictly historical Irish writings, there are constant
allusions to foreign intercourse and intermarriages : all
reflecting historical reality. In the Battle of Rossnaree
(Book of Leinster) it is stated that an embassy was sent to
some foreign countries from Concobar mac Nessa, and that
the pilot who went with them was Cano the foreigner
(Cano Gall), " to teach them the way over the surface of
the sea."§ The wife of Eochaidh, king of the Firbolgs,
was Taillte, daughter of the king of Spain, from whom
Tailltenn in Meath took its name.|| The various royal
families of Ireland, from the fifth to the eighth century,
intermarried among those of Scotland and Britain quite
as much as among those of their own country : so that in

* Trip. Life, 362, top. Meyer, in the Courtship of Emer,

f Stokes, Lives of SS., 276 : p. 303, note 5, illustrative of the

Adamnan, 57, note d. intercourse of the Irish with the

% Trip. Life, 282. Scandinavians.
§ Rossnaree, 13. See also Kuno || O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 1. 148

432 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

most of the great wars and battles in Ireland we read of
the kings and chiefs of both sides being joined by con-
tingents from their relatives in those countries.*

Giraldus Cambrensis has been quoted (i. 164, supra)
for the statement that slaves were imported in great
numbers from England, the chief mart for this trade
being Bristol : and our own records show that foreign
slaves — " slaves without Gaelic," to quote the old writer's
expression, i.e. not speaking Irish — were imported (vol L,
p. 165, supra). The Senchus M6r, in setting forth the law
of distress for certain articles, names among them a lock
for securing things brought from beyond the sea : and the
Gloss explains this as meaning young foreigners ; which
possibly may point to slaves imported from the Continent. f

The various articles mentioned here as brought from
foreign lands were imported to supplement the home
produce ; in which there was nothing more remarkable
than our present importation of thousands of articles from
foreign countries, all or most of which are also produced at
home. The articles anciently imported were paid for in
home commodities — skins and furs of various animals,
wool and woollens, oatmeal, fish, salted hogs, &c.

At a comparatively late time — the twelfth century —
Giraldus Cambrensis tells us that the Irish exchanged
their home produce — chiefly hides — with France, especially
Poitou, for wine : which agrees with the incident related
above about Clonmacnoise. Giraldus also relates that when
the Anglo-Normans under Robert Fitzstephen came to
attack Wexford in 1169, many ships lay in the harbour,
among which was one lately arrived from the coast of
Britain laden with corn and wine.

Long after the Anglo-Norman Invasion the export
and import trade continued. We know that in the
thirteenth century Irish woollen cloth was exported to

* As illustrative of this, see Dr. Healy, Anc. Ir. Sch., 25, bot. : Moyrath,
45. 47> 65 ; and vol. 1., p. 79, supra. \ Br. Laws, 1. 127, 3. 143, l6.

CHAP. XXVIII] LOCOMOTION AND COMMERCE 433

England : and in the next century we find Irish frieze —
or " fryseware," as it is called — mentioned as being freed
from " aulnage " or duty when exported to England. In
1300, the army of Edward I., while in Scotland, was sup-
plied with wheat, oats, oatmeal, pease, beans, wine, beer,
salt, and hogs, purchased in Ireland.* The " Libel of
English Policie " (about 1430), p. 199, has the following
passage enumerating the exports of Ireland : —

" I caste to speake of Ireland but a litle :
Commodities of it I will entitle,
Hides, and fish, Salmon, Hake, Herrynge
Irish wooll, and linen cloth, faldinge [a coarse kind of cloth]
And marterns [martens] goode ben her marchandie,
Hertes [harts'] Hides, and other of Venerie [hunting].
Skinnes of Otter, Squirell and Irish hare,
Of sheepe, Lambe, and Foxe, is her chaffare [merchandise],
Felles [skins] of Kiddes, and Conies great plentie.

******

Of siluer and golde there is the oore."

This trade continued and increased as time went on,
There appeared life and activity everywhere, and the
country was becoming great and prosperous. But all
this came to a sudden end ; for the manufactures and
commercial prosperity of Ireland were swept off the face
of the earth in the seventeenth century by the lawsf
made to destroy Irish trade ; a blow which at once reduced
the country to poverty, and from which it has never
recovered.

* " Introduction towards a History of Irish Commerce," by William
Pinkerton ; Ulst. Journ. Archaeol., in. 177.

f For these laws, see Jsyce, A Child's History of Ireland, p. 394.

Ornament : composed from the Book of Kclls,

CHAPTER XXIX

PUBLIC ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES

Section i. The Great Conventions and Fairs.

ook their rise in Funeral Games.— Public
assemblies of different kinds, held
periodically, for various purposes and
with several designations, formed a marked
and important feature of social life in
ancient Ireland. Most of the great meet-
ings, by whatever name known, had their origin in Funeral
Games. Tara, Tailltenn, Tlachtga, Ushnagh, Cruachan,
Emain Macha, and other less prominent meeting-places,
are well known as ancient pagan cemeteries, in all of which
many illustrious semi-historical personages were interred :
and many sepulchral monuments remain in them to this
day. In the account given in the Book of Ballymote of
the triennial fair of Carman or Garman, in Kildare, we
are told that when old Garman, a chief who was contem-
porary with the heroes of the Red Branch, was dying,
" they made his grave there ; and he begged of them to
" institute a fair of mourning (aenach n-guba) for him, and
" that the fair and the place should bear his name for
" ever " : and accordingly the place took his name (Carman)

434

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 435

and the Fair was held there for ages afterwards.* The
double purpose is shown very clearly in the account of
the origin of Carn-Amhalgaidh [Awly], near Killala : —
" Carn-Amhalgaigh, i.e. of Amhalgaidh, son of Fiachra-
" Ealgach, son of Dathi, son of Fiachra. It was by him
" that this earn was formed, for the purpose of holding a
" meeting (aenach) of the Hy Amhalgaidh around it every
" year, and to view his ships and fleets going and coming,
" and as a place of interment for himself, "f In the Dinn-
senchus, as well as in other authorities, we are told that
Oenach Macha, i.e. the annual fair-meeting at Emain, was
established to lament the death of Queen Macha of the
Golden Hair, who had founded the palace there. J

Important affairs of various kinds, national or local,
were transacted at these meetings. The laws were publicly
promulgated or rehearsed to make the people familiar with
them. There were councils or courts to consider divers
local matters — questions affecting the rights, privileges,
and customary usages of the people of the district or
province — acts of tyranny or infringement of rights by
powerful persons on their weaker neighbours — disputes
about property — the levying of fines — the imposition of
taxes for the construction or repair of roads — the means
of defence to meet a threatened invasion, and so forth.
These several functions were discharged by persons
specially qualified. In all the fairs there were markets for
the sale and purchase of commodities, whether produced
at home or imported.

Some meetings were established and convened chiefly
for the transaction of serious business : but even at these
there were sports in abundance : in others the main object
was the celebration of games : but advantage was taken of

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 529, s. For another account see same vol.,
P- 535, verse 19 : and LL, 215, a.

f Book of Lecan, cited in Petrie, Round Towers, 108
X Stokes, Rennes Dinds., in Rev. Celt., xvi. 45.

436 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

the occasions to discuss and settle important affairs, as will
be described further on. The word Fes or Feis [faish],
which literally means a feast or celebration, cognate with
Latin festum and English feast, was generally applied to
the three great meetings of Tara, Croghan, and Emain (FSis
Temrach, Feis Cruachan, and Feis Emna, respectively).
These were not meetings for the general mass of the
people, but conventions of delegates who represented the
kingdoms and sub-kingdoms, i.e. the states in general of
all Ireland, who sat and deliberated under the presidency
of the supreme monarch.*

The Feis-Temrach or convention of Tara, according to
the old tradition, was founded by Ollam Fodla [Ollav-
Fola], who was king of Ireland seven or eight centuries
before the Christian era. It was originally held, or
intended to be held, every third year, but within the
period covered by our authentic records, it was generally
convened only once by each king, namely at the beginning
of his reign, or if at any other time it was on some special
emergency. The provincial kings, the minor kings and
chiefs, and the most distinguished representatives of the
learned professions — the ollaves of history, law, poetry,
medicine, &c. — attended. It lasted — as we read in some
authorities — for seven days, namely from the third day
before Samain (ist November) to the third day after it :
but according to other accounts it continued for a whole
month, i.e. " a fortnight before Samain and the day of
Samain, and a fortnight after " ; and still another makes it
six weeks, f Possibly the sports lasted for a week, like
those of Carman (p. 441, below) : but the meetings of
delegates and ollaves for the discussion of important
public affairs were held on — like our present parliaments
— for some weeks longer. Each provincial king had a

* Keating, 414, 418.

t Stokes, Lives of SS., Pref., xxxiii : Stokes, Acallamh, line 5367, and
p. 47, two last lines ; see also Silva Gad. 142, bottom.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 437

separate house for himself and his retinue during the time ;
and there was one house for their queens, with private
apartments for each, with her attendant ladies. There
was still another house called Relta na bh-filedh [Railtha-
na- villa], the ' star of the poets,' for the accommodation
of the poets and ollaves of all the professions, where
also these learned men held their sittings.* Every day
the king of Ireland feasted the company in the great
banqueting-hall — or, as it was called, the Tech Midchuarta
or ' mead-circling-hall " — which was large enough for a
goodly company : for even in its present ruined state it
is 759 feet long by 46 feet wide.

In the same hall were held the formal meetings for the
transaction of important business, such as proclaiming the
Laws, making new regulations for the whole country where
necessary, examining and checking the historical records
of the kingdom, and correcting them if found defective or
wrong. All these functions were discharged by experts :
and at the end of the fits the whole proceedings were
written by properly qualified ollaves in the national record
called the Saltair of Tara. These are the accounts left
us in our oldest traditions. That the meetings were
held here is not however a matter of tradition, but of
unquestionable history. The last Feis Temrach was con-
vened by Dermot king of Ireland, in a.d. 560, after which
Tara was abandoned as a royal residence, on account of a
curse pronounced against it in very solemn fashion by
St. Ruadan of Lorrha in Tipperary.

According to the account given by Keating, who took
the statement from old authorities now no longer existing,
the conventions of Emain and Croghan were largely con-
cerned with industrial affairs. The ollaves and nobles —
as already stated at page 329 — selected from many candi-
dates a number, the best of each craft, who were, as we
should express it, " certificated " as persons duly qualified

* Keating, 414, from old authorities.

43$ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

to practise their several trades, each in his own district :
which gave them at once legal standing and legal rights
in all cases of dispute.*

The dal [dawl] was a meeting convened for some
special purpose commonly connected with the tribe or
district : a folkmote.f A mordal or arddal (tndr, great :
drd, high) was a great, or chief, or very important assembly.
These two last terms are often applied to such assemblies
as those of Tara, Tailltenn, and Ushnagh.

The aenach or fair was an assembly of the people of
every grade without distinction : it was the most common
kind of large public meeting, and its main object was
the celebration of games, athletic exercises, sports, and
pastimes of all kinds. In Cormac's Glossary! an aenach
is well characterised as a place where there were " food
" and precious raiment, downs and quilts, ale and flesh-
" meat, chessmen and chessboards, horses and chariots,
" greyhounds and playthings besides." In a still older
authority, the story of the Sick Bed of Cuculainn§ in the
Book of the Dun Cow, copied from the Yellow Book of
Slane, we read : — " That was the period of time which the
" Ultonians devoted to the holding of the fair of Samain
" in the plain of Murthemne [the level part of the County
" Louth] every year : and nothing whatever was done by
" them during that time but games and races, pleasure and
" amusement, eating and feasting : and it is from this
" circumstance that the Trenae Samna (' three days of
" Samain ') are still observed throughout Erin."

The Fairs of Tailltenn, Tlachtga, Ushnagh, The Curragh,
Nenagh, Aenach-Beag. — The most important of the Aenachs
were those of Tailltenn, Tlachtga, and Ushnagh. The Fair
of Tailltenn, || now Teltown on the Blackwater, midway

* See O'Conor, Dissert., 42 : and O'Flaherty, Ogyg., Part in., chap, lvi.:
Keating, 419. t Dah forum, Zeuss, 71, ^

X Corm., page 129, " Ore treith." § Atlantis, 1. 371.

|| I have had the advantage of perusing Mr. Edward Gwynn's Todd
Lecture on the Aenach Tailtenn, of which he lent me the manuscript.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 439

between Navan and Kells, was attended by people from
the whole of Ireland, as well as from Scotland, and was
the most celebrated of all for its athletic games and
sports : corresponding closely with the Olympic, Isthmian,
and other games of Greece. It was held yearly on the
ist August, and on the days preceding and following.
What vast numbers were congregated during these games
will be seen from the Four Masters' record of the last
official aenach held there, a.d. 1169, by Roderick O'Conor,
king of Ireland, when the horses and chariots alone,
exclusive of the people on foot, extended in a continuous
line from Tailltenn to Mullach-Aiti, now the Hill of Lloyd
near Kells, a distance of more than six English miles.
This aenach was originally instituted, according to the
old legend, by the De Dannan king Lugad, or Lug of the
Long Arms, to mourn and commemorate his foster-mother,
Tailltiu, who was buried there under a mound, and from
whom the place took its name. From Lug the first of
August was named Lugnasad, meaning the nasad or games,
of Lug : a name still in use.

Marriages formed a special feature of this fair. " From
" all the surrounding districts the young people came with
" their parents, bachelors and maidens being kept apart in
" separate places, while the fathers and mothers made
" matches, arranged the details, and settled the dowries.
" After this the couples were married, the ceremonies being
" always performed at a particular spot."* Hence, accord-
ing to Cormac's Glossary (p. 48), a hillock there had the
name of Tulach-na-Coibche, " the hill of the buying,"
where the bride-price was paid. All this is remembered
in tradition to the present day : and the people of the
place point out the spot where the marriages were per-
formed, which they call " Marriage Hollow." The remains
of several immense forts are still to be seen at Teltown,

* From Joyce, Short History of Ireland, 90.

440 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

even larger than those at Tara, though not in such good
preservation.*

O'Donovan carefully examined this historic site in 1836
for the Ordnance Survey, and found among the people
vivid traditions of the old customs. Though the younger
generation, when speaking English, called it Teltown, the
older Irish-speaking people never used any name but
Tailltenn. They told him too that games were carried
on there " down to 30 years ago " — i.e. to 1806 — but that,
on account of the increasing manufacture of pottheen
whiskey — instead of the old native drinks, ale and mead —
there were quarrels and scenes of violence, so that the
magistrates at last put a stop to the meetings, f

The meetings at Tlachtga and Ushnagh, which have
already been mentioned, seem to have been mainly pagan
religious celebrations : but games, buying and selling, and
conferences on local affairs, were carried on there as at the
other assemblies. One of the most noted of all the fairs
was Aenach Col main on the Curragh of Kildare, which is
noticed in sect. 5 below (p. 464) in connexion with races.
The memory of one important fair is preserved in the name
of Nenagh in Tipperary, in which the initial N is the Irish
article an, ' the ' : N-enagh, ' the fair.' The yearly fair
held here was called Aenach-Urmhumhan [Enagh-Uroon],
meaning the Fair of Urmhumha, i.e. of Ormond or East
Munster : and the old people still call Nenagh " Aenach-
Uroon " ; but they have quite forgotten the meaning
of uroon. So also Monasteranenagh in Limerick, the
' Monastery of the Fair,' which in old times, before
the monastery was thought of, was called Aenach-beag,
' Little Fair,' to distinguish it from the Great Fair of
Nenagh. I

* See Wilde, Boyne, 149, 150 : Stokes, Life of Petrie, 366.
f O'Donovan's Ord. Surv. Letters, Roy. Ir. Acad. (Meath) • Letter on
the parish of Teltown.

J For more on these see Irish Names of Places, 1. 204-206.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 44I

2. The Fair of Carman.

The people of Leinster held a provincial aenach at
Carman, a place situated probably in South Kildare, once
every three years, which began on Lughnasad [Loonasa],
i.e. the first of August, and ended on the sixth. It was
considered so important to hold this fair that in case the
Leinstermen should ever neglect it — a very unlikely thing —
the poem in the Book of Leinster (p. 215, a) giving an
account of the celebration, threatens them with many
evils — early greyness ; baldness (see p. 182, supra) ; feeble-
ness ; kings without wisdom or dignified manners, without
hospitality, without truthfulness. But if the fair was duly
held, they were promised various blessings — plenty and
prosperity, corn, milk, fruit, and fish, in abundance ; and
freedom from subjection to any other province.*

Fortunately we have, in the Book of Leinster, the Book
of Ballymote, and some other ancient manuscripts pretty
full descriptions — chiefly poems — of this particular aenach.
The poem in the Book of Leinster was written by a poet
named Fulartach, about a.d. 1000. The several accounts,
which are printed in the second vol. of O'Curry's " Man.
& Cust." (Appendix) differ somewhat in detail : but the
following abridged description, drawn from all, will give
a good idea of the arrangements and proceedings, not only
of this fair, but of all others wheresoever held.f The
representative character of the Fair of Carman, as intended
for the whole of Leinster, will be seen from the statement
in one of the old accounts that forty-seven sub-kings or
chiefs of the province [with their people] attended it : —
viz. sixteen from Carman itself and the surrounding dis-
tricts ; eight from the territory of Hy Donoghue around

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11., pp. 547 and 531.

t Cuan O'Lochain's Poem in the Book of Leinster (LL, 200, b ; Man.
& Cust., 1. 148) describes the Fair of Tailltenn somewhat similarly, but
not nearly in such detail.

442 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

the River Dodder near Dublin ; twelve from the Plain of
Maistiu, i.e. the district round Mullamast in Kildare ; five
from Fidh-Gabhla, now Figile in King's County ; and six
from Ossory.*

There was much formality in the arrangements. While
the chief men were sitting in council under the king of
Leinster, who presided over all, those belonging to the
several sub-kingdoms had special places allotted to them
in the council-house or enclosure, which were jealously
insisted on. The forud or sitting-place of the king of
Ossory — a sub-kingdom of Leinster — was on the right
hand of the king of Leinster, and that of the king of Offaly
on his left : and each of the other sub-kings had his own
special place assigned to him. Each day but the last
appears to have been given up to the games of some
particular tribe or class. For instance, we are told the
people of Ossory had a special day for themselves for
what was called the " steed contest of the Ossorians,"
i.e. for their chariot and horse races, f Another day was
set apart for royalty, when roydamnas or crown princes
contended, and none others were permitted to enter
(Man. & Cust., II., p. 539, last verse).

Women played a conspicuous part in this fair, and of
course in all others. There were special cluichi or games
for them in the afternoon which are called cluichi ban
Laigen iar lo, ' the games of the women of Leinster in
the evening,' but what kind they were we are not told.
To the Laisig (i.e. the people of Laighis or Leix) was
entrusted the important and delicate duty of superin-
tending these games ; and they were responsible not only
for the good order of the proceedings, but also for the
safety of the jewellery, which the Leinster women wore
in abundance, and which they had to lay aside during
the games. J

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11., p. 539. t Ibid., 529, par. 4

j Ibid., 539, verses 44, 45.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 443

The women had airechts or councils of their own to
discuss those subjects specially pertaining to women : and
at these assemblies no man was permitted to be present :
while, on the other hand, no woman was allowed to enter
the special council meetings of the men (Man. & Cust., n.,
p. 543, ver. 55). In those formal sittings that were open
to both sexes, the women were seated with their own people,
in the special places set apart for the representatives of their
respective tribes (ibid., p. 529, par. 4).

Conspicuous among the entertainments and art-per-
formances was the recitation of poems and romantic tales
of all the various kinds mentioned in I. 533, supra, like
the recitations of the Rhapsodists among the Greeks : —
" The Tales of the Fena of Erin " — says the old account —
" a never- wearying entertainment : stories of destructions,
" cattle-preys, courtships, rhapsodies, battle-odes, royal
" precepts, and the truthful instruction of Fithil the Sage :
" poets and learned men with their tablets and books of
" trees (1. 480, supra) : deep poetry, and Dinnsenchus or.
" History of Places : the wise precepts of Carbery and
" Cormac Mac Art " (Man. & Cust., 11. 543). For all of
these there were sure to be special audiences who listened
with delight to the fascinating lore of old times.

Music always formed a prominent part of the amuse-
ments : and among the musical instruments are mentioned
cruits or harps ; timpans ; trumpets ; wide-mouthed horns;
cuisig or pipes ; and there were plenty of harpers ; pipers ;
fiddlers ; bone-men (cnamh-fhir) , i.e. castanet-players ;
" tube-players " ; and fir-congail or ' chain-men,' probably
men who shook music from chains furnished with little
bells like those already described in vol. 1., page 586,
supra. In another part of the fair the people gave them-
selves up to uproarious fun, crowded round showmen,
jugglers, and clowns with grotesque masks or painted
faces, making hideous distortions, all bellowing and roaring
out their rough jests to the laughing crowds : for there

444 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE |_PART ni

were " professors of every art, both the noble arts and the
base arts."* There were also performers of horsemanship,
who delighted their audiences with feats of activity and
skill on horseback, such as we see in modern circuses.
The Brehon Law (v. 109) mentions " equestrians, namely,
those who stand on the backs of horses at fairs."

Prizes were awarded to the best performers of " every
" dan or art that was just or lawful to be sold, or rewarded,
" or exhibited, or listened to " : which excluded from any
prize, showmen and all other exhibitors of the baser sortf :
and at the close of the proceedings the coveted trophy —
always a thing of value, generally a gold ring, or some
other jewel — was publicly presented by some important
person, such as a king, a queen, or a chief.

Special portions of the fair-green were set apart for
another very important function — buying and selling. We
are told that there were " three [principal] markets : viz. a
" market of food and clothes : a market of live stock and
" of horses ; while a third was railed off for the use of
" foreign merchants with gold and silver articles and
" fine raiment to sell. "J There was the " slope of the
embroidering women," who did their work in presence of
spectators (Man. & Cust., 11., p. 547, verse 76). A special
space was assigned for cooking (verse 76), which must have
been on an extensive scale to feed such multitudes.

On each day of the fair there was a conference of the
brehons, chiefs, and leading men in general, to regulate the
fiscal and other local affairs of the province for that and
the two following years : or, as the old account has it, " for
" considering the judgments and rights of the province for
" three years. "§

Possibly some readers may think it strange that in all
this detailed list of amusements we do not find a word

* O'Curry, Man. & Cust., n. 545, verse 63 : and 531, note, line 16. For

showmen's face-distortions, see p. 486, below. f Ibid., 531, note, line 20

X Ibid., 531 ; 547, verse 75. § Ibid., 543, verses 53, 54 ; 530 note.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 445

about dancing. There is, in fact, no evidence that the
ancient Irish ever danced to music, or danced at all, i.e.
in our sense of the word " dancing " ; but very strong
negative evidence that they did not. Though we have in
the old literature many other passages in which the several
amusements at popular gatherings are enumerated,* on no-
one of them is dancing mentioned. This curious fact has
been already noticed by O'Curry, who, after all his vast
reading of native literature, says : — " As far as I have ever
" read there is no reference that can be identified as con-
" taining a clear allusion to dancing in any of our really
" ancient ms. books."f So also Stokes : — " Dancing is not
" mentioned in the documents now published [in his Trip.
" Life], nor, indeed, in any Irish mss. that I have read."
(Trip. Life, clviii). We have now two Irish words for
dancing : — damhsa, which may be passed over, as it is
obviously a modern adaptation of the English " dance " :
and rinncedh, which is a native word, derived, according
to 0'Curry,| from rinn, an old word for foot (see Corra.
145, "Rind"), and the termination cedh: so that rinncedh
literally means ' footing.' But it does not seem to be an
old word.

What appears to be a sort of confirmation of all this
occurs in a passage in a Homily on the Passion of John
the Baptist, published by Dr. Atkinson from the Liber
Brecc, where the Irish homilist is giving a free rendering
of the Bible narrative about Herodias' daughter dancing
before King Herod. He had before him the Vulgate word
saltavit (' she danced ') : but it would almost appear as if
he did not know how to render it into Irish, possibly not
knowing what " dancing " was.§ His words are that the
girl was skilled in clesaighecht ocus lemenda ocus opairecht,

* As, for instance, in the Courtship of Emer, 69.

j O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 406. J Ibid., 11. 407.

§ Something like what happened when the Irish annotator, having
never seen a fiber or beaver, but knowing well what an otter was, explained
fiber by dobran, or ' otter.' (See p. 462 farther on.)

446 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

' juggling and leaping and activity ' ; where lemenda simply
means ' leaping/ but not ' dancing ' as such.* So far as I
am aware, the Irish words leim, Uimenn, Umenda mean
exactly the same as the English words " leap," " leaping,"
and nothing more. When we now wish to express in Irish
the special sense of " dancing," the word leimenn, ' leaping,'
will not answer : we have to employ a different word
(rincedh or damhsa) : just as we have to do in English.
But the Irish translator had no word but one : and accord-
ingly used the Irish word lemenda in its primary sense of
leaping merely, to represent " saltavit." In the " Circuit of
Muirchertach mac Neill " (p. 45), which celebrates an event
that took place a.d. 941, the English translation has —
" Music we had on the plain and in our tents, listening to
its strains we danced awhile " : but the three last words are
inserted by O'Donovan (in italics), and have no corre-
sponding words in the original. Yet the men kept time
with the music — as the poem expresses it — " by the shaking
of our hard cloaks " : but not by dancing.

When the evening of the last day had come, and all
was ended, the men of the entire assembly stood up and
made a great clash with their spears, each man striking
the handle of the next man's spear with the handle of his
own : which was the signal for the crowds to disperse, f
It always took two years to make the preparations for
the holding of this fair 4 After the introduction of
Christianity in the fifth century, the pagan customs were
discontinued, and Christian ceremonies were introduced.
Each day was ushered in with a religious exercise, and on
the next day after the fair there was a grand ceremonial :
Masses and adorations and singing of hymns.§ But beyond
this there was little or no change.

We have seen that a fair-green was usually called
faithche [faha] : and a small portion of the faithche of

* Homilies, 66, 307 : Matthew, xiv. 6. % Man- & Cust., 11. 531, note, line 4.
t Man. & Cust., n. 545, verse 70. § Ibid., 11. 545, verse 67.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 447

some forgotten fair-sports still retains the name in " The
Fay the," a level spot near the present town of Wexford.
The correspondence between these fairs and the Greek
celebrations for similar purposes will be obvious to every-
one : and it is worth observing that the Carman festival
bore a closer resemblance to the Isthmian games, where
there were contests in poetry and music, than to those of
Olympia, where there were none.

3. General Regulations for Meetings.

The accounts that have come down to us show that
the ancient Irish were very careful that there should be
no quarrelling or fighting, or unseemly disturbance of any
kind that might " spoil sport," at the formal dais or aenachs,
or meetings, for whatever purpose convened. The Senchus
Mor, and the glosses and commentaries on it, mention fines
for creating disturbance or being guilty of any misconduct
while the people were assembled* : and any serious breach
of rule was punished with death. The Poem on Carman
says : —

" Whoever [seriously] transgresses the law of the assembly,
Which Benen with accuracy indelibly wrote,
Cannot be spared upon family composition,
But he must die for his transgression."!

Whatever causes of quarrel may have existed between
clans or individuals, whatever grudges may have been
nurtured, all had to be repressed during these meetings.
Even proceedings likely to lead to disputes were forbidden,
such as elopements, repudiation of wives by husbands, or
the reverse. There were to be no distraints or other pro-
cesses for the recovery of debts, so that a debtor, however
deeply involved, might enjoy himself here with perfect
safety and freedom from arrest. J Hence we find the old

* Br. Laws, 1. 231, bottom ; 175, bottom ; 177, I2. 233, last line,
f Man. & Cust., 11. 543, verse 56. J Ibid., 11. 543, verses 53, 54, 55.

44§ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

writer boasting, with natural pride, " the Gentiles of the
Gael," i.e. the Irish pagans of pre-Christian times, cele-
brated the fair of Carman " without breach of law, without
crime, without violence, without dishonour."* Similarly,
Cuan O'Lochain is at great pains to detail the precautions
for peace at Tailltenn (LL, 200, b, 40-47).

A very few cases of serious violation of the law are
recorded, as when " Fogartach O'Carney disturbed the
fair [of Tailltenn], for he killed Maelruba the son of
Dubhsleibhe " (FM, 715). But the annalists record them
as exceptional : as in the present case, where they
obviously look upon the breach of the peace as the
important and unusual circumstance. The reader will
perceive that all this runs parallel with the sacred armis-
tice proclaimed by the Greeks at their Olympic and
Isthmian games. Indeed an expression in Cuan O'Loch-
ain's poem is almost identical with some phrases in the
Greek accounts, where he tells us (LL, 200, b, 46) that
among the multitudes attending the fair of Tailltenn,
whether from Ireland or Scotland, there was " one uni-
versal fair-truce " (oen chair de oenig). Where such vast
numbers of chariots were congregated there was always
liability to accidents. The law took cognisance of these ;
and provision was made that in case a chariot should be
broken, or anyone was injured by furious driving, or should
any other accident occur, the persons responsible should
be made liable, but should at the same time be protected
from vexatious prosecutions, f

The Law made provision for having the fair-green, and
particularly that part of it devoted to special purposes, kept
in proper order. This duty was assigned to certain persons
of the neighbourhood, whose business it was to clear away
the brambles and rubbish immediately before the fair, and
to keep the spaces clear during the sports : and for the

* Man. & Cust., 11. 537, verse 31. f Br. Laws, in. 265, bottom.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 449

neglect of this duty there was a penalty.* They were of
course paid in some way, but on this point we have no
information. When to anyone was assigned the task of
making a fair-green, he had to furnish it with fences and
mounds (claide and ferta), wherever they were required
for such purposes as jumping, racing, special assemblies,
&c. : and here also was provided a penalty if the structures
were not properly made.f

Besides the large fairs or other assemblies, there were
smaller meetings for special purposes, such as councils of
representative men to deliberate on local matters. These
were generally held in the open air on little hills, J and were
called airecht, oirecht, or oirechtas,§ from oire or aire, a
chief or leading man ; for the local king or chief always
presided at them. The custom of holding oirechts was
continued down to the end of the sixteenth century.
Spenser (View, 126) notices them as carried on in his time :
and the word was familiarly used in an anglicised form by
English writers of the time of Elizabeth. In the agreement
between the Anglo-Irish council of Dublin and O'Reilly,*
in 1583, it is laid down : — " He [O'Reilly] shall not
" assemble the queen's people [i.e. his own people, over
" whom in common with all the rest of the Irish the
" queen claimed to be sovereign lady] upon hills, or use
" any Irachtes or paries upon hills."||

A hill of this kind, set apart for meetings, was some-
times called tulach, which is a name for any small hill, or
tulach airechtais, or ard-airechtais, ' hill of meeting ' ; and
also ri-bheann, i.e. royal benn or hill : i.e. devoted to the
king's business.^ But it was also designated by the special

* Br. Laws, 1. 123, 34. 129, I3. f Br. Laws, 1. 157, 34. 159, last line.

% Moyrath, 67, bottom : Br. Laws, in. 297, l6.

§ See " Aireachta " in O'Donovan, Supplement. The above words
will be found in Irish dictionaries.

|| Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy, 11. 159.

^f Br. Laws, 1. 175, bottom: 177, I2. Sick Bed, Atlantis, 1. 384, l8.
Moyrath, 92, 5. O'Donovan, Supplement, " Ribheann."

G I

450 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

name aibinn or aiminn [eevinj, which the gloss on the
Senchus Mor explains by suide-ddla [see-dawla] i.e. the
' seat of the ddl or meeting ' : ' convention-seat.'* Hills
devoted to this particular purpose were held in much
veneration, and were not to be put to any other use.
Ferflatha O'Gnive, the ollave poet of the O'Neills of
Clannaboy in the time of Elizabeth, lamenting the decay
of the old Gaelic customs, says that now, alas, the sacred
meeting hills are no longer frequented : they are tilled
and cropped and used as common market-places, f

Great care was taken that they should be kept in
proper order : and anyone who stripped sods from the
surface or dug into them for any purpose was fined. Cows
were not permitted to graze on a convention-hill : and if
the smooth surface happened to get broken up from any
cause it should be strewn with fine clay which was to be
trampled down and made smooth before the meeting. If
the meeting had to be held while the hill happened to be
bare of grass, or rough, or dirty, the person having the
management of the ddl should have cloths of some kind
spread under the feet of kings, and rushes for the other
chief people. J The very name of these assembly-hills
seems to indicate that they were deliberately selected for
their pretty appearance : for aibinn (or aiminn as other
authorities have it) denotes anything beautiful, cognate
with Latin amoen-us : and indeed the Law tells us ex-
pressly that, as the name of a meeting-hill, this is the
sense it bears.§

At small meetings held in a building or any other con-
fined space, the president, when he wanted silence, shook
what was called the " chain of attention " (slabra estechta),
which was hung with little bells or loose links that gave
forth a musical sound. In the story of the Sons of Turenn

* Br. Laws, i. 167, 35; 170, IS. 171, 19.

f Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy, II. 106, second verse.

} Br. Laws, 1. 171, so- in. 297. § Ibid., in. 297 ; iv. 215, m

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 451

(p. 185) we read that Luga of the Long Arms, sitting
beside the king of Ireland in the hall of Tara, and wishing
to address the assembly, ordered the chain of attention of
the court to- be shaken, which procured him silence. More
often it was a branch hung with little bells : this was called
craeb [crave], or craeb sida. ' branch of peace.' At the feast
in the house of Bricriu, when a dangerous dispute arose
and there was a great and noisy contention, Sencha the
brehon arose and shook the Craebh Sencha (i.e. ' Sencha's
branch '), which produced instant silence and attention.*
This musical branch with silver bells figures in many of
the romantic tales, f There were other ways of procuring
attention at feasts and meetings. When there arose some
noisy confusion at a feast, King Concobar gave one of his
usual signals by striking the bronze pillar that supported
the canopy of his couch with his silver do or wand. Some-
times the president hushed all talk and noise by merely
standing up, like the Speaker in the House of Commons.
At the feast at Dun-da-bend (now Mountsandal over the
Bann near Coleraine), while the talk and enjoyment went
on without restraint, Concobar, sitting on his " hero-seat "
at the head, and wishing to speak to the assembly, rose
up ; and " mute and silent became the Ultonians when
" they saw the king standing, so that if a needle fell from
" roof to floor, it would be heard." j

4. Some Animals connected with Hunting and Sport.

The Dog. — Dogs of all kinds were used by the people
of Ireland quite as much in ancient times as they are now :
but hunting-dogs have, as might be expected, impressed
themselves most of all on the literature. By far the most
celebrated of the native dogs was the Irish wolf-dog, noted

* Fled Brier., 35 : Ir. Texte, 1. 267, a. See also Hyde, Ir. Lit., 296, top.
f As in Voyage of Bran, 1., p. 2 : and the Story of Cormac Mac Art and
the Musical Branch, Oss. Soc, in. 213. See vol. 1., p. 586, supra.
% Mesca Ulad., 13, bottom.

452 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

for its size and fierceness. There is no doubt that this
gigantic animal existed in Ireland from the earliest times,
as is proved by unquestionable authorities, one of which
is quoted below : but it is curious that it is chiefly from
English and foreign writers we get such precise informa-
tion as enables us to form an idea of its actual size. It was
so familiar at home that the native writers did not think
it necessary to describe it.

In the ancient Irish tales the hunting-dogs are con-
stantly mentioned in terms of great admiration, as large
and strong : but these references are vague, and many
persons might regard them as high-sounding poetical
exaggerations. There is nothing poetically vague however
in the statement of Campion, the English Jesuit, who
visited Ireland, and wrote a short history of it in 1571.
He says (p. 13) : — " They [the Irish] are not without
" wolves, and greyhounds to hunt them, bigger of bone
" and limme than a colt." Twelve centuries before his
time, a Roman citizen named Flavianus, who had visited
Britain, presented seven Irish dogs (Scotici canes) to his
brother Symmachus, a Roman consul, for the games at
Rome (a.d. 391) — though we are left in the dark as to
how he procured the animals — a gift which Symmachus
acknowledges in a letter still extant : — " All Rome," he
says, " viewed them with wonder and thought they must
have been brought hither in iron cages."* Among the
numerous passages in native Irish writings mentioning
this great Irish greyhound I can find only one that gives
an idea of its actual size, quoted by the Rev. Dr. Hogan
(Wolf-dog, p. 164) from the Book of Lismore, a manuscript
copied in the fifteenth century from much older sources,
which states : — " Each of these hounds is as big as an ass."

* This letter is referred to and partly quoted in Harris's Ware (Antiqq.,
166) : the original Latin passage may be seen in the Rev. Dr. Hogan's
" Irish Wolfdog," page 153, and a translation of it at page n of the same
book.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 453

From the fifteenth, to the eighteenth century Irish wolf-
dogs were, it might be said, celebrated all over the world,
so that they were sent as valuable presents to kings and
emperors, princes, grand Turks, noblemen, queens, and
highborn ladies, in all the chief cities of Europe, and even
in India and Persia.* It is strange that Giraldus Cam-
brensis does not notice these dogs : they must have been
in the country in his time ; and if he had seen them he
would certainly have mentioned them. After the final
extinction of wolves in Ireland in the early part of the
eighteenth century, the need for these great dogs ceased,
and the race was let die out.f

The word cu, genitive con, was generally applied to any
fierce dog, this term being qualified by certain epithets to
denote dogs of various kinds. A greyhound or hunting-dog,
whether a wolf-dog or any other, was commonly called
milchu. In Cormac's Glossary (p. 115) the s}7llable mil is
explained mdl, a king, so that according to this authority
milchu is cu-mdl, the hound of a king — which is I fear all
fanciful. O'Davoren in his Glossary explains milchu by
gadhar [gy-er ■ g hard] which is still the common word for a
beagle or small hound. At the present time the most general
name for a dog is madra or mada, which is also an old word.

A watch-dog for a house was called archu, from ar or
air, to watch. These watch-dogs were kept in every house
of any consequence ; and they were tied up by day and
let loose by night. In accordance with custom and law
the watch-dogs of the farming classes were loosed earlier
in the evening and tied up earlier in the morning than
those of the chieftain grades : in the chiefs' houses so many
people were coming and going that the dogs were kept
tied up till bedtime to avoid danger to guests : whereas
those of farmers were set free at cow-stalling. J

* Preface to the Rev. Dr. Hogan's " Irish Wolfdog."

f See note on the Irish Wolfdog in Stokes's Life of Petrie, p. 437.

I Br. Laws, 1. 127, „. 145. ., in. 419.

454 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

A shepherd's dog was called a cu-buachaill [coo-boohil],
i.e. a ' dog-cowherd.' The gloss on the Senchus M6r
alludes to a penalty for stealing one of these dogs, and
mentions that they were of three kinds, but does not
specify them. A story connected with Ireland, in a Norse
work of the twelfth century — Snorro Sturleson's Chronicles
of the Kings of Norway — written in Icelandic, shows that
the ancient Irish trained these dogs as carefully as the
shepherd's collie is trained at the present day.

" While Olaf [or Amlaff] was in Ireland [in the ninth or tenth
century] he was once upon an expedition which went by sea. As
they required to make a foray for provisions on the coast, some of
his men landed and drove a large herd of cattle down to the strand.
Now a peasant came up and entreated Olaf to give him back the
cows which belonged to him. Olaf told him to take his cows if he
could distinguish them, ' but don't delay our march.' The peasant
had with him a large house-dog, which he put in among the herd of
cattle, in which many hundred head of beasts were driven together.
The dog ran into the herd, and drove out exactly the number the peasant
said he wanted ; and all were marked with the same mark, which
showed that the animal knew the right beasts and was very sagacious.
Olaf then asked the peasant if he would sell him the dog. ' I would
rather give him to you,' said the peasant. Olaf immediately presented
him with a gold ring in return, and promised him his friendship in
future."*

It appears from some passages in the Laws, as well as
from general Irish literature, that lapdogs were as much in
favour in Ireland in old times as they are now : women of
all classes, from queens down, kept them. We find them
even in convents. The virgin saint Cruimtheris, who lived
near Armagh in the time of St. Patrick, kept a lapdog
which she fed on the milk of a doe.f Their importance
in the eyes of the law is attested by the story of the first
lapdog brought to Ireland (vol. I., p. 74, supra) : and a
heavy fine was prescribed for stealing them : which was

* Laing's Translation, quoted in Kilk. Archseol. Journ., vol. 1., p. 326.
f Trip. Life, 233.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 455

recoverable by either husband or wife, though the lapdog
was always the woman's personal property.

The commonest name for a lapdog was oircne [urkina].
a diminutive of oirc [urk], which means, among other
things, a little dog. Two other terms for these little pets
are derivatives from the rootword mes or mess : — meschu,
which is very often used by the old Irish writers, and
which O'Clery makes equivalent to oirc ; and mesan or
messan, which O'Clery's Glossary defines as cu-beag, ' little
hound.' The Brehon Law (i. 153, bot.) is still more
explicit in identifying this word with oircne, for the gloss
on the Senchus Mor, explaining oircne rigna (the ' lapdog
of a queen '), says it is identical with mesan. In Cormac's
Glossary (p. 115) the word mesan is derived from messa,
' the worst,' because a lapdog is " one that is the worst of
hounds," i.e. I suppose as being merely a plaything, with
no further use. This word is still current in Scotland even
among the English-speaking people, and is often met with
in Scott's novels. In the Heart of Midlothian (chap, xxix.),
Madge speaks to Jeanie Deans about her " little messan
dog " — her " puir bit doggie Snap." It has been already
remarked that little bells were often hung from lapdogs'
necks.

A dog that had the vicious habit of attacking lambs, or
fowls, or domestic pets, had a muzzle (srublingi) of leather
tied on his snout. From the words of the Book of Aicill
it appears that dogs were often muzzled as a general
precaution. The muzzle should be tested, so that in case
a dog did mischief the owner might be enabled to mitigate
damages by the plea that proper precaution was taken.
An eye-cap, called in Irish Eirrgi, i.e. a covering of leather
fastened over the eyes, was used f or " a dog which does not
know its own people from the neighbours," which probably
means that he was as ready to bite one of the family as to
bite a stranger.*

* Br. Laws, in. 417.

456 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Dogs were liable to run mad then as well as now.
When a dog was found to be mad, it was hunted down
and killed, its body was burned, and the ashes were thrown
into a stream. Here is the quaint language of the Book of
Aicill on this point : — " There is no benefit in proclaiming
" it [i.e. sending round warning of a cu-conjaid or mad dog]
" unless it be killed ; nor though it be killed unless it be
" burned ; nor though it be burned unless its ashes have
" been cast into a stream."*

Some dogs were " lawful " (dlighedh), i.e. they were
in some way recognised by law, which turned to the
advantage of the owner in case of proceedings of any
kind in a brehon's court regarding the dog. Others were
said to be " unlawful " (indlighedh) , which did not mean
that they were forbidden by law, but simply that they
were not legally recognised, and the owner had therefore
to take his chance in law proceedings, without any benefit
from legal recognition. Some dogs again were fully lawful,
some three quarters, and some half lawful ; but these terms
are not defined in our copies of the laws. Certain dogs,
stated to be lawful, are named ; but the statement is to me
not clear. One example of a lawful dog is plain enough —
a dog with a duly tested muzzle following a woman as a
companion, f The Book of Aicill lays down detailed rules
about dog-fights, in view of the injury that might be
inflicted on bystanders or on other animals. J

The Greeks, though they looked upon the dog as the
friend of man, did not hold it in high esteem, and they did
not use it in war. Among the Celts of Gaul it held a much
higher place, and was trained to fight in battles. The high
regard in which the Gauls held it remained among their
descendants the ancient Irish ; for though I cannot find
that dogs were employed in battle in Ireland, they were
much valued and esteemed ; and they figure conspicuously

* Br. Laws, in. 273. f See on all this, Br. Laws, m. 413.

I Ibid., 193, to 199.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 457

in Irish literature. The best illustration of this is the
very general custom of using cu as a name for men, so
that large numbers of Irish personal and family names
have cu or con as one of their components ; like Cucu-
lainn, O'Conor, Macnamara (Mac Con-mar a), O'Connolly,
Conway, Quin, Quinlan, &c*

Wolves. — A common name for a wolf was cu-allaidh
[coo-allee], i.e. ' wild-hound.' Another was mac-tire [mac-
teera], which literally means ' son of the country,' in
allusion to the wild places that were the haunts of these
animals. Two other names fael and breach have long
since fallen out of use, though they are commemorated
in local names. Faelchu, which is formed from fael, and
cu, a dog, is now a general name for a wolf. Cormac's
Glossary (p. 87) gives glademain (pi.) as a collective name
for wolves : which is derived from glaid or glaodh, a cry
(pron. glay).

In old times wolves were so numerous in the woods
and fastnesses of Ireland as to constitute a formidable
danger to the community : so that in Irish writings we
meet with frequent notices of their ravages, and of the
measures taken to guard against them. Sometimes when
pressed with hunger they killed and ate human beings.
But it may be said to have been the only really dangerous
wild animal of the country ; and one of the old native
writers, comparing Ireland to Paradise, and noticing its
exemption from baneful reptiles, states that the wolf was
its only noxious animal, f In later times, and probably
in early ages as well, we know that these animals were
hunted down by the great Irish wolf-dog : and they were
also caught in traps. J

* See, on all this, De Jubainville, La Civil, des Celtes, pp. 55-60 : Joyce,
Irish Names of Places, 11. 156 : and a Series of Papers written in the Irish
language by Mr. Thomas Flannery in the first volume of the Gaelic Journal
(1882) on the word cu as used in Irish names.

f Trip. Life, Introduction, xxx. note.

t For wolf-traps in 1659, see Ulster Journ. Archaeol., ij. 281

458 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The war of extermination against wolves was not left
to chance or to individual enterprise. We learn from the
Senchus M6r and from the gloss upon it, that in various
parts of the country there were organised efforts by the
community to keep them down. Once a week a body of
men made a regular raid on them under the direction of
the chief : and it was a duty owed by every man to his
chief to join these parties of attack in turn on the days
appointed.* As the population and the extent of open
cultivated land increased, wolves became less numerous
and were held well in check ; but during the wars of the
reign of Elizabeth, when the country was almost depopu-
lated, they increased enormously and became bolder and
fiercer, so that we often find notices of their ravages in the
literature of those times, f

Bears continued to exist in Scotland — according to
Garmichael (11. 306) — so late as the sixteenth century : but
they became extinct in Ireland at a much earlier period.
The oldest list we have of the chief native wild animals is
given incidentally in the treatise already mentioned (vol. 1.
P- 345 > supra), written in the year 655, by Augustin, an
Irish monk, then living in Carthage ; but bears are not
among them. Next in point of antiquity comes the evi-
dence of Bede, who states that the only noxious animals
in his time in Ireland were the wolf and the fox. J In a
Latin poem written early in the ninth century in praise of
Ireland by Donatus, bishop of Fiesole, an Irishman, there
is a more precise statement ; for one of the points of com-
mendation is that it possessed no bears. Yet there were
bears in Ireland at some very early time, while the country
was inhabited by men ; for their bones are often found
among the remains of human dwellings. Between 1840
and 1846 the skulls of two bears were dug up in a cut-
away bog§ : and quite recently the bones of numbers of

* Br. Laws, I. 161, top. % Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., IV. 417.

f Iar C, 180. § Ibid., iv. 417.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES

459

brown bears have been found in the caves of Kesh-Corran
in Sligo. The Irish language retains a faint memory of
these animals, inasmuch as it has a native name for a
bear : — math, or more commonly in the compound form
math-gamuin* : but beyond this the bear is totally lost to
Irish history, so that it must have become extinct before
our earliest legends began.

Deer were plentiful in ancient Ireland, and they are
noticed everywhere in the literature, both lay and ecclesi-
astical. By far the most remarkable of the ancient deer
of this country was the
gigantic Irish elk, the
bones of which are now
often found buried deep
in clay, sometimes with a
thick layer of bog over it.
It is well established that
this stately creature lived
in the country for some
considerable time contem-
poraneously with man : but
it seems probable that it
had disappeared before the
time reached by our oldest
writings : so that it is lost

to history ; and those deer so often spoken of in Irish
literature are not the great Irish elk, but animals like
those of the present day.f The skeleton of the elk in
the National Museum has antlers extending twelve feet
from tip to tip : and as may be seen from the figure stands
nearly twice the height of a man.

The most common word for a deer is fiad or fiadh
[feea], which originally meant wild ; but its' meaning has

* See " Math " in Windisch. Worterb. Ir. Texte, i. : and " Math-
gamuin " in O'Donovan's Supplement to O'Reilly.

t See Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1849-51, p. 166 : and 1856-57, p. 155.

Fig. 336.

Skeleton of Irish Elk in the National Museum,
Dublin. (From plate of the Royal Dublin Society.)
Human skeleton put in for comparison.

460 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

been gradually narrowed, and in Irish writings, as well as
in the spoken language, it is almost universally applied
to a deer. Seg is given in several glossaries, including
Cormac's (p. 152), as a name for a wild deer; and both
Cormac's (p. 68) and O'Clery's give erb as meaning a kind
of deer ; but both -these words have been long obsolete.
Os signifies a fawn. The celebrated Irish poet and
warrior who lived in the third century of the Christian
era, and whose name has been changed to Ossian by
Macpherson, is called in Irish manuscripts Oisin [Osheen],
which signifies a little fawn ; and the name is explained
by a legend.

The Hare. — It has been remarked above that the word
fiadh [feea] was originally used in the sense of ' wild ' in
general. The hare would appear to be the smallest animal
to which the term was applied, if we may judge by the
composition of its name gerr-fhiadh [gerree'j ; i.e. short
or small fiadh, from gerr, short or deficient. In Cormac's
Glossary (p. 133) is given patu [or ftata], another word
for a hare, which still survives in the spoken language in
the south of Ireland ; where the diminutive patachdn is
used even by speakers of English to denote a leveret.
The same glossary (p. 49) has cermna as still another name
for a hare. Sometimes a hare was called mil-maighe
[meel-mee], ' beast of the plain.'

The Cat. — A cat is called by the same name with slight
variations, in nearly all the languages of Europe : in Irish
the common name is catt or cat ; but O'Davoren in his
glossary gives eight Irish names for this animal. Cormac's
Glossary derives catt from Latin cattus : but it is certain
that the two words are merely cognate, i.e. both derived
from an older source. Wild cats were in old times very
plentiful : large wicked rough-looking creatures, very strong
and active and very dangerous ; and the race is not yet
quite extinct, for wild cats, nearly twice the size of our
domestic animals, are still found in some solitary places.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 461

It was these animals that gave origin to the legend, very
common in ancient Irish story, of a monstrous enchanted
wild cat, dwelling in a cave, and a match for the bravest
champion. One of these monsters, named Irusan, that
had his dwelling in the cave of Knowth on the Boyne,
once seized the poet Senchan in his mouth and ran off
with him, till he was rescued by St. Ciaran.* Another
tremendous cat named Luchthigem (' mouse-lord ' : luch,
a mouse), lived in Derc-Ferna, now the cave of Dunmore
near Kilkenny, till he was killed by a ban-gaisgidheach
or female champion of Leinster.f Three monstrous cats
dwelt in the cave of Croghan, from which Conall Cernach
and Laegaire the Victorious had to fly for their lives ; but
Cuculainn withstood them though he was not able to kill
them .J Stories of demon cats have found their way down
to modern Irish legend : see " Puss in Brogues," Irish
Penny Journal, p. 346.

Otters. — The otter has several names in Irish, the most
usual in old writings being dobor-chu, ' water-hound ' (from
dobor or dobur, an old word for water, common to Gaelic
and Welsh). § It was also called madad- or madra-uisce,
' water-dog.' O'Clery's Glossary explains dobor-chu by
madra-uisce, which is now the general word for an otter ;
though dobar-chu is still in use in some parts of the country.
Cormac's Glossary (p. 40) gives the old word coinfodorne
(pi. : the singular is confodomc) as meaning dobarchoin,
i.e. otters ; and explains fodorne, the latter part of the
word, as meaning fo-dobarnai, i.e. ' under dobur or water.'
Con fodorne is given in O'Reilly's Dictionary in the more
modern form confoirne. Another name for an otter,
derived also from dobur, is dobran, a diminutive, which in

* Tromdamh, pp. 81-85.

t The Poem of Broccan the Pious, in praise of Leinster, in which this
cat figures, will be found in LL, 43, b, 7. it has been published, with trans-
lation, by Mr. T. O. Russell in his Fior Chldirseach na h-Ereann, p. 118.

I Fled Bricrenn, 73.

§ Cormac's Glossary, 40, " Coinfodorne " ; and 53, " Dobur."

462 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Cormac's Glossary is given as the equivalent of dobarchu*
In the " Story of the Eruption of Lough Neagh," Liban
spends three hundred years as a salmon under the sea,
accompanied by her lap-dog in the shape of a dobran or
otter. f In the tract on Hy Many (p. 90, 16) the compound
condobran is used for an otter. It is curious that in the
Irish Glosses on Latin Declension edited by Stokes
(No. 375), the old Irish writer explains the Latin fiber, a
beaver, by dobran, an otter, which possibly may be owing to
the circumstance that though he knew well what a dobran
was, he had never seen a beaver, as there were none in
Ireland, and thought that a fiber was the same animal
as his own native otter (like what happened in case of
Dancing, p. 445, and note, supra).

Otters abounded in rivers and lakes, and were hunted,
partly for sport and partly for their skins. In later times
— and probably in the early ages — otter skins formed an
important article of commerce, so that they were sometimes
given as payment in kind for rent or tribute. We get an
indication of the importance of these animals in the fact
recorded in the Book of Lecan, that in the end of the
fourteenth century the people of the district of Fidh
Monach were entrusted with the special charge of the
otters and of the fishing of O'Kelly, king of Hy Many
(HyM, 93, top).

Of the badger it will be enough to say here that it was
called in Irish broc, and that the chase of the " heavy-
sided low-bellied badger " was a favourite sport.

5. Races.

The Irish were passionately fond of racing, even more
so than those of the present day. Everywhere, in all sorts
of Irish literature, we read of races — kings, nobles, and
common people attending them at every opportunity.

* Cormac's Glossary, 53, " Dobur " ; the Irish in Three Ir. Gloss., p.
15, " Dobur " J Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1870-1, p. 100, &

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 463

The prominence of this sport at the aenachs or fairs is
indicated in Cormac's Glossary (p. 127) by one of his
derivations of the word oenach, a fair, which he says
signifies ' contention of horses ' — as if racing was the main
object of holding a fair. The popularity of the sport
affected even the Law: for we find in the Senchus Mor
a provision that young sons of kings and chiefs when
in fosterage are to be supplied by the foster-fathers with
horses in time of races.*

A passage in the " Story of the Second Battle of
Moytura " affords another indication of the universality of
racing, where it is related that certain visitors arriving at a
meeting were asked had they hounds (coin) and steeds
(etch) for races : " for " — the story goes on — " at that time
" when a body of men went to another assembly [in a
" strange country or district] it was the custom to challenge
" them to a friendly contest." Then " the hounds had a
" coursing match (coin cocluiche, ' hound contest ') and the
" horses ran a race " : after which the men themselves
engaged in friendly sword-play, f But perhaps the best
illustration of the passionate admiration of people high
and low for this sport is that it is represented as one of
the delights of the pagan heaven, as described to Bran by
the fairy lady : — " The hosts run races — a delightful game —
" along the plain of sports, the plain on which they hold
" games ; a delight to the eye it is to look upon — it is a
" glorious sweep of country. "% This shows, too, that one
of the choice plains of heaven was specially set apart for
sports. In the races held here there was moreover a
variety, namely, races of curraghs on the water against
chariots on the low-lying shore adjacent — " curragh con-
tends against chariot "§ — from which we may conclude that

* Br. Laws, 11. 155. t Rev- Celt., xn. 73.

\ Kuno Meyer, in the Voyage of Bran, vol. I., p. 12, verse 23 ; and
p. 4, verse 5. The " Plain of Sports " is Mag Mon in the original
§ Kuno Meyer, in the Voyage of Bran, vol. I., p. 4, verse 5.

4^4 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

this odd sort of race was also usual and popular in the
mortal world above. The common name for a race of any
kind was grafand or grafann : plural graifne : cur grafainn,
' to run a race.' But this word was most generally confined
in its application to a horse-race. Foot-racing does not
appear to have been much practised.

The Curragh of Kildare, or as it was anciently called,
the " Curragh of the Liffey " (Cuirrech Life) was, as it is
still, the most celebrated racecourse in all Ireland : and
there are numerous notices of its sports in annals and tales.
In the Bruden Da Derga it is stated that Conari, king of
Ireland in the first century of the Christian era, went once
with four chariots to the Cluichi or games of the Cuirrech
Life*. The races were held here in connexion with the
yearly fair, which was called Aenach Colmain or Aenach
Lift, as being on the plain of the Liffey. It was the great
fair-meeting of the southern half of Ireland, and especially
of the kings of Leinster, when they resided at the palace of
Dun-Ailinn (now Knockaulin), which was on the edge, and
which, being on a flat detached hill, overlooked the Curragh
and its multitudes. Though sports and pastimes of all
kinds were carried on there, races constituted the special
and most important feature : so that some of the annalists
mention the Curragh under the name of " Curragh of the
Races."* The games here were formally opened by the
king, or one of the princes, of Leinster, and lasted for
several days : and the great importance attached to them
is indicated in the " Will of Cahirmore " in which that
king bequeaths to his son Criffan the " leadership of
" [i.e. the privileges of opening and patronising] the games
" of the province of Leinster. "f

In Cormac's Glossary cuirrech is used as a general
word for a racecourse, and derived from the Latin cursus :
and the scholiast who annotated St. Broccan's hymn on

* See Three Fragm., 189, top line : see also FM, a.d. 825, note n ;
and a.d. 040 and 954.. t Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., ix. 348.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 465

St. Brigit, referring directly to the Curragh of Kildare
gives the same derivation.* showing at what an early time
the Curragh was recognised as a racecourse. But it seems
more likely that the Irish word cuirrech is merely cognate
with Lat. cursus, and not derived from it. In the hymn
itself St. Brigit is designated as " the nun who used to run
over the Curragh " ; for her convent was on the edge of it,
and no doubt she often drove over the beautiful smooth
sward in her chariot, f

Numerous references to chariot-racing are met with in
Irish literature. Cormac's Glossary in one place (p. 45)
explains the word cuirrich by fich-carftait, the ' contest of
a chariot ' [in a race]. During the first three centuries of
the Christian era, chariot-racing was universal in Ireland ;
and it was specially popular among the Red Branch
Knights. Horse-racing was also very general, almost as
much so indeed as racing with chariots. Maildune and
his companions come to an island where they find gigantic
people eagerly engaged in a horse-race. % The sport is
alluded to in the ancient Notes on the Feilire of Aengus
(p. 105, bot.), where a person striving to earn heaven by
doing the will of God is compared to " a chariot that is
driven under a king that bears off prizes." The Fena of
Erin, as we have seen (vol. 1., p. 89, supra), did not use
chariots, either in battle or in racing ; but they were
devoted to horse-racing ; and in many passages referring
to them, their chiefs are represented as indulging in this
sport. §

A racecourse (cete or cet) was sometimes in a king's
faithche or exercise green : and the law in this case laid
down rules as to how far the king was liable for accidents,

* Todd Book of Hymns, 67, note /.

f For much more on the Curragh, and on races, see Hennessy's Paper
on " The Curragh of Kildare," Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. ix., p. 343.

X Old Celtic Romances, p. 122.

§ In the Story of Finn and the Phantoms, horse-races alone are carried
on : no chariot-races : Rev. Celt. vn. 291.

H I

466 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

and when he was exempt : which rules applied to the
owners of other racecourses. Thus if accidental collisions
occurred from which injury resulted, he was exempt : but
he was responsible if injury was caused by a chasm or a
deep rut carelessly left unprotected, or not filled up. And
the Law follows up this by a series of detailed regulations
about the liabilities of the several parties in case of accidents
on a course.*

Coursing with greyhounds was another favourite amuse-
ment. We have already seen (p. 463) how Irish visitors
at a meeting in a distant land were challenged to a
coursing match ; which came off with victory for the Irish
hounds. The greyhounds (milchoin : singular milchu)
mentioned in Cormac's Glossary as being always found
at oenachs or fair-meetings, were for coursing contests, as
part of the games carried on at the fair. A passage in the
Crith Gabhlach, setting forth the distribution of a king's
duties among the days of the week, assigns Wednesday
for enjoying himself " witnessing greyhounds coursing. "f

6. Chase and Capture of Wild Animals.

Some wild animals were chased for sport, some for
food, and some merely to extirpate them as being noxious :
but it will be convenient to include all here in connexion
with sports and pastimes.

Our legendary annals relate that the first colonists to
Ireland lived by hunting, fowling, and fishing : and though
this record is legend, it presents a true picture of the mode
of subsistence in primitive times, when the country was
nearly all covered with forest and bog, and there was little
open land for either tillage or pasture. But even after
much land had been cleared and the people had begun to
keep herds and to grow food-crops, they continued to hunt,
fowl, and fish with the three objects stated above. Every-

* Br. Laws, in. pp. 255-263. f Ibid., iv. 335, bottom.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 467

where in our literature we meet with notices of hunting,
and of various other methods by which wild animals were
taken. The hunters led the chase chiefly on foot, with
different breeds of hunting dogs, according to the animals
to be chased. Maelfothartaig [Mailfoharty], the son of
Ronan king of Leinster, visits the king of Scotland, who
" had hounds for boars, hounds for deer, and hounds for
hares."* The principal kinds of game were deer, wild
pigs, badgers, otters, and wolves ; and hares and foxes
were hunted with beagles for pure amusement. Pig-
hunting was a favourite sport.

For the larger and more dangerous game, such as wild
boars, wolves, and deer, the hunters employed wolfhounds
jnd other breeds of large dogs ; and in the romantic litera-
ture we have many a passage describing the dangers of the
chase, and the courage, skill, and swiftness of hunters and
hounds. The tales also reflect the immense delight those
observant and nature-loving people took in the chase and
all its joyous accompaniments. While Finn rested on the
hill of Knockainy in the County Limerick, his companions
hunted on the plain beneath ; " and it was sweet music to
" Finn's ear the cry of the long-snouted dogs as they routed
" the deer from their covers and the badgers from their
" dens ; the pleasant emulating shouts of the youths ; the
" whistling and signalling of the huntsmen ; and the
" encouraging cheers of the heroes, as they spread them-
" selves through the glens and woods, and over the broad
" green plain of Cliach."f Cailte and his companions once
" heard the musical concert (coicedul) of three packs of
" hounds hunting round the head of Sliabh Lugda."J In
another passage a man asks Cailte what pack is it that
they hear : " That " — replies Cailte — " is the melodious
chase by beagles after the swift and gentle hares. "§ Else-
where Cailte describes the chase of " the heavy-sided, low-

* Rev. Celt., XIII. 376. J Stokes, Acallamh, p. 206.

f Old Celtic Romances, 226. § Ibid., p. 260.

468 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

" bellied badgers : and behind the hunt they heard the
" shout of the gillies, and the swiftest of the boys, and
" the readiest of the warriors, and the men who were the
" straightest spear-shots, and the strong attendants who
" bore the heavy burdens." The same keen appreciation
of the chase and its concomitants has descended to
modern Irish sportsmen. The sweetest music in the
world to Daniel O'ConnelTs ear was the cry of the Kerry
beagles echoing among the woods and hills round Derry-
nane ; and in the modern Anglo-Irish ballad of " Reynard
the Fox " we are told how : —

" Early next morning the woods they did resound
With the echo of horns and the sweet cry of hounds."*

Most of the details of the manner of trapping deer we
learn from the Book of Aicill, in the third volume of the
Brehon Laws, chiefly from p. 449, to p. 459. They were
caught in a deep pit or pitfall (Irish cuithe or cuithech)
with a trap, and a bir or spear fixed firmly in a wooden
stock (Irish cep, pron. kep) in the bottom, point upwards ;
the whole gin concealed by a brathlang or light covering
of sods and brambles, f The spear either had a metallic
head or was merely a stake of hard wood with a sharp
point. Along with the spear there was in the pit a trap
of some kind, the construction of which we do not know,
called airndil or airnil, from which the spear was called
bir airnil (or airndil), literally ' spear of a trap,' or a ' spear
set for a trap. 'J That this is the correct sense appears
further from Cormac's Glossary (p. 12), which derives
airndel from air, noble, and indel (now inniV) a setting : —
" air-indel, a noble setting [of a trap] it is."

* This ballad and the air will be found in Joyce's Ancient Irish Music,
p. 50.

f Cuithe, Br. Laws, in. 452, I2: Cuithech, 272, 6 and Trip. Life, 186, 2S>
where brathlang, ' a pit-cover,' is also used.

% See " Bir " in O'Dovovan's Supplement to O'Reilly : and Br. Laws,
in. 272, 9. and 452, 3.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, ABD PASTIMES 469

The trap — which was also often called cuichi* — appears
to have been set independently of the spear with its stock —
though they were beside each other in the pit — so that
either spear or trap might be removed without stirring the
other : which appears from the expression in the Book of
Aicill : — " If the deer [has escaped after falling in and]
has carried off the spear-stock or the trap out of its place."
Spear and trap were both set in the same pit, so that the
deer that fell in was pretty sure to be secured by either or
both.

A passage in the Rennes Dinnsenchus giving the
supposed origin of the name of the ancient district of
Magh Cobha, in the present county Down, affords us some
idea of how these traps acted : — " Coba [cova], the
" cuchaire or trapper of Heremon [first Milesian king of
" Ireland] son of Milesius : it is he that first prepared a
" trap [airrchis] and a pit-fall [cuithech] in Erin : and he
" himself put his foot in it to try if it was in trim, where-
" upon his shinbone and his two forearms were fractured in
" it : and his drinking-cup, after being emptied, fell down,
" so that he died thereof [i.e. of the wound and thirst] :
" whence is derived Mag Coba, Cova's plain." f This passage
introduces a new name for a trap — airrchis : a word which
is in a still older authority, Cormac's Glossary (p. 2,
" Airches "), where it is explained " a trap or enclosure,"
and derived " ab arceo, because of its holding whatsoever
is put in it." An ancient MS. quoted by O'Donovan,
under this passage in the Glossary, states that an airches
is a trap for catching wild hogs : but the passages just
quoted from Cormac's Glossary and the Dinnsenchus show
that the word was applied to a trap in general. The
quotation by O'Donovan is interesting, however, as it
shows that wild hogs were caught in traps as well as
deer and other animals. We have already seen that
wolves were caught in specially-constructed traps.

* Br. Laws, in. 456, I4 and I7. f Stokes, in Rev. Celt., xvi. 44.

47° SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

There were persons skilled in setting traps, following
the occupation as a sort of trade, who either worked on
their own account, or were employed by others : such a
person was called a cuchaire or cuthchaire [cuh'ara], i.e. a
trap-maker or 'trapper' (from cuichi). A trapper was,
sometimes at least, one of the officials in the employment
of a king ; as in the case of Coba. Some trappers or
hunters and their pitfalls are designated " lawful " and
others " unlawful."* Both are taken into consideration
in the Book of Aicill, which, in setting forth fines for
damages, distinguishes carefully between them, but gives
no explanation of the distinction : because, as in hundreds
of other cases, all understood the terms at the time, so
that no definition was needed. Probably some sort of
license or authoritative legal sanction was prescribed, the
possession of which constituted " lawfulness," and its
absence " unlawfulness."

A deer-trap was obviously very dangerous to both
people and cattle : and the Book of Aicill dwells minutely
on the precautions that should be adopted and on the
question of responsibility and damages in case of injuries
from trap accidents. A deer-trap was generally set in a
wild place — mountain, bog, or wood : but sometimes also
in the faithche or green of the owner's residence, or
between the green and the adjacent wild place. The
law laid down that in all cases verbal notice should be
sent over the nine holdings (nae n-orba) nearest to the
place, f Sometimes when deer were observed hovering
near, they were driven, so far as could be done, towards
the trap ; and if they did any damage while being driven,
either to the people or to domestic animals, the law pro-
vided compensation.! Adamnan (p. 154) gives an account
of the setting of a sharpened stake in a place frequented
by wild animals, on which a poor man caught many

* Br. Laws, III. 457. f On these points : — Br. Laws, m. 453 ;

273i us 272» 9. J Ibid., 457, bottom.

CHAP. XXIX j ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 47 i

deer to feed his family. As confirming the preceding
records, remains of deer-traps with their sharpened stakes
are now often found buried deep in bogs in various parts
of Ireland.*

Wooden traps of another kind, quite different from
deer-traps, smaller and having no spear, all of much the
same pattern, with doors or valves, springs, and triggers,
are often found in bogs, of which the illustration (fig. 337)
will give a good idea. There has been considerable

Fig. 337-

Three different views (top, side, bottom) of an otter-trap : found in a bog.

(From Wood-Martin's Pagan Ireland, p. 407.)

divergence of opinion regarding their exact use ; but it
is now generally considered that they were otter-traps :
the animal, while attempting to force its way through,
being caught and held by the edge of the door or valve.

There were traps and nets of several kinds to catch
birds. The word sds [sauce], which means an engine or
gin of any kind, is also applied to a bird -trap. A
basket- shaped bird -crib, such as is used by boys at the

*Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1879-82, p. 500, bottom. Ms. G. H. Kinahan
has mentioned to me half a dozen places where he has seen the remains of
old deertraps. See also his Geology of Ireland, p. 277.

47^ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFfi [PART III

present day, was called cliabhdn [cleevaun], which is also
the word for a child's cradle : a diminutive of cliabh
[cleeve], a basket. A person very much frightened, or
cowardly, or unreliable in time of sudden danger, was
often compared to a bird on which a sds or a cleevaun
has closed, and also to a salmon caught in a weir-trap.
Cormac's Glossary (p. 152) explains the word sin [shain]
as ' a net in which birds are caught,' and illustrates it by
the derivative sin-bretha, ' bird-net laws ' : showing that
the practice of catching birds by nets was general ; and
that it was considered of such importance that special laws
were laid down to regulate it. Birds were also caught, as
they are still in the Orkneys and Hebrides, by men let down
in baskets with ropes over the cliffs round the coasts ;
as appears by several entries in the Brehon law-tract
called " Heptads."* O'Flaherty, in his " Iar Connaught "
(p. 67), states that, in his time, birds were caught in this
manner at night by persons who brought down candles,
the light of which fascinated the birds so that they were
easily taken. I have seen birds caught by night in bushes
by boys who carried lanterns : but of this practice I have
found no mention in old Irish literature.

Fish as an important article of food has been already
spoken of (p. 133, supra). The general Irish word for a
fish is iasc [eesk], cognate with Latin ftiscis and English
fish : and a fisherman was an iascaire [eeskere : 3-syll.].
The people fished with the net and with hook and line,
both in the sea and in lakes and rivers : as the records
everywhere show. The slatt or fishing-rod was 10 or 12
feet long : the line was called ruaim [roo-im] or ruaimnech :
and the hook duban [dooan]. Net-fishing came under the
cognisance of the law ; it is mentioned in the Senchus Mor ;
and it appears from the gloss that a fishing-net was called
cochull and lin [leen], both words in use still. The net was
sometimes the common property of the fine or family

* Br. Laws, v. 237, 20; 239, J9; 301, 20-

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 473

group of relations, each individual family having a right to
use it in turn, or a claim to a share of the fish caught.
Both salmon and eels were often caught with trident
spears, or with spears of more than three prongs : and
sometimes people followed the primitive plan of trans-
fixing large fish with a single-point spear. Eels are still
caught with forked-spears : and until lately salmon were
taken in a similar way, the trident spears having handles
about 5 feet long and a cord attached at the end. The
spear was flung from the bank with aim that seldom
missed : and spear and salmon were drawn back by the
cord (see vol. L, p. 112, for a fishing-spear).

Salmon-fishing was the most important of the fishing
industries, and it is oftenest mentioned in the old writings :
it is constantly noticed by Adamnan. A salmon is desig-
nated by several Irish names : — bratan, ae, eo, tonnem, orcc,
eicne [aikne], and linne, besides some others : but the first
under the modern form braddn, is now the general name.
It would seem that in old times bratan meant a young
salmon, and eo a full-grown one : for we find this line in
an ancient poem in the Book of Leinster : — " It is from
the bratan that the eo comes : it is from the youth that
the king comes."*

Fishing-weirs on rivers were very common. The weir
(called in Irish corad and sod) sometimes belonged to an
individual, and sometimes — like the net — it was the common
property of the fine. A man who had land adjoining the
stream had the right to construct a weir for his own use :
but according to law, he could not dam the stream more
than one-third across, so that the fish might have freedom
to pass up or down to the weirs belonging to others. If it
was found that his dam went more than this, he had to
give up two-thirds of the fish he caught to the wronged
man, whether living above or below, f

* LL, 148, a, l6. " Contents," 34, a, 26.

t On all this see Br. Laws, 1. 131, 6i 7. 205, 207 iv 211, bottom;
213. .3.

474 social And domestic life [part lit

J. Camdn or Hurling, and other athletic games.

Hurling or goaling has been a favourite game among
the Irish from the earliest ages ; and those who remember
the eagerness with which it was practised in many parts of
Ireland sixty years ago, can well attest that it had not
declined in popularity. Down to a recent period it was
carried on with great spirit and vigour in the Phoenix
Park, Dublin, where the men of Meath contended every
year against the men of Kildare. It still continues, though
less generally than formerly, to be a favourite pastime, and
there is lately a movement to revive it.

Our literature gives us many glimpses of the manner
of carrying on this game in old times. It was played with
a ball (liathrdid : pronounced leeroad) about four inches
in diameter, made of some light elastic material, such as
woollen yarn wound round and round, and covered with
leather. Each player had a wooden hurley to strike the
ball, generally of ash, about three feet long, carefully
shaped and smoothed, with the lower end flat and curved.
This was called camdn [commaun], a diminutive from cam,
curved : but in old writings we find another name, lorg
(i.e. ' staff '), also used. The game was called immdn, or in
modern spelling iomdn [immaun], meaning ' driving ' or
' urging ' : but now commonly camdn, from the camdn or
hurley. In a regular match the players on each side were
equal in number. It was played on a level grassy field, at
each end of which was a narrow gap (bema) or goal,
formed by two poles or bushes, or it might be a gap in
the fence. The general name for the winning goal was
bdire [bawre]. The play was commenced by throwing up
the ball in the middle of the field : the players struck at it
with their hurleys, the two parties in opposite directions
towards the gaps ; and the game, or part of it, was ended
when one party succeeded in driving it through their
opponents' gap. It was usual for each party to station

CHAP. XXIXJ ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 475

one of their most skilful men beside their own gap to
intercept the ball in case it should be sent flying direct
towards it : this man was said to stand cul [cool], or cul-
bdire, ' rear-guard ' : cul meaning back. The preceding
description shows generally how the game was played
down to a period within my own memory ; and so far as
can be judged from the old literature, it was much the
same a thousand years ago. In old times the field on
which the game was played was commonly the faithche
[faha] or green of the dwelling (p. 61, supra) : but some-
times a large level space was railed off for games of all
kinds, which was called cluichi mag, ' game-plain,' or
mag-mon, ' plain of sports.'

The law required that the sons of kings and chiefs
in fosterage should have their camans mounted or orna-
mented— or perhaps ringed — with bronze or brass.* These
bronze-mounted hurleys were valuable, as we may infer
from a record in the annals, that on one occasion Feradach,
king of Ossory towards the end of the sixth century,,
collected into one place all his valuable and precious
things — his ingots of silver, ornamented cups, &c. — among
which are enumerated his camdin creduma, ' hurleys of
bronze ' — that is to say, mounted with bronze, f

Provision was made in the Brehon Law for compen-
sation in case of accident by either ball or hurley ; and
in the statements of these rules in the Book of Aicill we
come across other features of the game. A player is
mentioned as " striking the ball (liathroid) with his hurley
" (lorg), from the hurling hole (poll na h-imdna) to the
" place of the grifid — or from the place of the grifid to the
" place of the division (comrann) — or from the hole (poll)
" where it [the ball, then] is until it reaches the place where
" it usually lies. "J Some of these terms and details are
unintelligible to me.

* Br. Laws, n. 147. f Three Fragments, p. 9.

% Br Laws, in. 555.

476 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

Hurling is often mentioned in the tales. Cuculainn,
when a boy, going to Emain to visit his uncle King
Concobar, took with him his playthings to shorten the
road, among them a cammdn creduma ocus a liathrdit
n-argdide, " his hurley of bronze and his ball of silver."*
In the tale of the Destruction of Dinnree (see p. 95, supra),
it is related that Moen Ollam, afterwards Labrad Loingsech
(king of Ireland before the Christian era), when a boy, was
dumb. But one day as he was playing immdn in the
playgreen, he got a blow of a hurley on the shin, which
gave him such a paroxysm of agony that he shouted out
and spoke for the first time ; and ever after that he retained
his speech, f It may be inferred from the careful provisions
laid down in the law that the game sometimes resulted in
injuries, generally by accident, but occasionally by design,
in rare cases ending even in death : and in this respect, too,
it resembled the game of our own day. But the mischief
was seldom serious.

Various other athletic exercises were practised, some
of them like those we see at the present day. We find
foot-racing and leaping mentioned, but much prominence
is not given to them in the tales. There were contentions
in wrestling and swimming. The boys of the Red Branch
had a rough sort of game, in which each set strove to tear
off the outer garments from their opponents ; and they
had another, something analogous to goaling, where they
endeavoured to put a ball through a small hole, which
those opposed to them tried to prevent. % There was also
the " loop and ball game " (cluiche luibe ocus liathroidi,)
which was played on the green ; but nothing is said in the
tales as to the manner of playing it.§ What was called
the Roth-chless, or ' wheel-feat,' consisted in throwing a
heavy circular disc or quoit upwards beside the wall of a

* LL, 62, a, 4S: Miss Hull, Saga, p. 136.

f Stokes's edition, Zeitschr. Celt. Phil., in. p. 10

X Miss Hull, Saga, 138, 139 ; LL, 63, a, bottom.

§ See Kuno Meyer, Ventry, 29, line 530 ; and p. 82, note 529.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 477

large house. At this the three great Red Branch heroes
once contended inside the lofty hall. Laegaire the Victor-
ious took the first trial and sent the disc half way up the
side wall. Conall Cernach next : and he threw it to the
ridge-pole. Lastly, Cuculainn caught it in mid-air as it
came down after Conall's throw, and with a mighty effort
hurled it right through the roof, amid the frantic shouts of
the spectators.* Throwing a ball or quoit to a distance,
and "putting" a heavy stone forward from hand and
shoulder — both of which are noticed in the tales — were in
no wise different from the corresponding strength trials of
the present day.

8. Chess.

In ancient Ireland chess-playing was a favourite pas-
time among the higher classes. Everywhere in the
Romantic Tales we read of kings and chiefs amusing
themselves with chess, and to be a good player was
considered a necessary accomplishment of every man.
of high position. At banquets and all other festive
gatherings this was sure to be one of the leading features
of the entertainment. In every chief's house there was
accordingly at least one set of chess appliances for the
use of the family and guests : and chess-boards were
sometimes given as part of the tribute to kings, f Chess
furniture was indeed considered in a manner a necessity,
so much so that in this respect it is classified in the
Brehon Law with food.|

As to the general form and construction of the chess-
board there can be no doubt, for Cormac's Glossary (p. 75)
describes it with much exactness. This old authority states
first, in regard to the game, that the play demands ciall
and fdth [keeal, faw], i.e. attention and judgment : and it
goes on to say that the fidchell or chess-board was divided
into black and white compartments by straight lines : that

* Fled Brier., 83. J Book of Rights, 39. J Br Law, 1. 143, xa,

47^ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

is to say, into black and white squares. The game was
called fidchell or fidchellecht [fihel, fihelleght] : and fidchell
was used to designate the chess-board. But this was also
called cldr-fidchilli, cldr being the general name for a board
or table. The chessmen were called fir-fidchilli, i.e. ' men
of chess,' or collectively foirenn, which is the Irish word
for a party or body of men in general. The whole set of
furniture was called fidchellecht * or fidchell.

The men, when not in use, were kept in a fer-bolg or
' man-bag,' which was sometimes of brass or bronze wire
woven. The chiefs took great delight in ornamenting
their chessboards and men richly and elaborately with
the precious metals and gems. We read in the " Story
of the Battle of Mucrime," that when the Irish chief
Mac Con was an exile in disguise at the court of the king
of Scotland, the king's chessmen were of gold and silver :
meaning ornamented with these metals, f The following
quotation from a much older authority — the " Courtship
of Etain " in the Book of the Dun Cow — is very instructive
and very much to the point. Midir the fairy king of
Bri-leith, comes on a visit to King Ochy : — " What brought
thee hither ? " said Ochy. " To play chess with thee,"
answered Midir. " Art thou good at chess ? " said Ochy.
" Let us try it," said Midir. " The queen is asleep," said
Ochy, " and the house in which are the chessboard and '
men belongs to her." " Here I have as good a set of
chess," said Midir. That was true indeed; for it was a
board of silver and pure gold ; and every angle was illumi-
nated with precious stones ; and the man-bag was of
woven brass wire. "J In the Will of Cahirmore, king
of Ireland in the second century, we are told that he
bequeathed his chessboard and chessmen to his son Olioll
Ceadach§ — an indication of their great value.

* Book of Rights, 201, I7.

f Silva Gad., 351 : see also Keating, 290, top ; and FM, a.d. 9.

% See O'Donovan, in Book of Rights, Pref ., lxi § Book of Rights, 201.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES

479

The men were distinguished half and half, in some
obvious way, to catch the eyes of the two players. Some-
times they were black and white. The foirenn or party
of chessmen of Crimthan Nia Nair, king of Ireland about
the first century of the Christian era, are thus described : —
" One-half of its foirenn was yellow gold, and the other
half was fvndruine " (white
bronze).* Many ancient
chessmen have been found
in bogs, in Lewis and other
parts of Scotland : but so
far as I know we have only
a single specimen belong-
ing to Ireland, which was
found about 1817 in a bog
in Meath, and which is now
in the National Museum,
Dublin. It is figured here,
full size. We frequently
read in the tales that a
hero, while playing chess,
becoming infuriated by
some sudden attack or
insulting speech, flings his
chessman at the enemy
and kills or disfigures him.
When we remember that chessmen were sometimes made
partly of metal and were two and a half inches long,
we may well believe this.

The game must, sometimes at least, have been a long
one. When St. Adamnan came to confer with King
Finachta, he found him engaged in a game of chess : but
when his arrival was announced, the king, being aware
that he had come on an unpleasant mission, refused to see
him till his game was finished : whereupon Adamnan said

* Rev. Celt., xx. 283.

Fig. 338.
Bone Chessman, King, full size ; found In a bog
in Meath about 1817. (Drawn by Petrie : Book of
Rights, page lxii.)

4§0 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

he would wait, and that he would chant fifty psalms during
the interval, in which fifty there was one psalm that would
deprive the king's family of the kingdom for ever. The
king finished his game however ; and played a second,
during which fifty other psalms were chanted, one of
which doomed him to shortness of life. But when he
was threatened with deprivation of heaven by one of the
third fifty, he yielded, and went to Adamnan.*

That the Irish retained the tradition of the origin of
chess as a mimic battle appears from the name given to
the chessmen in the story of the Sick Bed of Cuculainn
(p. 99) in the Book of the Dun Cow : — namely fianfidchella,
i.e. as translated by O'Curry, ' chess-warriors ' ; flan, a
champion or warrior : from which we may infer that the
men represented soldiers.

Another game called brannuighecht , or ' ftraww-playing,'
as O'Donovan renders it, is often mentioned in connexion
with chess ; and it was played with a brannabh, possibly
something in the nature of a backgammon board. A party
of Dedannans were on one occasion being entertained ; and
a fidchell or set of chess furniture was provided for every
six of them, and a brannabh for every five,t showing that
chess-playing and 6nww-playing were different, and were
played with different sets of appliances. Among the
treasures of the old King Feradach are enumerated his
brandaibh and his fithchella.% The Brehon Law prescribes
fithchellacht and brannuidhecht (as two different things)
with several other accomplishments, to be taught to the
sons of chiefs when in fosterage.§ Notwithstanding that
chess-playing and &ra?m-playing are so clearly distin-
guished in the above and many other passages, modern
writers very generally confound them : taking brannuigh-
echt to be only another name for fitchellecht or chess-
playing, which it is not.

* Silva Gad., 422. J Three Fragments, 8, „.

f Ibid., 250 : Ir. text, 220, so. § Br Laws, n. 155, 9; 157, bottom.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 481

There is still another game called buanbaig or buanfach,
mentioned in connexion with chess and &ran«-playing, as
played by kings and chiefs. When Lugaid mac Con and
his companions were fugitives in Scotland, they were ad-
mired for their accomplishments, among them being their
skilful playing of chess, and brandabh, and buanbaig.*
Nothing has been discovered to show the exact nature of
those two last games.

I have headed this short section with the name
" Chess," and have all through translated fitchell by ' chess,'
in accordance with the usage of O'Donovan, O'Curry, and
Petrie. Dr. Stokes, on the other hand, uniformly renders
it " draughts." But, so far as I am aware, there is no
internal evidence in Irish literature sufficient to determine
with certainty whether the game of fitchell was chess or
draughts : for the descriptions would apply equally to
both.

9. Jesters, Jugglers, and Gleemen.

From the most remote times in Ireland, kings kept
fools, jesters, and jugglers in their courts, for the amuse-
ment of their household and guests, like kings of England
and other countries in much later times. In the tales we
constantly read of such persons and their sayings and doings.
They were often kept in small companies. Prince Cum-
masgach, son of Aed mac Ainmirech (king of Ireland, a.d.
572 to 598), had one chief jester named Glasdam, under
whom were eight others ; and the whole nine constantly
accompanied the prince, forming part of his retinue both
at home and on his journeys. f

The most common name for a jester or fool was druth
(pron. droo : to be carefully distinguished from drui, a
druid), which is explained in Cormac's Glossary (p. 59),
by onmit, a fool, and in another place in the same Glossary

* O'Grady, Silva Gad., 351, top: Ir. text, 312, 30_ 3I: Revue Celt.
xiii. 443 j Rev. Celt., in. 59 : Silva Gad., 409.

I I

482 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

(130) by midlach, an imbecile. Another word was mer,
which generally means a mad person, but which, like onmit
and midlach, appears to have been often used to denote
simply an idiot or mental imbecile ; while druth was used
as a more general term to include all sorts of fools,
buffoons, jugglers, jesters, &c. Mer and druth are some-
times used synonymously, as in the Book of Aicill.* The
Law (in. 157, 23) fixed seven years as the age when it
was to be decided whether a young person was or was
not a druth, which here must be understood to have the
restricted meaning of an idiot. In Cormac's Glossary
(p. 81) jaindelach is given as still another name for an
idiot.

In the Senchus M6r the customary functions of a druth
are indicated : — He is said to have the power of amusing,
and that music was one of the means he employed to do
so : for he was a minstrel (airfidig) ; and it also states that
he had land — at least sometimes — no doubt in reward of
his services : while a woman who was a mer or mad person
was not a minstrel, and had no land.j From a legend
given in Duald Mac Firbis's Irish Annals we learn that a
druth was trained to give a particular kind of shout, which
was easily distinguished from the shout of all other people.
At the Battle of Allen in Kildare, fought a.d. 722, the
rig-druth or royal clown O'Maileeny was taken prisoner
and beheaded. But just before his execution he was asked
to give a " druth' s shout," which he did : and it was so
loud and melodious that its soft echoes were heard in the
air for three days and three nights after his death. J And
ever afterwards all druths learned to give " a clown's
shout," like that of poor O'Maileeny.

These half-witted dependents were always greatly
attached to their masters, whose lives, as occasions arose,
they sometimes saved by the sacrifice of their own, In

* Br. Laws, in. 199, bottom ; 200, a. f Ibid., i. 137, bottom ; 139, top.
t Three Fragments, 43 : and Rev. Celt., xxiv. 55.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 483

the year 598 a.d., Prince Cummascach — as the Story of
the Boroma relates — went through Leinster on his " Free
circuit of youth." His conduct was on the occasion so
intolerably licentious that Branduff, king of Leinster, and
his people, at last rose up in a fury and set fire to the
house in which the prince and his retinue were feasting,
standing all around in close array to prevent escape.
Glasdam, the prince's jester, was one of the doomed
company : but as he had been hospitably entertained a
few days before by Branduff, he now cried out : — " Lo, I
" have eaten thy meat : let not this deed of shame be now
" wrought on me ! "* And Branduff answered : — " By no
" means shall this be done : climb up to the ridge-pole and
" leap out over the flames to the ground : we will let thee
" pass, and thus shalt thou escape ! " But Glasdam refused
to be saved without his master : and tearing off his fool's
mantle and cap4 while the flames were closing in, he said
to Cummascach : — " Take these and escape in guise of
me!" The prince put them on, and, leaping out, was
allowed to pass, so that he escaped for the time, while the
poor fool remained behind and was burned to death with
the rest.f

Fools when acting as professional clowns were dressed
fantastically ; and they amused the people something in
the same way as the court fools and buffoons of later
times — by broad impudent remarks, jests, half witty, half
absurd, and odd gestures and grimaces. Concobar's royal
fool Roimid, who lived in Emania, is thus described in the
Story of Mesca Ulad as he stood amusing a delighted
crowd who surrounded him : — He had a black, pointed,
thick head of hair ; his face [painted] a bluish-black, like
an Ethiopian ; his eyes were large, wide open, and seemed

* For the duty of host towards guest, see p. 168, supra.

f O'Grady, Silva Gad., 410 : Stokes's version in Rev. Celt., xni. 33.
Two other equally striking instances may be seen in the story of the
jester of Fiachna, king of Ulster (Silva Gad., 427), and that of Mac Con's
druth at the Battle of Cenn Febrat (Silva Gad., 349, 350).

484 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

all white [on account of the blackened face] ; he wore a
ribbed bratt or mantle all in folds, fastened with a brass
clasp at his breast : at his side hung a melodious little bell
(cluicin cedlbind) which he often struck with a bronze wand
to procure attention, making such a sweet tinkle that it
gave pleasure and delight to the arch-king and to the
whole host. He was a laughable and amusing wight — adds,
the old account — and there was no care, fatigue, or sorrow,
however great, that a man would not forget for the time,
while looking at this droll fellow and listening to his
pleasantries.* King Conari's three jesters were such
surpassingly funny fellows that, as we are told in the
Bruden Da Derga (where they are called cuitbi, i.e. jeerers,
gibers, mockers), no man could refrain from laughing at
them, even though the dead body of his father or mother
lay stretched out before him.f

Professional gleemen travelled from place to place
earning a livelihood by amusing the people like travelling
showmen of the present day. To these the word druth is
sometimes applied, though their more usual name was
crossan, a word which glosses scurra in Stokes's " Glosses
on Latin Declension," No. 14. When they had given an
exhibition it was considered disgraceful to refuse them a
contribution : and even St. Patrick, as we are told in the
Tripartite Life (205), thought it necessary to comply with
this native custom. When he was in Hy Fidgente he was
entertained by a chief named Lomman, living beside
Mullach-Cae, i.e. the mountain now called Knockea, and
having his house on a spot lying, as the old record correctly
states, to the south of Carn-Feradaig, which is now called
Seefin Mountain, rising over the village of Glenosheen in
Limerick. One day a number of gleemen came up and
asked for some food. Patrick was troubled at this, for he
had nothing to give them : but just at the moment a boy

* Mesca Ulad, 35. f O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 150 : Da Derga, p. 311.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 485

passed near with a cooked ram on his back, which the
saint asked from him " to save his honour " — i.e. that he
might not lie under the reproach of refusing the gleemen.
The boy gave it gladly, and Patrick handed it over to
them ; but before they had time to swallow it they were
themselves swallowed up by the earth for their impudence.
In the first part of this narrative the gleemen are called
aes ceirdd, i.e. ' men of art ' : at the end they are designated
by druth : and in another part of it they are called in
Latin prcecones, i.e. ' public criers,' from their custom of
bawling out their jokes. These " men of art " were evi-
dently of the same class as those called crossans, who are
constantly met with in the tales.

A travelling band of crossans had a fuirseoir or obldire
[furshore, oblaire], i.e. the chief buffoon and juggler of
the company. When the sons of O'Corra were about to
embark on their voyage of pilgrimage, a band of crossans
came up and inquired among themselves who they were.
" I know them well," said the fuirseoir ; " they are the sons
" of O'Corra, the robbers and murderers, going on their
" pilgrimage : and indeed they do not stand more in need
"of it than we do." "I fancy " — said the leader of the
band, scoffingly — " it is a long day till you go on a
pilgrimage." " Never say so," replied the fuirseoir, " for
I will certainly go with them " : and so he did. From the
same narrative it is clear that they wore dresses of some
special sort, which belonged, not to the individuals but
to the company : and that if any member left the party
he had to leave his dress behind him, as the fuirseoir had
to do on the present occasion, for they stripped him and
sent him off to the pilgrims stark naked.* We may form
some idea of one part of the dress from the statement in
Mac Conglinne (42) , that when he disguised himself as a
fuirseoir, " he put on a short cloak and short garments :

* Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, p. 409.

486 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

" each upper garment being shorter with him, and each
" lower one being longer. In this wise he began juggling."
See also the description of Roimid's mantle, p. 484, supra.

Cormac's Glossary (p. 141, explains the word reim
by fuirseoir, i.e. buffoon, and does it in such a way as
to give us a peep at one of the buffoon's tricks : —
" Reim, the name for a fuirseoir, on account of the
" distortions of face he makes towards people " [to make
them laugh]. In the Crith Gabhlach the word is ex-
plained similarly : — " Reimm, i.e. a fuirseoir or a druth,
" a man who brings distortion (remmad) upon his body
" and his face, is not entitled to dire fine (Br. Laws, vol. 1.,
" p. 208), because he goes out of his own shape before
" hosts and crowds."*

There was a druth of a different kind from all those
noticed above, a hand-juggler — a person who performed
sleight-of-hand tricks. Such a person was called a cless-
amnach [classownagh] , i.e. a ' trick-performer,' from cless,
a trick. In the Bruden Da Derga King Conari's cless-
amnach and his trick of throwing up balls and other small
articles, catching them one by one as they came down,
and throwing them up again, are well described : — " The
" blemish of baldness was on him, and the hair on the rest
" of his head was whiter than canach-slebhe — canavan or
" cotton grass ; he had clasps (unasca) of gold in his ears
" (P- 259») supra) ; and he wore a speckled white cloak. He
" had nine [short] swords, nine [small] silvern shields, and
" nine balls of gold. [Taking up a certain number of
" them] he flung them up one by one, and not one of them
" does he let fall to the ground, and there is but one of
" them at any one time in his hand. Like the buzzing-
" whirl of bees on a beautiful day was their motion in
" passing one another, "f This man seems to have been

* Br. Laws, iv. 355, top : see also to the same effect, v. 109, h from
bottom.

t Mao. & Cust, 11. 144, 145 ; Da Derga, p. 286.

CHAP. XXIX] ASSEMBLIES, SPORTS, AND PASTIMES 487

the chief juggler ; for three others are afterwards described,
having a number of small balls and of small darts, for
performing similar tricks with.*

The Brehon Law lays down fines for injuries to spec-
tators by the careless performance of juggling tricks : and
in assessing damages it distinguishes between dangerous
articles such as knives, and non-dangerous ones such as
balls. The fine for injury was heavier if inflicted by
dangerous than if by non-dangerous articles — even though
the injury might be the same : which of course was
intended to ensure that due care should be taken during
the performances, f

It is worthy of remark that the gleemen continued
till the time of Elizabeth. Spenser (View, 125) describes
them : — " To these may be added another sort of like
" loose fellowes, which doe passe up and downe amongst
" gentlemen, by the name of Jesters " : and he goes on to
say that they were great collectors and carriers of news.

People of all the above classse, crossans, druths, jesters,
tumblers, distortionists, and soforth, were looked upon
as dishonoured and disreputable. This appears from the
passage quoted on last page, where we see they were
denied certain civil rights enjoyed by ordinary citizens ;
and still more pointedly from an ordinance of the Senchus
Mor, which, classifying banquets into godly, human, and
demon banquets, defines demon banquets as those given
to evil people, such as satirists, jesters, buffoons, mounte-
banks, outlaws, heathens, harlots, and bad people in
general. I And many other passages in Irish literature
might be quoted to the same effect.

* Man. & Cust., n. 147. f Br. Laws, in. 285.

J Br. Laws, in. 25

Ornament on top of DcreiiUh Round Tower. (From Petrie's Round Towers, 400.)

CHAPTER XXX

VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS AND OBSERVANCES

Section i. Salutation.

\OME of the modes of salutation and of showing
respect practised by the ancient Irish indi-
cate much gentleness and refinement of
feeling, while others would now be considered
degrading. When a distinguished visitor
arrived it was usual to stand up as a mark
of respect (ureirge, coimeirge, rising, or standing
up). King Laegaire, sitting with his courtiers, in his
council-hall at Tara to receive St. Patrick, ordered that no
one should rise when he entered : but Dubthach Maccu
Lugair, the king's chief poet, impressed by the saint's
commanding presence, disobeyed the order and stood up
as he entered. The narrative adds that this Dubthach
became a convert, and thenceforward devoted his poetical
talents to the service of God.* Mael Fothartaigh, son of
Ronan king of Leinster, was so admired and loved, that
at meetings of every kind " all would rise up before him."f
St. Moiling, on a certain occasion, visited the house of
Finaghta the Festive king of Ireland, but was received in
a disrespectful manner by the company in general : — " He
" found no uprising there [in honour of him] : and he was

* Trip .Life, 283. f Kuno Meyer's Fingal Remain, Rev. Celt.? xm. 372.

488

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 489

" ashamed at not getting uprising."* It was not only a
mark of respect, but — occasionally at least — something
like an acknowledgment of superiority, as we may infer
from a passage in the Irish Life of St. Finnchua. The
saint having aided the king of Munster to defeat his
enemies, stipulated that among other concessions " the king
" of Munster should always stand up before Finchua's
" successor "f : and still more clearly from the Crith
Gabhlach extract given below, about a king and a bishop.

Another mode of saluting to show respect was " raising
the knee or thigh " while seated. On the occasion of the
above-mentioned visit of St. Moiling, while no one actually
stood up, Dermot the son of Colcu " raised his knee before
him " — as did also his father Colcu — as a mark of reverence.
St. Ruadan, when cursing Tara, says to King Dermot : —
" The thigh [sliasait) that thou liftest not before me to
stand up, be it mangled in pieces. "% Lifting the knee or
thigh was not so great a mark of respect as standing up.
In the Crith Gabhlach the question is asked, " Which is,
higher, a king or a bishop ? " Answer : " The bishop is
" higher, because the king stands up [to salute him] on
" account of religion " : and the sentence concludes — " a
bishop however raises his knee to a king."§ This lifting
of the knee or thigh admits of an obvious explanation. A
person sitting on a low seat — as the Irish generally sat —
when about to stand up, naturally drew in one foot, which
had the effect of raising the knee. So far this of itself
was regarded as a mark of respect, being a preliminary to
standing up : but to stand up altogether completed and
increased the act of reverence.

Giving a kiss, or more generally three kisses, on the
cheek, was a very usual form of respectful and affectionate

* Silva Gad., 420, bottom. See also, HyF, 143, 7>
j Stokes, Lives of SS., 241, I7.
% See Silva Gad., 74, x (thigh) ; 83, 9 (knee).
§ Br. Laws, iv. 339, bottom.

49° SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

salutation : it was indeed the most general of all. When
St. Columba approached the assembly at Drum-ketta,
" King Domnall rose immediately before him, and bade
" him welcome, and kissed his cheek, and set him down
" in his own place."* When Donnchad the son of King
Concobar visited Conall Cernach, " Conall put his arms
about his neck and gave him three kisses." Similar
entries are found everywhere, both in the tales and in
the ecclesiastical writings, showing that the practice was
as prevalent among Christians as among pagans.

A very pleasing way of showing respect and affection,
which we often find noticed, was laying the head gently
on the person's bosom. When Ere, King Concobar's
grandson, came to him, " he placed his head on the
breast of his grandfather, "f The old man Cailte, rising
up in the morning, came to St. Patrick and laid his
head on his bosom : and Patrick blessed him and said :
" In whatsoever place God shall lay His hand on thee,
heaven is in store for thee. "J Adamnan (pp. 35, 36)
notices this custom, where he relates that King Aedan's
son, Ochy Boy, saluted St. Columba respectfully by laying
his head on his bosom. Sometimes persons bent the head
and went on one knee to salute a superior§ : and in case
of eminent saints, laymen often prostrated themselves on
the two knees before them : to show both respect and
affection.||

It seems an odd way of manifesting respect for a man,
to carry him on one's back for some distance : yet it was
in this manner Muiredach, king of Leinster in the sixth
century, acted towards St. Finnen of Clonard. Finnen
had spent some time in Britain, and returning to Ireland,
landed on the Leinster coast ; whereupon the king went
down to meet him, and to show reverence carried him on

* Adamnan, 38, note, 1st column J Silva Gad., 137, middle.

t Rossnaree, 55. § Ibid., 298.

|| Stokes, Lives of SS., lines 381, 2929, 4348, 4693.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 49I

his back three several times across three fields near the
harbour. Yet this over-condescension on the part of the
king was evidently resented by some of his household ;
for one of them made a sharp remark to the saint :
" Thou art oppressive, O cleric, on the king " : on which
Finnen replied : " The number of times that I have been
" taken on his back will be the number of kings of his race
" over the province " ; after which he pronounced a blessing
on him.* It somewhat mitigates the humiliation of the
king's action here when we know that carrying on the
back was not unusual. Some of the early saints had
in their household a fer-imchuir (' man of carrying ') or
trein-fher (' strong-man ') for carrying them over fords or
rough places. St. Patrick's " strong-man " has been already
mentioned : and St. Ciaran's fer-imchuir was Mailoran.
When St. Patrick was a boy his foster-father carried
him home on his back ; and a man brings his sick
mother on his back to St. Brigit to be healed.

In the Life of St. Cormac in the Book of Lecan we are
told that a certain chief named Dai " came and put his
mouth to the floor out of humility to Cormac."f When
St. Patrick visited Moylurg in Connaught, Bishop Maine
" drove the [saint's] horses into a meadow, and cleansed
their hoofs in honour of Patrick."!

2. Pledging, Lending, and Borrowing.

Although there were no such institutions in ancient
Ireland as pawn-offices, pledging articles for a temporary
loan was common enough. The practice was such a
general feature of society that the Brehon Law took
cognisance of it, and stepped in to prevent abuses. The
Law did not prohibit charging interest on loans, though
laws with this object existed in England, in supposed con-
formity with the Mosaic dispensation (Exod., xxii. 25).

* Stokes, Lives of SS., p. 224. f Stokes, Lives of SS., p. 343.

J Trip. Life, 145.

492 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The Brehon Law, though laying down many precautions,
did not contain any provision against usurious or excessive
rates of interest : neither did early English law : for the
British usury laws are of late introduction.

Portable articles of any kind — including animals —
might be pledged for a loan, or as security for the repay-
ment of a debt ; and the law furnishes a long list of
pledgable articles. The person holding the pledge might
put it to its proper use while in his possession, unless
there was express contract against it. But he was to use
reasonably — he was not to injure articles of household or
of ornament by rough usage, or a horse by overwork. He
was moreover obliged to return the pledge on receiving a
day's notice, provided the borrower tendered the sum
borrowed, or the debt, with its interest : and if he failed to
do so he was liable to fine. Suppose it was an ornament
of gold or silver, such as a brooch ; and that it was not
returned at the time required, so that the owner had to
appear at any public function or celebration, such as a
fair, without it : in this case the fine for withholding it was
increased by a personal or honour fine for the indignity he
suffered by being obliged to appear in public without his
ornament.* If the pledged article was lost, or not returned,
the value — and in some cases double the value — had to be
made good.

Sometimes a person borrowed an article on hire for the
use of it, engaging to return it by a certain day. If he
failed to return it at the proper time, besides what he gave
for the use of it, he had to pay interest {tairgilli) on it for
every day he withheld it. When a man lent an article
without any charge — for mere kindness — fixing a day for
its return, if it was not returned on the stipulated day, the
borrower might be charged interest for it.

There were distinct terms for all these transactions.
A loan for kindness was called din : a loan for interest was

* Br. Laws, v. 397, bottom.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 493

airhead : a loan in general was iasacht. Interest or usury
was called tairgilli, and also fogaibthetu, a very old term,
for it occurs in Zeuss, as noticed below. Borrowing or
lending, on pledge, was a very common transaction among
neighbours ; and it was not looked upon as in any sense
a thing to be ashamed of, as pawning articles is at the
present day. The practice moreover continued in use in
Ireland down to comparatively recent times : of which
an instance, occurring in the beginning of the eighteenth
century, may be seen in the Kilk. Archaeol. Journal for
1856-7, pp. 168, 169.

It may be observed that the existence in ancient
Ireland of the practice of pledging and lending for
interest, the designation of the several functions by
different terms, and the recognition of all by the Brehon
Law, may be classed, among numerous other customs and
institutions noticed throughout this book, as indicating a
very advanced stage of civilisation. At what an early
period this stage — of lending for interest — was reached
may be seen from the fact that the MS. from which Zeuss
took fogbaidetu, ' usura,' is the Wurzburg copy of St. Paul's
Epistles which was glossed by some Irish monk in the
eighth century.*

3. Provision for Old Age and Destitution.

Old age was greatly honoured, and provision was made
for the maintenance of old persons who were not able to
support themselves. The Brehon Law says : — " Age is
rewarded by the Feine " : and " where there are two chiefs
" of the same family who are of equal dignity and property,
" the senior shall take precedence. The old man is entitled

* Fogbaidetu, for fogaibthetu, is in the 1st edition of Zeuss, p. 844, last
line : but Ebel has omitted it in his 2nd edition. Nearly all the regula-
tions regarding borrowing and pledging given in this section, as well as
many others, will be found in Br. Laws, in. 492, and note 3 ; 493, and
495 : and in O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 62, lit, 112, 113.

494 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

" to good maintenance, and the senior is entitled to noble
" election."* The scribe who copied this part of the Law
prefixes a remark of his own which expresses still more
strongly the veneration for age : — [I swear] " by this book
" that so far as I can, I will, in the name of God, bring the
" senior before the junior in every case, as these laws down
" here state."

When the head of a family became too old to manage
his affairs, it was an arrangement sanctioned by the Law
that he might retire, and give up both headship and land
to his son, on condition of being maintained for the rest of
his life. In this case, if he did not choose to live with his
son, a separate house — commonly called a house of inchis
— was built for him, the dimensions and furniture of which,
as well as the dimensions of the little kitchen-garden,
are set forth in the law. Three items of maintenance are
distinguished and carefully specified : — food, milk, and
attendance. As to attendance : among other things it is
worth while to mention that he was to have a bath once
at least every twentieth night, and his head was to be
washed every Saturday. His supply of firewood is also
specified, f

If the old man had no children he might make over
his property to a stranger on the same condition of due
maintenance. Or he might purchase from the neigh-
bouring monastery the right to lodge on the premises
and board with the inmates : an arrangement common in
England to a late period, where the purchased privilege of
boarding and lodging in a monastery was called " Corrody."|
This plan for providing for helpless old age, which was
something like the present practice of purchasing an
annuity, continued to prevail in Ireland down to at least
the sixteenth century. In the seventh volume of the Proc.

* Br. Laws, iv. 373 and note.

t O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 11. 30, 31, 479, and note 515 : Br. Laws, iv.
305, note 3. J Br. Laws, in., Richey, in Introduction, Ixv. lxvi.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 495

Roy. Ir. Academy (p. 18) Dr. Todd has published and
translated a deed in the Irish language, dated 1522, by
which an old lady gave up her lands to a man who had a
mortage on them, on condition that he should support
her for the rest of her life.

As to old persons who had no means, the duty of main-
taining them fell primarily of course on the children : or
failing children, on the foster-child. A son who supported
his father in old age had a special distinguishing term
applied to him in the Senchus Mor — mac-gor or gormac :
but this last term was also applied to a sister's son.* A
son or daughter who was able to support parents but who
evaded the duty was punished by having his or her dire-
fine lessened (which meant loss of status : 1. 208, supra),
or in some other way.f The general recognition of the
son's duty to support his parents is noticed in a passage
in Adamnan's " Life of Columba " (p. 159), where certain
brothers who had been supporting their father and mother
forced another brother who had been long absent to under- .
take the duty.

If an old person who had no children became destitute
the tribe was bound to take care of him ; for in the words
of the Senchus Mor : — " It is one of the duties of the fine
(circle of relations, tribe) to support every tribesman " :
and the Gloss adds : — " They do this by duties which are
required of them according to justice. "J A usual plan was
to send the old person to live with some family willing to
undertake the duty, who had an allowance from the tribe
for the cost of support.

In some cases destitute persons dependent on the tribe
who did not choose to live with a strange family, but pre-
ferred to have their own little house, received what we now

* Br. Laws, i. 207, ,9. 111. 56, 20. iv. 291, I0. 43, note 1 ; and v. 71,
line 4 from bottom.

j Br. Laws, III. 53, 57, bottom ; iv. 185, 307, a?. see also IV., Richey,
Introduction, lxvi. lxvii. } Br. Laws, in. 55, 2; 57, 9.

49*> SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

call outdoor relief. According to the Sequel to the Crith
Gabhlach, there was a special officer called uaithne [oohina :
lit. a ' pillar '] whose business it was to look after them : or,
in the words of the tract, to " oversee the wretched and the
poor," and make sure that they received the proper allow-
ance : something like the relieving officer of our present
poor laws. He was of course paid for this duty ; and it is
added that he should bear " attacks on his honour " without
his family or himself needing to take any action in the
matter — referring to the abuse and insult he was likely to
receive from the peevish and querulous class he had in
charge. He was permitted to bear from them insults,
which, if coming from ordinary members of the com-
munity, should be resented in the recognised way to wipe
off the disgrace.*

It is plain from some expressions in the Senchus Mor,
as well as from the words of the Glossator, that in those
times, as at the present day, there were poor persons who
preferred the free and easy life of the wandering beggar-
man| : as reflected in one verse of a once popular modern
Anglo-Irish song : —

" Of all trades a-going begging it is my delight ;
My rent it is paid, and I lay down my bags every night :
I'll throw away care, and take a long staff in my hand ;
And I'll flourish each day courageously looking for chance."

They carried a bag for contributions ; and the Senchus
Mor mentions giving them alms as a commendable deed,
here transmitting a record of a popular feeling that has
continued to prevail to our own day. Shane O'Neill —
John the Proud — prince of Tyrone in the time of
Elizabeth, always put aside the first dish of food for the
poor : — " to serve Christ first " — as he said. More than
half a century ago I saw the same custom carried out —

* Br. Laws, iv. 351 : Sullivan, Introduction, 251, bottom,
f Br. Laws, in. 19, 2Si 21, top.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 497

though in less regal style — in my grandfather's house,
where, just before the family sat down to the noonday
dinner, a big dish of laughing potatoes was always laid
aside for wandering beggars : and the potatoes rarely
survived till night.

From the provisions here described it will be seen that
the most important features of our modern poor-laws were
anticipated in Ireland a thousand years ago.

4. Irish Poetry and Prosody : Love of Nature and of
Natural Beauty.

In very early times, not only poetry proper, but
histories, biographies, laws, genealogies, and such like,
were often written in verse as an aid to the memory.
Among all peoples there were — as there are still — certain
laws or rules, commonly known as Prosody, which poets
had to observe in the construction of their verse : of which
the main object was harmony of numbers. The classifi-
cation and the laws of Irish versification were probably
the most complicated that were ever invented : indicating
on the part of the ancient Irish people, both learned and
unlearned, a delicate appreciation of harmonious combi-
nations of sounds. The following statement will give the
reader an idea of this. There are in Irish three principal
kinds of verse. Of the first kind, which is called " Direct
Metre " (Dan Direch), there are five species, all equally
complicated. The first of these required the observance
of the following rules : — (1) Each stanza to consist of
four lines making complete sense ; (2) In each line seven
syllables ; (3) Alliteration in at least two principal words
of each line ; (4) The lines to rhyme, the rhymes being
greatly varied, and occurring very often ; (5) The last
word of the second line to have one syllable more than
the last word of the first line ; a like relation between the
last words of the fourth and third lines.

K 1

49^ SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

In Irish poetry of all kinds the rhymes were very
frequent, occurring, not only at the ends of the lines, but
also within them, once, twice, or even three times. The
rhymes were either between vowels — i.e. assonances — or
Detween consonants. For this last purpose the consonants
were scientifically divided into six classes, " soft," " hard,"
" rough," " strong," " light, and " the queen," i.e. the letter
s which formed the sixth class : the letters of each of the
first five corresponding and rhyming with each other, but
not with those of any other class. One-syllable, two-
syllable, and three-syllable rhymes were used with equal
facility.

That the old writers of verse were able to comply with
these numerous difficult prosodial rules we have positive
proof in our manuscripts ; and the result is marvellous.
No poetry of any European language, ancient or modern,
could compare with that of Irish for richness of melody.
Well might Dr. Atkinson exclaim (in his Lecture on Irish
Metric, p. 4) : — " I believe Irish verse to have been about
" the most perfectly harmonious combination of sounds
" that the world has ever known. I know of nothing in
" the world's literature like it."

Of each principal kind or measure of verse there were
many divisions and subdivisions, comprising altogether
several hundred different metrical varieties, all instantly
distinguishable by the trained ears of poet and audience.*
We have seen that there were seven grades of " Poets."
Of the lower class, called " Bards," there were also a
number of grades. Each of the grades of both had certain
metres allotted to them ; and each individual was allowed

* See Irish Metric by Dr. Atkinson : the Irish Treatise on Irish Metre
from the Book of Ballymote, translated and annotated by the Rev. B.
M'Carthy, d.d., in the Todd Lecture Series of the Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. in.,
pp. 98-141 : Stokes's Feilire, Introduction, 12-15 : Hyde, Lit. Hist.,
chapters xxxvi. to xxxviii. ; and his little book, Irish Poetry (1903), in
which will be found a most useful survey of Irish poets and poetry,
with their manifold subdivisions.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 499

to compose only in his own special measure, or in those
belonging to the inferior grades ; but he was not permitted
to compose in the measure of any grade above him.

Those of the Irish poets — whether clerical or lay — who
learned to write Latin, imported many of the Irish pro-
sodial rules into their Latin poetry, using accent instead
of quantity, so as to imitate exactly the metres, assonantal
rhymes, alliterations, consonantal harmonies, and all the
other ornaments common in Irish poetry.*

Some of the greatest Celtic scholars that ever lived —
among them Zeuss and Nigra — maintain that rhyme, now
so common in all European languages, originated with the
old Irish poets, and that from the Irish language it was
adopted into Latin, from which it gradually penetrated to
other languages, till it finally spread over all Europe, f
But other eminent men, including the German scholar
R. Thurneysen, think that rhyme was mainly borrowed
by the Gaels from the Romans. The preponderance of
learned opinion is certainly on the side of the Gaels ; but
the subject requires to be further investigated before
final judgment can be pronounced. One thing is quite
certain, that rhyme — as we have already said — was
brought to far greater perfection in Irish than in any
other language. |

It has been stated (p. 497) that laws, histories, genea-
logies, and such like, were often written in verse to make
them more easily remembered. Several pieces of this kind
have been published, of which the following — all or most
mentioned and described elsewhere in this book — are the

* See the Irish Liber Hymnorum, by Drs. Atkinson and Bernard, 11. xv.

f All that can be said at present in favour of this view will be found
in Dr. Sigerson's Introduction to his Bards of the Gael and Gall, and in
Dr. Hyde's Irish Poetry, pp. 45-57. See also Hyde's Lit. Hist., chap, xxxvi.

J Dr. Douglas Hyde has given, in his Literary History of Ireland, and
in his Irish Poetry, English translations of many old Irish poems, in
which the rhymes, metres, and alliterations of the originals are exactly
imitated. Dr. Sigerson, in his Bards of the Gael and Gall, also often
imitates the old rhymes and alliterations.

500 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

principal. The Feilire of Aengus ; the Book of Rights ;
a portion of the Tribes and Customs of Hy Fiachrach ;
the Duan Eirenneach and the Duan Albanach, two long
pieces of versified history published by Dr. Todd in his
Irish version of Nennius ; and the Topographical Poems
of O'Dugan and O'Heeren. This last is an enumeration
of the principal tribes of Ireland at the time of the English
invasion, with the districts they occupied and the chiefs
who ruled over them. The part relating to Leth Conn
(North of Ireland) was written by John O'Dugan, who
died in 1372 ; and that relating to Leth Mow (South) by
Gilla-na-neeve O'Heeren, who died in 1420. The whole
poem has been translated and annotated by O'Donovan,
and published by the Irish Archaeological and Celtic
Society. In such compositions as these we could hardly
expect to find true poetry, for they are little more than
mere catalogues in verse.

The complicated restrictions of their prosody must
have greatly hampered the play of the old Irish poets'
imagination, so much of their energies were concentrated
on overcoming mere mechanical difficulties. Yet in spite
of this, they produced a great body of very beautiful poetry.
Sufficient materials are not yet available to enable us to
pass a general judgment on the character of early Irish
poetry: for, as has been remarked, such pieces as the
Feilire of Aengus are not, and never were intended to be,
poetry, any more than the versified lists of kings and
events we often see in modern English school-books. Yet
these have been almost the only ancient Irish metrical
compositions that have hitherto been brought within reach
of the public, and their prominence is due to their historical
importance.

The great majority of Irish poetical pieces— poetry
in the true sense of the word— are still hidden away in
manuscripts scattered through the libraries of all Europe.
The few that have been brought to light, through the

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 501

investigations of scholars of taste, show that many of the
ancient Irish poets were inspired with true poetical genius.
Most of these pieces are characterised by one prevailing
note-a close observation and an intense love of nature in
all its aspects. As favourable specimens may be instanced
King and Hermit," lately translated and published (in
pamphlet form) by Professor Kuno Meyer (iqoi) "a
singularly beautiful poem," as he designates it, written in
he tenth century : Deirdre's farewell to Alban, of which a
translation is given below; the poetical description of
the pagan heaven in vol. i., p. 2g4> supra> and another and
different one with text and translation by Kuno Meyer
m Mr Nutt's "Voyage of Bran," vol. lt p. 4. Good
examples of Irish poetry also are the series of verse-pieces
interspersed through the prose of » The Courtship of Ferb "
all of which are very simple, and most of them pathetic
and picturesque. Many other very beautiful examples

SeanoLh." " P°etiCal *"* °f ^ A^l™h na

On this subject I cannot do better than quote a few

weisn poetry, I know nothing to place by their side.

to 'and XsebeivenTerIred ** a" *" « »I*— both those referred
inasmneh a^thrrfch me^rT*.'0 ^ disad™">«= * translation,

— * ^c sx»rsr x a oAtua„r y

502 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The poem here published [" King and Hermit "] affords a good example
of that marvellous descriptive art of Irish poets, which they share
with the Welsh bards."*

The poet's adage, " A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,"
found real and concrete application among the ancient Irish.
Their poetry, their tales, and even their proper names, bear
testimony to their intense love of nature and their apprecia-
tion of natural beauty. Keats, in the opening of "En-
dymion," enumerates various natural features and artificial
creations as " things of beauty," among others, the sun,
the moon, " trees old and new," clear rills, " the mid-forest
brake," " all lovely tales that we have heard or read."
These and many other features of nature and art, not men-
tioned by Keats — the boom and dash of the waves, the cry
of the sea-birds, the murmur of the wind among the trees,
the howling of the storm, the sad desolation of the land-
scape in winter, the ever-varying beauty of the clouds, the
cry of the hounds in full career among the glens, f the
beauty of the native music, tender, sad, or joyous, and
soforth in endless variety — all these are noticed and dwelt
upon by those observant old Irish writers — especially in
their poetry — in words as minutely descriptive and as
intensely appreciative as the poetry of Wordsworth.

It would be easy to multiply instances of this bent of
mind, but we must be contented with a few illustrations
here. An excellent example is Midir's address to the
lady Befinn, already given (vol. I., p. 294). In the Life of
St. Senan — a plain prose narrative — it is related that a
child, playing beside its mother near a cliff in the west
of Clare, fell " over the edge of Ireland " into the sea, but
was preserved from injury by the intercession of St. Senan.

* Many similar testimonies might be adduced from native Irish writers :
but I prefer — for obvious reasons — to quote from this scholarly and dis-
cerning foreigner.

t The delight of the Irish, both ancient and modern, in hunting and
its accessories has been already noticed (pp. 467, 468, supra).

CHAP. XXXJ VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 5°3

A person who heard the shrieks of the mother went down
to look for him, and found him sitting quite safe in the
trough of the sea where he had fallen, " playing with the
" waves. For the waves would reach up to him and laugh
" round him, and he was laughing at the waves, and putting
" the palm of his hand to the foam of the crests, and he
" used to lick it like the foam of new milk."*

They loved the music of the wind and the waves. The
sound of the breeze rustling through the foliage so struck
the imagination of those spiritual people, that in Cormac's
Glossary (p. 132) the word omna, one of the Irish names
for the oak-tree, is derived from fuamna, " sounding " :
" because " — in the words of the Glossary — " great is the
sound of the wind blowing against it." In the Life of
St. Columkille it is stated that while residing in Iona, he
wrote a poem in the Irish language, a tender reminiscence
of his beloved native land, in which he expresses himself
in this manner : —

St. Columkille's Remembrance of Erin.

" How delightful to be on Ben-Edarf before embarking on the foam-
white sea ; how pleasant to row one's little curragh round it, to look
upward at its bare steep border, and to hear the waves dashing against
its rocky cliffs.

" A grey eye looks back towards Erin ; a grey eye full of tears.

" While I traverse Alban of the ravens, I think on my little oak
grove in Derry. If the tributes and the riches of Alban were mine,
from the centre to the uttermost borders, I would prefer to them all
one little house in Derry. The reason I love Derry is for its quietness,
for its purity, for its crowds of white angels.

" How sweet it is to think of Durrow : how delightful would it be
to hear the music of the breeze rustling through its groves.

" Plentiful is the fruit in the Western Island — beloved Erin of many
waterfalls : plentiful her noble groves of oak. Many are her kings
and princes ; sweet-voiced her clerics ; her birds warble joyously in
the woods ; gentle are her youths ; wise her seniors ; comely and grace-

* Stokes, Lives of SS., p. 212.

| Ben Edar, Howth, a rocky headland near Dublin.

504 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

ful her women, of spotless virtue ; illustrious her men, of noble
aspect.

" There is a grey eye that fills with tears when it looks back to-
wards Erin. While I stand on the oaken deck of my bark I stretch my
vision westwards over the briny sea towards Erin."*

When the sons of Usna returned from Scotland to
Ireland at the treacherous invitation of King Concobar,
Deirdre, the wife of Naisi one of the brothers, seating
herself on a sea-cliff of the present county Antrim, looked
sadly over the waters at the blue headlands of Scotland,
with gloomy forebodings for the future, and uttered this
farewell : —

Deirdre's Farewell to Alban.

" Dear to me is yon eastern land : Alban with its wonders. Beloved

is Alban with its bright harbours and its pleasant hills of the green

slopes. From that land I would never depart- except to be with

Naisi.

ii.
" Kil-Cuan, O Kil-Cuan, f whither Ainnli was wont to resort : short
seemed the time to me while I sojourned there with Naisi on the margins
of its streams and waterfalls.

in.
" Glen-Lee, O Glen-Lee, where I slept happy under soft coverlets :
fish and fowl, and the flesh of red deer and badgers ; these were our
fare in Glen-Lee.

IV.

" Glen-Masan, O Glen-Masan : tall its cresses of white stalks : often
were we rocked to sleep in our eurragh in the grassy harbour of Glen-
Masan.

" Glen-Orchy, O Glen-Orchy : over thy straight glen rises the smooth
ridge that oft echoed to the voices of our hounds. No man of the

* The two Irish poems, with translations, from which the above is
extracted, will be found in Reeves's Adamnan, pp. 275 and 285. They
are very ancient ; and they illustrate our theme equally well, whether
they were written by St. Columkille or by any other Irishman.

■f This and the other places named in Deirdre's Farewell are all in the
west of Scotland.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 505

clan was more light-hearted than my Naisi when following the chase
in Glen-Orchy.

VI.

" Glen-Ettive, O Glen-Ettive : there it was that my first house was
raised for me : lovely its woods in the smile of the early morn : the sun
loves to shine on Glen-Ettive.

VII.

" Glsn-da-Roy, O Glen-da-Roy : the memory of its people is dear
to me 5 sweet is the cuckoo's note from the bending bough on the peak
over Glen-da-Roy.

VIII.

" Dear to me is Dreenagh over the resounding shore : dear to me
its crystal waters over the speckled sand. From those sweet places I
would never depart, but only to be with my beloved Naisi."*

The singing of birds had a special charm for the old
Irish people. Comgan, otherwise called Mac da Cherda
(seventh century: vol. 1., page 224, supra), standing on
the great rath of Cnoc-Rafann (now Knockgraffon in
Tipperary), which was in his time surrounded with woods,
uttered the following verse, as we find it preserved in
Cormac's Glossary (p. 7) : —

" This great rath on which I stand
Wherein is a little well with a bright silver drinking-cup :
Sweet was the voice of the wood of blackbirds
Round this rath of Fiacha son of Moinche."f

Among the numerous examples of Metre given in a
treatise on Prosody in the Book of Ballymote is the

* From Joyce's " Old Celtic Romances," where the whole tale is
given. The original Irish text of this beautiful poem, which was first
published, with translation, by Theophilus O'Flanagan, in his version of
the Story of the Fate of the Sons of Usna, in Trans. Gael. Soc, 1808, has
been lately republished, with the tale itself, by the Society for the
Preservation of the Irish language. For a metrical version, see Ferguson,
Lays of the Western Gael.

f That is Fiacha Muillethan, king of Munster in the third century,
who resided at Cnoc-Rafann : see p. 103, supra.

506 Social And domestic life [part Hi

following verse, selected there merely for a grammatical
purpose : —

" The bird that calls within the sallow- tree,
Beautiful his beak and clear his voice ;

The tip of the bill of the glossy jet-black bird is a lovely yellow;
The note that the merle warbles is a trilling lay."*

It would be hard to find a more striking or a prettier
conception of the power of music in the shape of a bird-
song, than the account of Blanid's three cows. When the
Isle of Man was invaded by the Irish Red Branch heroes,
they took the king's castle and brought away all the jewels ;
among them — as the best jewel of all — the lady Blanid,
daughter of the king, together with her great brazen
caldron, her three cows, and also three little birds that
used to sing for them while milking. These cows were
always milked into the caldron, but submitted reluctantly
and gave little milk till the birds came to their usual perch
— on the cow's ears — and sang for them : then they gave
their milk freely till the caldron was filled. f See also
vol. I., p. 591, supra.

Even the place-names scattered over the country —
names that remain in hundreds to this day — bear testi-
mony to this pleasing feature of the Irish character :
for we have numerous places still called by names with
such significations as " delightful wood," " silvery stream,"
" cluster of nuts " (for a hazel wood), " prattling rivulet,"
" crystal well," " the recess of the bird- warbling," " melo-
dious little hill," " the fragrant bush-cluster," and soforth
in endless variety. J

* Mac Carthy, Cod. Pal. -Vat. 131. Other examples in Silva Gad. 109 :
Stokes and Strachan's Thes. 11. 290 : and Hyde, Lit. Hist., 275.

| Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1870-1, p. 411.

% For the originals of all the above names, and for numerous others of
a like kind, see Irish Names of Places, vol. 11., chap, iv., on " Poetical
and Fancy Names."

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 507

Many students of our ancient literature have noticed
these characteristics. " Another poem " — writes Mr. Alfred
Nutt in his " Studies on Ossian and Ossianic Literature "
(p. 9) — " strikes a note which remains dominant throughout
" the entire range of Ossianic Literature : the note of keen
" and vivid feeling for certain natural conditions. It is a
" brief description of winter : —

" ' A tale here for you : oxen lowing : winter snowing : summer passed
away : wind from the north, high and cold : low the sun and short
his course : wildly tossing the wave of the sea. The fern burns deep red.
Men wrap themselves closely : the wild goose raises her wonted cry :
cold seizes the wing of the bird : 'tis the season of ice : sad my tale.' "

This is a bald literal translation : what would it be if
dressed in the diction of Scott, Goldsmith, or Wordsworth !
Dr. Whitley Stokes, speaking of the " Colloquy of the
Ancient Men " — an Ossianic composition consisting of a
series of short narratives framed in one connecting story —
notices the genuine feeling for natural beauty and the
passion for music that pervade the whole of them.* In
this connexion I may again also point to the beautiful
poem of " King and Hermit," already mentioned, and
Professor Kuno Meyer's Introduction to it.f

So far we have had under consideration the Irish
poetry of the early centuries. In later times the Irish
poets broke away from their ancient prosodial trammels
and produced much excellent poetry. Among the remains
of these times — from the fifteenth century down — we have
many pieces of great beauty — odes, ballads, elegies, songs,
&c. — the products of true poetical inspiration. Spenser,
a supreme judge of poetry, but in general a prejudiced

* Preface to the Acallamh : Ir. Texte, iv. xii.

•f Excellent renderings into English rhymed metre — many of them very
beautiful — of about 140 Irish poems, of various ages, from the most
ancient to modern times, have been given by Dr. Sigerson in his Bards
of the Gael and Gall.

508 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

witness for Ireland, and not disposed to praise things Irish,
has given the following testimony regarding this poetry of
the later Irish bards (View, 124) : — " Yea, truly I have
" caused divers of them to be translated unto me, that I
" might understand them, and surely they savoured of
" sweet wit and good invention, but skilled not of the
" goodly ornaments of poetry [i.e. they wanted the qualities
" that go to form great poetry] ; yet were they sprinkled
" with some pretty flowers of their natural device, which
" gave good grace and comeliness unto them."*

In modern Irish poetry the old prosodial rules are
almost wholly disregarded. The rhymes are assonantal,
and very frequent : they occur not only at the ends of the
lines but within them — sometimes once, sometimes twice ;
and not unfrequently the same rhyme runs through several
stanzas. In other respects modern Irish poetry generally
follows the metrical construction of English verse, f

* The question of the change from the old order of things in Irish
poetry, and its effects on the productions of the bards, is too extensive to
be dealt with adequately here. The reader may consult Dr. Hyde's very
full treatment of this subject in his Lit. Hist, of Ireland, pp. 479 et seq.

f For the metrical laws observed by the Irish poets in the eighteenth
century, see the " Introductions " of the Rev. Patrick S. Dinneen, m.a.,
to his two volumes, the Poems of Egan O'Rahilly, and Amhrain Eoghain
Ruaidh Ui Shuilledbhdin (The Poems of Owen Roe O'Sullivan).

In regard to rhyming, Shelley's poem, " The Cloud," resembles some of
these modern Irish pieces : but his rhymes are what are called in English
prosody " perfect," not assonantal. This specimen will show what is
meant : —

" I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers
From the seas and the streams ;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.'

The Cork poet, Fitzjames O'Brien, directly imitated the native poetry
in his poem on " Lough Hyne " (also with perfect, not assonantal, rhyme) :

" I know a lake where the cool waves break,
And softly fall on the silver sand ;
And no steps intrude on that solitude

And no voice save mine disturbs the strand."

See also, for other instances, Father Prout's " Bells of Shandon,"
Moore's song, " Wreathe the Bowl," and Curran's " If Sadly Thinking."

The Ir.sh peasant-poets of a century ago, or more, when composing
their doggerel songs in English — with which language they were only

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 509

5. Six Stages of Life.

Shakespeare's seven stages of human life are repre-
sented by : — 1. the infant ; 2. the schoolboy ; 3. the lover ;
4. the soldier ; 5. the justice ; 6. old age ; 7. decrepitude.
The ancient Irish, long before the time of Shakespeare,
divided life into six stages — called " Columns of Age "
(colomna dis) — which are simply enumerated in Cormac's
Glossary (p. 41), without any poetical setting : — 1. infancy
{ndidendacht) ; 2. boyhood (macdacht) ; 3. youth or puberty
(gillacht) ; 4. adolescence or manhood (hoclachus) ; 5. old
age (sendacht) ; 6. decrepitude (diblidecht or dimligdetu).
Here two of the Irish stages — youth and manhood — are
represented by three — lover, soldier, and justice — in
Shakespeare.

6. Human Temperaments.

Dr. Whitley Stokes, in the Preface to his Three Irish
Glossaries (p. xl.), gives a curious myth, from an old Irish
manuscript in the British Museum, to account for the
different dispositions and temperaments of mankind,
which, as he remarks, corresponds with similar legends
of Teutonic and Indian origin. The following are the
opening words of his translation : — " It is worth knowing
" what Adam was made of, namely of eight parts : — the
" first part, of earth ; the second part, of sea ; the third
" part, of sun ; the fourth part, of clouds ; the fifth part,
" of wind : . . . ; the seventh part, of the Holy Ghost ;
" the eighth part, of the light of the world."

The old account then goes on to explain the tempera-
ments from these components : — The earth part is man's

inperfectly acquainted — imitated, by a sort of hereditary instinct, the
assonantal rhymes of their native language. The following is a good
specimen the rhyming syllables are italicised : —

" The grand improvements they would ajnuse you,
The trees are drooj>'vng with fruit all kind ;
The bees per/»ming the fields with music
Which yields more beauty to CastleAyde."

510 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

body, and if this predominates in a man he will be slothful.
The part of the sea is the blood, and this in excess makes
a man changeful. The part of the sun is his face and
countenance, which will be lively and beautiful if that part
is prominent. The part of the clouds, . . . The part of
the wind is the breath, and if that part prevails he will be
of a strong character. The part of the Holy Ghost is the
soul, the predominance of which will make him lively, of
good countenance, full of grace and of the divine Scripture.
The part that was made of the light of the word is piety,
and if this prevails he will be a loving, sensible man.*

7. Blood-Covenant.
Giraldus Cambrensis, in his " Topography of Ireland "
(in., xxii), says that, when the Irish make a very solemn
league, they ratify it " by drinking each other's blood, which
they shed for this purpose. This custom " — he goes on
to say — " has been handed down to them from the rites
" of the pagans, who were wont to confirm their treaties
" with blood " : after which he proceeds to add some
comments, in his usual bitter style. This statement has
been considered as one of Giraldus's libels ; and it has
been warmly denied by Keating in the Preface to his
" History of Ireland " (p. xxvii), by Lynch in his " Cambren-
sis Eversus " (in., 217, 221), and by Lanigan in his " Ecclesi-
astical History " (iv., 285). But here Giraldus, though he
distorts, and pours forth a volume of rancorous abuse and
exaggeration, does not bear absolutely false witness. That
the Irish had a cro-cotaig, or ' blood-covenant ' (cro, blood,
cognate with Latin cruor), admits of no doubt. In the
year 598 A.D., when Branduff, king of Leinster, was pre-
paring to fight the king of Ireland in the Battle of Dunbolg,

* Dr. Stokes has given a poetical paraphrase of this in English (" Man
Octipartite "), which may be seen in Stopford Brooke and Rolleston's
Treasury of Irish Poetry, p. 348. In the Preface to Three Irish Glossaries,
Dr. Stokes refers, for corresponding myths among other ancient nations,
to several authorities — German, Sanskrit, Latin, and Old English. See
also Rev. Celt., 1. 261.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 511

as told in vol. I., p. 141, supra, he met, on the side of a
mountain at some distance from both camps, a party of
Ulidians (from East Ulster), who had formed part of the
king of Ireland's army ; and induced them to abandon the
monarch and join his own standard. The king of Ulidia
then said : — " A blood-covenant (cro-codaig) and an agree-
ment shall be made between us ": whereupon — in the
words of the old narrative — " they seated themselves on the
" mountain and made a cotach or bond of fellowship that
" should never be broken." The king of Ireland was
defeated and slain in that great battle : and the old
history adds that the mountain, which had been called
before that time Slieve Nechtain, was afterwards called
Slieve Codaig, the ' mountain of the covenant.' This moun-
tain lies on the left of the road as you go from Hollywood
to Donard in Wicklow ; and it retains the name to this
day in the slightly altered form of Slieve Gadoe.*

Here there is no hint — further than the name — as to
the nature of the covenant, or what exactly was done : for
the good reason that it was so well understood in the time
of the writer, that he needed only to name it. But we get
the details from Martin, f as he found the custom practised
down to his time, eleven centuries later, among our cousins,
the people of the Western Islands of Scotland, who derived
it from Ireland. His testimony is moreover independent,
as he knew nothing of the early Irish custom. He says of
the islanders : — " Their ancient leagues of friendship were
" ratified by drinking a drop of each other's blood, which was
" commonly drawn out of the little finger. This bond was
" religiously observed as a religious bond." And he goes
on to say that whoever violated it utterly lost character, so
that all people avoided him. The ancient Irish custom
was something like this : and the blood that each person
drank consisted of portion of a single drop, mixed with

* Silva Gad., 413 : Rev. Celt., XIII. 73 : also Irish Names of Places,
11. 463. t Western Isles, 109.

512 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

water. So that Giraldus's " drinking each other's blood "
must be toned down to this rather mild formality.

Sometimes the Irish ratified covenants by having them
written in blood. When St. Cairnech brought about a
league between the Hy Neill and the Cianachta, i.e. the
people of Keenaght in Meath, as we are told in the
old tale of the Death of Murkertagh mac Neill, king of
Ireland (a.d. 512-533), he mixed the blood of both tribes
in one vessel, and wrote with it the treaty : thus rendering
it inviolable.* This, as we see, was done under Christian
auspices.

The blood-covenant was not peculiar to Ireland and
Scotland. It came down from primitive times : it was
once prevalent in many countries, and exists among some
people to this day. Herodotus, in his account of King
Croesus, records that the Medes and Lydians made oaths
in treaties like the Greeks, but added this ceremony : —
they scratched their arms till they drew a little blood, and
each licked the blood off the other's arm. Professor Max
Mullerf writes : —

" Another widely-spread custom is the drinking of blood, as the
highest sanction of a promise or a treaty. Herodotus (in. 8) alludes
to this custom as existing in Arabia ; and how long it prevailed and
how firmly it was established we may gather from the fact that Moham-
med had to forbid it as one of the heavy sins — idolatry, neglect of duties
towards parents, murder, and the blood-oath."

8. Cremation-ashes thrown into water.

In some cases the body of an animal or of a human
being was burned, and the ashes thrown into water —
generally a stream — with the idea of removing some
malign influence, or obliterating the memory or the effects
of a crime. According to an ancient legend, which is fully
given by Keating (pp. 336, 338), a series of calamities fell
on Munster in the third century of the Christian era. And

* Petrie's Tara, 121, note f Anthropological Religion, p. 191

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 5*3

when the nobles inquired into the matter, they were told
that all the misfortunes were caused by two sons who were
born to their king — the offspring of incest. Whereupon
they demanded that the boys should be given up to them,
" that they might consume them with fire and cast their
ashes into the running stream," with the object of putting
an end to the trouble. Whether the design was carried
out is not stated.

When Diancecht the Dedannan leech-god (vol. I., p. 261,
supra) slew Meichi the son of the war-witch Morrigan, he
found in the body three hearts in the shape of serpents'
heads, which, had they been allowed to grow, would have
destroyed all the animals in Ireland. Diancecht burned
these three venomous snake-heads, and threw the ashes
into the current of the river Barrow, which heated the
water and caused it to seethe up so violently that it killed
and boiled to rags all the fish along the whole course of
the river.* We have already seen (p. 456, supra) that the
body of a mad dog should be burned and the ashes thrown
into a running stream.

Maildune and his companions landed from their currach
on an island, where they found a palace inhabited by only
one little cat. A great collection of torques and other
precious jewels hung round the walls, which Maildune told
his men not to interfere with. His foster-brother however,
disregarding the injunction, took down one of the torques
and brought it away. But the cat followed him and over-
took him in the middle of the court, and, springing on him
like a blazing fiery arrow, went through his body and
reduced it in a moment to a heap of ashes. He then
returned to the room, and, leaping up on a low pillar,
sat upon it. Maildune turned back, bringing the torque
with him, and, approaching the cat, spoke some soothing
words ; after which he put the torque back to the place
from which it had been taken. Having done this, he

* O'Grady, Silva Gad., 524, top

514 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

collected the ashes of his foster-brother, and, bringing
them to the shore, cast them into the sea.* The practice
of burning the dead, and throwing the ashes into the sea,
prevailed also among the Scandinavian nations.

9. Something further about Animals.

There are not, and never have been, any venomous
reptiles in Ireland. There are small lizards, five or six
inches long, commonly called in Irish, art- or arc-luachra,
' lizard of the rushes,' but they are quite harmless.
St. Patrick is credited in legend with freeing the island
from venomous and demoniac reptiles ; but two centuries
before his time, Solinus wrote regarding Ireland, illic
nullus anguis, " there is no snake." Giraldus Cambrensis,
in the twelfth century, testified that there were no snakes
or adders, toads, or frogs ; and in an Irish ms., quoted by
Stokes, f Ireland is compared to Paradise, which has no
venomous reptiles and no frogs. According to Giraldus,
the first frog ever seen in Ireland was found in his own
time in a meadow near Waterford : but recently our
naturalists have discovered a native frog, or rather a
small species of toad, in a remote district in Kerry, which
must have cunningly eluded the eye of St. Patrick, for
they have been in the place from the beginning.

But though we have no great reptiles in nature, we are
amply compensated by legends, both ancient and modern,
according to which there lives at the bottom of many of
the Irish lakes a monstrous hairy serpent or dragon,
usually called piast or heist, i.e. " beast," from Latin bestia ;
and sometimes nathir, i.e. " serpent " ; chained there by a
superior power — commonly credited to St. Patrick — till
the day of judgment. Our most ancient literature, pagan
as well as Christian and ecclesiastical, abounds in legends
of those frightful reptiles. Sometimes they guard a liss

* Old Celtic Romances, 133. f ^n Trip. Life, Introduction, xxix.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 515

or fort. The legend is as prevalent to-day as it was a
thousand years ago : and very many lakes have now, as
the people say, a frightful monster with a great hairy
mane, at the bottom.*

But we had a much more gigantic and much more
deadly sea-monster than any of these — the Rosualt — a
mighty animal that cut a great figure in Irish tales of the
olden time. There is a well-known plain at the foot of
Croagh Patrick mountain, called Murrisk, where the body
of this sea-monster was cast ashore, from which the name
is derived. For according to the legendary account in the
Book of Leinster, Murrisk is only a shortened form of
Muir-iasc [Murreesk], meaning ' sea-fish.' When the
Rosualt was alive — which was in the time ot St. Columkille
— he was able to vomit in three different ways three years
in succession. One year he turned up his tail, and with
his head buried deep down, he spewed the contents of his
stomach into the water, in consequence of which all the
fish died in that part of the sea, and currachs and ships
were wrecked and swamped. Next year he sank his tail
into the water, and rearing his head high up in the air,
belched out such noisome fumes that all the birds fell
dead. In the third year he turned his head shoreward and
vomited towards the land, causing a pestilential vapour to
creep over the country, that killed men and four-footed
animals, f

St. Brendan, during his celebrated voyage in the
Atlantic, once landed on the back of a huge fish, think-
ing it was an island, and his companions made a fire and
began to cook their supper ; but the beast, no doubt
feeling the heat inconvenient, suddenly sank into the sea,
and they barely escaped with their lives into their boat.

* For more about these supernatural aquatic monsters see Adamnan,
11. xxvii : IarC, p. 19 : O'Cl. Cal., 145 : Tain Bo Fr., 149, 157 1 Silva
Gad., 283 : Joyce, Irish Names of Places, vol. 1. 198.

t LL, 167, b, 46! Silva Gad., 480, a. 527, 9. Rev. Celt., vol. 1. 258.

5l6 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The name of this great fish was Jasconius,* from which
we infer that it was an immense eel, for " Jascon-ius " —
pron. Yasconius — is merely the Latin way of writing the
Irish easconn (pron. ascon or yascon), an eel. This monster
was in fact a sea-serpent. An incident similar to that of
Brendan is related in the Story of the First Voyage
of Sindbad the Sailor. All this will remind the reader
of the great Norse sea-animal called the Kraken : the
monstrous fish mentioned in the First Book of " Paradise
Lost " :—

" Him, haply, slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays."

But the Norse Kraken was a dull, listless sort of a
beast, with nothing to boast of but mere size ; and our
Rosualt beats him by long odds in liveliness of tempera-
ment and variety of accomplishments.

10. Animals as Pets.

Many passages, both in the Brehon Laws and in Irish
literature in general, show that tenderness for animals was
a characteristic of the Irish people. It appears from a
commentary on the Senchus M6r that special care was
taken that animals held in distress should be properly fed ;
and there was generally a person put to care them. When
cattle were taken to be impounded, if the journey was long
they had to be fed at stations along the way.f

The custom of keeping pet animals was very general ;
and many kinds were tamed that no one would think of
keeping as pets now. We read of lap-dogs, foxes, wolves,
deer, badgers, hawks, ravens, crows, cranes, cats, sheep, and

* O'Donoghue, Brendaniana, 127. f Br. Laws, 11. 77, 104, note 1.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 517

even pigs, kept as pets. The favourite pet of the hermit
Marban, brother of Guaire Aidne king of Connaught in
the seventh century, was a white sow, as we read in the
tenth-century poem, " King and Hermit," published by
Kuno Meyer : but in the later tale — The Tromdamh — this
pet is a white boar. Such animals were so common, and
were mixed up so much with the domestic life of the people,
that they are often mentioned in the Brehon Laws. Many
of the Irish saints were fond of animal pets ; and this
amiable trait has supplied numerous legends to our litera-
ture, a few of which are given here.* St. Patrick himself,
according to Muirchu's seventh-century narrative, showed
them a good example of tenderness for animals. When the
chief Dare gave the saint a piece of ground at Armagh,
they both went to look at it : and on their arrival they
found there a doe with its little fawn. Some of St. Patrick's
people made towards it to kill it : but he prevented them ;
and taking up the little animal gently on his shoulder, he
brought it and laid it down in another field some distance
to the north of Armagh, the mother following him the
whole way like a pet sheep, f

On one occasion St. Finnen, at Clonard, called to him
one of his pupils, named Senach, and told him to go round
the monastery and bring a report of how the rest of the
pupils were engaged at that moment. We hear only
about Colomb, son of Crimthann. He was found on his
knees with his mind on the contemplation of God, and
birds were resting on his hands and on his head, which he
never disturbed. St. Kevin was once at prayers so stead-
fastly that birds came and built their nests in the hollows
of his outstretched palms. Giraldus Cambrensis has the
following version of this legend. The saint retired during
Lent — as was his wont — to his little hermitage up the

* On the fondness and tenderness of monks for animals, see Kilk. Arch.
Journ., 1899, p. 229, bot. : Silva Gad., 2, top Adamnan, 90 ; 91, note r. :
and Reg. of All Hallows, xxi., note y. f Trip. Life, 292.

5l8 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

valley of Glendalough, to spend the time in solitude, con-
templation, and prayer ; and one morning putting out his
hand to raise it towards heaven, " a blackbird perched on
the palm and laid her eggs upon it, treating it as a nest."
And Kevin, taking pity on the bird, never stirred his hand
till the young brood was hatched. Hence, continues
Giraldus, all the images of St. Kevin throughout Ireland
represent him with a blackbird on his extended hand.*

In the Life of St. Brigit we read that the king of
Leinster in her time had a pet fox, which had been taught
to amuse him with its tricks and gambols. But one day
a shepherd belonging to Brigit 's household, going to cut
firewood, came upon the fox and killed it, whereupon he
was seized by the enraged king to be punished, but was
let off by the intervention of the saint. f

Pet cranes were very common and are often noticed :
the Brehon Law mentions fines for trespasses committed
by them. J St. Columkille had one which followed him
about everywhere like a dog while he was at home in
Iona. St. Brendan of Clonfert had a pet prechdn or crow
(Feil. 73 mid.). St. Colman of Templeshanbo in Wexford
kept a flock of ducks on a pond near the church, which
were so tame that they came and went at his call. Popular
legend subsequently related such marvels of these birds
that they became one of the " Wonders of Ireland." It
appears that on some occasions one of them was brought
home and thrown alive by accident into a pot with other
food which was cooking over a fire : but so long as the bird
was in the pot the water remained cold, no matter what
amount of firewood was lighted up under it ; and in the end

* See Stokes's Lives of SS., pp. 226 and 344 : and Girald., Top. Hib.,
11. xxviii. This legend, or rather one corresponding with it, is also
current in India.

f Three Irish Homilies, 83. For a similar modern legend of King
O'Toole's pet goose, see Dub. Pen. Journ., I., p. 6.

t Br. Laws, iv. 115, where several pet animals are mentioned. For pet
cranes see also Mac Conglinne, 50, 3,, and Stokes's Lives of SS., 270.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 519

the little bird flew back to its companions, hale and hearty.*
As to pet pigs, the Brehon Law,f as mentioned elsewhere
in this book, anticipating their mischievous propensities,
is specially severe on trespass committed by them.

Some small animal called a togmall (for which see
p. 128, supra) was also tamed and kept as a pet. It is
related in the Tain that when on one occasion Ailill and
Maive, king and queen of Connaught, were walking out,
Maive had a pet togmall on her shoulder, and Ailill a pet
bird on his ; and that Cuculainn killed both animals with
his sling — merely to show that he could have killed the
king and queen themselves if he wished. From this it
appears that it was the custom to carry such little pet
animals perched on the shoulder — a practice which is
curiously illustrated in an authority twelve centuries later,
the coloured fresco figures on the walls of Knockmoy
abbey in Galway, in which three kings are represented
carrying birds, one on the shoulder, one on the arm, and
one held by a string.! (See vol. I., p. 59, supra.)

The English colonists appear to have imitated the Irish
in their fondness for animal pets, as they did in many
other things. In the Anglo-Irish ecclesiastical annals it
is recorded that in 13 19 Richard of Exeter, chief justice of
Ireland, sued the prior of the monastery of All Hallows
(where Trinity College, Dublin, now stands) for sixty
shillings damages for the loss of a pet heron he had left in
the keeping of the prior, who, however, carelessly suffered
it to escape. Sixty shillings was a big sum in those days,
equal to £50 or £60 of our present money : indicating how
highly these pets were prized. It may be added that the
prior had not to pay after all : for the judge pardoned him
at the request of the prosecutor.§

* Irish Nennius, 217. These ducks are noticed at length by Giraldus
(Top. Hib., 11. xxix), who mentions the attempt to boil one of them, and
its failure. t See Br. Laws, iv. 327, ,9.

J See Stokes's Life of Petrie, 268. § Reg. of All Hallows, Introd., xxi.

520 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

II. The Cardinal Points.

A single point of the compass was called dird, which is
still used in Scotland and Ulster in the form of airt : " Of
a' the airts the wind can blaw, I dearly like the west "
(Burns). The four cardinal points were severally desig-
nated by the Irish in the same way as by the ancient
Hebrews and by the Indians ; for they got names which
expressed their position with regard to a person standing
with his face to the east.

East. — The original Irish word for the east is oir [ur,
er] ; which however is often written soir and thoir [sur,
hur] ; and a derivative form oirthear [urher] is used in
the oldest Irish writings. Moreover, the first and last
are often written air and airther. Our ancient literature
affords ample proof that these words were used from the
earliest times to signify both the front and the east, and
the same double application continues in use at the present
day. As one instance out of many, may be cited the
two fold translation of airther in the ancient druidical
prophecy of the coming of St. Patrick : — A miasa i
n-airther a tighi (" his dishes [shall be] in the east of his
house "). For while Muirchu, in the Book of Armagh,
translates airther by the Latin word anterior, or front, on
the other hand, the same word in the same passage has
been translated by its more usual equivalent oriens or
orienialis (i.e. east) in the Scholia to Fiacc's Hymn, and
in several of the Lives of St. Patrick.*

West. — Iar [eer] signifies the hinder part, a meaning
which is illustrated in the word iarball, applied to the
tail of an animal, i.e. the hinder ball or member.
It also signifies the west. There is a derivative form
iarthar, corresponding with oirthear, which is in very
general use.

* Sec Reeve, Adamnan, p. 8?.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 521

South. — Deas [dass] means literally the right-hand
side ; old Irish form des, corresponding with Lat. dextra,
Gr. dexia, Sanskr. daksha ; and it is also the word for the
south, as the right hand lies towards the south when the
face is turned to the east. The word is used in both senses
at the present day ; and it would be easy to prove by
quotations from old Irish authorities, that this was the case
in the very earliest ages. It is often written teas [tass].

North. — Tuath, tuaith [thooa], means properly the left
hand ; and as deas is applied to the south, so this word is
used to signify the north. Corresponding with deisceart,
we have tuaiscert, ' northern part or direction.'

12. The Wind.

In the description of the universe in the " Saltair na
Rann," already referred to (vol. I., p. 464, supra), a promi-
nent place is given to the winds ; and they are described
in much the same way in the commentaries on the Senchus
M6r. These descriptions deserve to be noticed on account
of the curious belief they record of the ancient Irish people
that the wind blowing from each quarter has a special
colour. God made " four chief winds and four subordinate
" winds, and four other subordinate winds, so that there are
" twelve winds." The four chief winds blow from north,
south, east, and west, and between each two points of
these there are two subordinate winds. " God also made
" the colours of the winds, so that the colours of all those
" winds are different from each other."*

The wind from the north was black (dub) ; that from
the east, purple (cor era) ; the south wind was white (gel) ;
and the west wind, pale (odur). Between the north and
east were two winds, speckled (alod) and dark (temin).
Between the east and south two others, yellow (buide) ana
red (derg). Between south and west were the greyish-

* Saltair na Rann, lines 45 to 52 : Br. Laws, 1. 27.

522 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

green (glas), and the green (uaine). Between west and
north the dark brown (ciar) and the grey (liath). Fig. 339
exhibits the whole fancy very clearly.

The Irish had other beliefs regarding the winds, many
of them superstitions connected with the fairy mythology.
According to an ancient Irish poem, probably of the tenth
century, printed and translated by Prof. Kuno Meyer in

e-E

Fie. 339.
The colours of the twelve winds : constructed from the description in Saltair na Rann.

" Hibernia Minora " (p. 39), the fate of the year depends
on the wind that happens to blow on the 1st January.
The eight principal winds (N., S., E., W., N.E., N.W., S.E.,
S.W.), and their names, are enumerated, with the particular
blessings or calamities that will follow after each, whichever
may happen to blow on that fateful day.

There are many modern superstitions in connexion
with winds which most probably come down from old
pagan times. The " red wind of the hills " that blasted
fruit blossoms and other tender vegetable growths, was

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 523

caused by the whirling of the fairies in the air, fighting
their venomous battles (see vol. I., p. 257, supra) : and
there were " wise women " who professed to counteract
these baneful influences by their charms and spells. The
ashes of Irish people buried in foreign lands sometimes
returned to their ancestral burial-places on the breezes of
summer ; and these winds blighted corn and injured men
and animals that happened to lie in their way.*

13. The Sea.

The sea was called muir (gen. mar a) ; fairrge ; and
more rarely ler or liar (gen. Mr). Any waif found either
floating on the sea or thrown on shore by the waves was
called in Irish frith-fairrgi [frih-farriga], i.e. a ' find of the
sea,' or ' sea- waif ' : also called turcairthe mar a. Of such
waifs the Brehon Laws took careful cognisance, f Accord-
ing to Cormac's Glossary (p. 67, " Epscop fina "), there was
a distinct law-tract to regulate all matters relating to the
sea, called Mur-Bretha, i.e. " sea- judgments," which is now
lost ; but many of its provisions are preserved in the
present existing law-tracts. The finder of a sea- waif, or
strand-waif, before finally disposing of it, was bound to
send notice over the three trichas or districts nearest the
sea at the place, and to the seafaring people of the fourth
district, in view of possible claimants.^

Anything thrown on the sea-shore belonged to the
owner of the shore as far as the value of five sea's or
cows. But if it was worth more than that, the excess
was divided according to the " partition of a lawful bark,"
which was as follows : — One-third belonged to the owner
of the shore ; one-third was divided among the heads of
families of the tuath or district ; one-third went to the king
of the same territory, of which he had to give one-fourth to

* See Trans. Ossianic Society, 11., pp. 94 (note), 113, 114, 115, 144 (note),
f For the seven different kinds of waifs provided for by law, see Br. Laws,
v. 321. See also in. 307, 309. J Br. Laws, 111. 273.

524 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

the king of the province, who again had to give one-fourth
of his share to the king of Ireland. Accordingly the
ultimate distribution was this : —

5 seds in the first instance to the owner of the shore.

Of the remainder : —

'-I to the same owner.

*| to the people of the tuath or territory.

j§ to the king of the tuath or territory.

jj to the king of the province.

■5 to the king of Ireland.

Dillesk or dulse cast on the strand belonged wholly to
the owner of that part of the shore. When a vessel was
cast ashore, if it was merely injured but not broken up, it
was the duty of the owner of the port or shore, and of the
inhabitants of the place, to preserve it from destruction —
we are not told what reward they received : but if it was
an utter wreck, then it was regarded as a waif, and the
owner of the port might proceed to divide it among the
people of the territory in the proportions described above.
Any of the crew that were saved were to be lodged and
fed by the people of the territory as long as necessary :
" for the district on whose shore it [the vessel] is cast is
" bound to keep, protect, feed, and make provision for such
" parties."

If a man brought in a valuable article floating on the
sea, nine waves or more out from land, he had a right to it,
no matter to whom it belonged, and whether the owner
gave permission or not. But if it was less than nine waves
out, the owner's permission was necessary (i.e. permission
to rescue and keep it) ; and the man who rescued it without
this permission could not claim it as his own.* (As to
nine waves, see vol. 1., p. 308, supra.)

* For all these see Br. Laws, i. 129, 167, 203 ; and in. 273, 307, 309,
423 to 433.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 525

The three Tonus or Waves of Erin are much celebrated
in Irish romantic literature. They were Tonn Cleena in
Glandore harbour in Cork ; Tonn Tuaithe [tooha] outside
the mouth of the Bann in Derry ; and Tonn Rudraidhe
[Ruree] in Dundrum Bay off the County Down. In
stormy weather, when the wind blows in certain directions,
the sea at these places, as it tumbles over the sandbanks,
or among the caves and fissures of the rocks, utters an
unusually loud and solemn roar, which excited the imagi-
nation of our ancestors. They believed that these sounds
had a supernatural origin, that they gave warning of the
deadly danger, or foreboded the approaching death, of
kings or chieftains, or bewailed a king's or a great chief's
death. Sometimes when a king was sore pressed in battle
and in deadly peril, the Three Waves roared in response to
the moan of his shield (see vol. I., p. 131, supra). Instances
of all these are so numerous in the tales that it is unneces-
sary to refer to them. The Welsh people had a similar
legend : when the young Welsh hero Dylan was killed,
" he was lamented by the Wave of Erin, the Wave of Man,
" the Wave of the North, and the Wave of Britain of the
" comely hosts."* Though the Three Irish Waves named
above were the most celebrated, there were several other
noted Tonns round the coast, f

Scotland also had its voiceful waves, as our old books
record. Adna, the chief ollave poet of Ireland in the time
of the Red Branch Knights, had a son Nede [Ney], also, a
poet, who, when he had learned all that his father could
teach him, went to Scotland to complete his education
under the renowned Alban ollave, Ochy Horse-mouth
(Eochaidh Ech-bel). Towards the end of his time in
Scotland he went one day to the seashore for inspiration
to compose a poem : " f or " — as the old book (LL, 186, a, 15)

* Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 386.

t For which see Irish Names of Places, 11. 258 ; and Book of Fenagh,
147, note 9.

526 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

has it — " poets believed that the place where poetry was
always revealed to them was the brink of the water." As
he stood on an overhanging rock, he heard a voice in the
wave lamenting in sad tones : and he wondered greatly.
And believing that some disaster had occurred, he threw a
spell on the wave ; and the wave revealed to him the cause
of the lament, namely, that his father Adna had just died
in his home in Ireland. On this the young poet, bidding
farewell to his master, set out to claim the tugen or arch-
poet's mantle in succession to his father. This is the
beginning of the story of the " Disputation of the two
Sages " (vol. I., p. 171, supra : see also O'Curry, Man. &
Cust., 11. 315.)

This is a pagan legend. But sometimes the Christian
saints could tell what the wild waves were saying as well
as any pagan poet. In a legend in the Irish Life of
St. Columkille, it is related that he and St. Canice were
one day on the shore looking out over the waters, " when
a great storm was driving on the main." Said Canice to
Columkille : — " I hear the voice of the waves chanting and
" calling to us : what are they singing ? " Columkille
replied : — " They are telling us that some of the monks of
" thy household were in danger at sea a little while ago,
" and one of them died : and the voice says that God will
" bring the others to us to-morrow safely to this very place
" where we are now standing " : which accordingly came
to pass (Stokes, " Lives of SS.," 177).

14. Bishop Ultan and the Orphans.

St. Ultan, bishop of Ardbraccan in Meath, seventh
century, is commemorated in the Calendars under the
4th September, and his death is recorded in most of the
Annals. In the Feilire of Aengus he is mentioned as
" the great sinless prince in whom the little ones are
" flourishing : the children play greatly round Ultan of
" Ardbraccan." The annotation explains this in words

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 527

that give us a glimpse of the havoc wrought by the
Yellow Plague, and of the piteous scenes of human suffer-
ing witnessed during its continuance. Everywhere through
the country numbers of little children, whose mothers and
fathers had been carried off, were left helpless and starving.
Ultan collected all the orphan babes he could find, and
brought them to his monastery. He procured a great
number of cows' teats, and filling them with milk, he put
them into the children's mouths with his own hands, and
thus contrived to feed the little creatures : so that in the
words of the annotation, " the infants were playing around
him." In one of the accounts, we are told that he often
had as many as 150, so that his noble labour of love —
even with help — must have kept his hands pretty busy.
It would be difficult to find an instance where charity is
presented in greater beauty and tenderness than it is in
this simple record of the good bishop Ultan.

It is certain that all over Ireland there were many
others who exerted themselves to relieve the distress : but
Ultan is singled out for special commemoration on account
of having hit on the happy idea of using cows' teats as
feeding-bottles.

As curiously illustrative of this record, it is worthy
of mention that, at the present day in Russia, it is a
very general custom for those peasant women who do
not suckle their own children, to feed them with a
rude feeding-bottle, called by a name equivalent to the
English word " hornie," namely, a cow's horn hollowed
out, and having a little opening at the smaller end, on
which is tied a cow's teat. When the " hornie " is filled
with milk, the teat is put into the infant's mouth, who
in this manner feeds itself.*

* See, for the Irish record, Feilire, pp. 136 and 142 : O'Clery's Cal., at
4th Sept. : and Todd, St. Patrick, p. 213. The account of the use of the
" hornie " in Russia I read in an Article in the Standard of the 1st April
(or thereabout), 1902, from its Moscow correspondent.

528 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

15. Prophecies of Irish Saints.

The ancient Irish had a universal implicit belief in the
prophecies of their native saints. On the eve of a battle
one of the leaders — in order to encourage his men — was
pretty sure to bring up and read for the army some
prophecy, generally by the patron saint of the tribe,
referring to the coming battle, in which victory was pre-
dicted for his side. Just before the Battle of Moyrath
(a.d. 637) King Domnall, who was fighting in defence of
the kingdom against the rebel Prince Congal and his
foreign and native auxiliaries, told his army that their
patron, St. Columkille, had foretold this battle nearly half
a century before, and predicted that they should gain the
victory. And after a battle lasting for six days, Domnall
annihilated Congal's army. About ten years before this,
the same King Domnall was victorious in the Battle of
Dun Cethern : and Adamnan, in his Life of Columba
(1. xlix) states that the saint foretold this battle also.
When John de Courcy invaded Ulster in 11 76, he recalled
and spread about, both among his own army and among
the Irish, a prophecy of the Welsh wizard and prophet
Merlin (who was known and venerated in Ireland as well
as in Wales), that Ulster should be conquered by a foreign
fugitive knight, white, mounted on a white steed, and
bearing birds upon his shield. And with great astuteness
he assumed the very garb described in the prophecy,
which materially aided him in conquering Ulster. Before
the Battle of the Yellow Ford, where Hugh O'Neill
inflicted a disastrous defeat on the English in 1598, he
caused his hereditary ollave O'Clery, to read aloud for
his army a prophecy of St. Columkille, made a thousand
years before, predicting victory for the Irish army.*

* There are extant many prophecies of the Irish saints, some in manu-
script, very old, others written in times comparatively recent, and a few
forged within my own memory. O'Curry (in MS. Mat., Lects. xviii., xix.,

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 529

16. Sundry small matters worthy of notice.

When the four Children of Lir were changed to white
swans by their stepmother, the people were so grieved that
they forthwith proclaimed a law throughout Erin that no
one should ever kill a swan.* On this passage O'Curry
(" Children of Lir," p. 132) tells us that in his time the
peasantry of Clare had the belief — not derived from books
but from immemorial tradition — that the swan, on the
approach of death, sings its own dirge as sweet as the
plaint of the banshee. This tradition is spread all over
Europe ; and it is noticed by Giraldus Cambrensis. The
Clare people moreover believe that to this day it is unlucky
to kill a swan ; and they give instances where misfortunes
befell those that did so. Martin (p. 71) found the same
belief in 1703 in the Hebrides. Yet the people there
sometimes killed wild swans ; but the man who killed one
for food made a " negative vow " before tasting it ; that is,
he mentioned some act which was in itself impossible to
do, and swore that he would never do it : for instance that
he would never jump over his own house. This formality
was believed to ward off the evil.

Giraldus (Top. Hib., 1., xiv) says that in his time (1185)
wild swans were plentiful in the North of Ireland. These
birds are migratory, and flocks of them still frequent the west
and north-west of Ireland : but they are grey ; not white.

The following incident is often met with in the Imrama
or Voyages : — The voyagers come to a lonely sea-rock, on
which they find a hermit doing penance till the day of
judgment ; and he has lived there for so many hundred
years that a crop of white hair has grown all over his body

xx.) has shown that all or most of these prophecies are spurious : forced
to fit certain events, or written after them. For the battles referred to
above, see Moyrath, p. 127, and note b : and Joyce, Short Hist, of Irel.,
pp. 153, 271, 273, 492. The belief in prophecies of this kind still prevails
in Ireland. * The whole story of the Children of L{r

will be found in Old Celtic Romances.

M I

530 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

so long and thick that he needs no other clothing.* It is
curious that this finds a parallel in modern times in Eng-
land, in what is related of Old Parr, which is best given in
the words of Taylor the English " water-poet " : —

" From head to heel, his body had all over
A quickset, thickset, natural hairy cover."

Another incident found in Irish tales, as well as in
Welsh : — While the champions are feasting or exercising,
a strange, gigantic, formidable-looking visitor, with a great
sharp axe in his hand, approaches, and utters this challenge
to the assembled heroes : — Let any champion come forward
and I will cut off his head this night, and he shall cut off
my head to-morrow night. Or if you like better : — let him
cut ofl my head to-night, and I shall cut off his head
to-morrow night. For an example of this challenge and
its results, see Fled Bricrenn, pp. 99, and 117 to 129.

On very solemn occasions, when a general fast was
enjoined, it sometimes happened that the lower animals
were made to fast as well as human beings. We are told
in an ancient Life of St. Fechin, that in order to ward off
a plague, a three days' fast was enjoined for every living
creature — cattle as well as people. | When Mahon, king of
Munster in the tenth century, was murdered, his blind
poet poured forth his sorrow in an elegy, in which he says
that among other manifestations of the people's grief, the
calves were kept from the cows, as much as to say, that
the cattle were made to fast as well as the dead king's
human subjects. J

Maildune, during his voyage, was detained by the
queen of one of the islands he visited, as Ulysses was by
Calypso : and he and his men began to long for home.
They at last determined to escape : and one day in the

* For instances see Old Celtic Romances, pp. 143 and 165.

f Rev. Celt., xn. 431. J War of the Gael with the Galls, ioj.

CHAP. XXX] VARIOUS SOCIAL CUSTOMS 531

absence of the queen they put to sea in their currach.
They had not gone very far from land when the queen
came riding towards the shore ; and seeing how matters
stood, she went into the palace and soon returned with a
ball of thread in her hand. Walking down to the water's
edge, she flung it after the currach, but held the end of the
thread in her hand. Maildune caught the ball as it was
passing, and it clung to his hand ; and the queen, gently
pulling the thread towards her, drew back the currach to
the very spot from which they had started in the little
harbour. And when they had landed, she made them
promise that if ever this happened again, some one should
always stand up in the boat and catch the ball.

The voyagers abode on the island, much against
their will, for nine months longer. For every time they
attempted to escape, the queen brought them back by
means of the clew, as she had done at first, Maildune
always catching the ball. At last the men began to
suspect that Maildune was doing all this intentionally ;
so the next time the thing happened they got another
man to catch the ball. It clung as before, and the
queen began to draw the currach towards the shore.
But Diuran, one of Maildune's companions, drawing his
sword, cut off the man's hand, which fell with the ball
into the sea ; and the men gladly plied their oars, and
the currach resumed her outward voyage. So they
escaped, while the island rang with the lamentations of
the queen and her maidens.*

There were certain periods of exemption from debt,
that is, people could not be forced to pay till the period
had expired. On the death of the king of Ireland or
of the archbishop of Armagh, debtors were entitled to
exemption for a year : on the death of a provincial
king the people of the province were exempt for three

* Old Celtic Romances, p. 152.

532 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

months ; and the death of the king of a tuath or small
district brought a month's exemption for debtors within
that territory. Every king or chief could, during his life-
time, give exemption for as long a period as would be
given at his death.* We have already seen (p. 447) that
debtors were exempt while attending a fair.

A noble instance of the self-sacrifice of a king to save
his people is related in the story of " The Boroma." Aed
mac Ainmirech, king of Ireland (a.d. 572 to 598), once
asked St. Columkille how many kings he could remember
that certainly won heaven. Columkille named three ; one
of whom was Ailill Inbanna, king of Connaught. The two
sons of the over-king Murkertagh mac Erca (a.d. 512
t° 533) named Domnall and Fergus — who subsequently
became joint kings of Ireland — entertained feelings of
bitter personal animosity against this king Ailill ; so that
they made war on him : and a battle was fought between
them at a place called Cuil Conaire in the present barony
of Carra, county Mayo : in which Ailill was slain. This
battle, and the death of Ailill, are historical facts, which
are recorded in the authentic annalsf : and there is no
good reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of the
striking detail given in " The Boroma," as related to King
Aed by St. Columkille, of the manner of the king's death.
When the battle had gone against Ailill, and he and his
army were in full retreat, the king, sitting in his chariot in
the midst of the flying multitude, said to his charioteer : —
" Cast thine eyes back, I pray thee, and tell me if there is
much killing of my people, and if the slayers are near us."
The charioteer did so, and said : — " The slaughter that is
made on thy people is intolerable." Then said the king : —
" Not their own guilt, but my pride and unrighteousness it
" is that they are suffering for. Turn now the chariot and

* Br Laws, i. 99, note 1.

I See Annals of Ulster, a.d. 549 : FM, 544 : HyF, p. 313.

CHAP. XXXI]

DEATH AND BURIAL

533

" let me face the pursuers ; for [as their enmity is against
" me only] if I am slain it will be the redemption of many."
The chariot was accordingly turned round, and the king
plunged amidst his foemen and was slain by them ; on
which the pursuit and slaughter ceased. " That man
therefore " — said Columkille to King Aed — " that man
attained to the Lord's peace."*

CHAPTER XXXI

DEATH AND BURIAL

Section i. Wills.

►any passages in our ancient literature, some of
which are quoted below, show that the custom
of making wills at the approach of death
existed among the Irish people from so early
a period that we are not able to trace its beginning.
Private property was disposed of in this way quite with-
out restriction, though not with such strict legal formalities
as are required at the present day.

According to Sir Henry Maine (" Anc. Law," p. 172),
the conception of a will originated with the Romans, from
whom it was borrowed by those western nations that
came in contact with them, namely, the Germans, Gauls,
Scythians, &c, whom they called " Barbarians." Referring
specifically to the Irish or Brehon Law, Maine has the
following passage in his " History of Ancient Institutions "
(p. 55) : — " So far as the published tracts afford materials

* See O'Grady's Silva Gad., p. 416. The original of this narrative of
Ailill's death was put into metrical English, in the form of a short ballad,
by Dr. Whitley Stokes, which may be seen (copied from the A cademy) in
a recently-published work, a Treasury of Irish Poetry, by Stopford A,
Brooke and T. W. Rolleston, p. 347.

534

Social and domestic life [part Hi

" for an opinion, I am inclined to think that the influence
" of Roman Law [on that of Ireland] has been very slight,
" and to attribute it, not to the study of the writings of the
" Roman lawyers, but to contact with churchmen imbued
"more or less with Roman legal notions. We may be
" sure that the Brehons were indebted to them for one
" conception which is present in their tracts — the con-
" ception of a will." Dr. Richey, the editor of the Third
and Fourth Vols, of the Brehon Law, has a passage much
to the same effect : — " The more educated Irish were not
" wholly ignorant of the Roman law. To any other source
"it is impossible to refer the idea of the right of testa-
" mentary disposition, and the more so as it is found
" chiefly in connexion with the transfer of property to
" the church."* But in this he appears merely to have
followed Maine.

From various considerations that cannot be entered on
here it may be taken for granted that if the practice of
making wills was derived by the Irish from the Romans,
it was derived through the church, as Sir Henry Maine
observes in the above passage. But there is one circum-
stance that makes it very difficult for us to believe that
this was the origin of the custom in Ireland. We know
that when the Christian missionaries introduced doctrines,
rites, or customs, which had been previously unknown in
Ireland, they also imported Latin words for them : they
were indeed obliged to do so, as no suitable words existed,
or could have existed, in the Irish language. Of this
many examples have been already given (vol. I., p. 316).
If testamentary disposition was unknown in Ireland before
the introduction of Christianity, the Irish language would
have no word for a will, and the missionaries would have
to import one from Latin. But how does the case stand ?
There is in fact in Irish no Latin word for a will, while
there are as many as three very ancient native terms : —

• Br. Law, in., Preface, xxix.

CHAP. XXXlj DEATH AND BURIAL 535

edoct*, cendaite, and timne. The first, variously spelled
edoct, edocht, aidacht, is found in two passages, both in the
Irish language, in the " Additions to Tirechan's Collections
of Notes " (belonging to the seventh or eighth century),
now preserved in the Book of Armagh : and in both cases
the word carries the full meaning of a will. The first
passage is this (Stokes's translation) : — " This is Feth Fio's
" confession and his bequest {edocht) two years before his
" death, to the monks of Druim Lias [now Drumlease in
" the county Leitrim] and to the worthies of Callrigi, both
" laymen and clerics of Druim Lias. That there should
" not be a family right of inheritance to Druim Lias, but
" that the race of Feth Fio [should inherit it], if there were
" any of them [i.e.] of the clan, who should be good, should
" be devout, should be conscientious "f (after which it
goes on to detail the arrangements in case of the failure
of Feth Fio's race). The other passage (p. 347), besides
mentioning a testament several times by its Irish name,
has this : — " Aed [bishop of Sleaty] offered a bequest
" (edoct) and his kin and his church to Patrick [i.e. to the
" church of Armagh] for ever." About a century later,
Cormac, in his Glossary (p. 5), brings out the sense of the
word very clearly, when he derives audacht from uath-fecht,
' grave journey,' or as he expresses it, " when one sets out
on a journey (fecht) of the grave (uath), that is, of death."
In like manner, the Senchus Mor mentions an udacht or
bequest to the church, which the gloss explains : — " That
is, at the point of death. "{ The Book of Leinster§ has a
copy of the audacht of the great Judge Morann (for whom
see vol. 1., p. 170, supra) to Feradach the Just, king of
Ireland (a.d. 95-117), which consists of a series of wise
precepts for the king's instruction. This word still con-
tinues in use in the form of udhacht [oo-aght], which is
now the common word for a will.

* On this see Appendix, infra.

f Trip. Life, p. 339. J Br. Laws, Hi. 33, last line ; 35, ,,

§ LL, 293, a, 36; " Contents," 67, b.

536 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

The oldest document in which I find the second term
cendaite (or cennaite) used is Cormac's Glossary (ninth or
tenth century : p. 47) ; and here the signification is brought
out very clearly, and in a manner that shows it was then a
word of long standing. Cormac derives it from " cend-laite,
' fate-day,' the day (laite) of a person's fate." After this
period it occurs in many documents, always with its
technical meaning of a dying testament. For instance,
we read in the " War of the Gaels with the Galls " (p. 201)
that towards the close of the Battle of Clontarf, the old
King Brian Boru, believing he would be killed before the
day was over, uttered his last will, while sitting in his
tent, to his attendant Laiten, to be conveyed to his son
Donnchad : — " My blessing to Donnchad for discharging
my last bequests (ceinnaiti) after me." : whereupon he
made the last disposition of his property. This appears
to have been a verbal will : and the circumstances indicate
that the obligation to carry it out was regarded as a
sacred one.

Timne (or tiomna) occurs frequently in the Wurzburg
and Milan Glosses quoted by Zeuss — both eighth century
— as an explanation of the Latin mandatum, a mandate
or precept (Z. 884, 30), and in this sense it is used to desig-
nate the New Testament — Tiomna Nuadh. The best-
known example of its use as designating a dying testament
is the Tiomna or Will of Cahirmore, king of Ireland from
a.d. 174 to 177, which is a disposition of property.* Copies
of this celebrated will are to be found in the Books of
Leinster and Lecan. It is in verse, and has been published
with translation by O'Donovan in his edition of the Book
of Rights, from the copy in the Book of Lecan. f In its
present form it was certainly drawn up centuries after the

* LL, 385, col. 3, line 6 ; " Contents," 78, b.

t Book of Rights, Introduction, xxxiii ; and 192. This will, in its
tone and spirit, is something like Jacob's death-bed utterance to his
sons (Gen. xlix), except that Jacob distributed no property.

Chap, xxxi]

DEATH AND BURIAL

537

reign of Cahirmore : but whether there was an earlier
version from which the extant versions were copied, on
this point we have no information. In this will the
monarch mentions his ten sons one after another, with a
detailed statement of the property left to each.

In the Brehon Laws mention is often made of the
dying will (generally called udacht, but sometimes tinina)
of an ecclesiastic, to be buried in a certain church ; and the

Fig. 340.

Cromlech at Tawnatrufinun, County Sligo: 7 feet high. (From Wood-Martin's Pagan Ireland.)
(See farther on for cromlechs.)

Law specially enjoins that such a will is to be faithfully
carried out, and that the body, once buried, is not to be
removed.*

From all that precedes it will be seen that the early
Christian missionaries found already existing in the Irish
language one or more terms for a will — terms that could
not possibly have existed unless the conception of a will
had grown up previously. So far as we can judge then, from
the evidence here adduced, the presumption is that the

* Br. Laws, I. 203, bottom ; 205 : III. 67.

538 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

conception and practice of testamentary disposition were
developed by the Irish. On those who deny this, lies the
onus of disproving it. We know that many customs
having their germs in the original Aryan community
were retained and developed by some of the branches
after the separation into different nationalities, while by
others they were neglected, so that they disappeared
totally. One instance of this is the use of banners in
war among the Celts and Romans — a practice quite
unknown among the Homeric Greeks (for which see
vol. 1., p. 136, supra) ; and many others will be found
in De Jubainville's " La Civilisation des Celtes." Those
who assert that the Irish borrowed the conception of a
will from the Romans give no reason beyond the fact
that this was found to be the case among all the western
Continental " Barbarians." But a question of this kind,
beset with difficulties such as are pointed out above, cannot
be settled by the mere unsupported assertion of any man,
however eminent ; and I submit that the whole subject of
the origin of testamentary disposition among the Irish
demands further inquiry.

There was a merciful provision — called " The rights of
a corpse " — to save the family of a dead man from destitu-
tion in case he died in debt. Ware (Antiqq., 152) quotes
from an ancient Irish canon a section called " The rights
of a corpse," to wit : — " Every dead body has in its own
" right a cow, and a horse, and a garment, and the furni-
" ture of his bed ; nor shall any of these be paid in satis-
" faction of his debts ; because they are, as it were, the
" special property of his body." Of course this reserved
property passed to the family, and could not be claimed
by a creditor or any other outsider. Whether the ecclesi-
astical authorities were the first to introduce this custom,
or whether they found it already in existence and confirmed
it by this degree, is not known.

CHAP. XXXI j DEATH AND BURIAL

539

2. Funeral Obsequies.

There were several words for death : — es, eg; cro ; all
now obsolete: the word at present in use is has [bauss],
which is also an old word.

The pagan Irish, like many other ancient nations,
celebrated the obsequies of distinguished persons by
funeral games {cluiche caintech), as already mentioned
(p. 434, supra) : and in some cases the games, once
instituted, continued to be carried on periodically at the
burial-place, far into Christian times. On the death of

^ssuksjkkSC

Fig. 3|i-

Sepulchral stone circle, among the seaside sandhills at Streedagh, near the village of Grange, in
Sligo. The circle is about 36 feet in diameter. In the centre is a kistvacn or grave, in which were
found some calcined bones. (From Col. Wood-Martin's "Rude Stone Monuments" in Kilkenny
Archaeological Journal for 1887-8, p. 146, in which is a description and illustration of another circle
in the same place. See farther on for stone circles.)

ordinary persons there was simply a funeral feast — called
fled cro-lige, i.e. theyWor feast of the death-bed* — chiefly
for guests, whether among pagans or Christians. This
custom is noticed in Adamnan's " Life of Columba" (p. 79),
where it is related that the saint ordered a fat sheep and
some corn to be sent to a person named Ere : but mean-
time Ere died, and the presents " were used at his funeral
feast."

* See " Fled " in Glossary to Br. Laws,.

540 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

On the death of a Christian, a bell was rung : — clog-
estechtae, ' death-bell,' as it is given in Cormac's Glossary,*
from es, death. There was often, or generally, a requiem
sung over the grave, called ecnairc [aiknark] which was
an intercession for the soul's repose, and which was often
continued by monks at home in their monastery, for a long
time after burial. | The body was watched or waked for
one or more nights (Irish aire 'watching'). In case of
eminent persons the watch was kept up long : St. Patrick
was waked for twelve nights : Brian Boru for the same
length of time in Armagh in 1014 ; St. Senan for eight
nights ; St. Columba for three at Iona. Among the pagan
Irish, seven nights and days was the usual time for great
persons.

In Christian obsequies lights were kept burning the
whole time : during St. Patrick's twelve-night wake, the
old Irish writers tell us that night was made like day with
the blaze of torches. This time of watching was called
laithi na canti (or caointi : pron. laiha-na-keenta) : i.e. the
' days of lamentation,' or, as Tirechan, in his Latin nar-
rative, renders it, dies ululationis.% The mourners raised
their voices when weeping, like the Egyptians, Jews, and
Greeks of old ; a practice mentioned in the most ancient
writings, and continued in Ireland to the present day.
Spenser (View, 93) notices in his time " their lamentations
" at their buryals, with dispairfull out-cries and immoderate
" waylings." This wailing was called cat, modern cdoi [kee]:
verbal form cdiniud, or caoineadh, or caoine [keena], com-
monly anglicised keen or keening — weeping aloud. In the
Fled Bricrenn a false report of the death of Cuculainn
and Conall Cernach, is brought to Emain ; whereupon the
people of Emain began oc a cdiniud, ' keening them.' §

* Corm., page 70, under " Es."

t Stokes, Lives of SS., 307, 6. see " Ecnairc " in Atkinson's Glossary
to Br. Laws.

% Trip. Life, 315. § Fled Brier., 91 : Ir. Texte, 1. 290, l6.

CHAP. XXXI] DEATH AND BURIAL 541

Sometimes the cry was accompanied by lam-comairt,
' clapping of hands ' (lam or lamh, a hand : pron. lauv), a
custom which is noticed in an ancient gloss quoted by
Stokes,* and which has also descended to our time.

The lamentation was often accompanied by words,
expressive of sorrow and of praise of the dead, sometimes
in verse, and often extempore. In the old tale of the
cattle-spoil of Flidas,f a father " began to lament his
[dead] son and to utter his praise " : and in the story of
the " Fate of the Sons of Turenn," the father, standing
over his sons' bodies, laments and praises them. This
custom has also come down to modern times. J A regular
elegy, composed and recited at the time of death, was
usually called Nuall-guba (' lamentation of sorrow '). The
Nuall-guba of Emer on the death of her husband Cuculainn
is given in the Book of Leinster.§ An elegy was often
called Antra or Amrath. Dalian Forgall's Antra for
St. Columkille has long been celebrated, and is one of
the most difficult pieces of Irish in existence. It has been
translated by J. O'Beirne Crowe : by Dr. Robert Atkinson :
and by Dr. Whitley Stokes. || An elegy is now commonly
called marbhna, from marbh [morrov], dead.^j

Among the Irish pagans it was the custom — which
probably continued to Christian times — to wash the body.
After the tragic death of King Tuathal's two daughters
at the Leinster palace of Rath Intmil, as we are told
in the story of the Boroma, their bodies were washed
at Ath - Toncha (' Ford of Washing ': tonach, bathing,
washing, gen. toncha) now Rath-Immil.** The Irish

* Corm. Gloss., 32, " cai."

f Quoted by Kuno Meyer in Ventry, 87.

J See Crofton Croker, Researches, 173 : O'Brien's Diet., " Caoine " :
and Joyce, Old Celtic Romances, 95.

§ LL, " Contents," 29, b : Text, 123, a, 20.

|| Crowe's translation forms a separate pamphlet, 1871 : Atkinson in
Lib. Hymn., by Bernard and Atkinson : Stokes, in Rev. Celt., xx.
. jf See O'Donovan's article in Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1856-7, p. 118,

** Rev. Celt., xm. 39. See also Rev. Celt., xxm 425.

542

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

custom corresponded with that of the Greeks, who washed
the bodies of their dead as part of the funeral obsequies*:
and the same custom prevailed among the Phoenicians
and Romans.

The corpse was wrapped in a racholl or recholl, i.e. a
shroud or winding-sheet : also called eslene [3-syll.], which
in Cormac's Glossary is derived from es, death, and /e(m\ a
shirt, ' grave-shirt.'! Esli(i?ie is the present Irish word for

a shroud. When about
to be buried the body
was placed on a fuat
or bier, which was
borne to the grave,
sometimes by men: %
but if the distance was
considerable, on a car,
generally drawn by
oxen. St. Patrick's
body was placed on
a little car {carreine),
.which was drawn from
Saul to the grave at
Dun - leth - glass, now
Downpatrick, by oxen :
and oxen also drew
the bier of King Malachi I. to the grave, A.D. 863. § The
bier that bore the body of St. Cummain Fota to its last
resting-place was a boat, in which it was brought up the
Shannon to the cemetery of Clonfert. A poet, who wrote
a short elegy on the saint, says : " My eyelids drop tears ;
mourning has not ceased since the destruction of his boat";
on which Todd remarks: " It was the custom to destroy
the bier after the interment of the corpse." If this was
not done it seems the fairies might use the bier to carry

* Iliad., xviii. 350: Odyss. xxiv, 44. + Stokes, Lives of SS., lines 2728-9.
t Corm. Gloss., p. 70, "Es." §Trip. Life, 298: FM, vol i.,p.495-

Fig. 342.

Bird's-eye view of sepulchral stone enclosure in Hazel
wood, County Sligo, called Lcacht Cok mic Ruts, ' tlie
grave of Cu, the son of Ros.' Between 90 and 100 feet long,
by about 30 feet wide. (From Wilde's Catalogue, p. 130.)

CHAP. XXXI] DEATH AND BURIAL 543

off the corpse in their nightly excursions and bring it
back to the grave before morning. But when the bier was
destroyed they had to let the corpse rest. This custom
has survived to our own time in Scotland. Carmichael,
speaking of a burial-place in one of the Hebrides, tells
us : — " When the body is laid in the grave, and the grave
" is closed in, the bier on which it was carried is broken
" against a certain tree in the burying-ground to render
" it unfit for the ' slaugh ' hosts [fairy hosts] to use in
" carrying away the dead in their aerial travelling."*

In pagan times the body was sometimes brought to the
grave wrapped up in a covering of green bushy branches,
commonly of birch. This covering was called strophaiss or
ses strophaiss or ses sofais, which is thus explained in a
curious marginal note in the Book of Leinster : — " Ses
" strofaiss means cained or lamentation : strophaiss is the
" broom [or branch-covering] that is round the body when
" being taken to the graveyard " {strophaiss in scuap bis
immon corp ica thabairt dochum relggi).] This broom-like
covering must have been a familiar object, for in an ancient
verse, quoted in Cormac's Glossary, the withered beard of
certain old men is compared to a grave-broom : but here
it is called ses rapus or ses rophuis, which is explained
scuab adnacail, a ' broom of a sepulchre.' J O'Clery's
Glossary explains ses sobhais as sguab adhnacail, which,
the editor, Mr. Miller, assuming that the scuab or ' broom '
must have been for sweeping, wrongly translates, " a broom
for sweeping graves " : whereas sguab adhnacail means ' a
broom [or branch-bunch] of a sepulchre,' nothing more.
That this branchy covering was, sometimes at least, buried
with the body appears from a story published by Dr. Todd
in the Irish Nennius (p. 207) from an old Irish manu-
script : — The monks of Clonmacnoise having heard that

* Todd, Book of Hymns, 86, and note 2 : FM, a.d. 661 : and Car-
michael, Car. Gad., 11. 320. f Stokes, in Folklore, in. 505 : LL, 161.
J Corm. Gloss., 136, verse : Ir. Text in Three Irish Glossaries, 37, I0.

544 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

the body of a man — a pagan — had just been interred in
their cemetery in some mysterious way without their know-
ledge, immediately opened up the newly-made grave, and
found the body of a great bearded man, covered with
blood, and having a covering of green " birch-brooms " [i.e.
birch-branches] about him, also splashed with blood. No
doubt this branchy covering was intended to protect the
body from the clay, like our wooden coffins. This of
course is legend ; but all the same it indicates that the
idea of burying the body wrapped up in branches was
familiar.

We read in Cormac's Glossary that the pagan Irish had
always a fS [fay] or rod, of aspen, with an ogham inscription
on it, lying in their cemeteries for measuring the bodies
and the graves ; and the following very old verse is
quoted there to show the application of the word : —

" Sorrowful to me to be in life.
After the king of the Gaels and Galls :
Sad is my eye, withered my clay,
Since the fe was measured on Flann."

The fe is also explained in the marginal note in the
Book of Leinster, already referred to (LL, 161) : — " Fae is
" the tree [or rod] with which a grave is measured, as
" Senchan says, ' the tree [or rod] which is called fae ' " :
and in O'Clery's Glossary the fe is defined as a " slatt or
rod for measuring a grave." The fe was regarded with the
utmost horror, and no one would, on any consideration,
take it in his hand or touch it, except of course the person
whose business it was to measure. The worst imprecation
a person could utter against another was fe fris, ' a fe to
him,' which was equivalent to saying, " may the fe be soon
measuring his corpse. ! "*

* For all about the fe, see Corm. Gloss., p. 75.

CHAP. XXXI] DEATH AND BURIAL 545

We know from Csesar* that it was the custom among
the Gauls, when celebrating funeral obsequies, to burn,
with the body of the chief, his slaves, clients, and favourite
animals. But this custom did not reach Ireland. There
is indeed in the Book of Leinster one horrible story of a
burial which runs as follows : — On a certain occasion the
sons of Eochaid Muigmedoin [Ochy Moyvane], king of
Ireland (a.d. 358 to 366), went on a predatory hosting
into Munster, and gained a battle over the Munstermen,
in which however Fiachra, one of the brothers, received a
mortal wound. Returning after their dearly-bought victory
they brought home their wounded brother and fifty captives
taken in the battle. At the end of a month Fiachra died
of his wound : and when they buried him, at a place called
Foroi, they also buried the whole of the fifty captives alive
round his grave, f But this — if it ever occurred — was
merely an isolated act of savage vengeance : and there is
no reason to think that there was a custom of burying
human beings alive or killing them in any manner, as a
sacrifice to the dead. It should be noticed that an entirely
different version of this story is given in a later authority,
the Book of Lecan : obviously taken from older books.
Here the captives, as they were marched towards Tara,
finding the wounded Fiachra left temporarily without a
guard, turned treacherously on him, and buried him alive
in the earth.J This version of the story is improbable :
nevertheless it more or less weakens the testimony of the
Book of Leinster narrative.

Cattle were sometimes sacrificed on such occasions :
not buried alive however : probably not buried at all, but
killed and eaten at the funeral feast. In the story of the
Courtship of the lady Etain, the young chief Ailill is
on his sick bed dying for love of her, and she is left with

* Gallic War, vi. xix.

f LL, 190, col. 3, line i : O'Grady, Silva Gad., 543.

t HyF, 309, 345-

N T

546

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[r-ART III

him to nurse him and to see that his funeral rites should
be duly performed :— " that his grave should be dug, that
" his lamentation might be chanted, and that his quadrupeds
" might be slain " : a mode of expression that shows the
thing was customary.*

3. Modes of Burial.

In ancient Ireland the dead were buried in a variety
of ways. One mode was to place the body lying flat in
the grave as at present, usually with the feet to the east ;

1-10. 343-

Fig. 344.

Cinerary urns: now in the National Museum. Fig. 343 is ot stone, a very rare and beautiful
specimen : 8# inches high, ioj4 inches broad across the widest part, and 1 inch thick throughout.
Fig. 344 is of baked clay: 6% inches high, and 5 inches across at the widest part. (From
Wilde's Catalogue, pp. 134, 177.)

and another was to put it standing up, accoutred and
armed, which was often done with the body of a king or
warrior. Occasionally it was placed in a sitting posture.
Still another mode was to burn the body and deposit the
ashes and fragments of bones in an ornamented urn,
generally of baked clay, but sometimes of stone. All
four prevailed in pagan times : but the first only was
sanctioned and continued by Christianity. Of the first
two modes of interment — lying flat and standing up — we
have ample historical record. That the third — sitting —

*-Kilk. Archseol. Journ., 1868-9, p. 334. Trip. Life, Introd., cl., line 13:
Sullivan, Introd., 321 : LU, 130, a, 10.

CHAP. XXXl] DEATH AND BURIAL 547

was practised in rare cases we know by the finding of a
few bodies in that position, as well as from some delinea-
tions on the high crosses. But as to the last — cremation —
I can find in the whole range of Irish literature only one
direct allusion to it, and even that not in the native
writings, but in Latin. Yet we know that cremation was
extensively practised in pagan Ireland ; for urns containing
ashes and burnt bones are found in graves in every part of
the country.

The passage referred to occurs in an ancient Irish
ecclesiastical canon, written, or rather copied, in the end
of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century,
but then attributed by the writer — no doubt correctly —
to the time of St. Patrick — fifth century. It is quoted
by Sir James Ware in his " Antiquities " ; and recently
attention has again been directed to it by Mr. Warren
and Dr. Whitley Stokes, as included in the collection of
canons published by Wasserschleben.* The old writer,
tracing the origin of the word basilica as a term for a
church, says that churches were so called " because in
" the earliest ages kings [Gr. basileus, a king] were so often
" buried in them : . . . whereas other people were buried
" either by fire or by heaping up [over the body] a earn
" of stones " (nam ceteri homines sive igni, sive acervo lapi-
dum conditi sunt). It would be much more satisfactory if
we could discover a record of some individual instance
of the cremation of a body. Yet taking the record as it
stands, we may infer from it that in the time of the original
writer — fifth century — it was a matter of historical or
traditional knowledge that at some previous time the
bodies of the dead were burned. This would imply that
the practice of cremation was abandoned long before the
introduction of Christianity, and not, as some conjecture —
for it is only a conjecture — through the influence of the
Christian missionaries. But outside of this, it seems

* Ware, Antiqq., 151 : Trip. Life, Introduction, exxi.

548 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

obvious that cremation could not have been practised in
Ireland so late as the fifth century, for if it had been there
would be certainly some mention of it in the Lives of
St. Patrick and of other early Irish saints : and it would
moreover have lingered on, like other pagan customs, down
to a much later time. Besides all this, in the ancient tales
there are numerous accounts of interments ; but in not one
of them is cremation mentioned : the body is always placed
lying flat or standing erect.

The absence from Irish literature of all direct notice of
cremation is exemplified by a passage in Keating's " Three
Shafts of Death " (159, 162), in which he enumerates the
various modes of interment among different ancient nations,
including the Irish : his notices of the Irish customs being
drawn from old Irish manuscripts. Although he describes
in detail the various native modes in use among the pagan
Irish, as known to him from his reading, he has no mention
of cremation. Yet the native writers, including Keating,
knew what cremation was, and were aware that other
nations practised it : for we find, in an Irish version of
Marco Polo's Travels, mention of the burning of the dead
by the people of a province on the borders of Thibet, and
enclosing the ashes in an urn (cronoc cumdoig, ' preserving
urn '), which they buried among hills and cliffs. And
Keating himself, in the passage referred to above, notices
that the Romans burned their dead. If he had any
historical evidence that the ancient Irish practised crema-
tion, he certainly would have mentioned it : and that he
did not do so illustrates how completely the custom had
dropped out of historical and traditional memory.

There is, indeed, a sort of indirect approach to a record
of cremation in the legendary account of the second Battle
of Moytura. In this great battle, fought many centuries
before the Christian era, the Fomorians were defeated by
the Dedannans, and all their chief men slain. The whole
narrative is given in a historical tale called " The Second

CHAP. XXXI] DEATH AND BURIAL 549

Battle of Moytura," which has been edited and translated
by Dr. Stokes in vol. xn. of the " Revue Celtique." The
knowledge of the site has never been lost, but has
descended continuously to the present day ; and the
place still retains the old name in the slightly altered
form of Moytirra, now applied to a townland near the
north-east shore of Lough Arrow in Sligo. Moreover,
vivid traditions of the battle and of its prominent incidents
are still prevalent among the people of the neighbourhood.
The whole plain is covered with cromlechs and tombs of
many kinds ; it is, indeed, perhaps the most remarkable
battle-cemetery in Europe. In all the graves human
remains have been found ; and though in none of the
old accounts of the battle is there any mention of crema-
tion, by far the greatest proportion of the remains consist
bi burned bones. Thus, though we have no direct record
of cremation, we have a legendary account of a battle in
which the bodies of those who fell were cremated.

It is possible that there is a faint echo of the custom in
three old Irish words, adnad, adnacht, and adnacul, all still
in use. First, as to adnad, or, as it is now written, adhnadh
[ey-na] : this is the familiar word for kindling, igniting, or
burning ; and that it had this meaning in old times is
proved by an eighth-century gloss in Zeuss (997, note 12),
where the Greek word asbestes (i.e. asbestos), meaning what
is ' un-burnable,' is explained by the Irish equivalent neph-
adnachte, where neph is the present Irish neamh, a negative
particle : and adnachte, a derivative of adna, is ' burnable.'
But this word adnad is also used in connexion with burial
in the following manner : — In the Book of Ballymote, and
also in the Yellow Book of Lecan,* there is a version of the
story of the death and burial of Fiachra, and of the burial
alive of the fifty captives (p. 545, supra), which, after stating
that his sepulchre was made and his grave dug, brings in

* BB. p. 264, col. a, lines 25-27 : YBL? 187, b, lines 30-33.

550 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

the word adnad in this passage : Ro h-adnad a clutche
caentach (p. 539, supra), ' his funeral games were celebrated,'
where the word used for ' celebrated ' or ' performed ' is
adnad.* So also adnacht and adnacul [ey-nacht, ey-na-cul],
both used in the sense of ' burial.' But even supposing
that all these three words are derived from adna or adnad,
burning, they may preserve a memory, not of the burning
of the body, but of the lighting of fires or torches, as part
of the obsequies — a practice that has partially survived to
this day in the lighting of candles round the body at
wakes : so that no certain conclusion can be drawn from
them. Observe that Zeuss, in the passage referred to (997,
note 12), queries whether there is not some connexion
between adnad, ' burning,' and adnacul, ' burial,' but ven-
tures no farther : and what perhaps is more significant, in
Cormac's Glossary, and in the writings of other ancient
Irish glossarists, supposed derivations are given for adnacul,
but in none of them is any connexion traced with adnad,
burning, f If there was any such connexion, they could
hardly have failed to notice it.

It is curious that, while ancient Irish writings have
preserved scarcely any memory of cremation, in Norse
literature there are many records of the contempo-
raneous burning of the bodies of warriors ; and there is,
it appears, one such record in the Anglo-Saxon poem
of Beowulf. J

Cremation and ordinary burial were practised in Ireland
contemporaneously, as we know from the well-ascertained
fact, that in the same cromlech or grave complete skeletons
have been found along with urns containing ashes and

* Dr. Sullivan, in his Introduction to O'Curry's Lectures (pp. 320 et
seq.), has a notice of this, as showing that adnad preserves a memory of
cremation : but he somewhat weakens his argument by overstatement,
and by a strained translation of ro h-adnad a clutche caentach, which he
renders " his cluiche caentach was ignited."

f Corm. Gloss., 15 : Bernard and Atkinson, Lib. Hymn., 2ij.

| Borlase, Dolmens, 744, 745.

CHAP. XXXI] DEATH AND BURIAL 551

burnt bones.* This is what we should expect ; for crema-
tion was a troublesome and expensive process, and could
not have been practised by poor people, most of whom
must have buried the body without burning.

Occasionally the bodies of kings and chieftains were
buried in a standing posture, arrayed in full battle costume,
with the face turned towards the territories of their enemies.
Of this custom we have several very curious historical
records. In the Book of the Dun Cow it is related that
King Laegaire [Laery] was killed " by the sun and wind "
in a war against the Lagenians : " and his body was after-
" wards brought from the south, and interred, with his
" arms of valour, in the south-east of the external rampart
" of the royal Rath Laegaire at Temur (Tara), with the
" face turned southwards upon the Lagenians [as it were]
" fighting with them, for he was the enemy of the Lagenians
" in his lifetime. "f

The same circumstance is related in a still older
authority, with some additional interesting details— the
" Annotations of Tirechan," in the Book of Armagh. King
Laegaire says : — " For Niall, my father (i.e. Niall of the
" Nine Hostages), did not permit me to believe [in the
" teaching of St. Patrick], but [commanded] that I should
" be interred in the ramparts of Temur, like men standing
"up in battle. For the pagans are accustomed to be
" buried, armed with their weapons ready, face to face [in
" which manner they remain] to the day of Erdathe, among
" the magi, i.e. the day of judgment of the Lord." Then
Laegaire goes on to say — " I, the son of Niall [must be
" buried] after this fashion, namely, as the son of Dunlang
" [was buried] at Maistiu in the plain of Life, because of
" the endurance of our hatred." The Dunlang spoken of

* On this point see Wilde's Boyne, 224, 229, 232, 233, 234 : Kilk. Arch
Journ., 1852-3, p. 235 ; 1876-8, p. 178 ; 1879-82, p. 185 : Wood-Martin,
Pagan Ireland, 108 and 353.

f Petrie's Tara, 170: see also Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1872-3, p. 147.

552 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

here was a king of Leinster and a deadly enemy of the
family of Hy Neill, to which Laegaire belonged ; and his
son was buried at Maistiu, now the hill of Mullamast in
Kildare, armed and standing up with his face turned north
against the Hy Neill. It appears from Laegaire's words
that his own intended burial in Tara after the same
manner was, as it were, an answer to the challenge of the
son of Dunlang.* A similar account of Laegaire's burial
is given in the " Tripartite Life of St. Patrick " (p. 75) and
elsewhere.

Keating, in his " Three Shafts of Death " (p. 162), notices
this mode of burial and gives one example. Another very
distinct statement as to upright burial is found in the
Dindsenchus. The Battle of Culliu was fought on a plain,
subsequently overflowed by Lough Orbsen or Lough Corrib,
where Mannanan mac Lir fell : and the Dindsenchus says :
— " And he was killed in that battle and buried standing
up in that place " (ro hadnacht ina shessom)."\

The truthfulness of all these records is borne out by
the actual discovery of skeletons standing up in graves.
In 1848 a tumulus called Croghan Erin in the parish of
Kiltale, county Meath, near Kilmessan, was opened, and a
skeleton was found standing erect in a grave with a large
flagstone laid flat near the surface immediately over the
skull. Though there were no arms on this skeleton, a
bronze sword-blade and an iron spearhead were found
near it, with some fragments of an urn. J Similar inter-
ments have been found in other parts of Ireland.

The pagan Irish believed that, while the body of their
king remained in this position, it exercised a malign
influence on their enemies, who were thereby always
defeated in battle. In the Life of St. Kellach it is stated
that his father, Owen Bel, great-grandson of Dathi, and
king of Connaught, was killed in the battle of Sligo, fought

* Todd, St. Patk., 438. f Rennes Dinds., Rev. Celt., xvi. 277.

% Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., iv. 388,

CHAP. XXXI] DEATH AND BURIAL 553

against the Ulstermen. And before his death he told his
people to bury him with his red javelin in his hand in the
grave : — " Place my face towards the north, on the side of
" the hill by which the northerns pass when flying before
" the army of Connaught ; let my grave face them, and
" place myself in it after this manner." And this order
was strictly complied with ; and in every place where the
Clanna Neill and the Connacians met in conflict, the
Clanna Neill and the northerns were routed, being panic-
stricken by the countenances of their foes ; so that the
Clanna Neill and the people of the north of Ireland
resolved to come with a numerous host and raise [the
body of] Owen from the grave, and carry his remains
northwards. This was done, and the body was buried at
the other side [of the river] with the mouth down, that it
might not be the means of causing them to fly before the
Connacians.*

It is very curious that, in some parts of the country, the
people still retain a dim traditional memory of this mode
of sepulture, and of the superstition connected with it.
There is a place near Garvagh, in Londonderry, called
Slaghtaverty ; but it ought to have been called Laghtaverty,
the laghi or sepulchral monument of a dwarf named
Abhartach [avartagh]. This dwarf was a magician, and
a dreadful tyrant ; and after having perpetrated great
cruelties on the people he was at last vanquished and
slain by a neighbouring chieftain. He was buried in a
standing posture, but the very next day he appeared in his
old haunts, more cruel and vigorous than ever. And the
chief slew him a second time and buried him as before ; but
again he escaped from the grave, and spread terror through
the whole country. The chief then consulted a druid, and
according to his directions, he slew the dwarf a third time,
and buried him in the same place, with his head down-
wards ; which subdued his magical power, so that he never
* Jly. Fiachrach, 472 : Silva Gad., 52.

554 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [rART III

again appeared on the earth. The laght raised over the
dwarf is still there, and you may hear the legend with
much detail from the natives of the place, one of whom
told it to me.

It sometimes happened that the mere exhibition of the
body of a dead chief, before burial, paralysed the enemy.
When King Dathi (a.d. 405 to 428) was killed by a flash
of lightning at the foot of the Alps, Amalgaid [Awly], his
son, took command of the army and had the body brought
home on a bier. " And," says the old record, " he gained
" nine battles by sea and ten battles by land by means of
" the corpse : for when his people exhibited the body of
" the king, they used to rout the forces that opposed
" them."* This superstition about the malign influence
of the body of a dead warrior over his living enemies also
prevailed among the ancient Britons, f While the head of
Bendigeid Vran remained buried in the White Mount in
London no invaders could come across the sea to attack
Britain (Mabinogion 42).

It is to be noted that the arms of a warrior were often
buried with him, whether his body was placed standing up
or lying flat. J

4. Cemeteries.

In pagan times the Irish had royal cemeteries in
various parts of the country for the interment of kings
and chiefs with their families and relatives. Of these there
is a short account, called Senchus na Relec, " History of the
Cemeteries," in the Book of the Dun Cow, with a statement
that they were the chief cemeteries of Erin before the
introduction of Christianity. This old authority enume-
rates eight : — Croghan ; Brugh ; Tailltenn ; Luachair Ailbe ;
Oenach Ailbe ; Oenach Culi ; Oenach Colmain ; and

* HyF, p. 23. See also (for the body of Niall) Otia Mers. 11. 91.

t See Sir S. Ferguson, Congal, p. 213 : and Ir. Nennius, 101.

I Like Ferbern, LL, " Contents," 49, b : O'Curry, Man. & Cust., 1. 328.

CHAP. XXXI]

DEATH AND BURIAL

555

Temair Erann ; in all of which, as already observed, the
illustrious dead were commemorated by annual fairs.

The cemetery of Brugh — the burial-place of the De-
dannans — lies on the northern bank of the Boyne, a
little below Slane, extending along the river for nearly
three miles. It is one of the most remarkable pagan
cemeteries in Europe, consisting of about twenty barrows
or burial-mounds of various sizes, containing chambers or
artificial caves with shallow saucer- shaped sarcophagi.

Fig. 345.

New Grange. About 70 feet high, but once much higher: base occupies more than an acre.
Formed of loosely-piled stones, with a surface of clay, covered with grass. It was surrounded
at base by a circle of great pillar-stones, about a dozen of which remain. Beehive-shaped
chamber in centre, about 20 feet in diameter, and 19 feet high, with three recesses, in one of
which is a shallow sarcophagus. A passage, 60 feet long, leads to exterior: sides of both
chamber and passage formed of enormous stones, covered with carvings like those seen in
some of the monuments in sect. 5 farther on. This sepulchre closely resembles some of the
ancient Greek tombs. (From Wakeman's Handbook of Irish Antiquities.)

The three principal mounds are those of New Grange,
Knowth, and Dowth, which are the largest sepulchral
mounds in Ireland. There are numerous pillar-stones :
and many of the great stones forming the sides and roofs
of the caves are carved with curious ornamental designs of
various patterns — circles, spirals, lozenges, and so forth.
The term brugh (pron. broo), as we have seen (p. 21, supra),
has several meanings, one of which is a great house or
mansion : and it was applied to this cemetery because
the principal mound, that now called New Grange, was

556 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

supposed to have been the fairy palace of the Dedannan
chief and magician, Aengus Mac-in-Og (see vol. I., p. 260,
supra). To this day the name is preserved : for the very
field in which the New Grange mound stands is now called
Broo or Bro Park, and in it also are Broo or Bro Farm,
Bro House, and Bro Mill.*

The cemetery of Croghan is called in old documents
Relig na Rig [Rellig-na-ree] , or the ' burial-place of the
kings.' It is half a mile south of Croghan, the seat of the
kings of Connaught, near Tulsk in the present Co. Ros-
common (see p. 92, supra), and is still well recognisable,
with numerous sepulchral monuments, f It covers about
two acres, and is surrounded by a dry wall, now all in
ruins. A little to the north-west of this main cemetery
is a natural cave of considerable extent, with artificial
alterations and additions, still much celebrated in popular
legend. This is the cavern — the " Hell-gate of Ireland "
already mentioned (vol. I., p. 265) — from which in old
times, on every Samain eve, issued the malignant bird-
flocks on their baleful flight, to blight crops and kill
animals with their poisonous breath. The great Queen
Maive lived at Croghan, and was interred in this ceme-
tery ; and to the present day, all over the district, there
are vivid traditions about her. More than thirty years
ago, Sir Samuel Ferguson found on a stone in the cave an
Ogham inscription, which he read as " Medff," a form of
Medb or Maive, one of the many striking confirmations of

* The Rev. James O'Laverty was the first to call attention to this in
Kilk. Arch. Journ. for 1892, p. 430. There are detailed descriptions of
the Brugh Cemetery in Wilde's Boyne ; in the third edition of Wakeman's
Antiquities, by Mr. Cooke ; and in Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. xxx., by
Mr. George Coffey. The History of the Cemeteries will be found in LU,
p. 50, and, with translation, in Petrie's R. Towers, p. 97. The high
ancient mound, now called Millmount, in the town of Drogheda, situated
on the south of the Boyne, half a quarter of a mile from the bridge, pro-
bably belongs to the Brugh Cemetery.

t A full account of the present state of this cemetery, by Sir Samuel
Ferguson, may be seen in Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1870-76, p. 114.

CHAP. XXXl]

DEATH AND BURIAL

557

the truth of the old records. Of late years, however, the
correctness of his reading has been questioned. On a low
mound near the relig stands the coirthe derg or ' red pillar-
stone ' marking the grave of King Dathi, mentioned farther
on (sect. 5), and figured here.

The kings of Ireland were interred here down to the
time of Crimthann Nia Nair, king of Ireland A.D. 74 to 90.
Crimthann's wife was a Dedannan lady ; and at her solici-
tation he chose to be buried at Brugh, which after him

Fig. 346.
King Dathi's grave and pillar-stone at Croghan. (From Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1879, p. 117.)

was adopted as the burial-place of the supreme kings,
while the kings of Connaught continued to be interred
at Croghan.*

Before noticing the next on the list, Tailltenn, it is
necessary to observe that there were other royal cemeteries
which are often mentioned in the records, though not
included in the list in the "History of the Cemeteries" ;
such as those at Tara and Ushnagh. And along with
these the pagan people had their own local burying-places
in every part of the country, of which the remains are still

* From the History of the Cemeteries. See also Keat., 358. In these
will be found the names of several illustrious persons interred at Croghan,
Brugh, and Tailltenn : for a fuller list see HyF, p. 27.

558 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

to be seen in several places, containing the usual mounds
and kistvaens. The history of many of these is quite lost.
By far the most remarkable and extensive cemetery of
this last class in all Ireland is that on the ridge of the
Loughcrew hills near Oldcastle in Meath, which was first
investigated and described in detail in 1872 by Mr. Eugene
A. Conwell of Trim.* It consists of a wonderful collection
of great mounds, earns, cromlechs, sepulchral chambers,
inscribed stones, and stone saucer-shaped sarcophagi, all of
the same general character as those of Brugh. It must
have been a noted cemetery ; yet it has completely
dropped out of history : or rather it should be said there
is no passage in any history, tradition, or legend that can
be recognised as applying to it.

Tailltenn (now Teltown), as a palace, and as the scene
of a great annual fair, has been already noticed. The
cemetery, which was the burial-place of the kings of Ulster,
and afterwards of the kings of Ireland, was situated near
the palace, but has been long obliterated ; and no wonder,
seeing that the whole site, including raths, sporting-greens,
beds of artificial ponds, cemetery, &c, has been for genera-
tions under cultivation : so that, with the exception of one
large rath — over which however the plough has run — the
ramparts and fences have nearly disappeared. Yet traces
remain showing that its forts once rivalled or exceeded in
size those of Tara.

Mr. Fergusson, the distinguished author of " Rude
Stone Monuments," expresses the opinion (at pp. 219,
220) — indeed he all but pronounces dogmatically — that
the Loughcrew Cemetery is the real cemetery of Tailltenn,

* In Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. ix., pp. 42, 355 : and vol. for 1870-76,
p. 72. It is a pity that Mr. Conwell did not confine himself to simple
description ; for he indulges in some visionary speculations — especially
that about " The Tomb of Ollamh Fodla " — that somewhat detract from
the merits of a really valuable paper. Another and more scientific descrip-
tion of this cemetery, by Mr. George Coffey, will be found in Trans. Roy.
Ir. Acad., vol. xxxi., p. 23.

CHAP. XXXI] DEATH AND BURIAL 559

rejecting the Teltown site, on the sole ground that it con-
tains no imposing monuments like those at Brugh, which
he thinks should be expected in a burying-place of such
celebrity.* But it will be seen that the foundation on
which this theory was supposed to rest does not exist,
and that the theory itself falls to the ground, in face of the
fact first pointed out by Sir Samuel Ferguson,f that Relig-
na-ree at Croghan, which was at least as celebrated as the
cemetery at Tailltenn, and also those at Tara, and Ushnagh
consist of a number of small mounds over graves, with
nothing in the least resembling the immense monuments of
Brugh and Loughcrew.

But independently of this, there are other considerations
sufficient to show that the cemetery of Tailltenn could not
have been that situated on the Loughcrew hills. The con-
sistent account given in our oldest traditions is that Lug of
the Long Arms had his foster-mother, Taillte, buried under
a mound at Tailltenn, which took its name from her, and
that he instituted the yearly games in honour of her, which
continued to be celebrated for so many centuries after-
wards : all which were carried on — as in case of the other
cemeteries already noticed (p. 434) — at and around the
original grave. For instance, Cuan O'Lochain's Poem on
Tailltenn in the Book of Leinster (200, b, 35) tells us that
the fair was held imman lecht, ' round the grave.' This
grave was the origin of the cemetery : and accordingly, in
the " History of the Cemeteries," it is stated that the
cemetery was at Tailltenn. We are told also in that and
other old documents, that 011am Fodla [OUave Fola] and
the other illustrious personages who were laid to rest here
were buried "in Tailltenn " (i Tailltenn). But the records
contain still more conclusive evidence on the point. The

* Mr. Conwell adopted Fergusson's view, evidently without sufficient
inquiry. Mr. Coffey, the latest investigator, a better authority in this
matter than either Fergusson or Conwell, does not adopt their theory
(see Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., xxxi., p. 24, note).

f In a Paper in Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad, for 1870-76, p. 114.

560 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

places where commemorative fairs and games were held
were often called Oenach or Acnach, followed by the
genitive of the proper name of the place : as Croghan was
called Oenach Cruachna (the ' Fair of Croghan '). The
account in the Book of the Dun Cow, speaking of the
three cemeteries of Croghan, Brugh, and Tailltenn, says :—
There are fifty burial-mounds at each Oenach of these :
fifty mounds at the Oenach of Croghan, fifty mounds at
the Oenach of Tailltenn, and fifty at the Oenach of Brugh.
Here, in all three cases, the cemetery was at or beside the
spot where the fair was held : and thus the writer of this
account, who records things as they existed in his time —
a.d. 1 100 — and for immemorial ages previously, tells us
that the cemetery of Tailltenn was at the very spot where
the fair was celebrated, which we know was Tailltenn itself.
Tailltenn is a small, circumscribed, well-defined spot, per-
fectly well known to this day ; so there can be no doubt as
to where the " Cemetery of Tailltenn " was situated. To
sum up then : after all the evidence that has been here
adduced, I suppose no one will now assert that the
" cemetery of Tailltenn " was that on the Loughcrew hills,
which is fully fourteen miles off as the crow flies.

The natural explanation of the difference between the
cemeteries of Brugh and Loughcrew on the one hand, and
those of Croghan, Tara, Ushnagh, and Tailltenn on the
other, is that they belonged to two different races, and
probably to different periods. One people had a passion
for mighty and enduring monuments, and these have left
us the imposing remains at Brugh and Loughcrew : while
the other contented themselves with small burial-mounds,
covering simple comrars or chambers, whose cemeteries
were Croghan, Tailltenn, and others like them. It may be
added that as the Brugh cemetery is traditionally ascribed
to the people called Dedannans, so, that at Loughcrew,
which resembles it so closely, belonged doubtless to the
same race.

CHAP. XXXI] - DEATH AND BURIAL 561

By far the greatest number of interments in pagan
times were, not in cemeteries, but in detached spots, where
individuals or families were interred. Such detached
graves are now found in every part of Ireland. Sometimes
they are within the enclosure of raths and cashels. After
the introduction of Christianity in the fifth century, the
people gradually forsook their pagan burial-places : and
the dead were buried with Christian rites in the consecrated
cemeteries attached to the little primitive churches. Reilig,
Old Irish relec, means a cemetery or graveyard ; it is
the Latin reliquice, and was borrowed very early, for it
occurs in the Zeuss mss., and Cormac has the word in
his Glossary (p. 144). It was applied to a pagan as well
as to a Christian cemetery. The most celebrated pagan
burial-place in Ireland with this name was Relig-na-rig,
mentioned above.

A burial-ground was sometimes called Ruam : in the
well-known prophecy of the druids regarding the coming
of St. Patrick, they say : " Taittcenns [see vol. I., p. 357,
supra] will come who will found churches and lay out
mams."* Cormac's Glossary (p. 143) derives the word
from " Rome " : the idea being that as Rome was the
final resting-place of so many saints, a graveyard in
Ireland was a miniature Rome, the resting-place of the
faithful. The word continued in use until quite recently,
though I think it is not understood now by speakers of
Irish.

A sepulchre or grave was sometimes called otharlige
[Sharlee], which is literally ' sick-bed ' — the bed of a person
sick [unto death], from othar, sick, and lige. a bed (Lat.
lectus). Olioll Olom's seven sons, who were slain in the
Battle of Mucrime (a.d. 250), were buried in an otharlige
on the north side of the fordf : and we read in the Book
of Leinster, that after the death of Cuculainn his head and

* Trip. Life, 34, I0.

t Silva Gad., 356, bottom : Ir. Text, 316, 34.

562 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE PART III

his hand were buried in an otharlige* We have already
seen (vol. L, p. 608) that the cemetery in which the victims
of a plague were interred was called Tamhlacht.

5. Sepulchral Monuments.

The monuments constructed round and over the dead
in Ireland were of various kinds, very much depending on
the rank of the person buried : and they were known by
several names. Some were in cemeteries, some — belonging
to pagan times — detached, as already stated. Many of the
forms of monuments used by the pagan Irish were con-
tinued in Christian times. The most common words for a
grave in general were nag, modern form uaigh [00a] : and
fert, modern feart.

Carn and Duma. — In our ancient literature, both lay and
ecclesiastical, there are many notices of the erection of
earns over graves. The Irish word is carn, which simply
means a heap : but card was another and very old form of
this word. We have records of earns in documents of the
seventh century. For example, in Tirechan's " Notes on
the Life of St. Patrick," we read that the saint's charioteer
Totmael died near Croaghpatrick in Mayo, and he [Patrick]
buried him there, et congregavit lapides erga sepulchrum,
" and he made a heap of stones beside the grave." f So
also in Adamnan's " Life of St. Columba " (p. 63) : when
a certain old Pict was buried in the Isle of Skye, his com-
panions raised over him a carn of stones (congesto lapidum
acervo sepeliunt).

Endless examples might be cited from the records in
the native language. Perhaps the oldest is the account in
the " Bruden Da Derga " (p. 169) of the erection of the carn
by the marauders on their way to the Bruden by each man
bringing a stone which they cast all in one heap, as already
related (vol. 1., p. 149). Here it is stated that the carn was

* LL, 121, b, 39j 40. f Trip. Life, 322, 26i 27 . see also same, p. 161.

CHAP. XXXI]

DEATH AND BURIAL

563

raised for the double purpose of reckoning the slain and
commemorating the destruction of the hostel. But the
general purpose of a earn was as a memorial of the person
or persons buried beneath it. The plan of raising a earn
over the grave by each bringing a stone was often resorted
to. In this manner — as we are told in the Book of
Leinster — Lugaid and his followers, when they had slain
Furbaide, son of King Concobar Mac Nessa, piled up a
earn over his grave.* The same custom exists to some
extent at the present day, for in many parts of Ireland,
they pile up a laght or earn over the spot where any

^**V>^.\M^-

FlG. 347-
Cam, on Cams Hill, near Sligo. (From Col. Wood- Martin's Pagan Ireland, p" 294.)

person has come to an untimely death ; and every
passer-by is expected to add a stone to the heap. The
tourist who ascends Mangerton mountain, near Killarney,
may see a cam of this kind near the Devil's Punch
Bowl, where a shepherd was found dead early in the
last century.

In or near the centre of almost every earn a beehive-
shaped chamber of dry masonry was formed communicating
with the exterior by a long narrow passage. The body or
urn was placed in the chamber : in some chambers, rude
shallow stone coffins shaped like a saucer have been found.

*LL, Contents, 52, b, ]c : see for another example Contents, 54, b,
bottom.

2 0 2

564 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

In old pagan times people had a fancy to bury on the tops
of hills ; and the summits of very many hills in Ireland are
crowned with earns, under every one of which — in a stone
coffin — reposes some person renowned in the olden time.
They are sometimes very large, and form conspicuous
objects when viewed from the neighbouring plains, of
which one of the finest examples in Ireland is Miscaun
Maive near the town of Sligo. It is an immense heap on
the summit of the hill of Knocknarea, which hangs over the
sea to a height of 1078 feet. The earn is about 600 feet
in circumference and 34 feet high ; and for scores of miles

round the hill it is a most
striking object, whether
viewed from land or sea.
The popular tradition is
that it commemorates the
great Queen Maive of
Croghan, which may be
correct : but, if so, it is
a cenotaph, as she was
buried in Croghan (HyF,

Duma or burial-mound, beside the Boyne. near 20 2)' A monumental

Clonard : very conspicuous from the Railway, on the left J I . -

as you bo westward. Circumference, 433 feet ; height, heap Or Cam iS Often

So feet. (From Wilde's Boyne and Blaclcwater.) ,, , , , , -

called a lecht or leacht.
This word lecht is cognate with Lat. lectus, and Gr. lechos
(both meaning a bed) : for in many languages a grave is
called a bed (see leaba further on). In Cormac's Glossary
(p. 101) lecht is explained lige mhairbh, the grave of a dead
[person]. Sometimes entire skeletons have been found
under earns and lechts, sometimes cinerary urns, and
sometimes both together, showing that these monuments
were used with both modes of burial (see p. 551, supra).

The duma or mound — often called tuaim — seems to
have differed from the cam in this : — that whereas the earn
was formed of moderately large stones, such as a person
could easily carry, the duma was made of clay, or of a

FIG. 348

CHAP. XXXl]

DEATH AND BURIAL

565

mixture of clay and small pebbles, having usually, at the
present time, a smooth carpet of grass growing on it.
While earns were often placed on hills, the dnmas were
always in the lowlands. The duma, like the cam, has a
cist or chamber in the centre, in which the urn or body
was placed : sometimes there is a passage to the outside,
sometimes not. Numerous mounds of this class still

Fig. 349.

Sepulchral chamber with shallow sarcophagus: in the interior of one of the Loughcrew cams.
Observe the characteristic pagan carvings. (From Col. Wood-Martin's Pagan Ireland, p. 289.)

remain all over tha country : they may be generally
distinguished from the mounds of duns by the absence
of circumvallations. They are often mentioned in ancient
Irish writings ; and we frequently find it recorded that the
bodies of the slain were buried in a duina. Very often
round a duma there was a circle of pillar-stones, some of
which remain in position to the present day. But stone
circles simply, with a level space within, are often found.

566 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

These always mark a place of interment ; being placed
round a grave.* (See pp. 539 and 542, supra.)

Comrar, Kistvaen, Cromlech. — The stone coffin, chest, or
cist in which a body was interred, or in which one or more
urns were placed, was called in Irish a comrar, a word
which means a protecting cover, shrine, or box of any
kind. It corresponds with the modern Irish comhra [cora],
which is now the usual word for a coffin : and also with
English coffer and coffin. In a passage in the Book of the
Dun Cow we are given a very clear example both of the
comrar and of the sepulchral pillar-stone. It is a descrip-
tion of the grave of Eochaid Airgthech, a usurping king
of Ireland, who, after reigning a year, was slain, a.d. 280,
in a battle fought near the Ollarba or Larne river, in the
present Co. Antrim. Cailte, who slew him, tells how he
was buried : — " There is a chest of stone {comrar cloche)
" about him there in the earth : and there, upon the chest
" are his two bracelets of silver and his two bunne-do-at
" (p. 241, supra), and his neck-torque of silver : and by his
" ulad or tomb there is a stone pillar (coirthe) : and on the
" end of the pillar that is in the earth there is an Ogham
" which says : — ' This is Eochaid Airgthech : Cailte slew
" me in an encounter against Finn.' "f

When a comrar is over ground and formed of very
large stones, it is now commonly called a cromlech or
dolmen : both words of late introduction and neither of
Irish origin : when underground and formed of smaller
flagstones, it is generally called a kistvaen, meaning ' stone-
chest ' : Welsh maen, a stone. Many of the kistvaens, and
also some of the cromlechs, were made much larger than
was needed for the reception of a single body : in these

* See Stokes's Petrie, p. 238, et seq. Stone circles are found all through
Europe and elsewhere. Of these, Fergusson says they were probably all
sepulchral, and that the contention of some persons that the very large
ones, both of England and Ireland, were used for religious rites, is not
supported by any evidence : which is certainly true so far as Ireland is
concerned.

t Petrie, R. Towers, 108 : Voyage of Bran, i, 48, 52 : LU 134, a, 3.

CHAP. XXXl]

DEATH AND BURIAL

5&7

were interred several persons, probably all members of the
same family. Many of these large comrars have been lately
discovered and described. The bodies of those who fell
in battle were often interred in kistvaens and cromlechs, of
which numbers are now found in ancient battlefields.

A cromlech is formed of one great flat stone lying on
the tops of several large standing stones, thus enclosing a
rude chamber in which one or more bodies or urns were
placed. These cromlechs are very numerous in all parts

*SJHK«»NK

Fig. 350.

Prehistoric " Giant's Grave," near the village of Drumclifle, County Sligo : about 38 feet in length.
A human skeleton was found in it, with a rude necklace round the neck. (From Col. Wood-Martin's
" Rude Stone Monuments in Sligo," Kilk. Archouol. Joum. for 1887-8, p. 143.)

of Ireland, and various theories were formerly in fashion
to account for their origin ; of which the most common
was that they were " Druids' altars," and used for offering
sacrifices* It is now, however, well known that they are
tombs, which is proved by the fact that under many of
them have been found cinerary urns, calcined bones, and
sometimes entire skeletons. The popular name of " Giants
Graves," which is applied to them in many parts of the
country, preserves, with sufficient correctness, the memory

♦"There is really no sufficient reason" — says Sir John Lubbock in his
Pre-historic Times (p. m) — "for connecting them \i.e. cromlechs and
other megalithic monuments] with druidical worship."

568 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

of their original purpose. Sepulchral monuments of the
same class are found all over Europe, and even in
India.

There is a village on the east side of the river Moy,
a kind of suburb of Ballina, called Ardnaree, a name
originally applied to the hill immediately south of the
village, which is now called Castle Hill, from a castle that
has long since disappeared. The event that gave origin
to this name is very fully related by Mac Firbis in his
account of the Tribes and Customs of the Hy Fiachrach,
and more fully still in the Irish Life of St. Kellach (" Silva
Gadelica," p. 50). The same story is told in the Dinn-
senchus. The persons concerned are all well-known
characters, and the event is far within the horizon of
authentic history.

Guaire [Guara] son of Colman, was king of Connaught
in the sixth century (not Guaire the Hospitable who lived
a century later : Miss Eleanor Hull brings this out in
"Early Christian Ireland," pp. 55, 56). Though a power-
ful monarch, he was not the true heir to the throne ; the
rightful heir was a man who in his youth had abandoned
the world and entered the priest-hood, and who was now
bishop of Kilmore-Moy ; this was Cellach or Kellagh, the
son of the last monarch, Owen Bel, and descended directly
from the celebrated Dathi. Cellach was murdered at the
instigation of Guaire, by four ecclesiastical students — the
four Maels, as they were called, because the names of all
began with the syllable Mael — who were under the bishop's
tuition, and who, it appears, were his own foster-brothers.
The bishop's brother however soon after pursued and
captured the murderers, and brought them in chains to the
hill overlooking the Moy, which was up to that time called
Tulach-na-faircsiona [Tullanafarkshina], the hill of the
prospect, where he hanged them all ; and from this cir-
cumstance the place took the name of Ard-na-riaghadh
[Ardnaree], the hill of the executions.

CHAP. XXXl]

DEATH AND BURIAL

5<%>

They were buried at the other side of the river, a little
south of the present town of Ballina, and the place was
called Ard-na-Mael, the 'hill of the [four] Maels.' The
monument erected over them remains to this day ; it is a
cromlech, well known to the people of Ballina, and now
commonly called the Table of the Giants.

The account given here, including the statement that
the murderers were buried at Ardnaree, is taken from the
Life of St. Kellagh (Silva Gad., 66) and from HyF (33) :
and as the Dinnsenchus states that there was a monument

Fig. 351.

The tomb of the Four Maels at Ardnaree, near Ballina, County Mayo.
(From Col. Wood-Martin's Pagan Ireland, p. 274.)

erected over the murderers, which was called Lecht-na-
Mael, the ' tomb of the [four] Maels,' the identification of
this cromlech may be regarded as complete. The name
Ard-na-Mael is obsolete, the origin of the cromlech is
forgotten, and Bishop Cellach and his murderers have long
since ceased to be remembered in the traditions of the
people.

Some cromlechs are formed of stones so large that to
this day it remains a puzzle how they were heaved up to
their places by people devoid of powerful mechanical
appliances. The covering stone of the cromlech at
Kilternan, on the summit of a hill between Dublin and

57°

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

Bray, which is figured here, and which is one of the largest
of its kind in Ireland, is 233 feet long, 17 feet broad, and

Fig. 352.
The great cromlech at Kilteman. (Prom Wakeman'i Handbook of Irish Antiquities.)

6| feet thick. It is lifted so high that a man can stand
straight up under its higher end.

Sometimes regularly formed cromlechs — usually small
— are found under dumas or mounds, like that shown in
fig- 353. which still stands in its original place in the

Fig hi.

The Phoenix Park cromlech : example of a cromlech found under a ituma or burial-mound.

Covering stone, b% feet long. (From Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy.)

Phoenix Park, Dublin. It was found in the year 1838
under an earthen tumulus of considerable size which was
cleared away: several urns were dug out of the mound ;

CHAP. XXXI] DEATH AND BURIAL 57I

and under the cromlech lay two human skeletons. But,
generally speaking, cromlechs, that is to say, comrars
formed of a few massive stones, were erected in the open
air, and were not covered with a mound.*

Sepulchres are sometimes called leaba or leabaid, old
Irish lepad [labba, labby], Manx IMabbee : the word literally
signifies a bed, but it is applied in a secondary sense to a
grave, both in the present spoken language and in old
writings. For example, in the ancient authority cited by
Petrie (" R. Towers," p. 355), it is stated that the poet
Rumann, who died in the year 747 at Rahan in King's
County, " was buried in the same leabaidh with Ua
" Suanaigh, on account of his (Rumann's) great honour
" with God and man." This word leaba was applied to
stone sepulchres in general, whether the comrar was under
a mound or in the open air.

Cromlechs are called in many parts of the country
Leaba-Dhiarmada-agus-Grainne, the ' bed of Diarmaid
and Grainne ' ; and this name is connected with the
well-known legend that Dermot O'Dyna eloped with
Grainne, the daughter of King Cormac mac Art, Finn
mac Cumail's betrothed spouse. The pair eluded Finn's
pursuit for a year and a day, sleeping in a different place
each night, under a leaba erected by Diarmaid after his
day's journey ; and according to the legend there were
just 366 of them in Ireland. But this legend is a late
invention, and evidently took its rise from the word leabaidh
which was understood in its literal sense of a bed.

Pillar-stones. — The various purposes for which pillar-
stones were erected have been already stated (page
267). Here we have to do only with their sepulchral
use. All through the tales we find mention of the head-

* For another cromlech, see p. 537, supra : and for much more about
cromlechs, with many illustrations, see Wakeman's Handbook of Ir.
Antiqq., third edition, by Mr. Cooke.

5;2

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

stone or pillar-stone, called by the names lie or lee and

cnirthe [curha], placed
over a grave. A usual
formula to describe
the burial of a person
is : — His funeral rites
were performed, his
grave was dug, and his
stone erected, with his
name inscribed in
Ogham. In accordance
with these accounts,
pillar-stones are found
all over Ireland, some
with Ogham: the inscrip-
tion, as already stated,
usually telling the name
of the person, with the
name of his father, and
often a few other brief
particulars. Some of the
sepulchral pillar- stones
had no inscriptions.
Perhaps the most re-
markable and interest-
ing pillar -stone in all
Ireland belonging to
pagan times is that
erected over the body of
King Dathi in the
cemetery of Croghan,
which is figured at page
557, supra : it bears no
inscription. In later

ages the pagan pillar-stone developed into the ordinary

headstone with a Christian inscription.

F'O. 354-

Decorated lid of stone coffin found in Devenish Island :
belonging to Christian times. (From Journ. Roy. Society
of Antiqq. Ireland, for 1896, p. 285.)

CHAP. XXXI]

DEATH AND BURIAL

573

Tombs with Christian Inscriptions. — After the estab-
lishment of Christianity it became customary to erect
a tomb over the grave, hav-
ing a flat slab on top, espe-
cially in the cemeteries of
monasteries, with an inscrip-
tion, generally in Irish, but
sometimes in Latin. In many
cases the monument was a
simple inscribed pillar-stone ;
so that some of the headstones
that are mentioned under the
last heading would fall also
under this.

A most interesting Christian
inscribed pillar-stone, probably
the oldest in Ireland, is the
headstone of Lugnaed or
Lugna, standing about two and
a half feet over ground, near
the very ancient little church
of Templepatrick on the island
of Inchagoill in Lough Corrib>
of which Dr. Petrie has given
a full account in his " Round
Towers." It is figured here
from his accurate illustration
in the same book, page 165.
Another accurate drawing of it
is in Wilde's " Lough Corrib '
(1872, page 136), and a photo-
graph from a paper cast is
given by Sir Samuel Ferguson in his paper (Proceedings
Royal Irish Academy for 1870-76, plate ix. at end).

According to the ancient narratives of the Life and
Acts of St. Patrick, his sister Liemania had seven sons

Fig. 355.

Lugnaed's headstone.

574 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE [PART III

by Restitutus the Lombard. These seven accompanied
the saint to Ireland, and were settled by him in Connaught
in the neighbourhood of Lough Mask. The youngest was
Lugna, Patrick's Lumaire or pilot. Petrie and O'Donovan*
concur in reading the inscription lie lugnaedon macc
lmenueh, " The stone of Lugnaedon [or Lugnaed] son
of Limenueh " ; and they identify this Lugnaed with
Lugnaed, the son of St. Patrick's sister, which indeed —
according to their reading — they could not avoid doing,
inasmuch as — besides the local associations — he is the
only saint of the name in all Irish ecclesiastical history.

This monument may be classed among these remark-
able corroborations of the accuracy of Irish historical
records, of which so many examples have been given
throughout this book : or to quote the words of Petrie : —
" The very ancient inscription, which I have copied . . .
" will be considered by the learned and unprejudiced as a
" very singular and interesting evidence of the truth of
" those [aforementioned Irish] authorities."

Dr. Whitley Stokes however reads this inscription
differently (Cormac's Glossary, p. 101 : 1868), viz. lie
luguaedon macci menueh. He is followed by Sir
Samuel Ferguson in a paper published in Proc. Roy. Ir.
Academy (1872, p. 259), whose words however indicate
that he is not very confident in the matter : — " The asso-
" ciations originally called up by Petrie may possibly yet
" reconstitute themselves around this monument " (p. 260).
Miss Stokes (Inscriptions, 11., p. 10 : 1878) adopts the
same reading, and renders it in English : " The stone of
Lugaed, son of Men." Lastly, Mr. R. A. S. Macalister
(Journ. Roy. Soc. Antiqq., Irel., 1898, p. 176) gives still the
same reading. All judging from the inscription alone.

Notwithstanding the great authority of these names,
I believe that Petrie and O'Donovan were right, and that
this venerable little monument marks the resting-place of

* Petrie R. Towers, p. 165 : O'Donovan, Ir. Gram. Introd. LIZ.,

CHAP. XXXI] DEATH AND BURIAL . 575

Lugnaed the son of Liemania. This conclusion has been
arrived at, not by an examination of the mere inscription
— which is, taken by itself, by no means a safe guide —
but by carefully weighing the whole of the evidence, in-
scriptional, historical, legendary, and topographical. The
full examination of this question would demand more space
than I can afford here ; but it will be dealt with elsewhere
(see Journ. R. Soc. Antiqq. Irel. 1906, Opening Paper).

On the monuments now under consideration — whether
flat slabs or pillar-stones — the name of the person is some-
times found inscribed, and nothing more : but more usually
a prayer is asked for the soul's repose : and occasionally —
as in case of Lugnaed's monument — the inscription takes
the form of " The stone of such and such a person." The
great majority of the persons commemorated on these
monuments are men ; but a few women are found.

Some of those whose names are inscribed on ancient
tombstones have been identified and are well known in
Irish history, which in each such instance fixes the date.
But in case of far the greater number, antiquarians have
been unable to identify them. The names of nearly alL
however are familiar as occurring frequently in Irish
records. As might be expected, many of the inscriptions
are mutilated and imperfect ; but a large proportion are
as full and perfect as when first they were carved.

In the early part of the last century Dr. Petrie copied,
in exact facsimile, all the inscriptions in the Irish language
he could find — a great many of them in Clonmacnoise :
and the whole collection has been edited and published
under the auspices of the Royal Soc. of Antiqq., Ireland,
with critical dissertations, descriptions, and translations,
by Miss Margaret Stokes in two volumes — " Christian
Inscriptions in the Irish Language." In this book — a
book essential to every student of Irish antiquities — all
Petrie's facsimiles, and many drawn by Miss Stokes herself
and by others, are reproduced.

576

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

Altar -Tombs.— In the passage quoted above (p. 566),
about Eochaid Airgthech, the word ulad [ulla], meaning
a stone tomb, is applied to the whole structure round the
body, including the comrar or kist, and probably the duma
or mound ; but not including the pillar-stone. Here its
application is pagan : but in subsequent times it was used
to denote the tomb of a Christian : the tomb 01 Old- Patrick
in Armagh is called his uladh (Feilire, 133, a, 1). As
persons often took occasion to pray at the tombs of saints,
this word uladh or uluidh is now, and has been for a long

Fig. 356-

Example of an ulid: on Inishmumy. It is one of the stations where pilgrims pray in the
course of their devotional rounds. It is called I 'lad-Stttirt [ulla-murre]. ' Mary's Altar,' because
it is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. (From Kilk. ArchxoL Journ. for 1885-6, p. 302. Drawn
by Wakeman.)

time, used to denote a penitential station, or a stone altar
erected as a place of devotion. It was used in this sense
at an early period, for in the " Battle of Moyrath " (p. 298)
it is said that " Domnall never went away from a cross
" without bowing, nor from an ulaidh without turning
"round, nor from an altar without praying." On which
O'Donovan remarks : — " Uluidh, a word which often occurs
" in ancient MSS., is still understood in the west of Ireland
" to denote a penitential station at which pilgrims pray,
" and perform rounds on their knees." This is the sense

CHAP. XXXI] DEATH AND BURIAL 577

in which it is used in a passage in the Boroma,* in which
St. Moiling is stated to have been engaged on one occasion
in " making ulads and altars " : in which the name seems
to have no reference to a tomb. Many of these little
altar-tombs are still to be seen in the west and south
of Ireland.

Ferta. — Fert, plural ferta, signifies a grave or trench.
The old name of Slane on the Boyne was Ferta-fer-Feic ;
and the account given by Colgan (Trias Thaum., p. 20)
of the origin of this name brings out very clearly the
meaning of ferta : — " There is a place on the north margin
" of the River Boyne, now called Slaine ; [but anciently]
" it was called Ferta-fer-Feic, i.e. the trenches or sepulchres
" of the men of Fiac, because the servants of a certain
" chieftain named Fiac dug deep trenches there to inter
" the bodies of the slain."

In the Book of Armagh there is an interesting account,
by Tirechan, of the burial, in the ferta, of Laegaire's two
daughters (see vol. I., p. 255, supra), who had been con-
verted by St. Patrick : — " And the days of mourning for
" the king's daughters were accomplished, and they buried
" them near the well Clebach ; and they made a circular
" ditch like to a ferta ; because so the Scotic people and
" gentiles were used to do, but with us it is called Reliquice
" (Irish Reilig), i.e. the remains of the virgins. "f Ferta was
originally a pagan term, as the above passage shows ; but,
like many other words, it was adopted by the early Irish

Christians.^

Sepulchral Rath. — In connexion with the ferta it is very
often mentioned that a rath or raith was raised round the
grave, a custom described by Keating in his " Three Shafts
of Death" (p. 161). When Baile (a pagan) was buried,
" his fert and his raith were raised, and his lia [pillar-stone]

* Rev. Celt., xill. 99. See also " Uladh " in O'Donovan's supplement.

t Todd, St Patrick, p. 455.

J See Reeves's Anc. Churches of Armagh, p. 47.

578

SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE

[PART III

was set."* When the lady Acall (who gave name to
Acaill, now the Hill of Skreen in Meath) was buried, " for
" her was raised the rath yonder where she had met her
" fate " :f and the Dinnsenchus (Gwynn, 13) mentions the
burial of a person named Broccaid in a rath. This rath

round a grave, like that surround-
ing a homestead, was a circular
rampart for the mere purpose of
protection.

On this point, Keating, in his
" Three Shafts " (p. 161), has the
following curious observations : —
The second mode [of interment]
was to place the dead under
the earth, with little raths or
entrenchments round them, but
with no stone or leacht over them.
And three classes of people
there are who were interred
within these little raths, namely,
men of science or learning,
women, and children. . . . And
there was one door to the grave
of a man of learning, two doors
to the grave of a woman, but
no door to the grave of a child."
Keating quotes an old autho-
rity for these statements : but
I am not able to illustrate them
further, either from ancient Irish documents or from
existing remains.

Effigies. — The custom of carving effigies on tombs was
introduced by the Anglo-Normans, and was adopted by
the native Irish. But as this subject does not fall within
the scope of my inquiry, it will be sufficient to give here

* O'Curry, MS Mat., 473, ao. j Rid., 515.

Monument (lying fiat) of Richard de Clare,
Earl of Pembroke, better known by the
name of Strongbow, and bis wife Fva,
daughter of Dermot Mac Murrogh, king of
I.einstcr : now to be seen in Christchurch
Cathedral, Dublin. Strongbow landed in
Ireland in 1170, as the leader of the
An;lo-Norman invaders. He died in 1 176,
and was buried in Christchurch. (From
Mrs. Hall's Ireland.)

CHAP. XXXI]

DEATH AND BURIAL

579

two illustrations, one representing the monumental effigy
of an Anglo-Norman lord, the other that of an Irish
provincial king : both as they appear at the present day.

fig. 358.

Tomb of Felim O'Conor, kins of Conn.iuglit, in Roscommon Abbey; died, 1265.
The two figures at bottom, showing only tile heads, are gallo,;Usses, of which there
a-e eizht. The rubbish has been recently cleared away, so that ail can now be seen.
Two of these fine figures are fully depicted in vol. I., p. 146, supra. A full-pace engraving
of the whole tomb, with the eight galloglasses, may be seen in The O'Conors of
Connaught, by the Right Hon. The O'Conor Don. (From Kilk. Archxol. Journ.)

The Cross. — From the very earliest period of Christianity
in Ireland, it was customary to erect a cross over the grave
of a Christian ; of which so many notices occur, both in the
Lives of the Saints and elsewhere, that it is unnecessary to
give references.

Ornament composed from the Book of Kells.

APPENDIX

NOTES, ADDITIONS, AND CORRECTIONS

Vol. L, p. 118, last two lines of Text.

" Take out the axes quickly " should be " Open the straps
quickly." But this does not affect the main argument for
the antiquity of the Irish battleaxe. (I am indebted to Dr.
Kuno Meyer for this correction, as well as for many other
valuable suggestions and criticisms.)

Vol. I., p. 143, line 12.

Dam-dabaich here should be in the nom. form, dam-dabach.
Dam-dabaich is dative, as it correctly appears in the original
passage in LL, 79, a, 12.

Vol. I., p. 230, lines 8 to 17.

The translation of this poem given in Stokes and Strachan's
" Thesaurus," 11. 294, differs somewhat from that of O'Curry,
and seems to leave it doubtful whether there is here any reference
to forecasting by observation of the heavenly bodies. But
there is enough of evidence on the point without it.

Vol. I., p. 577, and Note \, same page.

I am indebted to the Rev. Dr. Abbott, s.f.t.c.d., Librarian,
for an interesting communication on the age of " Brian Boru's
harp." An examination he has recently made has enabled
him to bring under observation certain features of this old
harp, which, by an accident, were inaccessible to Dr. Petrie, and
the discovery of which removes the grounds of some of Petrie' s
arguments. As a result, Dr. Abbott comes to the conclusion
that the harp may be much older than the end of the fourteenth
century ; which, so far, agrees with O'Curry's opinion. See
Dr. Abbott's detailed account in " The Book of Trinity
College," p. 172.

581

582 APPENDIX

Vol. II., p. 71.

" Keeler." I now doubt that this word is derived from the
Irish cilorn. It is probably an English word.

Vol. II., pp. 70 to 76.

Dr. Kuno Meyer directs my attention to a passage in YBL,
106, a, 40, in which there is a classification, according to size,
of seven of the vessels mentioned in the above pages, viz. : —
dabach (the largest), ian, drolmach, muide, cilorn, milan, metar.
With this, so far as the last three are concerned, the classifica-
tion evolved at p. 70, last line (vol. 11.), agrees. This YBL
passage notes, too, that the whole seven were hooped vessels.

There was another vessel called mesair (gen. mesrach),
glossed phiala by O'Mulconry. It was used for drinking ; for
we find in YBL, 106, a, n, mesair senbrogoilti, " a mesair of old
bragget," and O'Reilly has " measair, a long-handled vessel, a
figgin."

Vol. II., p. 227.

For Pearls : see also Boate, 187.

Vol. II., pp. 240 to 244.

Do-at, Muince-do-at and Bunne-do-at. — It has been estab-
lished by Windisch that the Old Irish dbe means the fore-arm,
wrist [or hand ?]. In Middle and Modern Irish, we know that
the dative form doit or doid, besides its use as a dative, is also
used as a nominative, in accordance with a well-known linguistic
law. Of these applications of dbit and ddid any number of
examples might be cited in Middle and in Modern colloquial
Irish. All this would point to a gen. doat ; and it has been
suggested or asserted that this is the sense of the word in the
compounds muince-do-at and bunne-do-at. But though this will
make sense in the case of bunne-do-at (' a bunne or ring for the
hand '), it will not answer for muince-do-at (' a necklet for the
hand '). Muince (which is derived from muin, ' the neck ')
is always applied to something put round the neck, or round
anything that might be considered a neck ; but it certainly
is not applied to a ring or bracelet for the hand or arm.

APPENDIX 583

I am not aware that the form doat has as yet been found as
an undoubted genitive of doe, or found at all except in the
terms muince-do-at and bunne-do-at. But I deny that it is
here a genitive of doe. It is, in fact, a different word altogether,
the identity in form between it and doat, gen. of dde (if such a
genitive exists) being merely accidental. Even if the gen. of
dde should hereafter be found without any doubt to be doat,
this will not affect the question.

But the main evidence in the case is quite independent of
all that precedes — evidence which to most people will be quite
conclusive. There, before our eyes, in our Museum, are two
classes of objects — and only two — with numerous specimens of
each, all with the characteristic do-at — two ats, discs, or buttons
— which sharply distinguish them from all other objects in the
Museum. To these two types the two terms Muince-do-at and
bunne-do-at exactly answer, and are accurately descriptive of
them, while there are no other objects that correspond with the
same two terms, and no other terms in the language that corre-
spond with the objects, or (in either case) make any approach
to correspondence.

Mere grammatical or linguistic considerations, however
valuable within their proper domain, cannot outweigh the
evidence of our senses. For all these reasons I adhere to my
explanation of muince-do-at and bunne-do-at.

Vol. II., p. 263.

NOTE ON THE IRISH GOLD ORNAMENTS FOUND IN
1896 AT BROIGHTER.

The litigation mentioned in the footnote of the above page
has come to an end. After many witnesses had been examined,
and much expert evidence had been given, Judge Farwell, by
whom the case was tried, delivered an elaborate and highly
instructive judgment, deciding that the articles were treasure-
trove, and that consequently they were the property, not of
the British Museum, but of the Crown. Soon afterwards they
were handed over to the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, by order
of the King : one of the numerous manifestations of His
Majesty's gracious and kindly feeling towards Ireland. They

584 APPENDIX

are now among the great collection of gold ornaments in the
Academy's compartment of the National Museum, Dublin,
already mentioned in vol. 11., p. 263 : their proper and natural
home.

The articles in this Broighter gold-find, which, in point of
workmanship, are fully equal to those described in chap, xxn.,
section 3 (p. 22, supra), are as follows : —

1. Model of a boat, 7$ inches long by 3 broad, having originally
nine seats for rowers, and a mast ; but the mast and one of the seats
are missing. The rowlocks are formed of little rings. There are
fifteen oars, a miniature grappling-iron (of gold like all the rest), and
three forked spears, possibly fishing-spears. The boat was formed
from one flat plate of gold by hammering, like the dish shown in
vol. 11., p. 71, fig. 196.

2. A bowl, 3J inches in diameter and 2 inches deep, quite plain,
formed, like the boat, by hammering ; having four rings on the edge
for hanging.

3. A triple chain, 14J inches in length, to be worn on the neck,
with a fastener consisting of a bolt with a pin that slides in and out
of a loop. Each of the three separate chains of which this necklace
is composed is of exquisite fabric, being formed of spirally-twisted
closely-knit links combined in such a way as that the chain itself is four-
cornered the whole length.

4. A smaller chain, single, 16J inches long, worn as a necklace,
formed of most complicated plait-work of eight wires, with a fastening
like that of the larger one.

5. A collar for the neck, 7$ inches in external diameter, most skil-
fully and elaborately wrought : formed of a hollow tube, 1 £ inch in
diameter. It had a hinge at one side (which is gone), and an ingenious
slot-and-bolt fastener opposite, so that the collar could be opened out
for putting on and taking off, and securely fastened when worn. Portion
of its ornamentation — a divergent spiral pattern — is depicted in Mr.
Cochrane's article, Journ. Roy. Soc. Anliqq. for 1902, p. 217.

6. Two small solid torques, beautifully twisted and ornamented ;
one complete ; the other with only half remaining.

Vol. II., p. 309.

Since writing the article on the smith's forge ending at the
first paragraph of the above page, a more careful examination
of the Irish Texts has enabled me to arrive at the construction
of the old Irish blacksmith's furnace, just as — in the same
article — the bellows has been restored from a comparison of
similar authorities (pp. 305-309, vol. 11.).

In Cormac's Glossary, p. 123, an incident is related of
Goibniu, the great Dedannan smith. On one occasion he
happened to be in his forge, holding in his hand a crand or
wooden implement of some kind {crand, a tree, a piece of wood,

APPENDIX 585

anything made of wood). Cormac gees on to say that ness was
a special name for this crand, and he adds, after his usual happy
manner, this short explanatory note showing its use : — " And
it is about it the furnace of clay (urnisi criad) is made." Here
the expression is similar to that used by the old Irish eighth
or ninth century commentator already quoted (pp. 79, 317
above), to describe the wooden block on which Irish potters
moulded soft clay to make vessels : and observe, that in both
passages the block or mould is called crand or crann. The
passage concerning the potter's mould specifying part of the
moulding process, is " a round piece of wood (crann) about
which they [the soft clay vessels] are while being made "
(Stokes and Strachan, Thes., I., 23). It appears then that the
ness or crand mentioned by Cormac was a mould round which
was formed the soft clay furnace to contain and confine the
fire. From all this we infer that whenever the walls of this
furnace got burned or worn out — which might be perhaps once
a week or so — it was cleared away ; the ness, crand, or mould
was set in the proper place (the exact place for the fire), and a
new structure of soft clay was moulded round it in a few
minutes with the hands ; after which the mould was lifted up,
leaving the furnace (urnisi criad) ready for use. At the time the
incident related by Cormac occurred, Goibniu happened to be
engaged in moulding a fresh furnace, with the ness in his hand.

The fuel used in those days was wood-charcoal,
which, being lighter than our coal, was liable
to be blown about and scattered by the blast
of the bellows, if not confined by the furnace.
I presume the ness or mould was something like
what is represented here, either solid or hollow, nL__"___^|

with a long handle for holding and lifting up. V, J

That it had a long handle is also implied by the
text of the story, as related by Cormac. Probably a small part
of the upright surface of the mould was flat, which was placed
up against the upright flag (at the back of the fire) opposite
the hole for the bellows-pipe.

All this is curiously corroborated by a totally independent
authority, a passage in the Irish Triads, No. 148, p. 21, edited
by Dr. Kuno Meyer : — " Three renovators of the world — the

586 APPENDIX

womb of woman, a cow's udder, and a smith's ness." In
still another ms. this ness is explained " a bag of clay," which
gives us further insight. The moulding clay of which the
furnace was made, was what we now call fire-clay ; and it had
to be carefully selected to stand the fire, like all fire-clays. It
was of some value ; and was kept in bags like the charcoal
to prevent waste. Observe how satisfactorily all this squares
in with the main function running through the triad — The
function of renovation. From this Triad passage also it appears
that the name ness was applied both to the shaped furnace
and to a bag of moulding clay for making it : as well as to the
mould.

I may add that in my young days I have seen, in the county
Limerick, furnaces somewhat similar to that described above —
but much ruder — used by wandering tinkers, who also practised
foundry on a small and simple scale : but they used anthracite
coal, not wood charcoal. They made up with their hands a
small furnace of moist clay, in a rough and ready way and
in a few moments, which they placed securely in a wooden frame,
and into which they fixed the pipe of their bellows. By means
of this rude contrivance they succeeded in melting small frag-
ments of cast iron, with which they mended — very roughly
indeed, but quite effectively — pots and pans, or other cast iron
articles that had been gapped or cracked. They formed a
strong mould of moist clay round the broken part, into which
they poured the white molten metal, which firmly adhered to
the broken surface in cooling. The women of the several
houses always put their broken vessels aside, waiting for the
next visit of the tinker company, who never failed to find plenty
to do in every hamlet. (See also the Article on " The Old Irish
Smiths' Furnace " in Joyce's book " The Wonders of Ireland.")

Vol. II. , 534, last line ; 535, first line.
A Continental scholar, M. Vendryes, derives edocl from
the Lat. edicium. But I cannot believe that at that early
time (seventh century, when edocl first occurs) the * of edickim
could have been changed to 0 in edoct.

Vol. II., 557, Note under Illustration.
1879 should be 1872.

Sculpture on a Capital of the Church of the Monastery, Glendaloueh : Beraneer, 1779.
(From Petrie's Round Towers, 258.)

LIST OF AUTHORITIES CONSULTED, AND QUOTED
OR REFERRED TO THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK.*

1. Abbott, the Rev, Dr., s.f.t.c.d. : Celtic Ornaments of portions

of the Book of Kells, consisting of fifty photographic repro-
ductions of the originals : with Preface and short descriptive
notes. Hodges & Figgis, Dublin.

2. Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists (" Acta SS.")
Adamnan : see No. 237.

Agallamh or Acallamh : see No. 317.

Amra or Elegy on St. Columkille : see Nos. 13, 48, 286.

3. Anderson, Joseph, ll.d. : Scotland in Pagan Times (Iron Age) : 1883.

4. Scotland in Pagan Times (Bronze and Stone Age) : 1886.

5. Scotland in Early Christian Times, First Series: 1879.

6. Scotland in Early Christian Times, Second Series; 1880.

7. Annals (Irish). The chief Books of Annals are described in chapter

xiv. : and they are referred to individually as occasion requires.

8. Anonymous : On the Early Relations of Ireland with the Isle of

Man (Ir. Eccl. Record: March, 1869).

9. Archdall : Monasticon Hibernicum ; and also the later edition of

portions of the same work by Cardinal Moran, assisted by
various editors.

10. Archiv. fur Celtische Lexikographie ; edited and partly written by

Dr. Whitley Stokes and by Dr. Kuno Meyer.

11. Atkinson, Robert, ll.d.: The Passions and Homilies from Lebar

Brecc : Text, Transl., and Glossary.

12. Atkinson, Robert, ll.d. : On Irish Metric : an Inaugural Lecture

on Celtic Philology (Pamphlet, 1884).

* When an Irish piece is mentioned in this List of Authorities, as
having been edited, it is to be understood, unless otherwise stated, that
the edition includes Irish text, translation, and notes.

587

588 LIST OF AUTHORITIES

13. Atkinson, Robert, ll.d. : The Irish Liber Hymnorum or Book of

Hymns : edited by the Rev. Dr. Bernard, f.t.c.d., and Dr.
Atkinson. See also No. 327. (See vol. I., p. 510, supra.)

The Amra on St. Columkille (included in the preceding :

see p. 541, supra).

14. The Three Shafts of Death by the Rev. Dr. Keating :

Text, Glossary, and Appendix, but no translation. (See vol. I.,
p. 510, supra.)

15. Glossary to vols. i.-v. of Brehon Laws.

16. Atlantis (Periodical, Dublin), vols. I., 11., in., iv.
Avebury, Lord : see No. 161.

17. Ball, Valentine, ll.d., f.r.s. On Red Glass Enamel, by Dr. Ball

and Miss Margaret Stokes : Trans. R. I. Acad., vol. xxx.,

p. 277.
BB, Book of Ballymote : see No. 22.
Bee Fola : see Nos. 211, viii., and 218.

18. Bede's Ecclesiastical History.

19. Bennett and Elton : History of Corn Milling.

20. Bernard, Rev. J. H., dd. (now Dean of St. Patrick's). On the

Domnach Airgid : Trans. R. I. Acad., vol. xxx., p. 303 : see
also No. 13.

21. Boate's Natural History of Ireland : 1726.
Bollandists : see No. 2.

22. Book of Ballymote (" BB "). (See vol. I., p. 496, supra).

Deer: see No. 321.

Fenagh : see No. 96.

Hymns : see Nos. 13, 327.

23. Kells. (See vol. 1., p. 546, supra.)

Kells, Reproductions of: see No. 1.

24. Lecan. (See vol. 1., p. 497, supra.)

25. Leinster (" LL "). (See vol. 1., p. 495, supra.)

Rights : see No. 194.

26. the Dun Cow, or Lebar na hUidhre (" LU "). (See

vol. 1., p. 493. supra.)

27. Borlase, William Copeland, m.a. The Dolmens of Ireland : 3 vols

paged continuously.
Boroma : see Nos. 211, xxviii, and 301.
Boyish Exploits of Finn : see Nos. 42 and 226 iv.

28. Brehon Laws : the ancient Laws of Ireland : 6 vols. (See chap, vi.,

supra.)
Brendaniana : see No. 193.
Bruden Da Chocae : see No. 316.
Bruden Da Derga : see No. 303.

29. Bunting's Ancient Music of Ireland. (See vol. 1., p. 593, supra.)

30. Bury, J. B., ll.d. : Tirechan's Memoir of St. Patrick : printed in

Eng. Hist. Rev. for 1902. (See vol. 1., p. 317, note, supra.)

LIST OF AUTHORITIES 589

31. Butler, the Rev. Richard : Register of the Priory of All Hallows,

Dublin : edited by the Rev. Mr. Butler for the Irish Arch.

Soc, 1845.
Cambrensis : see No. 80.
Cambrensis E versus : see No. 162.

32. Campion's Historie of Ireland : ed., 1809.

33. Carmichael, Alexander : Carmina Gadelica ; Hymns and Incanta-

tions [in modern Scotch Gaelic] ; orally collected in the High-
lands and Islands of Scotland, and translated into English :
2 vols., 1900. (See vol. I., p. 386, note, supra.)

Cattle-Spoil of Fraech : see No. 54.

Census: two Reports, 1842, 1851 : see No. 349.

Children of Lir, Story of : see Nos. 125, a, and 192.

Circuit of Murkertagh Mac Neill (" Circuit ") : see No. 201.

34. Clanrickard : Memoirs of Marquis of : Dublin edition, 1744 (the

original edition was printed in London, 1722).

35. Cochrane, Robert, f.s.a., m.r.i.a. : On Broighter, Limavady,

Londonderry, and on the find of gold ornaments there in 1896.
See also No. 62. (See pp. 263, note, and 583, supra.)

36. Coffey, George, b.a. : On the Tumuli and Inscribed Stones at

Newgrange (printed in Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. xxx.)

37. On the Prehistoric Cemetery of Loughcrew : Trans.

Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. xxxi., p. 23. (See p. 558, supra.)

38. On the Origins of Prehistoric Ornament in Ireland :

Journ. of the Roy. Soc. Antiqq. Irel., vols, for 1892, 1893, 1894.

39. Notes on the Classification of Spear-Heads of the Bronze

Age found in Ireland : Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. for 1893-96,

40.

p. 486.

C6ir Anmann : see No. 314.
Colgan : Acta Sanctorum.

41.

— Trias

Thaumaturgae,

(See, for those two, vol. 1., p. 507,
supra.)
Colton's Visitation : see No. 240.

42. Comyn, David, m.r.i.a. : Boyish Exploits of Finn, Ancient Irish

Text with modern Irish Text and translation : forming a small
separate vol. (For another edition, see No. 226, iv.)

43. Comyn, David, m.r.i.a. : Heating's History of Ireland, Irish text,

translation and notes : published for the Irish Texts Soc,
1902 : only one vol. published so far. See also Nos. 123 and
128. (See vol. 1., p. 527, supra.)

Cooke's edition of *Wakeman's Irish Antiquities : see No. 337.

Corco Laidhe or Corkalee : see No. 206.

44. Cork : Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society.
Cormac's Glossary : see No. 277.

Courtship of Emer : see Nos. 139, and 140.
Courtship of Ferb : see No. 156.

590 LIST OF AUTHORITIES

45. Cox, Michael F., m.d. : Notes of the History of the Irish Horse.
Crith Gabhlach, a portion of the Brehon Laws : in vol. iv.

46. Croker, Crofton : Researches in the South of Ireland.

47. Fairy Tales.

4S. Crowe, J. O'Beirne : The Amra on St. Columkille : published as a
pamphlet : see Nos. 13 and 286. (See p. 541, supra.)

49. The Demon Chariot (Siabar-Charpat) of Cuchulainn : Kilk.

Arch. Journ., 1870-71.

50. Faeih Fiada, The ' Guardsman's Cry " — the Hymn of

St. Patrick: Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1868-69.

51. Religious Beliefs of the Pagan Irish : Kilk. Arch. Journ.,

1868-69.

52. The Destruction of Eochaid mac Maireda (The Overflowing

of Lough Neagh) : Kilk. Arch. Jour., 1870-71. (See also
Nos. 125, c, and 211, xm.)

53. — ■ Scela na Esergi ("Tidings of the Resurrection"), from

LU : as a pamphlet : 1869.

54. — ■ — - Tain Bo Fraich — " Spoiling of the Cows of Fraech " :

Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad. (Irish mss. series.)

55. The Vision of Cahirmore : Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1872.

56. Dinnsenchus (part of) : Kilk. Arch. Journ., 1872. (See

vol. 1., p. 530, supra.)

Cuimmin's Poem on the Irish SS. : see No. 312.

Culdees : see No. 239.

Da Chocae : see No. 316.

Da Derga : see No. 303.

Demon Chariot : see No. 49.

Dind Righ or Dinnree, Destruction of : see No. 308.

57. Dottin, G. : La Litterature gaelique de lTrlande : in " Revue de

Synthase historique," Aout, 1901.

58. Dublin Penny Journal, 4 vols., 1832-1836.

59. Dunraven, Lord : Notes on Irish Architecture : edited by Miss

Margaret Stokes : 2 vols.

6">. Description of the Ardagh Chalice in Trans. Roy. Ir.

Acad., vol. xxiv., p. 433, Feb. 22, 1869. (See vol. 1., pp. 560,
561, supra.)

61. Ebel's Celtic Studies : translated from German by Dr. W. K.

Sullivan.
Ecclesiastical Antiqq. of Down, Connor, and Dromore (" Eccl.
Ant.") : see No. 238.

62. Evans, Arthur J., m.a., f.s.a. : On a Votive Deposit of Gold

Objects found on the North- West Coast of Ireland [at
Broighter].* See also No. 35.

* But they were not votive : see pp. 263, note, and 582, supra.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES 59I

63. Evans, John, d.c.l. : The Ancient Bronze Implements of Great

Britain and Ireland, 1881.
Facsimiles of Irish National mss. : see No. 77
Feast of Bricriu : see No. 95.
Feast of Dun-nan-Gedh : see No. 195.
Feilire of Aengus the Culdee : see No. 280.
Fenagh, Book of : see No. 96.

64. Ferguson, Lady: The Irish before the Conquest: 1868.

65. Ferguson, Sir Samuel : On the Legend of Dathi : Proc. Roy. Ir.

Acad. Second Series, vol. 11. (1879-86).

66. ■ On the Rudiments of the Common Law discoverable in

the published portion of the Senchus M6r : Trans. Roy. Ir.
Acad., xxiv.

67. On the Patrician Documents : Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad.,

XXVII.

68. On Sepulchral Cellae : same vol.

69. On the Ceremonial Turn called the Deisiul : Proc. Royal

Irish Acad., 1870-76, p. 355. (See vol. 1., p. 301, supra.)

70. Ogham Inscriptions in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland : 1 vol.

71. Congal, a Poem, with Notes.

72. Poems, with Notes : 1880.

73. Fergusson, James, d.c.l., f.r.s. : Rude Stone Monuments in all

countries : their age and uses : 1872.
Fingal Ronain : see No. 142.
Fled Bricrenn, the Feast of Bricriu : see No. 95.

74. Folklore : a Periodical in several volumes.

75. Four Masters, Annals of, edited with Translation and Notes, by

John O'Donovan, ll.d. (See vol. 1., p. 524, supra.)

76. Gaidoz, M. Henri (founder and first editor of Revue Celtique) : La

Religion Gauloise et le Gui de chene : Paris, 1880.

77. Gilbert, Sir John T., ll.d., f.s.a. : Facsimiles of Irish National MSS.

78. Gildas, the Works of.

79. Gillies, H. Cameron, m.d. : Gaelic Names of Diseases and of diseased

states : Pamphlet reprinted from the " Caledonian Medical
Journal."

80. Giraldus Cambrensis : Topography of Ireland (" Top. Hib.") :

Conquest of Ireland (" Hib. Expug.") : Itinerary through
Wales : Description of Wales. (See vol. 1., p. 19, supra.)
Goidelica : see No. 285.

81. Graham's Introduction to Surenne's "Songs of Ireland without

words."
£2. Graves, The Right Rev. Charles, d.d., bishop of Limerick : Several

Papers on Ogham in Hermathena, and in Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad.

(late vols.).
83. — Two Papers on the date of the Book of Armagh in Proc.

Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. ill., pp. 316, 356.

592 LIST OF AUTHORITIES

84. Greaves, C. S., Q.c. : Cannibalism in England [and Ireland] :

(proving that there was none). The Archaeological Journal,
vol. xxxvi. (1879) : p. 38.

85. Gregory, Lady : Cuchulain of Muirthemne, the Story of the Men

of the Red Branch of Ulster, arranged and put into English :
1902. (See vol. 1., p. 543, supra.)

86. Guest, Lady Charlotte, The Mabinogion, Ancient Welsh Tales

translated into English. (A small and cheap edition of the
translation, published by David Nutt, 1902, is the one referred
to here.)

87. Guterbock, B., and Thurneysin, R. : Indices Glossarum et Vocabu-

lorum Hibernicorum, quae in Grammaticae Celticae. Editione
altera explanantur (Indexes to Zeuss, Gram. Celt.). A supple-
ment to these Indexes will be found in the Rev. Dr. Hogan's
Rossnaree, p. 267.

88. Gwynn, Edward, m.a. : Poems from the Dindsenchus (in LL) :

in Todd Lecture Series, Roy. Ir. Academy.

89. Haddan, A. W., and Stubbs, W., Councils and Ecclesiastical Docu-

ments relating to Great Britain and Ireland.
Hakluyt's Voyages : see No. 158.

90. Hanmer's Chronicle of Ireland : Ed. 1809.

91. Hardiman, James: Edition of O'Flaherty's Description of Iai

Connaught : Irish Archaeol. Soc.

92. Irish Minstrelsy, 2 vols.

93. The Statute of Kilkenny in " Tracts relating to Ireland,"

printed by the Ir. Archaeol. Soc, 1843.

94. Healy, the Most Rev. John, d.d., ll.d., Archbishop of Tuam :

Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars: 1830. (See vol. 1
p. 408, note, supra.)

95. Henderson, George, m.a., ph.d. : Fled Bricrend, the Feast of Bricriu,

Irish text, Translation, and Notes : 1899.

96. Hennessy, William M. : The Book of Fenagh, edited, Text, Trans-

lation, and Notes, by Mr. Hennessy, and Mr. D. H. Kelly.

The Vision of Mac Conglinne : see No. 154.

97- Mesca Ulad, " The Intoxication of the Ultonians " : Todd

Lecture Series, Roy. Ir. Academy.

9 '• The Irish War Goddess : Rev. Celt., vol 1.

99- Cause of the Battle of Cnucha, from LU : Rev. Celt.,

vol. 11.

100. The Curragh of Kildare : Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1866.

IDI- Irish Ordeals, in Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. x. (See also

No. 315.)

Annals of Ulster, vol. 1 : see No. 168.

Herbert, the Hon. Algernon : see No. 326.
Hibernia Expugnata (" Hib. Expug.") : see No. 80.
Hibernia Minora : see No. 144.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES 593

102. Hogan, the Rev. Dr. Edmund, s.j. : The Battle of Rossnaree

from LL : Todd Lecture Series, Roy, Ir. Acad. (See also
No. 87.)

103. — — Documenta de S. Patricio : The Life of St. Patrick and

other Documents from the Book of Armagh. (See vol. 1., p. 505,
supra.)

104. The History of the Irish wolfdog : see p. 451, supra.

105. Luibhleabhran : Irish and Scottish Gaelic names of Plants.

106. Hull, Miss Eleanor : The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature : 1898.

(See vol. 1., p. 542, supra.)

107. Hyde, Douglas, ll.d. : A Literary History of Ireland, from the

earliest times to the present day : 1899.

108. Two Irish Tales : The Lad of the Ferrule, and the

Adventures of the Children of the King of Norway (Irish
Texts Society) : 1899.

109. Beside the Fire : a collection of Irish Gaelic Folk

Stories (1890).

no. Leabhar Sgeulaigheachta, Folk Stories in Irish.

in. Love Songs of Connaught (1893).

112. Irish Poetry: an Essay in Irish, with translation in

English : 1903. (See pp. 498, 499, notes, supra.)

Hy Fiachrach (" HyF ") : see No. 198.
Hy Many (" HyM ") : see No. 199.
Iar Connaught (" IarC ") : see No. 91.

113. Innes, Thomas: Critical Essays on the Ancient Inhabitants of

the northern parts of Britain or Scotland.

114. Irische Texte : A number of ancient Irish texts, some translated,

some not : edited by Ernst Windisch (Leipsig) : four vols.

so far. Vol. 1. contains Windsch's valuable Worterbush or

" Glossary." (The several pieces are mentioned elsewhere,

and will be referred to as they occur.)
115 Irish Archaeological Miscellany, vol. 1 , 1846 (Irish Archaeol. Soc).
Irish Names of Places : see No. 120.
Irish Nennius : see No. 326.
Irish Ordeals : see Nos. 101 and 315.

116. Irish Penny Journal, The: 1840-41.

117. Irish Penny Magazine, The : 1833-34.

118. Jocelyn : Life of St. Patrick.
Jones, David Brynmor : see No. 249.

119. Jones, the Rev. William Basil, m.a. (afterwards bishop of St

David's) : Vestiges of the Gael in Gwynedd (North Wales).
Journal of the Roy. Soc. Antiqq., Ireland : see Nos. 132 and 256.

120. Joyce, P. W., ll.d. : The Origin and History of Irish Names of

Places : two vols. Seventh or eighth Edition.

121. Ancient Irish Music.

122. A Short History of Ireland to 1608.

R I

594 LIST 0F AUTHORITIES

123. Joyce, P. W., ix.d. : Heating's History of Ireland (Forus Feasa

air Eirinn), Book 1., Part I. Edited with Text, Translation,
Notes, and Vocabulary : see Nos. 43 and 128.

124. A Reading Book in Irish History : 1901 (containing,

among many other pieces, translation of " The Fate of the
Sons of Usna " : see also No. 192).

125. Old Celtic Romances : Third Edition, 1907. The

thirteen Stories translated in this book are : —

(a) The Fate of the Children of Lir ; or, The Four White

Swans.

(b) The Fate of the Children of Turenn ; or, The Quest for

the Eric-Fine. (For these two, see also No. 192.)

the Mermaid, with the Death of Eochaid mac
Maireda. (See also Nos. 52 and 211, xiii.)

(d) Connla of the Golden Hair and the Fairy Maiden.

(e) The Voyage of Maildun. (See also No. 295.)
(/) The Fairy Palace of the Quicken Trees.

{g) The Pursuit of the Gilla Dacker and his Horse. (See also

No. 211, xvii.)
(h) The Pursuit of Dermot and Grainne. (See also No. 212.)
(*) The Chase of Slieve Cullinn.
(/) The Chase of Slieve Fuaid.
(A) Oisin in Tirnanoge ; or, The Last of the Fena.
(/) The Voyage of the Sons of O'Corra. (See also No. 306.)
(w) The Fate of the Sons of Usna.

126. Jubainville, H. D. Arbois de : Cours de Litterature Celtique :

8 vols., viz. : —

1. Introduction a l'etude de la litterature celtique.
11. Le Cycle Mythologique irlandais et la mythologie
celtique. 1884.*
in., iv. Les Mabinogion (contes gallois), traduits en entier en
francois.
v. L'Epop6e celtique en Irlande. 1892.
vi. La Civilisation des Celtes et celle de l'epopee homerique.
vii., viii. Etudes sur le droit celtique. (See also No. 247.)

127. Kane, Sir Robert : The Industrial Resources of Ireland : 1844.

128. Keating's History of Ireland, translated by John O'Mahony. This

is the edition of Keating always referred to unless otherise
specified. See Nos. 43 and 123. (See vol. I., p. 527, supra.

129. Keller, Dr. Ferdinand : Essay on " Illuminations and Facsimiles

from Ancient Irish mss. in the Libraries of Switzerland " ;
translated from German with Introductory Remarks by the
Rev. William Reeves, d.d., in Ulster Journ. of Archaeol. viii.,
210 and 291.

* Within the present year (1903) this has been translated into English
by Mr. R. I. Best, and published by O'Donoghue & Co., and by M. H.
Gill & Son, Dublin.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES 595

Kells, Book of : see No. 23.

Kells, Book of : Reproductions of : see No. 1.

Kelly, the Rev. Matthew : see No. 162.

130. Kennedy, Evory : Opening Address to the Dublin Obstetric

Society, Nov. 1838 : in Dub. Journ. of Med. Sci., xv., 168.

131. Kildare : Journal of the Kildare Archasological Society.

132. Kilkenny Archaeological Journal: from 1849 to the present (now

the " Journal of Roy. Soc. of Antiqq. Ireland ") : see No. 256.

133. Kinahan, G. Henry : Manual of the Geology of Ireland.

134. Kuno Meyer, Dr. : Cath Finntraga, The Battle of Ventry (" Anec-

dota Oxoniensia ").

135. Gein Branduib, " The Birth of Branduff," king of

Leinster ; from LL : in Zeitschr. fur Celt. Phil., n. 13".

136. Goire Conaill Chernaig i Cruachain, ocus Aided

Ailella ocus Conaill Chernaig ; " The Christening of Conall
Cernach in Croghan, and the Deaths of Ailill and of Conall
Cernach " : in Zeitschr, fur Celt. Phil., 1. 102.

The Colloquy of Columkille and the Youth : in Zeitschr.

137
138

139
140

141

142
143

fur Celt. Phil., 11. 313.

Uath Beinne Etair : The Cave or Hiding- Place f Benn

Edair : Rev. Celt., xi.
Tochmarc Emere : The Courtship of Emer, oldest

version : Rev. Celt., xi.
The Courtship of Emer, Translation (without Text)

Archaeol. Rev. : 1888.
The Story of Baile Binnberlach or Baile Mac Buain :

Rev. Celt., xiii. (See also O'Curry, MS. Mat., p. 465.)

The Story of Fingal Ronain : Rev. Celt., xiii.

Kongs Skuggjo or Speculum Regale, an old Norse book

(about a.d. 1250), giving an account of the Wonders of Ireland :
Folklore, v. 299.

!44. Hibernia Minora : a collection of short Irish pieces from

the MS. Rawlinson, B. 512, in the Bodleian Library. It contains
the following among others : —

(a) Fragments of an old Irish Treatise on the Psalter. .

(b) The Story of Mac Dath6's Pig and Hound.

(d) The Death of the three Sons of Dermot Mac Cerbaill, k.

of Ireland.

(e) The Death of Maelodran, son of Dimma Cron.
(/) Dialogue between King Cormac and Fithel.

145. Kuno Meyer, Dr. : Liadain and Curithir : an Irish Love Story of
the Ninth Century. Separate Pamphlet (D. Nutt).

! 46, Song in praise of the sword of Cerball, king of Leinster :

Rev. Celt, xx., pp. 7-12.

lt.y% . — Two Tales about Finn mac Cumail : Rev. Celt. xiv.

596 LIST OF AUTHORITIES

148. Kuno Meyer, Dr. : Cennach ind ruanado, the Bargain of the Strong

Man : Rev. Celt. xiv. (Text first printed in Irische Texte,

1. 301.)

149. old Irish Treatise De Arrets : Rev. Celt. xv.

150. The Voyage of Bran, son of Febal, to th ■ Land of the

Living : translated and edited by Dr. K. Meyer, with an
illustrative essay by Alfred Nutt : see No. 182.

151. Kuno Meyer, Dr. : Merugud Uilix Maicc Leirtis, the Irish Odyssey

(Pamphlet, D. Nutt).

1e)2. Adventures of Nera : Rev. Celt. x.

153. King and Hermit, a colloquy between King Guaire of

Aidne and his brother Marban (Pamphlet, David Nutt).
Xej4# The Vision of Mac Conglinne : translated by Mr. W. M

Hennessy : edited by Dr. Meyer : David Nutt (see vol. I.,

p. 14, supra). (See also No. 366.)

155. Lanigan's Ecclesiastical History of Ireland : 4 vols.
Latin Declension, Tract on : see No. 281.

LB (Lebar Brecc) : see No. 157.

156. Leahy : Ths Courtship of Ferb, ancient Irish Tale translated into

English (without Irish text), from the German translation of
Windisch : David Nutt : see No. 359.

157. Lebar Brecc, the Speckled Book (" LB "). (See vol. 1., p. 496,

supra.)
Lebar Laignech (" LL "), The Book of Leinster : see No. 25.
Lebar Lecain, The Book of Lecan : see No. 24.
Lebar na h-Uidhre, The Book of the Dun Cow (" LU ") : see

No. 26.

158. Libel of English Policy, in Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. 1., p. 187.

159. Lightfoot, Dr. J. B., Bishop of Durham : Leaders in t:.e Northern

Church [England], 1890.
LL, Lebar Laignech, the Book of Leinster : see No. 25.
Loca Patriciana : see No. 260.

160. Loth, J. : Bretons Insulairse en Irlande : in Rev. Celt. xvni.
LU, Lebar na hUidhre, the Book of the Dun Cow : see No. 26.

161. Lubbock, Sir John (now Lord Avebury) : Prehistoric Times:

2nd edition.

162. Lynch, Dr. John, Bishop of Killala, 17th cent. : Cambrensis

Eversus, edited for the Celtic Soc. by Rev. Matthew Kelly.

163. Macalister, R. A. Stewart, m.a. : On an Ancient Settlement in the

S. W. of the barony of Corcaguiny, Kerry : in Trans. Roy. Ir.
Acad., xxxi.

164. Studies in Irish Epigraphy : 2 vols, have already

appeared.

165. MacCarthy, the Rev. B., d.d. : The Codex Palatino-Vaticanus,

No. 830 (Texts, Translations, and Indexes). Todd Lecture
Series, Roy. Ir. Acad.
i65, On the Stowe Missal : in Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. xxvu.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES 597

1 67. MacCarthy : The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick : New Textual Studies :

Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. xxix.

168. Annals of Ulster : except vol. I., which was edited by

W. M. Hennessy. (See vol. 1., p. 522, supra.)

Mabinogion : see No. 86.

Mac Conglinne : see No. 154.

Mac Datho's Pig and Hound, Story of : see No. 144, b.

169. Mac Geoghegan's History of Ireland.

170. Maclean, Magnus, m.a., d.sc. : The Literature of the Celts, its

History and Romance, 1902.
M'Sweeny, the Rev. James P., sj. : see No. 358.

171. Maine, Sir Henry Sumner : Dissertations on Ancient Law, ed. 1883.

172. History of Ancient Institutions, 1875.

Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish (" Man. & Cust.") :

see No. 189.
Manuscript Materials (" MS. Mat.") : see No. 188.

173. Martin's Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, 1703.
Mesca Ulad : see No. 97.

Meyer : see Kuno Meyer.

174. Miscellany of the Celtic Society : 1849.
174A. Irish Archaeological Society : 1846

175. Montalembert : Monks of the West.
Moore, Dr. Norman : see No. 358.

176. Moore, Thomas: The History of Ireland.

177. Moran, Cardinal, Acta Sancti Brendani.

New Edition of portion of Archdall's Monasticon

Hibernicum : see No. 9.

177A. Civilisation of Ireland before the Anglo-Norman

Invasion (republished as a pamphlet from the Irish Ecclesiastical
Record, by the Catholic Truth Society).

178. More Madden, Thomas : Ancient Irish Medicine, its Culture and

Practice : in The Med. Mag., 1899.
Moylena, Battle of : see No. 190.
Moyrath, Battle of : see No. 195.
Moytura, Story of Second Battle of : see No. 296.
Mucrime, Battle of: see Nos. 211, xxii., and 311.

179. Munro, Robert, m.a., m.d. : The Lake-Dwellings of Europe, 1890.

180. Rambles and Studies in Bosnia-Herzegovina and

Dalmatia, 1895.

Nennius : Historia Britonum : see No. 326.

181. Nettlau, Dr. M. : Many articles in the Revue Celtique, embodying

a critical examination and comparison of various texts of the
ancient Irish Tales.

182. Nutt, Alfred : The Voyage of Bran : Essays on the Irish " Other

World," or Pagan Heaven : and on the Celtic doctrine of
Re-birth : 2 vols. : D. Nutt : see also No. 1 <>o.

598 LIST OF AUTHORITIES

183. Nutt, Alfred : Ossian and the Ossianic Literature : one of the series

of " Popular Studies in Romance and Folklore " : D. Nutt.

184. Cuchulainn, the Irish Achilles : another of the same

series : David Nutt.*

O'Clery's Calendar (** O'C. Cal.") : see No. 197.

185. O'Clery's Glossary of Ancient Irish Words, edited by W. K. Miller

in Rev. Celt., iv. and v.

186. O'Conor, Charles, of Bellanagar : Dissertations : 1812.

187. O'Connor Don, The Rt. Hon. The : The O'Conors of Connaught :
O'Corras, Voyage of : see Nos. 306 and 125, /.

188. O'Curry, Eugene : Manuscript Materials of Irish History (" MS.

Mat.").

189. Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish : 2 vols.

(See No. 322, " Sullivan," for introductory vol.)

190. The Battle of Moylena (Celtic Soc.).

191. The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn : in Atlantis, vols. 1.

and n.

192. " The Three Sorrowful Tales of Erin," viz. The Exile

of the Sons of Usna, The Fate of the Children of Lir, and The
Fate of the Sons of Turenn : in Atlantis, vols. in. and iv.
(See also No. 349, for O'Curry.)

O'Davoren's Glossary ; included in Stokes's Three Irish Glossaries :
No. 278.

193. O'Donohue, the Rev. Denis, p.p. : Brendaniana, St. Brendan the

Voyager in Story and Legend.
O'Donovan, John, ll.d. : Annals of the Four Masters : see No. 75.

194. Leabhar na gCeart, the Book of Rights, Celtic Society.

(See vol. 1., p. 52, supra.)

195. The Battle of Moyrath (" Moyr."), including The Feast

of Dun-nan-Gedh : Irish Archa^ol. Soc.

196. Cormac's Glossary : translated by O'Donovan, edited by

Dr. Stokes : see No. 277. (See vol. 1., p. 16, supra.)

197- O'Clery's Calendar (" O'Cl. Cal."), also called the

Martyrology of Donegal : translated by O'Donovan ; edited
by Drs. Todd and Reeves : see vol. 1., p. 525, supra.

198- The Tribes and Customs of Hy Fiachrach (" HyF ") :

Irish Archaeol. Soc.

199. The Tribes and Customs of Hy Many : Irish Archaeo-
logical Society. (For these two, see vol. 1., p. 17, supra.)

200. Three Fragments of Irish Annals : Irish Archaeol. and

Celtic Soc.

* Mr. Nutt has published a number of Irish pieces which should be
in the hands of all students of ancient Irish literature. They are all
referred to or quoted in various parts of this book. See also Nos. 86, 145,
150, 151, 153, 154, and 156 of this List.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES 599

?oi. O'Donovan, John, ll.d. : The Circuit of Muircheartach mac Neill
(" Circuit ") in " Tracts relating to Ireland," vol. 1., 1841,
by the Irish Archaeol. Soc.

202. The Tribes of Ireland : see vol. 1., p. 455, supra.

203. Topographical Poems of O'Dugan and O'Heeren : Irish

Archaeol. and Celtic Soc.

204. An Irish Poem attributed to St. Columkille : in the

Miscellany of the Irish Archaeol. Soc, vol. 1., 1846.

205. The Irish Charters in the Book of Kells : in the same

vol. as last.

206. O'Donovan, John, ll.d. : The Genealogy of Corco Laidhe : in the

Miscellany of the Celtic Soc, 1849. (See vol. i., p. 17, supra.)

207. Poem on the Battle of Dun : in the same vol. as last.

208. A Grammar of the Irish Language.

209. O'Donovan, John : Supplement to O'Reilly's English-Irish

Dictionary.*
O'Dugan : see No. 203.

210. O'Flaherty's Ogygia.

Iar Connacht : A Chorographical Description of West

Connaught : see No. 91.
O'Gorman, Martyrology of : see No. 284.

211. O'Grady, Standish H. : Silva Gadelica : vol. 1., Irish texts : vol. n.,

translation and notes. The references are to vol. 11. unless
where otherwise specified. This book contains the following
pieces : —

1. Life of St. Ciaran of Saigir.
11. Life of St. Molaise of Devenish.
in. Life of St. Maignenn.
iv. Life of St. Cellach.
v. Story of Aed Baclamh.

vi. Death of King Dermot, son of Fergus Cerball.
vii. Birth of Aed Slaine.

viii. The Wooing of Becfola : see also No. 218.
ix. The Disappearance of Caenchomrac.
x. Panegyric of King Cormac mac Airt.
xi. Enumeration of Finn mac Cumail's People,
xil. The Colloquy of the Ancient Men : see No. 317.
xiii. Death of Eochaid mac Mairidh : see also Nos. 52, and 125, c.
xiv. Death of King Fergus mac Leide.
xv. Birth of King Cormac mac Art.
xvi. Fiachna's Sidh or Fairy Palace.
xvii. Pursuit of the Gilla Decair : see also No. 125, g.

* This book is carelessly and inaccurately edited, for which O'Donovan
has sometimes been censured ; though he deserves no blame. The " Sup-
plement " was a collection of notes for a Glossary or Dictionary, made year
by year during his reading, thrown together roughly (such a collection as
all students of Irish have to make for themselves) , intended to be properly
arranged and edited at the right time. But the right time never came :
for O'Donovan died : and after his death, the whole collection was
edited, apparently with little or no supervision. Even the title-page
shows that this supplement was edited after O'Donovan's death.

600 LIST OF AUTHORITIES

xviii. O'Donnell's Kern,
xix. The Carle in the Drab Coat : see Ir. Pen. Journ., p. 130
xx. The Leeching of Cian's Leg.
xxi. The Enchanted Cave of Keshcorran.
xxii. Battle of Magh Mucramha : see also No. 311.
xxiii. Battle of Crinna.
xxiv. Story of King Eochaid's Sons.
xxv. Death of King Crimthann, son of Fidach.
xxvi. The Little Brawl at Almhain or Almu.
xxvii. Teige mac Cein's Adventure.
xxviii. The Boromean Tribute : see also No. 301.
xxix. Fragmentary Annals,
xxx. The Greek Emperor's Daughter.

xxxi. Abacuc the Perjurer. Irish Text of Extracts. Translation
of Extracts.

212. O'Grady, Standish H. : The Pursuit of Dcrmot and Grainne: see

Nos. 226, in., and 125, h.
Ogygia : see No. 210.

213. O'Halloran's History of Ireland : 3 vols.

214. O'Hanlon, the Rev. John, Canon: Lives of the Irish Saints:

9 vols., and portion of the 10th, so far. The work will be com-
pleted in 12 vols.

215. Life of St. Malachy O'Morgair.

Old Celtic Romances : See No. 125.

216. Olden, the Rev. Thomas: On the Geography of Ros-Ailithir :

Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad. Second Series, 11. 219. (See vol. I.,
p. 440, supra.)

217. O'Looney, Prof. : Ancient Catalogue of Irish Historical Tales.

(See vol. 1., p. 533, supra.)

218. Tochmacr Bec-Fola, the Courtship of Bec-Fola- Proc.

Roy. Ir. Acad. (Irish mss. Series.) (See also No. 211, viii.)

219. O'Neill, Henry : Illustrations of the most interesting of the

sculptured crosses of ancient Ireland.

220. Memoir of the Ordnance Survey of the Parish of Templemore,

County Londonderry.

221. O'Reilly, Edward: Irish writers: Trans, of the Iberno-Celtic

Soc, 1820.

222. O'Reilly, Patrick : a Series of Articles on Irish Antiqq., photo-

graphically illustrated, in the late vols, of Journ. Roy. Arch.
Soc, Ireland.

223. O'Reilly, Prof. J. P. : Notes on the History of the Irish Wolf-dog :

Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1890.

224. The Milesian Colonisation of Ireland considered in

relation to Gold Mining : Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1900.

225. Notes on Ancient Horizontal Water-mills, Native and

Foreign, in Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad, for 1901 and 1902. (See p. 338,
supra.)

LIST OF AUTHORITIES 6oi

226. Ossianic Society, Transactions of : six vols. : viz. —

Vol. 1. The Battle of Gabra.

11. The Feis of the House of Conan.
in. The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Grainne.
iv. Laoithe Fiannuigheachta (Lays of the Fena) : containing
also the boyish exploits of Finn, edited by O'Donovan :
see also No. 42.
v. Proceedings of the Great Tromdamh.
vi. Laoithe Fiannuigheachta (Lays of the Fena).

226A. Ossory Archaeol. Soc, Transactions of : two vols.

227. Pennant's Tour in the Hebrides and Highlands of Scotland.

228. Petrie, George, ll.d. : The Origin and Uses of the Round Towers

of Ireland : Second Edition, 1845.

229. On the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill (Ed. 1839).

230. The Ancient Music of Ireland.

231. On the Domnach Airgid, in Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad.

Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language : see No. 270.

232. Pictet, Professor : Les Origines Indo-Europeennes ; ou, Les Aryas

Primitifs

233. Pinkerton, John : Inquiry in the History of Scotland.

234. Pinkerton, William : Introduction towards a History of Irish

Commerce : in Ulst. Journ of Archaeol., in. 177.

235. Pollock, Sir Frederick, Bart. : The Forms and History of Swords :

" Oxford Lectures," 1890.

236. Proceedings, Roy. Ir. Academy. (The several vols, are referred to

as occasion arises.)

237. Reeves, the Rev. William, d.d. (subsequently bishop of Down

and Connor) : Adamnan's Life of St. Columba. (See vol. 1.,
pp. 6 and 506, supra.)

238. Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor, and

Dromore (" Eccl. Ant.").

239. The Culdees of the British Islands as they appear in

History. (See vol. 1., p. 352, supra.)

240. Archbishop Colton's Visitation of the Diocese of Derry.

The Martyrology of Donegal (" O'Clery's Cal.") : a

Calendar of the Saints of Erin. (Edited by Dr. Reeves and
Dr. Todd conjointly.) Irish ArchaBol. and Celtic Soc. : see
No. 197.

241. The Ancient Churches of Armagh (Pamphlet).

242. On Augustin, an Irish writer of the seventh century :

Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1861. (See vol. 1., p. 345, supra.)

243. On some Ecclesiastical Bells : Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad.,

vol. viii., p. 441.

244. On the Book of Armagh : Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad., 1891-3.

Translations, with Notes, of Dr. Wattenbach's Essays :

see No. 343.

602 LIST OF AUTHORITIES

Reeves, the Rev. William, d.d. : Translation, with Notes, of Dr.
Keller's Essay : see Nos. 129 and 344.

245. The Bell of St. Patrick : Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. xxvn.

(1877-1886).

246. Reinach, Salomon: Les Croissants d'or Irlandais: Rev. Celt.,

xxi., 75.
Rennes Dindsenchus : see No. 313.

247. Revue Celtique : 22 vols, so far : first edited by M. Henri Gaidoz :

now by M. H. D'Arbois de Jubainville. (The several pieces
are referred to in the proper places.)

248. Rhys, Principal John, m.a., d.litt. : Hibbert Lectures, 1888 : On

the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by Celtic
Heathendom.

249. The Welsh People, by Principal Rhys and David

Brynmor Jones, ll.b., 1900.

250. Early Irish Conquests of Wales and Dumnonia: in

Proc. Roy. Soc. Antiqq., Irel., for 1890-91, p. 642. (See
vol. 1., pp. 74-79, supra.)

251. The Ogham-Inscribed Stones of the Roy. Ir. Acad.,

and of Trin. Coll., Dub., in Journ. Roy. Soc. Antiqq., 1902.

252. Richey, Alexander George, ll.d. : a Short History of the Irish

People : 1887.

253. Introductions to vols. in. and iv. of the Brehon Laws.

254. Ridgeway, William, m.a. : The Origin of Metallic Currency and

Weight Standards : 1892.

255. Roberts, George : The Social History of the People of the Southern

Counties of England : 1856.
Rossnaree, Battle of : see No. 102.

256. Royal Soc. Antiqq., Ireland, Journal of: 32 vols., from 1849 to

1903 : referred to as they occur : see No. 132.

257. Russell, T. O. : Beauties and Antiquities of Ireland : 1897.

258. Fior-chlairseach na h-Eireann : a collection of short

Irish Poems, text and translation.

Saltair na Rann : see No. 305.

259. Scott's Novels, with Author's Notes.
Second Vision of Adamnan : see No. 300.

260. Shearman, Rev. J. F., Loca Patriciana : a series of articles in

one vol., reprinted from the Kilk. Archaeol. Journ., 1879 to 1884.
Sick Bed : see No. 191.

261. Sigerson, Dr. George : Bards of the Gael and Gall.
Silva Gadelica : see No. 211.

262. Skene, W. F. : Celtic Scotland, 3 vols.

263. Social England : 6 vols., by various writers : 1895.
Sons of Turenn, Story of : see Nos. 125, b, and 192
Sons of Usna, Story of : see Nos. 124, 192.
Speckled Book : see No. 157.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES 603

264. Spenser's View of the State of Ireland : ed., 1809.
Statute of Kilkenny : see No. 93.

265. Stern, Ludw.-Chr. : Finn and the Phantoms, prose Irish version

with French Translation : Rev. Celt. xm. See No. 288 for
poetical Irish version.

266. Stokes, the Rev. Dr. George T. : Ireland and the Celtic Church

(from St. Patrick to the Anglo-Norman Invasion) : and Ireland
and the Anglo-Norman Church : two separate vols.

267. The Knowledge of Greek in Ireland between a.d. 500

and 900 : Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad, for 1892, p. 187.

268. Stokes, Miss Margaret : Early Christian Art in Ireland.

269. Early Christian Architecture in Ireland.

270. Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language, chiefly

collected and drawn by George Petrie, ll.d. : edited by Miss
Stokes (see p. 575, supra).

1 — On Irish Ornamentation in Enamel : see No. 17.

271. Three Months in the Forests of France: A Pilgrimage

in Search of Vestiges of Irish Saints in France.

272. Six Months in the Apennines : A Pilgrimage in Search

of Vestiges of Irish Saints in Italy. (For these two, see vol. 1.,
p. 345, supra,)

2 73- On the Breac Moedog and the Soiscel Molaise (In

Archaeologia : vol. xliii., pp. 131-150).
274. The High Crosses of Castledermot and Durrow, with an

Introduction on " The High Crosses of Ireland."
275. Christian Iconography in Ireland (in the Archaeol

Journ., vol. lvii.).
Edition of Lord Dunraven's Notes on Irish Architecture :

see No. 59.

276. Stokes, Whitley, d.c.l., ll.d. : The Tripartite Life of St. Patrick :

2 vols, paged continuously ; Rolls Series. (See vol. 1., p. 506,
supra.)

277. Cormac's Glossary, translated by O'Dovonan, edited by

Dr. Stokes. (See vol. 1., p. 16, supra.)

278. Three Irish Glossaries, containing Irish Texts of Cormac's

and O'Davoren's Glossary, and of a Glossary on the Calendar
of Oengus the Culdee : with notes.

279. Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore (" Anecdota

Oxoniensia ").

280. The Feilire (Calendar) of Oengus the Culdee : Trans. Roy.

Ir. Acad., 1880 : Irish mss. Series. (See vol. 1., p. 507, supra.)

281. Irish Glosses in a Mediaeval Tract on Latin Declension

(a separate vol.).

282. Irish Glosses on the Bucolics : in Rev. Celt. xiv.

283. Three Middle-Irish Homilies on the Lives of SS. Patrick,

Brigit, and Columba.

604 LIST OF AUTHORITIES

284. Stokes, Whitley, d.c.l., ll.d.: The Martyrology of Mael-Muire

O'Gorman.

285. Goidelica : Old and Early-Middle Irish Glosses, prose

and verse : second edition.

286. The Amra of St. Columkille : in Rev. Celt., vol. xx., at

pp. 30, 132, 248, and 400 : see Nos. 13 and 48. (See p. 541,
supra.)

287. ■ Tidings of Doomsday : a Sermon on Doomsday from

LU : Rev. Celt., iv.

288. ■ Finn and the Phantoms, a Poetical Tale from LL (page

206, b) : Rev. Celt., vn. : see No. 265 for prose version.

289. The Siege of Howth (Talland Etair) : a Historical Tale

from LL : Rev. Celt., vin.

290. Middle-Irish Homily on St. Martin of Tours, from LB.

291. Cuchulainn's Death — abridged from LL 76, a, 1, to 78,

b, 2 : Rev. Celt., in.

282. Cath Cairnn Chonaill : the Battle of Cam Conaill :

Zeitschr. fur Celt. Phil., in., 203. (See FM, a.d. 645.)

293. The Voyage of Snedgus and Riagla : a Historic Tale

from YBL : Rev. Celt., ix.

294. Ancient Irish Treatise on Materia Medica, from manu-
script of 14th or 15th cent. : Rev. Celt., ix.

295. The Voyage of Maelduin : from LU and YBL : Rev.

Celt., ix. and x.

296. The Second Battle of Moytura : from a 15th cent. ms. :

Rev. Celt., xn.

297. The Gaelic Marco Polo from Book of Lismore (15th cent. :

abridged with great freedom in Book of Lismore from a Latin
version) : Zeitschr. fur Celt. Phil., I., 245.

298. Irish Life of St. Fechin of Fore : Rev. Celt., xn.

299. Vision of Adamnan from LU : a separate pamphlet.

300. Second Vision of Adamnan from LB (p. 259, b) : Rev.

Celt., xn., 420.

301. The Boroma (Tax on Leinster), from LL : Rev. Celt.,

xiii. : see also No. 211, xxviii.

302. Paper on the Linguistic Value of the Irish Annals

(Philological Society, 1890).

303. Bruden Da Derga ; the Destruction of Da Derga's

Hostel : Rev. Celt., xxn.

304. The Annals of Tigernach : Rev. Celt., xvn., xvm.

305. Saltair na Rann : Text, Notes, and Glossary, but no

transl. (" Anecdota Oxoniensia ").

306. Voyage of the Sons of O'Corra, from the Book of

Fermoy : Rev. Celt., xiv. See also No. 125, /.

307. Extracts from LL : Rev. Celt., xiv.

308. Orgain Dind Rig, the Destruction of Dinnree, from

LL 269, a : Zeitschr. fur Celt. Phil., in.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES 605

309. Stokes, Whitley, d.c.l., ll.d. : The Gaelic Mandeville, a transl.
into Irish of the Travels of Sir John Manderville, made
in 1475 : Zeitschr. fur Celt. Phil., 11.,

The Violent Deaths of Goll and Garb, from LL : Rev.

Celt., xiv.

Battle of Magh Mucrime, from LL : Rev. Celt., xm :

3io

3"
312

313

314

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Full text of "A social history of ancient Ireland : treating of the government, military system, and law ; religion, learning, and art; trades, industries, and commerce; manners, customs, and domestic life, of the ancient Irish people"

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