S! ■ i/'"> THE HISTORY OF IRELAND TO THE COMING OF HENRY H. THE HISTORY OF IRELAND TO THE COMING OF HENRY H. BY ARTHUR UA CLERIGH, M.A., K.C VOL. I. LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN Adelphi Terrace \All rights reserved.'] % FRINTKl) I!Y StALY, HKYKR? AND WALKEE MIimi.E ABBKV STREET DTBLIS. D/lY PREFACE. This volume is the fruit of many years' labour. I have to the best of my ability made every point the subject of independent inquiry and written it in great part ex messihus meis. I have not worked in the expectation of literary fame or pecuniary profit, but because I had been convinced from early manhood that no greater service could be done to the Irish race at home and abroad than to tell them the naked truth as far as it can be ascertained about their early history. This will, no doubt, dispel many illusions which they will be loath to part with ; but on the other hand, unless I greatly deceive myself, it will convey lessons of high political import which they may take hopefully to heart. The early history of Ireland is a story of arrested evolution. ARTHUR UA CLERIGH. 300797 CONTENTS. Chap. Page I. — Before the Coming of the Gael ... ... i II.— What Our Texts Say ... ... ... 14 III. — The Coming of the Gael ... ... ... 39 IV.— The Gael ... ... ... ••. ••. 49 V. — Deirdre ... ... ... ... ... 6i VI. — CUCHULAINN ... ... ... ••' 72 VII. — Finn mac Cumhail ... ... ... ... 87 Vlll. — Glastonbury of the Gael ... ... ... 107 IX.— The Coming of St. Patrick— I. ... ... 131 X. — The Coming of St. Patrick — II. ... ... 148 XI. — The Patrician Documents ... ... .•• 164 XII. — The Religion of the Gael Before St. Patrick — I. ... ... ... ••• 185 XIII. — The Religion of the Gael Before St. Patrick — II. ... ... ... ... 200 XIV. — The Senchus Mor and the Tribal System ... 212 XV.— The Tribal Occupier and Sir John Davis ... 236 XVI. — The Lia Fail — The Stone of Destiny ... 246 XVII. — Cuildreimhne and the Desertion of Tara ... 257 XVIII.— The Northmen ... ... ... ... 267 XIX.— A Winter Circuit ... ... ... ... 279 XX.— Brian Boru ... ... ... ... 290 XXL— Clontarf ... ... ... ... ... 303 XXII. — The Organisation of the Church ... ... 314 XXIII.— The Monks ... ... ... ... 330 XXIV. — The Teaching of the Nations ... ... 345 XXV, — The Sect of the Scots ... ... ... 363 XXVI. — The Emerald Ring ... ... ... 380 XXVII.— The Cymro-Frankish Adventurers ... ... 395 THE PRONUNCIATION OF GAELIC. In the Gaelic alphabet there are i8 letters. 5 Voivels — a, o. u, broad, e, i, slender. Each vowel may be long or short : long as in Half pay he th«>ught so poor ; short as in That boll is nf)t much good. Vowel Groups. Ae and ^o - aO ; e6 long = yo ; eo short = yu ; HI long = ew ; 111 short = yu. Ai, ei, 61, Ae, ^A, GA, '\A. The sound of the long vowel is given to the whole digraph. The addition of i, e.g., a\, does not change the vowel sound. Short Digraphs. Ai and ca short = a in bat. Gi or 01 = e in let. I0 and ui = i in hit. The consonants are 12 ; liquids, 4, l, n, p (r), r (s); mutes, 9, t), c, T), p, 5, m, p, c, and n. Aspiration or infection is a softening of a consonant, and is indicated by a punctum over the Gaelic letter or by the addition of the letter \\. t) or bti = v ; t or cti in the middle or end of words sometimes = h ; t), -oh and iti, mh alike = before a broad vowel, [a, o, u], an indescribable sound like a guttural y and equal, before a slender vowel, [e, i], y exactly. In the middle and end of words they are silent, but lengthen the preceding vowel, e.g., CijefnA, Tigherna = Teerna. itl, mh == v in the south and w in the north ; Ab and 4jrh = ou; At) = ei in the middle of a word ; p, pn = f; f, rh = h; t. en = h. Eclipsis (iKOXi^'ic, pushing away). A softer consonant is substituted for a harder at the beginning of a word only. Both are written, but only the first, that is, the substituted one, pronounced, e.g., m-bo, the b in bo, a cow, is pushed away and replaced by m, and m-bo is pronounced mo. And so with others, n eclipses -o and 5 ; bb, p ; b, p ; 5, c ; X), c ; c, f . The above short sketcji is, of course, very imperfect, and only intended to assist readers who are unacquainted with Gaelic. EARLY IRISH HISTORY. CHAPTER I. BEFORE THE COMING OF THE GAEL. THE name Erin^ comes from a root which signifies fat, fruitful, with special reference, it may be supposed, to the fertility of its pastures. Pomponius Mela ^ (fl. 40 a.d.) says : — " The climate is unfavourable for ripening cereals, but the land is so exuberant in the production of pasture, not only luxuriant but also sweet, that cattle can fill themselves in a short part of a day, and unless they are stopped from grazing will feed too long and burst." So Solinus^ (230 a.d.) saj's : — "It is so rich in grass that the cattle would be in danger from over- eating unless they were kept at times from the pasture." " Ireland," says Bede * (678-735), " is situated to the west of Britain, and as it is shorter towards the north, so it extends far beyond its borders to the south. . . . The latitude of its position and the wholesomeness and mildness of the air are much better than Britain's, so that snow rarely remains there for more than three days, and no one mows hay there in summer for winter use, or makes houses for the cattle. No reptile is seen there, no reptile can live there. . . . The island is rich in milk and honey, and is not without vines. It ^ According to Windisch the name Erin gen Erenn dat Erin Ace Erenn comes from a root which is found in 7ri[F]wj', feminine Tritipa, signifying fat, fruitful, and the Indo-germanic nominal suffix — ien. The initial " p " was not retained by tlie early Celtic nations before a vowel, and the vfjcrot; niitpa of the Greeks would be represented by Erenn or Erin. The Greek name for the island, how- ever, u. upvri. iovfpr'tj, was taken from the Gaehc Erenn, and gave rise in its turn to the Latin Juberna and Hi hernia. See Holder Sprach-schatz. Iverio. " Pomponius Mela, 3, 6, 53. 3 SoUnus, 22, 2. ^ Hibernia autem et latitudine sui status et salubritate et serenitate aeruui muUum Brictani;E praestat. Bede, H.E. L Latitiido is always, so far as I have seen, translated " breadth " here erroneously. Erin is not broader. It means breadth from the equator. The Anglo-Saxon translator of Bede haa braedo haes stealles where braedo is equal to the German " Breite," i.e., latitude. Caesar, Tacitus, and all the mediaeval writers following them, down to and including Keating, held that Ireland lay between Britain and Spain. Ptolemy, getting his information from a Phoenician source, placed it nearly in its true position. 2^ .EARLY IRISH HISTORY. "is famous for" sjWt; iisb, and fowl, and also goats and deer. Tt is the own country of the Scots." It is a mistake to suppose that Ireland is not also admirably fitted for the production of corn, a mistake into which modern writers, such as Kiepert, have also ftillen. Taking wheat, oats, and barley, the average number of bushels to the acre is at least as high as in England, and the loss from bad seasons over a period of 25 years is not greater than in Russia or America.^ Something must be said, though very little is known, about the ancient inhabitants of Erin before the coming of the Gael (1700 B.C.) Though the men of the old stone age (paleolithic) made their way into Englaiul, there is no evidence that they ever reached Erin. This is the more remarkable, as in those days England was joined to the Continent, and Ireland to England, by what we may shortly describe as land bridges. A shallow bank now runs from Denmark to the Bay of Biscay, and to a point about five miles westward of Ireland within what is known as the 100 fathom limit. The elevation of this bank made these bridges. Many of the pleistocene animals passed over the bridge from the Continent into England, in- cluding paleolithic man, whose implements are found abund- antly as far west as ¥orth and South Wales. A human paleolithic molar tooth has been discovered at Port Newydd, near St. Asaph, These paleolithic animals, with the exception of the hyena, and the great sabre-toothed bear, passed over from England into Ireland, Paleolithic man did not reach Erin, The depth of the Irish Sea is somewhat greater than the depth of the German Ocean, and it may have happened that the English bridge remained above water after the Irish bridge had descended and become a sea bottom. Many great animals, however, passed over. Amongst others the mammoth, the hippopotamus (probably), the grizzly bear, the brown bear, the reindeer, the great Irish deer, the red deer, the wild boar, the wolf, the horse, the fox, and the badger. These have left their bones in caves or under peat bogs to record their presence in prehistoric times. ^ Documents in connection with the shipment of corn from Ireland to France in the years 1297-8 a.d. may be seen in fac-simile MS. Plate 8;), Gilbert, Sir .7. The value of the corn exported from Ireland in ten years, 1785-1795, wliea separate accounts were kept of the Kingdoms of Ens;land and Ireland, waa ^4,256,360. " A country which now begins to supply Britain with near on« million barreb of grain annually." Newenham, p. 216 (18U9J. BEFORE The C0MI WHAT OUR TEXTS SAY. 3! people of antiquity of whom we know that the sacrifice of their own children was practised, not as an occasional recru- descence of savage superstition, not in the hole-and-corner rites of some abominable mystery, but as an established and prominent part of the public religion. Such sacrifices took place either annually on an appointed day or before great enterprises, or on the occasion of public calamities to appease the wrath of the god, i.e., Moloch, the Fire God.39 Frofn Phoenicia it is supposed that this cult was introduced into Judah. The offering of children by fire in the Tophet in the Valley of Hinnom, near the Temple itself, is frequently referred to and denounced in the Old Testament. Jeremiah protests repeatedly that Yahwe had not enjoined these sacri- fices. The people of Judah built the Tophet sanctuary in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom " to burn their sons and daughters with fire, a thing which I commanded them not, nor did it enter into my mind." Compare now the ritual in Carthage as described by Diodorus Siculus with what we may reasonably infer was the ritual at Magh Slecht, bearing in mind that the custom was to slaughter the victims before burning them and probably to pour the blood either on the statue or round it or on the altar. The blood was, no doubt, the most precious part of the sacrifice. "In 310," writes Diodorus, "when Agathodes had reduced " Carthage to the last extremities, seeing the enemy encamped "before the city, they (i.e., the Carthaginians) were struck " with fear of the gods for having neglected their worship, •' and, hastening to correct their mistakes, they selected 200 " of their most distinguished boys (rHy iinrehmer, observed that Ireland was a country which, so far as it was known at all, was known tlirough the Greeks, the Iberians, and Phtienicians. Finally, Nordskiold, a high authority, in his Fac Simile Atlas (1889), p. 31, col. b), adopts Brelimers view - — "Trotz det stora anseende som Heeren med ratta atujutor som forskart i den grek^ska, Kulturdestorien tvckar jag ejatti denna fraga i Viss man stalla mig p^ Brehmers staindpuukt." WHAT OUR TEXTS SAY. 37 " but is greater than that of the islands in our sea (i e., the Mediter- " ranean.) The soil climate " intellectuals " (^inr/enia) and habits of tlm " 'people do not differ much from Britain ; the landing places and "■harbours {differ) for the better, and are well known throiigh traders and dealers." Agricola had sheltered one of their chieftains who had been exiled in consequence of their civil strife, and under the guise of friendship kept him to use him when wanted (in occasionem). I have often heard Jiim, i.e., Agricola, say that " with one legion and a few auxiliaries Ireland could be put down and held, and that it would be an advantage against Britain, too, if the Roman arms should be on all sides, and liberty put away out of sight. — Agricola, c. 24. The passage we have translated in italics stands as follows in two Vatican MSS., and in the Codex Toletanus (of Toledo) M^iich has been recently collated by Dr. O. Lenze of Tubingen. (See Philologus, vol. 8, p. 549). " Solum, coelumque et ingenia cultusque hominum hand multum a Britannia difterunt ; in melius aditus, portusque per coni- mercia et negotiatores cogniti." This text presents no dilKculty, if (a) differunt can be supplied according to the usage of Tacitus from the preceding clause, and (/;) if " difterunt in melius " can be translated " difter for the better." Tacitus has in melius referre and " in melius mutatue," and M-e have found in the De Civitate Dei the following: — . "Quod si ita est ecce Plato nicus in melius a Platone dissentit (i.e., differs in opinion from Plato for the better). Ecce videt quod ille (i.e., Plato) non vidit."— De Civitate Dei, Book 10, c. 30. Halm's suggestion that the words interiora parum have dropped out of the text — that is, " the interior of the country is little known, the landing places and harbours are better known," has nothing to recommend it, if true, the learned Professor will have succeeded in placing in the text of Tacitus the only platitude to be found tliere. The superiority of Ireland in the matter of harbours was greatly relied on in the evidence given before the Committee of the British Privy Council when the commercial relations between the two countries were, at the end of the eigliteenth century, under consideration. English manufacturers were to be ruined, etc., it was contended, if equal advantages were conceded to the Irish. — See Newenham's " View of Ireland," 1809, p. 14. A note of a technical character may find a place here to state and answer an objection that may be fairly made. The objection is : If the Phoenicians had the full knowledge you suggest of the British Isles, how came it to pass that Ptolemy, who had that knowledge communi- cated to him, has so misdescribed the northern part of Britain ? The answer is : Ptolemy was primarily an astronomer, as a perusal of his first chapter and his Almagest will plainly show. On astronomical grounds, principally on inferences from the length of the longest day which he gives for Big and Little Britain in the Almagest, he placed the British Isles about 5 degrees — say .300 miles — too far north. The northern limit of the oiicovfitvr) was also a fixed line for his calculations, the details about which cannot be given here. When he approached this line in preparing the tables given in his second chapter (which we shall call his map, though no map is known to have been made in his time), and compared the space left with the distances in the itineraries 38 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. of the Phnenicians, he found that tliese distances would not fit in north- wards, i^o he crumpled, contorted, and turned eastwards the configur- ation of the land on his map to make it fit in. Now the proposition for which wc contend is the result of a careful and minute examination of that configuration, and the place-names given by Ptolem}', and a comparison of both with present conditions. It is this on which we invite the judgment of men better equipped for the task than we are — viz., that if these crumplings, contortions, and twistings, were shaken out and rectified, it would be reasonable to infer that the tables or itiner- aries of the Phoenicians were as accurate for North Britain as they were for South Britain and lerne. It is important also to note hero that he attaches the "Ehudce" (Hebrides), which were, no doubt the *' glacialis Icrne " of Claudian to the Map of lerne. [ 39 ] CHAPTER III. The Coming of the Gael. IN Spain there were born to Breogan two sons, Bile and Ith. Bile wag the father of Golamh (the soldier), who was afterwards known as Milesius, or Miled, of Spain. When Golamh (Gollav) grew up he went on his wanderings : first to Scythia, where he married Sreng, the daughter of the king ; and afterwards to Egypt, where he married Scota, the daughter of the Pharaoh Nectonibus. The descendants of Breogan prospered in Spain, and multiplied ; but hard times came, and there was a great drought for twenty-five years, and a famine, and their strength was wasted in conflicts with other tribes for the sovereignty of Spain. So they held a council at Breogan's Tower, near Corunna, to determine what country they should invade. It was resolved to send Ith to reconnoitre the island of Erin ; not, as some assert, because he had seen it like a white cloud on a winter's night from the top of Breogan's Tower. The position of the island was well known to the inhabitants of Spain ; and there was tradiuo- between the two countries. Ith then sailed to Erin with 150 men, and landed in the north, where some of the country-folk came to meet him — and accosted him in the Scot-bearla, or Gaelic. He answered them in the same tongue. They told him that the three sons of Kermad Milbeol (of the honey tongue), the son of the Dagda, ruled the land year about in turn, and kept court at Aileach. Thither went Ith thereupon, and was received by the kings with the " thousand welcomes." He was loud in his praises of the great fertility of the soil : abounding in honey, and in fruit, and in fish, and in milk, and in vegetables, and in corn, whilst the air was of so pleasant a temperature between heat and cold. This aroused the suspicious of the kings. They feared that if he was allowed to depart in safety he would come back with a large army. On his way to the shore he was waylaid and attacked, and borne to his ship mortally wounded. He died at sea, on his voyage back to 40 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. Spain. To avenge his death, and seize Erin, the sons of Golamh mustered a fleet of thirty ships, in each of which there were thirty men, and sailed for Erin. On making land at Inver Slainge (Wexford) the Dedananns threw a magic mist around them, and with spells drove them away from the shore. They then sailed along the south of the island, and landed at Inver Sceine (Kenmare Bay), whence they marched to Slieve Mish, in Kerry. Here they were met by one of the three queens. Amergin, asked her name. "Banba is my name," replied she, " and from me the island is called Banba." They then marched to Slieve Eiblinn (Phelim) in Limerick, and met Fodhla, another queen. Amergin asked her her name. " My name is Fodhla." replied she, " and from me the island is called Fodhla." They then marched to Uisneach, and met Eri. Amergin asked her her name. " My name is Eri," replied she, " and from me the island is called Eri ; the queen of the king for the year gives her name to the king- dom." They then marched to Tara, where they met the three kings, and demanded battle or the kingdom. The kings objected, but agreed to leave the matter to the decision of Amergin, the son of Golamh, adding, that if he pronounced an unjust judgment they would kill him with magic. He decided that the Gael should retire to the coast, and set out nine waves to sea ; and then, if they could effect a landing in spite of the Dedananns, they should possess the land. The Gael then retired, and went out beyond the tenth wave, when the foe raised a tempest by magic and dispersed their fleet. There were eight sons of Golamh on board these ships. All but three, Eber, Eremon, and Amergin, perished. Five of these sons were sunk in the wave, Five of the stalwarfch sons of Golamh, In song loving Eri's spacious bays. Thro' Danann wiles and Druidic spells. Eber landed with the crews of his ships in Kerry, and fought a battle at Slieve Mis, near Tralee, and routed the enemy. Scota, the wife of Golamh, was amongst the slain. She was buried in the valley of Glen Scoithen, near the scene of the battle, where her tomb is still pointed out. A second THE COMING OF THE GAEL. 41 and decisive battle was shortly afterwards foug'ht at Tailtin in Meath, in which Banba, Fodhla, and Eri, with their husbands, were slain, and the Dananns almost annihilated. Fodhla was slain by the boastful Etan, Banba was slain by the victor, Caicher, Eri, the bounteous, fell by Surghi, Of these famed heroines such was the dire doom. Eber and Eremon then assumed the joict sovereignty of the island, and divided it between them, Eremon taking the •northern half. Next year they quarrelled and fought a battle near Geashill, in the King's County, in which Eber was defeated and slain. Eremon then became sole king, and reigned fourteen years. This was the taking of Erin by the Gael.i The pedigrees of the Gael are all traced up to one or other of the three sons of Golamh, i.e., Eber, Eremon, and Ir, or to Lugaid, the son of Ith, his nephew ; or to vary the statement, so as to bring it nearer to the probable, under these eponymi were arranged all the several tribes and families who, in the opinion of the annalist, constituted the Gael of Erin. As regards the previous history of the Gael, the synchronists and the etymologists revel in supplying us with facts. Finius Farsa, fourth in descent from Japhet, was king of Syria, and kept a great school for teaching languages, as did his son Niall, the father of Gaedal Glas, from whom the Gael are named. Nial and Gaedal Glas met Aaron and Moses in Egypt. Moses healed Gaedal from the bite of a serpent. Eber Scot was the great grandson of Gaedal Glas, and the opinion of antiquaries was divided as to whether the Gael were called Scots from him, or because they came from Scythia. The etymologists could not, of course, resist the temptation of * I I Breogan Bile I i Ith Golamh — Scota | I Lugaid I I " r I I 2 3 4 Eber Finn Eremon Amergin Ir (drowned) (the Fair) | Breogau 23rd iu descent from Japhet t Heber 42 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. alleging that the Gael were called the " Cinead Scuit " (Scots) because they came from Scit-ena (Scythia).' What race of men were the Gael ? Anthropologists say that hereditary types constitute a race, and that traits are associated to form these types. Ripley, following the majority of anthropologists, makes a three-fold division of the races of Europe into Teutonic, Alpine or Celtic, and Mediterranean. Deniker differs from all others in combining his three separate physical traits into six principal races and four or more sub- races. This, however, is a difference of method of classification rather than one of substance, and the three-fold classification, as set forth in the subjoined table, is convenient and adequate for our purpose.^ European Racial Types.* Head. Face. Hair. Eyes. Stature. Nose. 1. Nordic or Teutonic. Long Long Very light Blue Tall Aquiline 2. Alpine or Celtic. Round Broad Light chestnut Hazel grey Medium, Stocky Variable, rather broad, heavy 3. Jlediterranean Long Long Dark brown or black Dark Medium, Slender Rather broad This table shows the combination of traits into racial types, It speaks for itself. The Gael were not Celts. " Whatever be," says Ripley, " the state of opinion among students of other cognate sciences, there is practically to-day a complete unanimity of opinion among physical anthropologists that the term Celt, if used at all, belongs to the second of our three races, viz. — the broad- headed (brachycephalic), darkish population of the Alpine Highlands. Such is the view of Broca, Bertrand, Topinard, Collignon, and all the French authorities. It is accepted by 2 In the Gaelic tongue gAet meant kindred. The Cymri (conibrox) meant compatriots. May j^M-oet and gAel be connected ? The obvious is some- time unseen by the eye that is searching for the obscure. ^ Ripley, Appendix, D., p. 507. * See Ripley, W. " The Races of Europe," p. 121. Nordic is the term used by Deniker. The Alpine race include.s the Celtic wedge which spUt the Volcae into two divisions and passed westwards to the Channel between the quadrila* teral of Lug. as described in the first chapter. THE COMING OF THE GAEL. 43 the Germans, Virchow, Kollmann and Ranke, as ^ell ; by the Enghsh (foremost among them by Dr. Beddoe), and by the most competent Italians."^ Prior to 1860, the leading ethno- logists agreed, in deference to classical texts, in affiliating the Celts of early history with the tall, blonde peoples of Northern Europe — the Nordic race of Deniker. Subsequent investiga- tions have shown the fallacy of this, but the terms " Celtic race " still linger around the Gael, who were most indubitably part and parcel of the tall, blonde, long-headed Nordic race. Tacitus, who is, no doubt, recording the observation and in- ferences of his father-in-law, Agricola, tells us that when Agricola came as Governor to Britain in A.D. 78, the Brigantes, who had been in a great measure reduced to subjection, occu- pied the territory between the Humber and the Clyde. We have seen that a tribo bearing the same name is mentioned by Ptolemy as located in the south-east of lerne, and the fugitive chief entertained by Agricola, as we have already mentioned, may have belonged to that tribe and taken refuge with his namesakes in North Britain. Agricola had also con- ducted a campaign against the Silures in Wales, and had previously seen much active service in Britain in subordinate commands. The statements of Tacitus are, therefore, entitled to great weight. He says : — " For instance, the ruddy hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia demonstrate their German origin. The dark faces of the Silures (in South Wales and Monmouthshire), their generally curly hair, and the fact that Spain lies opposite to them, make one believe that the Spaniards of old times passed over and occupied thesa parts. The Britons, who are nearest to the Gauls, are also like them."^ Boadicea or Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni (Norfolk and Suffolk), bears a Latin name that comes very close in sound to Boadach or Buadach, often found as an epithet of Gaelic warriors, and meaning victorious. Dion Casseus describes her as follows : — " She was of large size, terrible of aspect, savage of countenance, harsh of voice, with a profusion of flowing » Ripley, 126. ^ Namque rutilae Calcdoniam haoifantinm comae, magni artus Gcrmanicarn originem adseverant. Silurum colorati vultus, torti plerumque crines. Agricola, c. 11. 44 EARLY IKISH HISTORY. yellow hair, which foil down to her hips, a large golden collar on her neck, a variegated flowing vest drawn close about her bosom, and a thick mantle fastened by a clasp or brooch, and a spear in her hand." ^ A companion picture is to be found in Queen Meve of Connact, her predecessor in time by, perhaps, a century. She is thus described in the Tain : — " A beautiful pale, long-faced woman, with long flowing golden yellow hair, upon her a crimson cloak, fastened with a brooch of gold over her breast, a straight ridged sleglt or light spear blazing red in her hand." This was the ideal as well as the real type of beauty with the files who composed the sagas. Edain, daughter of Etar, a Dedanann chief, " had two golden yellow tresses on her head, each of them plaited with four locks or strands, and a ball of gold on the point of each tress. The colour of that hair was like the flowers of the bog firs in summer, or like red gold immediately after receiving its coining." Cuculainn had yellow hair and blue eyes. In the description of the Gaelic chieftains by MacRoth in the Tain, nearly all are described as having yellow hair, and the men of Muirtheimne 3,000 blood red furious warriors, had " long, fair, yellow hair, and splendid bright countenances ! " Some of the chieftains, however, are described as having black hair, which was not then held in dis-esteem as MacFirbis represents in later times. "On the authority of old sayings of people learned in history," MacFirbis writes : — " The dark, the loud voiced, the contumelious, the talkative, the vociferous, the fierce, the unteachable, the slave, the liar, the churlish, and all who listen not to music or melody, the violators of covenants and laws, and the accusers of all are the descendants of the Firvolg, the Gailliaus, the Liogmuine, and the Fir-Domnan ; but mostly of the Firvolg iit dictum." If MacFirbis had weighed the evidence contained in our texts instead of listen- ing to the " old sayings " of other folk, he would have corrected the ignorance of those old people. Some of the bravest soldiers came from the stock of the Firvolce. Ferdiad was a Roland if Cuchulain was an Oliver. ' tJuAix), victory, = bum boAt)Ac or boATD^s = victorious. MuellcnhoS has trrcerl the presence of the Celtic ton,2;ue east of the Weser, and the Iceni, immigrating from the continent opposite, probably spoke Celtic of the Gaelic type. Deutsche Alteithumskunde, vol. II., map. Table I. THE COMING OF THE GAEL. 45 The Clanna Morna were as brave as tlie Clanna Baoiscne, better known as the Fianna of Finn, the son of Cumhal (Cool) and the grandson of Baoiscne (Bweesh-cne). Nor were black hair and blue eyes an obstacle to success in other fields of rivalry. Naoise (Neesh-e) was seen and loved by the cloistered Deirdre, and Diarmaid O'Duibhne carried off King Cormac's daughter from the betrothal feast of the implacable Finn himself. Conaire Mor (100 B.C.) had curly yellow locks, and black pupils in blue eyes. Nial of the Nine Hostages mounted the enchanted stone at Tara in the year 370 A.D. " Yellow as the Sobarche (St. John's Wort) was the yellow hair which was on the head of the son of Cairen," a Saxon aditionelle oi the Ard Righ ; his "one wife "being Mongfinn,^ also a fair-haired lady, as the name indicates. From this time, it may be safely asserted that there was not a single Gaelic family without " ruadh," or red hair figuring constantly in its pedigree. The " dubh," or black-haired, were also conspicuous owing to the intermarriages between the Gael and the Firvolce. There were many "inge^nA •ouitDe" besides the Scotch lassie (ineen duv) who was wedded to Red Hugh O'Donnell. Giraldus Cambrensis, who visited Ireland at the close of the 12th century, and spent two years there, says : " The men were majestic, but the other animals were small. The men were very tall and handsome of body, with ruddy com- plexions." ^ The type is well exemplified in the portrait of Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill by the celebrated Dutch artist, Brugens. The colour of the hair is not decidedly red in the picture but approaching to it. It was painted whilst he was serving in Flanders, probably about the time he defended Arras, 1640, in command of an Irish regiment in the Spanish service, where he showed the chamcteristics attributed by Spenser to his fellow-countrymen : " Circumspect in their enterprises, very present in perils, great scorners of death." ' These be the * tnon^, hair, and pinn, fair. ^ " Solis hominibus euam retenentibus ra.njestatom— piilcberrimis et proceris corporibus coloriitissimis vultibus." Au engraving of it will be found in the L liter Journal of Archaeology, vol. iv. 46 EARLY IRISH HISTORT. mon,' writes St. Legor to Houry VIII., 'that don't lightly abandon the field, but bide the brunt to the death.' " Fynes Morysou says the cattle in Ireland were very little, " and only the mon and the greyhounds of any great stature." Dymoke says, at the end of the 16th century, " Of complexion the Irish are clear and well favoured, both men and women tall and corpulent (I.e., with large frames) bodies." O'Donovan collected many accounts of Irish giants. Amongst them were, I may mention, Morgan Kavanagh, Governor of Prague, in 1766, said to be the tallest man in Europe. His relatives were described by Professor Neimann, of Vienna, in 1844, as the tallest men in Germany. The O'Dowdas of Hy Fiachra " counted 24 castles on their exten- sive estate, many of which are still in existence, and they have a burial place appropriated to them in the Abbey of Moyne, where may be seen the gigantic bones of some of them, who have been remarkable for their great stature, one of them having exceeded seven feet in height. One of the family, William O'Driscoll, who died in 1851, is described as being in pitch of body like a giant. O'Donovan refers also to Big Magrath, whose skeleton is now in Trinity College, Dublin ; to Florence Macarthy," taller by a head and shoulders than his fellows. i« We must not omit here a story from Holinshed. The Irishmen would never give quarter, and therefore whenever the Frenchmen took any of them they gelded them, and other- wise tormented them. After the surrender of Bulloign (Boulogne) (1544 a.d.), a large Frenchman on the other side of the haven braved and defied the English army, whereupon one Nicholas (Irish) did swim over the river and cut off the Frenchman's head, and brought it back over the river in his mouth, for which bold action he was bountifully rewarded." As to light hair and light eyes, the proportions per cent., as given by the Anthropometric Committee for 1892-3, are " Ireland, 47.4; Scotland, 46.3 ; England, 40.1 ; Wales, 34.60." The figures for Ireland, of course, take in the whole popula- tion, comprising many ethnic elements besides the Gaelic, e.g., 1" O'Donovan, Physical Characteristics of the Ancient Irish. — Ulst. Jour. Archse., vol. vi., p. lOl". " Holinshed's Chronicle., i. 103. Cox Hist. Anglie, p. 277. THE COMING OF THE GAEL. 47 the Firvolce " and the dark-haired admixture from England, with concave noses in many cases." ^'^ A distinctive feature of the Teutonic or Nordic race is its prominent or narrow nose. The association of tall stature with a narrow nose is so close as to point to a law. From the north of Europe, as we go south, the nose becomes flatter and more open at the wings. As regards the Irish, Beddoe writes : " The concave noses are far from being as common as is sup- posed. The really predominant form is the long, sinuous, and prominent, especially at the point. In Ireland, and in East and North England, the concave nose is only 18 per cent., while in Gloucestershire and in Denmark it is 20, and in Sweden, 26 per cent." ^^ Deniker says — The mean height of the races of Europe is never low ; on the other hand the races of great stature are numerous. In some districts, especially in Bosnia, in Scot- land, and in Ireland, it reaches m. 1'72, or even the incredible figure of m. 176, m. 178 in the counties of Perth and Berwick ; and in Galloway the maximum of humanity, i* Galloway is an extensive district in the south-west of Scotland, 70 miles long by 40 broad, comprised mainly in Wigtonshire. It owes its name to the fact that the inhabitants were called Goll-Gael or foreign Gael, a name equivalent to our " Sea-divided Gael," and applicable to the Gaelic Septs in Alba and the Hebrides. Of the physical traits which betoken race, the head form is the most permanent. Pigmentation and stature are less reliable. The head form is ascertained by expressing the breadth in per-centage of the length from front to back. This is called the Cephalic index.^^ In Deniker's list of Cephalic '2 See " The Irish People, their Height, Form, and Strength." E. Ho'^'an, S.J., 18'J7. " Beddoe " Races of Britain," 236. Mem. Anthrop. Soc., vol. iii., 238. " Deniker" L' Anthropologic," 1898, vol. ix.,122. " Les Races de I'Europe,'' Note preliminaire. ^5 The general form of the skull or brain case is oval, but mav be modified so as to become round and broad, or elongated and elhptical. These changes of form are indicated by the Cephalic or cranial index. The Cephalio index is ascertained by multiplying the breadth by 100 and dividing by the length, and two units are allowed for the difference between a bare skull and one with flesh and muscle. Retzius divided these skulls into long heads and broad heads. The former (dolichocephalic) where the index iigure reached 79 inclusive, and all above that figure were classed as broadheads (brachycephalic). There are also sub -divisions or modifications of this system which do not require notice here. 48 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. indices, the Scotch Gael (Highlanders) head the list of long- heads at 76-3. The Irish, however, run them very close at 77*3, which figure an average taken from a greater number of the population would probably modify. The Gael thus fulfil all the conditions he lays down for membership of the great Nordic race, of which the following is an abridged summary i The Nordic race is blonde, long-lieaded, of great height. We may call it the Nordic, because its representatives are grouped almost ex- clusively in the north of Europe. Its permanent ti'aits or characteristics are the following: — It is very tall (average m. 1-73). The hair is blonde or often reddish (roussatres), the eyes clear, mostly blue, the head long, dolichocephalic (index on living from 76 to 79), the skin white-rosy, the face long, with nose prominent and straight. In this division he includes the Irish, except the inhabi- tants of the north-west of the island. It must be always borne in mind that in applying the results yielded by the statistical inquiries of anthropologists at the present day to the past, account must be taken of historical considerations. Fortune has dealt hard measure to the Gael. The greatness of the race is now attested by its ruias.^^ 1^ Deniker, ubi, supra, 123. [ 49 ] CHAPTER IV. The Gael. IN prehistoric as well as in historic times there have been periods of overflow from the Nordic populations to the South. This is traced in Germany in the Row Graves (Reihengraber) where the Nordic longheads are found buried side by side with their heads facing the rising sun. It is also traced far into France, where the older races are to be found in isolated areas of disfavour, mountainous, unfertile, or other- wise undesirable. Moreover, it was not by land only that this overflow took place. The emigrants went also by sea to found new homes in distant parts, and have left traces along the coast of France and around the mouths of the Loire. Notable amongst these were the Veueti whose confederation occupied the country around Vannes, the capital of Morbihan, on the south coast of Brittany. Caesar wrote that he exterminated them, put the whole senate to death, and sold the rest into slavery. This, however, was not the case. Their race charac- teristics still remain to prove that it is easier to conquer than to exterminate. Morbihan is one of the "blondest" depart- ments in France. Not much further south across the Bay of Biscay lay Brigantium, near Corunna, on an island adjacent to which was a great light-house mentioned by Orosius, fabled in aftertime to have been Breogan's Tower. There was also Brigantium (Briangon) in the Hautes Alpes and Brigantium (Bregenz), near Lake Constance. And we have seen that the Brigantes held the country between the Humber and the Clyde, and were planted in the South-east of Ireland. There is, therefore, no inherent improbability in the statement in our texts that the first coming of the Gael was from the North of Spain. They came as the allies, probably at the invitation, of the Firvolce to aid them to shake off the yoke of the Dedananns. It was in substance a rehearsal of the drama played 2,000 years afterwards by another section of the Nordic race — the Jutes, the Saxons, and the Angles, 50 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. The expansion of the Nordic race on the Continent was slow. It proceeded step by step — by infiltration, pressure and fighting. We do not propose to give details here, nor to open up the Celtic question which is enshrined in a voluminous literature. We shall confine ourselves to stating that the Celts were a powerful, valiant, and imperial race, and during the Hallstadt period stood in the forefront of civilisation and progress. Now Hallstadt was a great Celtic capital and em- porium of trade in Upper Austria. In the tombs, over 1,000 in number, were found the most beautiful specimens of the industrial art of the period. This civilisation is characterised by the presence of iron employed largely in the manufacture of weapons. Bronze, however, was still predominant at first, and was gradually superseded by iron. Vases in bronze of a beautiful type, brooches, necklets, bracelets, and trinkets in gold abound. Ivory from Africa was used for the pommels of swords ; glass was used to make small vases. A large trade was done in amber from the Baltic for which the rich products of the Mediterranean cities were given in exchange. There was no silver or coined money found in the tombs. Montelius, according to his latest views, places the age of bronze in France and other Celtic nations between 2,000 and 850 B.C., and the Hallstadt period between 850 and 600 B.C.^ The advance of the Celts was triumphant. It is written in history, and cannot be reasonably doubted that they seized Galatia ; spared Delphi ; held Rome to ransom, and took possession of the fairest regions of Europe — the valleys of the Po, the Danube, the Loire, the Marne, and the Seine. They stopped at the Channel. The charms of Britain could not entice them to cross the narrow strait, and Erin had little to attract and much to terrify a people who, unlike the Nordic race, had never faced the perils of the sea, except whilst they were crossing the Crimean Bosphorus. The immigration of the Firvolce from the South was, as we have seen, by relays under various sub-denominations, The Nordic immigration was also gradual by relays of immigrants of the same stock. If we go forward 1000 years to the time of Cimbaeth — from 1700 to 750 B.C. — how do we find the Eponymi placed on the land ? The clan of Lugaid, the son of Ith, who was the first * L'anthopologie. xii., 620. THE GAEL. 61 leader of the immigration to land in Erin, was located on the verge of the Southern Ocean, in Corca Luighe, a small territory lying between Kiusale and Bantry Bay. North of this lay the territory of the clan of Eber the Fair, the elder brother of Eremon. Next came Eremon. And iinally, in the north-east, we find a nephew — Heber, the son of Ir. Leinster was occupied by the Gailleoin, a tribe of the Firvoice. Connacht was also occupied by other sub-denominations of Firvoice, notably by Firdomhnann and the Cathraige. Our texts contain no record of any struggle in which the clan of Itb was driven into an area of isolation and disfavour by a body of immigrants advancing from the North, as the O'Sullivans in after times were driven from the Golden Vein of Tipperary into the same region. The fate of the clan ol Eber the Fair was decided at the battle of Geashill, near the Esker Riada, in the King's County. This is a long ridge of gravel hills, probably the moraine of a confluent glacier, which stretches from Dublin to Clarin Bridge, on Galway Bay^ and is referred to frequently in our texts, as the dividing line between North and South, Conn's Half (ieAt Cuinn), and Eogan's Half (le^t rhogxx). From this time the clan of Ir and the clan of Eremon stand face to face in fierce antagonism, fighting for the hegemony. The struggle lasted for 800 years, and ended in 332 A.D., with the victory of the three Collas and the destruction of Emania, leaving the clan of Eremon not, indeed, absolute masters, but unquestionably the predominant power in Erin, and destined, apparently, in due process of social and political evolution to fuse into a nation the various ethnic elements under their sway, who now spoke the same language, shared in the same superstitions, and were known by a common name — the Gael. Before presenting our readers with some figures relating to the period between 1700 and 750 B.C., we may state that we follow the chronology and figures found in the " Annals of the Kingdom of Erin " by the Four Masters, which were written between January, 1632, and August, 1636. These Annals are sometimes referred to as a compilation which at the present day is generally understood to mean "scissors and paste " work. Their task, however, was of a different character. " Eminent masters in antiquarian lore," as Colgan describes 52 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. them, they collected, as best they could, all the texts that could be procured in their time. They then examined them, compared them, criticised them, weighed the evidence, and delivered their judgments in the most valuable work which has come down to us in the Gaelic tongue. The Four Masters, following the Septuagint, present, on the whole, a more coherent and intelligible view than the annalists who adopt other systems. The distribution of time — the dates assigned to particular events — is largely regulated by the system of chronology adopted, and nothing but confusion can arise if the historian passes from one system to another. Moreover, we do not present the dates we now offer as reliable, and it is only by a very liberal construction of the terms that the dates B.C. may, perhaps, be called rough approximations. The struggle between the tribes of Eremon, Eber the Fair, and Heber, the son of Ir, was long and obstinately fought. Though the race of Eber the Fair lost the battle of Geashill, they continued strong and powerful. According to the Four Masters, 53 kings reigned at Tara, counting joint reigns as one, from the coming of the Gael (1700 B.C.), to the alternate reigns of Aed Ruad, Dithorba, and Cimbaeth (730 B.C.), a period of 970 years. This period is distributable approximately as follows : — PERIOD I. 1700 B.C. TO 970 B.C. King3. Line of. Years of Reiga. 17 Eremon 438* 21 Eber the Fair 236 13 Ir 267 2 Ith 6 (Interregnum of 7 years and broken years) 23 , 53 Total, 970 We add, for comparison, Periods II. and III. PERIOD II. From the accession of Aed Ruad (7S0 B.C.) to A.D. 1, there were 37 High-Kings. *In this figure is reckoned the lel^n of Siorna Saoglach (the long-lived) for 150 yuars. Suggestions to account ior this need not detain ua here. THE GAEL. 53 Kings. Line of. Years of Eeign. 23 Eremoa 459 8 Eber the Fair 82 5 & Madia (Queeu) Ir 189 Ith Total, 33 Total, 730 PERIOD III. From A.D. 1, to the coming of St. Patiick (432) there were 27 High-Kings. Kings. Line of. Years of Reign. 20 Eremon 248 1 Eber the Fair j3 3 Ir 25 2 Ith 31 1 Cuirbre Cinnceat 5 Total, 27 Total, 322 PERIOD IV. From St. Patrick to Brian Boru (1002, A.D.) all were of the line of Eremon, with one or possibly two exceptions. The " Annals of the Four Masters " during our first and second periods, are in the main confined to giving the name of each of the High Kings, the date of his accession, the length of his reign, and the manner of his death. A list containing the name, line and date of accession of each Ardrigh will be found in the Appendix. The bursting out of lakes, and the cutting down of woods, are also noticed in great detail. So also the innumerable battles which recur with the periodi- city of astronomical events. More interesting events are also but very rarely noticed at some length. We shall give a few examples generally, in the words of the authors as translated by O'Donovan in his invaluable work, slightly abridged : A.M. 3502 (1698, B.C.), Tea, the daughter of Lugaid, the son of Ith, whom Eremon brought home {i.e., married) in Spain over the head of Odba, requested of Eremon as her bride gift (cinfciiA) a choice hill as she might select to be buried there. She selected Drum-Caoin, and from her it was called T;;ra.2 2 This is one of the usual etymolosriea. It is more likoly, we think, tli.-^t it was called 'Ojunm Cij nioiti after tbe King's " great hoB.se " v;a,3 built. After a time these words would be treated as one word, CenuMti, aud the last syllable sboitened and elided with tbe genitive Ceni(oki)f".Ac. 5-i EARLY IRISH HISTORY. There were other Taras in Erin, all, webeliovc, residential, and occupied by chieftains. The houses were, no doubt, built in imitation of the King's "great house," — like Bricrin's Mansion in Dun Rudraighe, near Lough-Brickland, in Down. " It must be remembered," writes Joyce, " that a Teamhair was a residence, and that all the Teamhairs had originally one or more forts, which, in case of many of them, remain to this day." * A.M. 3580 (1620 B.C.) This was the seventeenth year above three score, of Ti£jhernnias, as King over Erin. It was by him the following battles were gained over the race of Eber — the battle of Ele (Antrim), the battle of Lochmagh, the battle of Cuilard, in Magh Innis (Down); the battle of Cuil Fraechen, the battle of Magh Fecht, the battle of Commar, the battle of Cul-athguirt, in Seimhne, (Island Magee) ; the battle of Ard Neadh (Connacht) ; the battle of Cam Feradagh (Limerick) ; the battle of Cnamh Choill (Connacht) ; the battle of Cuil Feadha, the battle of Reabh, the battle of Congnaidhe, in Tiiath Eabha (Sligo) ; the battle of Cluan Cuas in Teathbha (Teffia) ; the battle ot Chian Muirage (Breffny) ; the two battles of Cuil, in Arget Koss (Kilkenny) ; the battle of Ele, the battle of Berra (Cork) ; seven battles at Lough Lughdhach (Lough Carrane, Kerry) ; two other battles at Arget Ross (Kilkenny) ; three battles against the Firvolce and the battle of Cuil Fobhair, against the Ernai (in Tyrone). We give the foregoing details, not to enumerate the vic- tories of Tighernmas, but as a specimen of the class of entries in the Annals which are very numerous, to show the tradition as to the social state of Erin in those days. We have no clue to the casus belli in any case or to the results which followed from these victories. If it be founded on fact, the record reveals to us the picture of a very active monarch, continually at v^ar, striking blows v/ith effect, north, south, east, and west, which, however, bore no permanent results. The conclusion of this entry is more interesting. " It was by Tighernmas that gold was first smelted in Erin, in FoiLhre Airthir Litle (east of the Litiey). It was by an artilicer of the Fera-Cualann (Wicklow). It was by Tighernmas that goblets and brooches were tirst covered with gold and silver in Erin. It was by him that clothes were dyed purple, blue, and green. It was in his rei'^n that the three black rivers of Erin burst forth. At the end of this year he died, with three quarters of the men of Erin about him, at the meeting of Magh Slecht, in Breifne, at the worshipping of Crom Cruach, which was the chief idol of adoration in Erin. This happened on the eve of Samliain (Hallow Eve) precisely. It was from the frenuflections that the men of Erin made about Tighernmas that the plain was named." 3 Joyce's Inah Place Names, First Series, 2S3. THE GAEL. OO The statement in the Annals is, probably, taken from the versified Dindshenchus, of Magh Slecht, in the Book of Leinster, of which we give a few staves, translated by Kuno Meyer as follows : — There came Tighernmas, the Prince of Tara, yonder On Hallowe'en with many hosts A cause of grief to them was the deed. They did evil ; They beat tiieir palms ; they pounded their bodies, "Wailing to the demon who enslaved them, They shed falling showers of tears Around Crom Cruaoh ; There the hosts would prostrate themselves, Though he pixt them under deadly disgrace, Their name clings to the noble plain, Except one-fourth of the keen Gaels Not a man alive . . . Escaped without death in his mouth. The prose Dindshenchus being more modern than the verse, has, as usual, further particulars. We quote from Stokes' translation in the Revue Celtioue of the Rennes text : "And they all prostrated before him {i.e., Crom Chroic), so that the tops of their foreheads and the gristle of their noses and the caps ol their knees and the ends of their elbows broke, and three-quarters of the men of Erin perished at these prostrations. Whence Magslecht, 'Plain of Prostration.'"* It is more likely, we think, that the plain was named from the Coirh f lectic or plague stroke. Slecht,^ in the sense of genu- flection, or prostration, is connected, probably, with " flecto," and is post-Christian. Its older sense was to cut down, and the cutting off of a large part of the population was more likely to give a name to the plain than the supposed genuflec- tions or prostrations. There is no mention of child sacrifice in either the versified or prose Dindshenchus on this occasion. But we may feel sure that Tighernmas and the men of Erin, if they approached Crom Cruach as suppliants for help, brought with them as the usage was, gifts more appetising and accept- able than prostrations, tears, and genuflections. The nucleus of this legend must be sought in the genuine tradition that the African Fomorians exacted, as we have * Revue Celiique, xvi., 53. ^Slijim — Windisch Worterbuch. 56 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. already stated, a tribute of children from the Firvolce, to be delivered every Hallowe'en between the rivers Drobhaois and Erne. This tithe or fixed proportion of all kinds of produce was a PhcBnician usa^^e, and was paid annually by Carthage to the mother city in Asia, and there can be very little doubt that some of these little children were sacrificed to Melkarth according to the Carthaginian ritual. The district of Magh Slecht was not occupied by the Gael. The Four Masters state expressly that it was in the possession of the " Sen Tuatha " — the old tribes — who may have been a colony of these Fomorians dwelling in an area of isolation. It was by them the Masraidhe that Conall Gulban was killed in A.D. 464<. Moreover, this statement of the prostration of the men of Erin around Tighernmas may well be doubted. Giolla Coeman, + 1070, in " Erin Ard," refers to the death of Tighernmasand a slaughter of thousands by the plague, and says nothing about Magh Slecht or Crom Cruach, and Cormac MacCuilenain ( + 908) says nothing about it where we should expect to find a reference to it. We find the following in the glossary : — " Teamleuchta, i.e., Tamshleacta, i.e., a plague that cut off the people in that place, i.e., in a great mortality, during which the people used to go into the plains that they might be in one place before death, because of their burial by those whom the mortality did not carry off; and Teamleachta (plague- grave) nencupatur." The story in the Book of Leinster is, we think, a subsequent addition, aftervrards, as is usually the case, equipped with copious and minute details in the prose Dindshenchus. If, however, we were to admit the truth of the story told about the prostration of Tighernmas, there is no reason for holding that Crom Cruach became the chief idol of Erin. If he became the national god he would not have been called persistently Crom Cruach (Bloody Crom), and he would have been installed, with a well-endowed priesthood, at Tara, and Tlachtga, Tailtin and Usnach. This was not so. The god elements proved decisively by the terrible mortality that they were mightier than Crom, that their power was greater, their protection more valuable, and, above all, that their anger was more to be feared. A.M. 3664. This was the first year of Eocaid Edghadhach as king over Erin. He was called Eocaid Edghadhach because it was by hin THE GAEL. 67 that variety of colour was first put on clothes in Erin to distinguish the honour of each by his raiment, from the lowest to the highest. Thus was the distinction made between them — one colour in the clothes of slaves, two in the clothes of soldiers, three in the clothes of goodly heroes or young lords of territories (lords' sons 1), [four in the clothes of hospitallers, five in the clothes of lords] of territories, six in the clothes of ollavs, seven in the clothes of kings and queens.® A.M. 3922. 01]amhFodhla(01]av Tola). Eocaid was his firsK name, and he was called OUamh Fodhla because he was first a learned Ollamh, and afterwards King of Fodhla, i.e., Erin. Gilla Caomain calls him " King of the Learned " in "Yellow-haired " Erin. The Annals of Clonmacnoise, which have reached us only in Mageoghan's trasnlation, state : — He was the first king of the land that ever kept the great feast at Tara, called Feis Tarach, which feast was kept once a year, whereunto all the king's friends and dutiful subjects came yearly, and such as came not were taken for the king's enemies and to be prosecuted by the law and the sword as undutiful to the State. This king was so well learned and so much given to the favour of learning that he builded a fair palace at Tara only for the learned sort of the realm to dwell in, at his own peculiar cost and charges, of whom he was so much again beloved and reverenced that ever after his house, stock, and family were by them in their rhymes and poems preferred before any others of their equals of the Irish nation. Six of his children succeeded him, one after another, as kings of this land, without any other coming betwixt them, which good never happened to no other before him. He died at Tara a famous king — rich, learned, wise, and generally welJ- beloved of all men, and reigned forty years.^ Ollamh Fodhla was of the line of Ir, and he was succeeded, as stated, by six of that race in succession. A.M. 4020, B.C. 1180. This was the first year of Sirna, son of Dian. It was he wrested the government of T:ira from the Ulta, i.e., the race of Ir. An attack was made by him on the Fomorians in the territory of Meath. It was by him, moreover, was fought the battle of Moin Troghaidhe, in Ciannachta (in Meath ?). When Lugair, the son of Lugaidh, of the race of Eber, brought in a force of Fomorians into Erin with their king, Ceasarn by name, Sirna drew the men of Erin to make battle against them at Moin Troghaidhe. As they were fighting a plague was sent upon them, of which Lugair and Ceasarn perished, with their people, and a countless number of the men of Erin with them. Sirna Saoghlach (the long-lived) reigned 150 years. ^ The !aw was known as the " Ill-brecta." It will be observed that there is no mention herr- of Druids or pacran priests. The words in brackets are from the Gaelic text. They are omitted by inadvertence from O'Donovan's translation. ' Murphy, S.J., Ann. Clon. (Mageoghan) 34. 58 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. This patriarcliftl figure is, probably, an effort of cbronology, to bring the system of the Four Masters into harmony with the Domestic Annals from which the lists of the High-Kings were taken. Gilla Caomaiu, who followed the Hebrew reckon- ing, says : — '' Sirna held the reigns of power for thrice seven noble years." A study of the figures given above in our first and second periods will reveal the steady progress of the line of Eremou. At the commencement of the second period the race of Eber was beaten. The contest thenceforth lay between the Irians (Clanna Rury) and the Eremonians. Emhain (Emania) was the capital of the Irians. It is now known as Navan Fort, and is situated about two miles west of Armagh. The area of it was about twelve acres. It was elliptical in shape, and sur- rounded by a fosse twenty or thirty feet deep, and a high embankment. Within this space is an elevated spot, somewhat removed from the centre, on which the central dun, a dun within a dun, is supposed to have stood. The foundation of Emania is assigned by the Four Masters to Macha of the Red- hair during the period between 660 and 653 B.C. Tighernach, who followed the Hebrew reckoning, assigned it to the year 307 B.C. M. D'Arbois visited the place in 1881, and has given an admirable description and plan of it in the Revue Celtique (xiv., p. 1). He observes that " Some persons will think the dimensions of Navan Fort modest, but the great banquetting hall, called the ' Craobh Ruadh ' appears to have been situated outside the fortress. The name is preserved in the townland of Creeve Roe, and on an adjoining farm is a moat known as the King's Stables," Emania continued to be the house of the Kings of Ulster for 1,000 years, until A.D. 332, when it was razed to the ground by the three Collas.^ We may pause hero to refer to an oft-quoted entry in the Annals of Tighernach, who was Abbot of Clonmacnoise, and died A.D. 1088. He is usually referred to as the most reliable of our chroniclers, a reputation to which his title as regards pre-Christian times is very questionable, and which he owes in a large degree to the meaning that has been attached to an entry in his Annals, which is as follows : — * The Annals of Clonmacnoise, Murphy, S.J., p. 41, assign the foundation to 450 B.C., and state that the Kings of Ulster had their palace there for 855 years thereafter. THE GAEL. 59 la the 18th year of Ptolemy (i.e., B.C., 307) commenced to reign in Emauia, Cimbaid, the son of Fintan, who reigned 28 years. At that time Echu the Victorious, the father of Ugaine, is said by others to have reigned in Tara, although we have written before, that Ugaine reigned [then]. All the monumenta, i.e., records of the Scoti were " incerta " before Cimbaith.^ The meaning usually attached to incerta here is " uncer- tain," "unreliable." O'Donovan says : — We may safely infer from the words of Tighernach that the ancient historical documents (mojiumenta) existing in his time were all regarded by him as uncertain before the time of Cimbaith, whose reign he fixes to the year B.C. 305 (recte 307). His significant words, " omnia monumenta Scotorum usque Cimbaith incerta erant," inspire a feeling of confidence in this compiler which commands respect for those facts he has transmitted to us, even when they relate to the period antece- dent to the Christian era."" So Todd : I believe the writer only meant to say that the historical records relating to the period before Cimbaith are not absolutely to be relied on." So, too, Hyde says : — He means that from that time forwards, he at least considered that the substance of Irish history, as handed down to us, might, to say the least of it, be more or less relied on.^^ The name of Echu, the father of Ugaine, does not appear in any known series of the Kings of Tara, or the Provincial Kings. We think Tighernach meant nothing more by incerta than " unsettled," a meaning which the word frequently bears, and which the context indicates to be the meaning intended here. Tighernach was not considering the credibility of early Irish history, but simply the question whether Ugaine or his father was at the particular epoch (307 B.C.) the ruling monarch at Tara, or, perhaps, to narrow the question still more, whether Echu Lad died before that year or not. This was the chronological uncertainty to which he referred.^^ It was not 9 stokes' Revue Celtique, xiv., 191. 30 Fuur Masters, xlv. Ji OCiirry MS., 518. '2 Lit. Hist., 24. " Codex Palatinus. Todtl Lcc Ter., iii., 254, where a valuable and learned study on Irish Clironology will be found. 60 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. the happoning of the events recorded that was uncertain, but the precise time and sequence in which they happened.^'* We may be perfectly certain that Tii,^hernach believed with unques- tioning faith in Partholan and Nemed, in Balor of the Blows and Lugh Lamhfodha, in the spells and charms of wizards, and the revelations of fairy lovers, and in many other soft and fond amenities that live no longer in the unfaith of reason. The Higher Criticism was not rocked in its cradle by the placid Shannon in the lonely cloisters of Clonmacnoise. " Tighernach had no doubt before him, and was referring to Eocaid Ua Floinn's Chronological Poems, ia which the Kings of Einania are given in "settled " chronological order from Cimbailh to Fergus Fogha, who was over- thrown by the Collaa, [ 61 ] CHAPTER V. Beirdee. AEDII RUADH Ditliorba and Cimbaeth were first cousins. The}' made an agreement that each of them was to rule seven years alternately in succession. Three times seven sureties were pledged between them, seven wizards to revile them for ever ; or seven poets to lampoon and satirize and upbraid them ; or seven chiefs to wound them and burn them unless each man gave up his reign at the end of seven years, having preserved true government. Each of them reigned three times in his turn during sixty-six years. Aed the Red was the first of them to die. He was drowned in Eas aedha Ruaidh, and his body was carried into the Sidh there, whence were named Sidh Aeda and Eas Ruaidh. He left no children except one daughter, whose name was Macha, the Red-haired. She demanded the Kingdom in due time, when her turn came. Cimbaeth and Dithorba said they would not give King- ship to a woman. A battle was fought between them. Macha routed them.^ Her claim was probably well founded. Tacitus tells us of Boudicea that the Iceni chose her as their generalis- simo. " With Boudicoa as leader, for the Iceni make no distinction between the sexes in their rulers, all took up arms.^ Macha was sovereign for seven years. Meanwhile Dithorba had fallen. He left five sons, who demanded the Kingship when Macha's term was ended. Macha said she would not give it to them, " for not by favour did I obtain it," said she, "but by force on the battlefield." A battle was fought between them. Macha routed the sons of Dithorba, who '' left a slaughter of heads " before her, and went into exile into the wilds of Connacht. Macha then took Cimbaeth as her husband and leader of her troops. She pursued the sons of Dithorba to Connacht, made prisoners of them, and brought them all in * From " The Wooing of Emer," Kuno Meyer. Archeol. Rev. I., 151. 2 iioudicca generis regii femina duce (Neque enim sexum in imperiis descer- nnnt), sumpsere universi bellura. Agricola. 0. 16. There was also a queen of the Bri'-antes, Cartismandua. 62 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. one chain to Ulster. The men of Ulster wanted to kill them. " No," said she, " for that would be the ruin of my true govern- ment. But they shall be thralls, and shall dig a rath round me, and that shall be the eternal scat of Ulster for ever ! " Then she marked out the dun for them with her brooch, viz., the golden pin on her neck ; i.e., ImmA mum fn^cliA : a brooch on the neck of Macha ; hence the name Emaiu Macha. Such is the legend. Macha was slain by Reachtaidh Righdhearg (of the red forearm), of the line of Eber, who, after a reign of two years, was slain by Ugaine Mor, of the line of Eremon, in revenge for his foster mother, Macha Mongruadh. Ugaine was the son of Eocaid Buadach (the victorious), and is represented by our texts to have had 25 children, 23 sons and two daughters, amongst whom he divided Erin into 25 shares. This arrangement lasted for three hundred years to the time of Eocaid Feidleach, the father of Move. It is also stated that he extended his empire to the Toirrian, i.e., the Mediterranean Sea. The last of these statements is certainly not true, and the first must refer to some apportionment of food rents and dues from local chieftains, if it has any foundation in fact. The political divisions of Erin have been various according to the will of the monarchs. However, they never totally abrogated the five-fold division. During the time of the Gael there were five partitions — (1) between Eremon and Eber, (2) between Cearnma and Sobhairee, (3) by Ugaine Mor into 25 districts, (4) the re-establishment of the fifths by Eocaid Feidleach, (5) between Conn of the Hundred Battles, and Eogan Mor, King of Munster. Of the children of Ugaine only two left issue surviving — Laegaire Lore and Cobhthac Gael Breagh. From these are descended, according to O'Donovan, all that survive of the race of Eremon, the families of Leinster, from Laegaire Lore, the families of Ulster and Gonnacht, from Cobhthac Gael Breagh. This Ugaine was he who exacted oaths by all the elements visible and invisible, from the men of Erin in general, that they would never contend for the sovereignty of Erin, with his children or his race. After a reign of forty years he was slain by his half-brother, Badhbhchadh, who was slain a day and-a-half after by Laogaire Lore. Laogaire Lore, after a DEIRDRE. 63 reign of two years, fell by Cobhthach Gael Breagh, at Carman, (Wexford), and Cobhthach, after a reign of three years, fell by Labhraidh the mariner, great grandson of Ugaine, at Dinn Righ on the Barrow with thirty kings about him. A large body of Saga, much of which is now lost, was collected about Ugaine, and his sons and great grandsons.^ In 288 B.C., Rury the Great, of the line of Ir, became High King. He was -ninth in descent from Ollamh Fodhla, and hav- ing reigned for seventy years, died at Airgeat-gleann in Monaghan (218 B.C.). His descendants were known as the Clanna Rury. His son, Breasal, reigned for eleven years (209-198) ; his son, Congal Claroineach, reigned fifteen years (183-168)'; his grandson, Fachtna Fathac, reigned sixteen years (158-142 B.C.). His great grandson, Concobar, the son of Fachtna, ruled in Emania for sixty years, according to Tighernach, but did not attain to the High Kingship. Con- cobar's mother was Ness or Nessa, a daughter of Eocaid Salbuide (of the yellow heel) of Connact, From the year 142 B.C. to 332 A.D. the Clanna Rudhraidhe gave only three kings to Tara, who ruled altogether only twenty-five years. Fachtna Fathac (the wise) was overthrown by Eocaidh Feid- leach, sixth in descent from Labhraid Lore of the line of Eremon. Fergus, the son of Leide, then became King of Ulster, and on his death, Fergus Mac Roigh (Roy) the son of Fachtna, uncle to Concobar, became King in his stead. Fergus then married Nessa, the widow of his brother, Fachtna, and was, our texts say, by her contrivance, displaced in favour of Concobar, her son by Fachtna, for whom possibly he may have been ruling merely as quasi-iegent Eocaidh Feidleach ruled at Tara for twelve years, and died there in the year 130 B.C. He had issue three sons known as the " Three Finns," and, as some relate, six daughters, of whom Medhbh (Meve) was the most celebrated. He abolished the arrangement made by Ugaine Mor, which we have mentioned, and restored the pentarchy. Fergus the son of Leide, became King of Ulster * All Leinster families of the race of Eremon are descended from Labraidb, the mariner, with the single exception of O'No'an, which is descended from Cobhthach. The foUowui^ are the principal family names, viz. : — O'Connor Failghi, O'Cavanagh, O'Toohill, O'Byrne, MacGiila Patrick or Fitzpatrick, O'Uunn, O'Dimasaigh or Dempsey, O'Dwyer, O'Ryan, and all the septs that trace their origin to any of these names. The chief part of the Leinster claas are descended from Cathair Mor. — Keating O'Jlahony, p. 255. 64f EARLY IRISH HISTORY. on the death of Fachtna. The two Mimsters were ruled by Deaghaidh, the son of Sen, and his relative Ti,!?hernach Tedhbannach, and Leinster by Rossa Ruadb, the sou of Fergus. Connact, he apportioned, says Keating, into three parts, between three chieftains — Fidach, Eocaidh Alat, and Tinni, all three of the race of the Firvolce. Some time after Eocaidh went into Connact, and the three Kings came to meet him. He asked them for a site to build a King's house * in Connact. Eocaidh Alat and Fidach answered " that they would give him no such site, but that they would send him his rent to Tara." Tinni, on the contrary, agreed to give a site. Eocaidh then gave his daughter Meve as wife to Tinni, and a King's house was built within the rath at Cruachan,^ in Roscommon. On the death of Tinni, who was slain at Tara by Monuder, also calledMacCeact, Meve then ruling over all Connact, took to her as second husband, Oilioll, the son of Ross Ruadh of Leinster. Synchronists tell us Meve was contemporary with Cleopatra, and some say she was the original of Spenser's Queen Mab. It was whilst M6ve and Oilioll reigned at Cruachan, and Concobar was King at Emania, that the hegemony passed decisively from the line of Ir, and the race Eremon marched forward to the position which they occupied from the time of Niall of the Nine Hostages onward. The contest is the subject of the celebrated Saga or epopee of the " Cows of Cuailgne." — U^in t>o CuAilnje, which we shall refer to as the Tain. The osten- sible pretext or cause of this war was, as usually happens, a very insignificant part of the motives which brought about the invasion of Ulster. The origin is usually referred to the murder of the sons of Usnach, to explain which we must return to King Cormac and Emania. We find in our texts a very full and very reliable description of the buildings. In the King's house there were three times fifty rooms and the walls were made of red yew, and there were nine partitions from the fire in the centre of the house to the wallj and thirty feet the height of each partition. The King's room was in the front of the house, and was large enough for thirty warriors. It was ornamented with silver and bronze and carbuncles and precious stones, so that day and * King's house. — This meant a dun or fort, a place of arms in their country. ^ Rathcroghan, in Roacommon, is eight miles from Castlerea station. DEIRDRE. 65 night were equally light therein, A gong of silver hung behind the King suspended from the roof-tree, and when he struck it with his silver wand with three golden apples all the men of Ulster were silent. All the valiant warriors found space in the King's house, and no man pressed on another. In it were held great and numerous gatherings of every kind, and wonderful pastimes, games, heroes performing their feats, poets chanting their lays, and harp and timpans giving forth melodious strains to the touch of skilled musicians. These warriors were the famous Red Branch Knights. " There were," says Keating, " three orders of champions then co-existent in Erin, and neither before them nor since their time were there found any of the children of Golamh, who were taller, more powerful, hardier, braver, or more expert in feats of valour and chivalry than they, for the Fianna of Leinster were not to be compared with them. The first order of these was composed of the heroes and Knights of the Red Branch under Concobar. [Irians except Cuchulain.] The second was formed of the Gamhanraidhe (Gowanree) of Irrus Domnonn, under OilioU Finn (Firvolce) ; and the third was composed of the Clanna Degaidh or Ernaeans in West Munster, under Curoi MacDare (Eremonians)." Among the most celebrated of the Red Branch we may name Cuchulain, Fergus MacRoigh (Roy), Conall Cearneach. Leagaire, Buadach, Celtchar the son of Uithecair Dubhtach Dael Uladh, and Naoise (Neeshe), Ainle, and Ardan, the three sons of Usnach.* Concobar had three houses — the Craobh Ruadh (Royal or Red Branch), Teite Brec (Speckled or " Bracced " Court) and the Craobh Derg (Crimson Branch). In the Red Court were kept the spoils of the enemy. In the Royal Court sat the Kings. In the Speckled Court were kept the spears, the shields, and the swords. The reason they put their arms away from them in one house was that at everything harsh they heard in the banqueting-hall, if not arranged on the spot, each man arose against the other, and hence their arms were taken from them into the Teite Brec. This is the account in the Book of Leinster.^ Keating makes a very ^ Ferdiad, described as a pillar of the Gael in the Tain, was of the Firvolce of Irrus Domriann and Daniel O'Connell was of the Degadean or Ernean tribe, of the line of Eremon, who had migrated from Ulster into Kerry. ^O'Curry. M.C.," I., 333. G6 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. necessary addition—a fourth bouse for the wounded— the Broiu-bherg, House of Sorrow (p. 271)8 "The Story of Deirdre and the Murder of the Sons OF Usnach Down Here." The most pathetic of the three sorrows of story-tcllinf' (UjiJ UtiUAgA riA S56Alul$eA(i^<^). Once upon a time, after Concobar became King, Felimid, the King's tale-teller, made a feast at Emania for the Kinc^ and many Knights of the Red Branch.'' Felimid's wife wa's present attending to her guests and enjoying "the gentle music of the musicians, the songs of the bards, and the tales of the learned, who read the things written on flao-s and books." She was then enceinte, and nearing her confinement, and it chanced as she was retiring, when the revelry was at its height, that the unborn child shrieked from her womb. This was an ominous event of high import, portending either good or evil to the men of Ulad. Cathbad, the King's wizard, who was present at the feast, was at once consulted, and went out to the borders of the rath to observe and scrutinize the clouds, and the position of the stars, and the age of the moon. On his return he announced that misfortunes and woes would come to the men of Ulad on account of the yellow-haired girl that had just been born. The heroes of the Red Branch bade him slay her without delay, " Let it not be so done," said the King, " agreeable is the appearance and the laugh of the infant. It were a pity to quench her life. I do not praise the committing of a base deed in the hope of appeasing the anger 8 When the Red Branch Knights came to thp Palace every summer to be exercised in feats of arms they were lodged in a great house near Eniain, calte-d the Craobh Ruadh, commonly Englished the Red Branch, from which the whole body took their name. But, according to an old glossary, Ruadh means here not " red," but " royal." But, the designation " Red Branch," which is the usual sense, is too well established to be displaced. The name of this house is also preserved, for " Creeveroe " is still the name of a townland near Navan Fort. So far as we can judge from old tales, the Craobh Ruadh appears to have been built of wood, with no earthen ram[)art around it, which explains why the present townland of Creeveroe contains no large fort like that of Emain. Joyce Soc. Hist. II., 90. ^ There are many versions of this famous tale. The more ancient are brief, and were undoubtedly intended, as Hyde points out, to be supplemented and filled out by the reciter. We have followed his version in the Literature, which is given more completely in Zeitscrift fur Celt Philol. II., 138, DEIRDRE. 67 of the power of the elements. I take her under my protection now, and shall make her my one wife and gentle Consort. I crive the men of Erin the sureties of the sun and the moon, that any one destroying her now or again, shall not live nor last if I survive." Then Fergus MacRoy, Couall Cearnach, and the heroes rose up and said, " King, right is thy judgment. Let it be thy will that is done." Cathbad named the child, " D^irdre," which is taken to mean " alarm," and until she was seven years old, she was brought up with the other children of Emania, amongst whom were the three sons of Usnach, the Kind's first cousins. She was then placed in a dwelling apart with the windows opening out at the back on a fair orchard and garden, with a stream of pure water purling softly through it. The windows on the front were closed up, and she no longer saw the grassy lawn, and the champions' field, and the heroes at their feats of activity. Laverc^n, the gossiper (ban- cainte), her tutor, and hernurse were the only persons allowed to see Deirdre. " Daughter," said LavercS.n, " you have not seen the boys on the green of Emania since you were seven years old, and that is now seven years ago." " Seven bitter years," said Deirdro, '•' since I beheld the delight of the green and the playing of the boys, and surely, too, Naoisi [Neeshe] surpassed all the youth of Emania." "Naoisi, the son of Usnach," sjaid Lavercan, " Naoisi, is his name, as he told me," said Deirdre, " but I did not ask whose son he was." "As he told you ? " said LavercS-n. " As he told me," said Deirdre, " when he made a throw of a ball by a mis-cast backward, transversely over the heads of the band of maidens that were standing on the edge of the green, and I rose from amongst them all, till I lifted the ball and delivered it to him, and he pressed my hand joyously." " He pressed your hand, girl ? " asked Lavercan. ' He pressed it lovingly, and said that he would see me again, but it was difficult for him, and I did not see him since until yesterday, and, oh ! gentle nurse, if you wish me, if you wish me to be alive, take a message from me to him, and tell him to come and visit me, and talk to me to- night secretly." As became a true Knight of the Red Branch, Naoisi, with the brown-black hair and the skin as white as snow, did not fail to appear at the trysting hour. Accompanied by his brothers, Ainle and Ardtln, and 150 champions, he 68 EARLY nUSH HISTORY. eloped with D(^'ii'dro to Alba, where they were hospitably received by the King. Cormac was filled with fury and what the bards call jealousy, and meditated revenge. He induced Naoisi and his brothers to return to Emania on the guarantee of Fergus MacRoy, Cormac Conlingeas, his own son, and Dubthac Dael Ulad, who pledged themselves that no harm should befall them. Deirdrc warned them, but in vain, not to return, and not to trust the king. On their arrival the three sons of Usnach were treacherously slain by Cormac's order. At their burial Deirdre went to the tomb and dis- hevelled her hair, and sang the lays of lamentation — That I should live after Naosi Let no man on earth imagine. Oh, man that diggest the tomb, And that puUest my darhng from me. Make not the grave too narrow, I shall be beside the noble ones. The most pathetic of the lays, and the most beautiful lyric in Gaelic, perhaps in any language, is her farewell to Alba. In unstudied tenderness and delicacy it cannot be surpassed, D^irdre's pity for the sorrow of the other love, the Jarl's daughter, touches a very deep chord in the human heart, and is, so far as we know, unique in literature. DEIRDRE'S FAREWELL TO ALBA. SCpAiib foip 50 liAlt)Ain UAim, ITlAit f At)Af\c A cuAU 'f A glenn ; tTlutt mt)io"6 mic tlifnig a^ feitj; Aeit)inn fufOe Op leipg a benn. II. La "d^ f-Ait> tTJAite AlbAn a^ 01, If mic llr"i5 'O'^r ^^ir cin, X)'in5in lAflA "Oun^ U|\eOin "Oo tuc tl^eife pOg ^au pif. III. "Oo Cuip Cuice eilit) X)Aet As AllA\t), If lAeg f e A coif ; If "oo gAt) f 6 6uice Aijx cuAifC, XNj fillAt) 6 ftwAg Intiet^ tloif. DEIRDRE. 69 IV. tY\A\\ "DO CuAlxit) tnife fin tin^p mo Cinn Iau von ex), Cui|\iof mo CufiC^n Aifv cuinn, 'S bA cumA tiom t)^f n6 65. tenAT)A|\ mife Aip a cfn-drh /Ainnle ip >ApT)t^' Cau bp^j, "Oo piLletDAX]! me a fce^C "Oif -DO Cuipp^t) CAt Aiit CSu-D. vi. "Oo cue n^eif e bpu^t^iit pip 'S "oo IU15 po cpi 1 ppiA-Cnuip x\pm X]a6 ccuipp^t) OfimpA 5|iu Farewell eastward to Alba from me, Goodly the sight of her havens and glens, When the sons of Usnach used to be himtino-. Delightful to sit on the slopes of her hills. "^ II. One day when Alba's chiefs were feasting, And Usnach's sons to whom love was fittmo-, To the daughter of the Jarl of Dun Trene, °' Naoise gave a kiss " unknowust." "This text is from Iriscbe Texte, 2nd Series, p. 116 (Stokes). Our translation 18 based on the translation there, but we have made some changca for which that eminent scholar is not responsible. 70 EARLY iniSH niSTORY. III. Ho sent her a frisking doe, A hind with a fawn at her feet. And he went to her on a visit, Coming back from the hosting at Inverness. IV. When I heard that myrelf My head filled full of jealousy ; I shoved my little boat out on the waves. All equal to me was death (from grief) or drowning They followed me out swimming, i Ainle and Ardan, who never lied, ] [They spoke comfortable words about Naoise, and pacified her.] > They turned me homewards, I The twain that would fight a hundred. j VI. Naoise pledged a true word, ' Thrice he swore before sword and spear (.\fim) ■: That he would never cause me grief ; Until he went from me on the hosting of the dead. [ VII. Ochone ! if she heard to-night < That Naoise was in his shroud in the clay She would weep unceasingly, t| And I should Avoep sevenfold with her. J What wonder if there is love within me. For the land of Alba where the way (of life) is smooth. Safe was my husband within it. Its steeds and its gold were mine. D^irdre, according to our text, after singing the lays of lamentation, leaped into the grave on Naoise's neck and died forthwith. And she was buried with the sons of Usnach, and their flagstone was raised over their grave, and their names were written in Ogham, and their lamentation rites were celebrated. Thus far the tragic tale of the sons of Usnach. DEIRPRE. 71 The greatest insult that could be offered to a Gaelic cham- pion was to violate his guarantee. Fergus and Cormac Conlingeas, with their followers, rose up against the King and burned Emania. They were, however, afterwards defeated and compelled to fly to Connact, where they were welcomed by Meve and Oilioll.^^ Then commenced the long war between Concobar of Ulster and Meve of Connact, in which she was aided by chieftains and champions from all the provinces of Erin. The events of this war form the subject matter of a cycle of Sagas, commonly known as the Red Branch Cycle, in which we follow the fortunes of the bravest of the Gael, Cuchulainn. Setna killed Rolecthaid at Rathcruachain whilst he was under the guaran* toe of Feacha. Four years were reigned by Setna the Tall, Fell the King by his great son [Feacha], Forgave not the son the dreadful deed To his father his being outraged. — G. Coemain Erin Ard. " Fergus sings in the Tain : lp me ruifiT^lAim n. ^ See c. 20 iiifra. CUCHULAINN. 83 When we were with Scathach Together we used to practice, Together we went to every battle, Thou wert ray heart companion, Thou wert my tribe, thou wert my family. One dearer found I never ; Woeful would be tliy destruction, Art thou not bought with divers arms, A purple girdle and skin-protecting armour ; The maiden for whom thou makest battle Shall not be thine, O son of Deman ; Finnabhair the daughter of Meve, Though it be for the comeliness of her figure ; The maiden though fair her form, Shall not be given to thee first to enjoy ; Finnabhair the daughter of the King The reward which has been proffered to thee To numbers before thee has been falsely promised. And many like thee has she brought to ruin. " Too long have we remained tliis way now," said Ferdiad, "and what arms shall we resort to to-day ?" "Thine is the choice of arms to-day," said Cuchulainn, " for thou was first at the ford." They fought with massive weapons till mid-day. The shooting was excellent, but so good was the defence that neither reddened the other. From noon to eve-tide they fought with straight, hardened spears, with flaxen strings to them, and each of them wounded the other in that time. They ceased, they put away their arms, and each of them approached the other put his hands around his antagonist's neck and kissed him thrice. Their horses were in the same paddock that night and their charioteers at the same fire. Of every healing herb that was put to the wounds of Cu he would send an equal portion over the ford westward to Ferdiad. Of each kind of palatable and pleasant intoxicat- ing drink that was sent by the men of Erin to Ferdiad he would send a fair moiety over the ford northward to Cuchulainn. Next day Cuchulainn was first at the ford, and had the choice of weapons. " Let us fight from our chariots to-day," said Ferdiad. The wounds inflicted were so severe that the 84 EARLV IRISn HISTORY leeches could only apply wizardry and incantations and charms to staunch the bleeding. The combatants embraced and kissed each other thrice, as before, and their horses were in the same paddock, and their charioteers at the same fire that night. The third day they fought with swords. At eventide the separation was mournful. They did not embrace each other. Their horses were not in the same paddock, nor their charioteers at the same fire that night. On the morning of the fourth day each knew that one or both of them should fall. Cuchulainn spoke to Laeg, his charioteer, and said, " Laeg, if it be that I shall begin to yield this day, thou art to excite and reproach me so that the ire of my rage shall grow more upon me. If it be that I prevail then praise me that my courage may be the greater." " It shall be done, indeed," said Laeg. Cuchulainn chose the Ford Feat, in which he was used to destroy every champion that came against him. Great were the deeds done this day by " the tivo beloved pillars of the valour of the Gael." -^ After the fight had raged furiously for several hours Cuchulainn began to flag. Then Laeg interposed with taunts and insult- ing words, but, nevertheless, Ferdiad, in an unguarded moment, got in a home-thrust with his straight-edged sword. Cuchulainn then shouted to Laeg for the Gae Bolga. " The manner of that was this : it used to be set down the stream and cast from between the toes. It made the wound of one spear on entering the body, but it had thirty barbs to open inside." Cuchulainn caught this weapon as it floated down the stream between his toes, and made an unerring cast of it at Ferdiad. " That is enough, now, indeed," said Ferdiad. i' I fall of that." Cuchulainn ran towards him, and clasped him in his arms, and carried him to the north side of the ford ; and he laid him down there, and a faintness came over him. "Arise," said Laeg, "the men of Erin are approaching." " What availeth me to arise now," said Cuchulainn, "since Ferdiad has fallen by me ?" Up to this point, treating the expedition purely as an 21 Ferdiad and Cuchulainu are styled Gael ("Oa AticAiji -oil SAfcit) S^e-OAt), two beloved pillars of the valour of the Gael CUCHULAINK-. 85 invasion, it was one of the usual raiding cow-lifting forays which would come under the denomination of a Tain-bo. Upon this was in after time engrafted the absurd legend of a bull-lifting expedition and a battle between the "Brown" of Cuailgne and the " Whitehorn " of Connacht. The men of Erin carry off the " Brown," but are overtaken by the men of Ulster, near Clara, in Westmeath, and a battle is fought at Gairich and Ilgairich, in which the men of Erin are defeated, but succeed in carrying off the "Brown" to Cruachan. A battle then ensues between the Bulls, and the "Brown" is victorious and returns to Cuailgne, where his heart bursts with the bellowings he thunders forth to announce and celebrate his triumph ! — an anti-climax, truly, as Hyde observes, A few years later came the revanche. Meve again invaded Ulster, and a great battle was fought on the plains of Murth- eimne. Cuchulainn fell mortally wounded. When he found that his death was nigh he bound himself with his breast- girdle to a pillar-stone that he might not die seated or lying down. And thus standing up, fully armed, and facing the foe in the bloom of early manhood, passed away the bravest hero of the Gael. Some will have it that he was not of the Gael at all but a mythological person — a solar hero. Nutt, in his very interesting and popular story on mythology, entitled " Cuchu- lainn the Irish Achilles," says " Miss Hull has summarised so admirably the argument for the mythical nature of Cuchulainn that I need not apologise for borrowing her words." The sum- mary is too long to be inserted here. It consists in the enumeration of feats which no human being could have per- formed, because they were impossible. Nutt adds " racial and historical elements have been added to the myth." We think on the contrary that mythical elements have been added to historical ones in this as in many other cases for poetical adornment, or if you prefer it for the amusement of the uncritical in a credulous age. Nor has Meve herself escaped the searchlight of the solar critics. Our texts persistently assert that she was very ambitious, as she was very compre- hensive, in her views as to her rights in the matter of what is called "her allowance of husbands." drefCuTcfe-o met)t)4). We were, therefore, not a little curious to ascertain what B6 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. place could be assigned to her in the solar mythology, and we felt considerably relieved when the " mythologists,'' professing a confidence which we do not share, announced to the world the startling discovery that she was a Dawn Maiden ! 22 2= The Four Masters do not pive any account of the Tain. Prohnbly they recrarded it as a provincial war between Connact and Ulster, and not properly within the scope of the Annals of the Kingdom, i.e.. of the Hipli Kingfhhip. It is some- times stated that tliey do not even mention Cuchiilainn. This is not so. Under a.d. 1197. recording the death of Flaherty O'Muldory, lord of Ciuel Conall, Owen and Oriel, they say "he was a Conall in heroism, a Cuchulainn in valour, and a Guaire ia hospitality." [ 87 ] CHAPTER VII. Finn mac Cumhail. THE most celebrated event after the Tain, before the birth of Christ, was the Togail, or destruction of the Hostel of Da Derga and the murder of Conaire the Great. In the time of the Red Branch Knights there were six principal hostels in Erin, each situated at the meeting of four roads, and comfortably endowed with lands sufficient to enable them to extend gratuitous entertainment to the King, his officers, and other wayfarers. Da Derga's Hostel was situated at Donnybrook, where Bohernabruidne, the road from the thrushes' glen (Glennasmoil), runs by the Dodder to the mouth of the Liftey, and crosses the Slighe Cualan, which ran from Dublin to Bray. A mound was levelled here in 1879, in which were found large quantities of human bones flung in heaps, as might be expected in the case of a hurried inter- ment after a battle or massacre. This is supposed by Ferguson^ and Joyce- to represent the site of the hostel. Conaire had reigned for twenty years at the time of his murder (40 B.C.) during which time there were great bounties, to wit : " Seven ships in every June arriving at Inver Colpa and oak mast up to the knees in every autumn, and plenty of fish in the Bush and the Boyne every June, and such abund- ance of good will that no one slew another in Erin during his reign. And to every one in Erin his fellow's voice seemed as sweet as the strings of a lute. From mid-spring to mid- autumn no wind disturbed a cow's tail. His reign was neither thunderous nor stormy." We take the extract from a very old Gaelic tale, the Bruden da Derga^ of great pathos and beauty, which has been translated by Whitley Stokes, our greatest Gaelic scholar, with his usual admirable felicity. The reavers who killed the King were a band of outlaws, led by hia 1 FerguBon has treated the subject in a spirited poem, Conary, which is greatly admired by such a competent judge as Yates, *' The best Irish poem of any kind." 2 Joyce, Soc. Ir. II., 172. ' Bruden da Derga (Stokes) Re.-. Celt., xxii., 18, 88 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. foster brothers, the great grandsons of Donn Desa, the champion. The King, though they were ''his brethren by the tie of fosterage, for crimes that justly had demanded death, by judgment mild sent them into banishment." After their banishment they made league with Ingcel, son of the King of Man, an outlaw like themselves, and in a marauding expedi- tion for plunder in Bregia camo upon the track of the King, and followed him to the Hostel of Da Derga, which they stormed, and there killed him. It was probably the golden age we have described that induced some writers to place the birth of Christ in the reign of Conaire Mor. Others go further back, to the reign of Fachtna Fathac. Keating places it in the twelfth year, and the Four Masters in the eighth year of the reign of Chrim- thann Nia Nair (a.m. 5,200). So we look in vain for the certainty Tighernach is supposed to have found after the time of Cimbaeth. Crimthann went on a famous expedition, and wrote, as the legend goes, a poem of seventy-two lines about it. It commences : " It was a good thing that I went on that delightful adventure."* He was accompanied by his fairy lover (tenne^n fi-oe) named Nair, whence he was called Nair's hero (Hia-o). He brought back to his dun, on the Hill of Howth, many things rare and valuable. We can only mention a gilt chariot, a golden chessboard, inlaid with a hundred transparent gems, the Cedach Crimthain, a beautiful cloak, embroidered with gold, and two hounds, with a silver chain between them which was worth a hundred cumhals. The war of the Tain was followed by the rising of the Firvolce. This revolt should rather, perhaps, be considered as part of the struggle. The accounts that have reached us are confused. The Four Masters speak of two risings, owing probably, as frequently occurs, to the existence of two accounts of the same series of events.^ We shall assume that there was only one rising, followed by an intermittent struggle — a rising of the Firvolce, aided certainly by the Clanna Rury, and not improbably by other foes of the Eremonians. The leader of the revolution was Cairbre Cinnceat.'' He was, *n\<\ -oo cot) A CAcctiA n-An. — rortunate I went on that journey. ^ Tighernach has only one entry — " Cairpri Cindcait, 5 years till he died." ^CAifipiie Cinn ceAC, CAitipjte cenn Cac 11^156 &\\ if caz fo Ait e T bA cenii fOjit*" e. — Irische Text, Vol. Ill, 386. FINN MAC CUMHIIL. 89 the Coir anmann tells us, "called CinnCeat, that is head of tho Cat-raige, since it was they reared him, and he was head! over them." Others say that he was of the Luaigni of Tara, and that his genealogical origin was of the Fifvolce, whereof the Poet said : Cairbre of the Firvolce without treachery, The warrior of the Luaigni of Tara, The name of his mastership without doubt He got from the Cathraigi of Connact. Another account was that the shape of a cat was on his shield, and Eocaid Ua Floinn said ho was with two cats' ears, and a cat's fur between them. There were no cats, tame or wild, in Erin at the time of this Revolution,'^ and the men of Erin nov/adays, whether friends or foes, would not be likely to call a popular leader a kangaroo. There is a legend written in the Book of Leinster, in very old Gaelic, commencing : " Who were the three persons who spake immediately after their birth, and what did they say 1 Morann was the son of Cairpri Cind- cait. It was from this he was called it, because by this Cairpri were killed the ' soerclann that were in Erin, for he was of the Aiteach Tuatha of Erin, and he took the Kingsliip of Erin by force, and 'twas bad in his reign, for there used to be only one grain on every ear, and one berry on the head of every stalk, and one acorn on the top of the oak in his time."8 This, we think, must mean that he was called the head of the CtiACA CAC, because he was the successful leader of the re- bellion of the Firvolce. The " Cath," or Cathraige were, as we have mentioned in our first chapter, a numerous people extend- ing from Inis-Scattery (hiif C^cp.Mge),'' in the mouth of the 7 Hamilton, E. The Wild Cat of Europe, 76 (1896). *inot(Ann, iinmotio, triAc CAiiippe cetro c.\ic i^ Tje t^o lAbjiAfCAti [retje .i. fio rriAtibcA leif in] Co|iptie hy\\\r\ cec f oeti clAntro |io boi in h-Bfin, &\\ bd ■oi AcectuACAib b-et^enn X)o, ocuf \^o jAb t^ije iia b-Cnenn aji ecen ocuf ttop olc A t^'Se &v "' t)i-o Acc oen jt'^^'Tie i cin-o cecA T)epi -j oen -oiticu a ccirnD iia cuflen-oe -\ oen -oiiicu im nniltAc nA ■OAfiAc m a -pe. — L.L., p. 126b. N.B. — The words in brackets are omitted through inadvertence in the lithograph facsimile of the Book of Leinster, which makes the passage there unintelUgible. "Scattcry Inis is always written Inif Cacais ; but in the spoken Ian- ffuage was, no doubt, called Innif CACtiAije, ex quo, Scattery. "The Western Isles, were variously called £i/eanna Bride, Hebrid, etc., and anciently ' Iniscead,' ' innis Cat,' Isle of the Cat, Isle of the Catey. Probably the Catey were the people who gave the name ' cataibh,' cat county, to Sutherland, and Cat-inis, Cat-Ness, Caithness." — A. Carmichael, Carmena Gaedelica, Vol. I., Introduction, p. I. 90 EARLY rRlSn HISTORY. Shannon to the Hebrides, Intit"^ caz, and thence northwards to Caithness The word Cathraige is not in any way connected with Aitheach Tuatha, as is sometimes assumed. The word " athi " is glossed " usura," and is defined by Atkinson in his valuable glossary to the Brehon Law Tracts, to mean " a return for anything, retribution." So in the common phrase, d'aithe^t indligid air" to avenge his illegality on him.^*' We suggest that the Aitheach Tuatha were the tribes who, after their defeat^ wft^e made subject to a punitive rent, or tribute, and thus dis- tinguished from " SaoT Clanna," who were free from it. The rising began with a massacre, it is said, which was treacherously planned and carried out at a banquet. Accord- ino- to some accounts an arrangement was come to by which an Eremonian became High King, and Morann, the son of Cairbre, Chief Justice. This was at the instance of the " very intelli- gent " Morann, who sent to Alba the celebrated Udhact or Will, for that purpose. He had a sin, or chain, called idh Morainn which was a most useful adjunct in the administra- tion of justice, the loss of which is to be deeply regretted. When placed round the neck of a judge it almost choked him if he was about to deliver a wrong judgment. It was equally efficient when placed around the neck of a witness who was about to give false evidence. Finally Elim, of the Clanna Rury, became High King, and reigned for 20 years at Tara. In the meantime the legend tells us three of the nobles had escaped from the first massacre at Magh Cro, near Knockma, in Galway, all being then infants in their mother's womb, to wit — Feradach, from whom des- cended the race of Conn of the Hundred Battles ; Tibraide Tirech, from whom descended the Dal-araide, and Corb Olum, from whom descended the kings of the Eoghanacht in Munster ; and from a second supposed massacre at Magh Bolg, in Cavan ; escaped also Tuathal, in the womb of Eithne, daughter of the king of Alba. In a.d. 76 Tuathal, called Teachtmar, or the legitimate, having arrived at man's estate, returned and fought for Tara a battle at Aicill, in which Elim was defeated and 1" Feredach proceeded to extirpate the Aitheach Tuatha, or to put them under great rent and servitude, to revenge upon them the evil deed they haij done in murdering the nobility of Eren." — O'Clerigh, Leabhar Gabhala, p. 136, quoted by O'Donovan, F.M., I., 'JG. FINN MAC CUM HAIL. 91 slain. The Four Masters state that during the time of Elim " God took vengeance on the Aitheach Tuatha for their evil deed. Erin was without corn, without fruit, without fish, without everything that was good." Tuathal took possession of Tara and became High King and reigned for thirty years. He exacted from the chiefs of the Gael the same oath they had taken to Ugaine Mor. They swore by the sun and the moon, and the elements visible and invisible, that as long as the sna surrounded Erin they would never contest the sovereignty with him or his descendants. He fought many battles, some say 138, against the Aitheach Tuatha, and re-established and enlarged the boundaries of the " boardland " attached to Tara. Roughly speaking, it extended from Birr to L. Boderg, on the Shannon, to the north, and then eastwards from these points to the sea.^^ On Leinster he imposed the tribute known as the boroma (or cow-tax). The particulars of this tax are variously stated, but all accounts agree in representing it as oppressive. The most moderate is to be found in the " duan," attributed to Adamnan, when the tax was re- mitted at the prayer of St. Moling, by Finnachta Fleadhach (673-693). " Finachta, Donncadh's son, remitted at Moling's prayer a mighty tribute- Thrice fifty hundred kine, with spancels, and with each cow her calf was given." ^'^ The amount appears quite incredible when we consider that Leinster did not then include East Meath, Westmeath, Louth, or Longford, and only the southern parts of Dublin and the King's County. Not- withstanding this remission it was afterwards claimed, and Brian, who fell at Clontarf {1014 a.d.), has left a name con- nected with the levying of this odious impost. Innumerable battles were fought on the head of the boroma for nearly 1,000 years, and it is stated that the High King shared the proceeds of the tax with Connact, Munster, and Oirghiall, possibly only when they joined in the hosting to lift the boroma. The rest of Erin was as it were in league against unfortunate " For an interesting examination in detail of the names and particulars of Meath and the boardland. as given by Keating, see " TJepAnceAct) nA mi-oe." — Gaelic Journal, Nov. 1900. ^2 Keating (O'Mahony), p. 481. — The Ard Righ, however, had no power to remit a cow rent, so as to bind his successors. He had onlv a life estate. 92 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. Leinster, which was, consequently, driven to make alliance with the invader. A Leinster poet sings — " It is beyond the testimony of the Creator, Bej'ond the word of supplicating Christ, All the Kings of the Gael That make attack on the Leinster men." A silly story as to the orii^in of this tax is found in a mediae- val romance known as the Boroma}^ Tuathal, so the story runs, had two daughters, Fithir, the elder and Darina, the younger. Eocaidh, the son of Eocaidh Doimhlen, King of Leinster, who then resided near Lugnaquilla, in Wicklow, visited Tara, and asked the elder sister in marriage, it not being the custom to wed the younger before the elder in Erin at that time. When he took home his bride, the Leinster men told him the younger sister was better. So, after some time he went back to Tara, a day's journey only from Lugnaquilla, and said that his wife had died, and asked, and got in mar- riage, the younger sister, Darina. After Eocaidh took her home, the two sisters met, and the elder died of shame and the younger of grief. For this war was declared, and the tax imposed, and levied as an eric and a punishment. This is a type of many absurd stories to be found in Keating, the Dindsenchus, and the Coir Anmann, It is, of course, the old story of Procne and Philomela. Pandion, King of Athens, their father, gave Procne in marriage to Tereus, King of Daulis in Thrace, in return for aid rendered him in war. Tereus, how- ever, being enamoured of Philomela, feigned that Procne was dead, and induced Philomela to take her place. When the latter discovered the truth, he cut out her tongue to prevent her from revealing it, but she depicted her sad story on a robe which she sent to Procne, and both took a terrible revenge on Tereus. Procne was changed by the pitying gods into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale, and Pandion died of grief. One incident of this war of Hate connected with the Boroma may be mentioned here. In A.D. 246 (F.M.), Dunlang, son of " " Boroma," T. O. Russell, preface. Boroma is translated into modern Gaelic by T. O'Russell, and into English by W. Stokes, Rev. Celtique, vol. xiii.-23. FINN MAC CUMHAIL. 9S Enna NIadh, King of Leinster, made a raid on Tara. Then ensued the massacre of the maidens at the Cluainfearta (the western slope of) Tara. Thirty Royal maidens was the number, and ahundred maids with each of them. Twelve princes of the Leinster men did Cormac (MacArt) put to death to- gether in revenge of that massacre, together with an exaction of the Boroma, with an increase after Tuathal (F.M.) ^* After a reign of 36 years, Tuathal was slain in the battle of Moin an Catha in Dal-Araidhe, by Mai, of the Clanna Rury, King of Ulster, who, thereupon, took possession of Tara, and became High King, and reigned four years. He was suc- ceeded by Feidlimid Reachtmhar, the son of Tuathal, and on his death Cathaoir Mor, of Leinster, became High King. Cathaoir was of the line of Eremon, and was descended from Ugaine Mor, through Laoghaire Lore, in the thirtieth genera- tion. The succession was, however, contested by Conn of the Hundred Battles, son of Feidhmid Reachtmhar, who was also descended from Ugaine Mor, through Cobthach Cail Breagh, the elder brother of Laoghaire Lore. A battle was fought between the rival claimants at Magh Agha, or Tailtin, in which Cathaoir Mor was defeated and slain, and Conn became High King. On the day of his birth, say our texts, five roads were " discovered " leading from Tara. The Slighe Midluachra, to the north, probably towards the Moyry Pass ; the Slighe Cualann, to the south-east, towards Dublin and Bray ; the Slighe Dala, to the south-west, towards Ossory ; the Slighe Assail, to the west towards Mullingar ; and the Slighe Mor, westwards, also by the Eiscir Riada, to Gal- way. Conn was thus provided with highways to advance on every side within striking distance of the foe. One hundred fights in Mumha wide, Conn Cead Catha, the just, liad fought. One hundred 'gainst the Ulla brave, And sixty fights 'gainst Laighen's sons. At the accession of Conn (A.D, 123) there were three divi- sions of the Gael in Munster — the Eberiaus (Dergthine), repre- sented by Mogh Niad, the ruling king, who was the father of " One is reminded of the massacre of the school children in Boeotia during the Peloponesian war recorded by Thucydides, which filled all Greece with horror and indignation. 94 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. Eogan Mor the first, also called Mogh Nuadat ; the Ithians (Darini), reprosonted by Mac Niad, the father of Liigaid mac Conn ; and the Erneans, au Ercmonian offshoot from Ulster, represented by Mogh Lamha and his son Conaire. Between these divisions there was sometimes peace, but more fre- quently war. An arrangement come to there between the Eberians and the Ithians at one time deserves notice. When the kingship was with one division then the Brehonship and the Tanistship was with the other m alternate succession, so that on the death of Mogh Niad, the Eberian king, the Ithian Lugaid mac Conn, the son of Mac Niad, would be entitled to succeed him as king of Munster.^^ When the sovereignty was divided the Eberians held South lilunster, the Degadians North Munster. Curigh mac Dara was king of the Degadians or Erneans. Mogh Lamha and Con- aire. Conn's son-in-law, afterwards succeeded to Curigh. The Darini were of the line of Lugaid, the son of Ith. Eogan Mor had been fostered by Dari Barrach, the son of Cathaoir Mor, and with his aid he engaged in a struggle with Conn, which lasted many years, and having worsted him in ten battles, they agreed to divide Erin between them, as we have already stated, and though Eogan was routed and slain at Magh Leana the Eberians from that time forth obtained the dominant power in Munster. ^^ Eogan Mor left one son, Olioll Olum. Conn had three sons, and also three daughters,'each of whom became the wife or the mother of a H igh King. The eldest Main was married to Fiacaid of Ulster. Her son Fergus Dubh- dedach became Ard Righ. Conn's second daughter Saraid mar- ried Conaire. He became High King. His third daughter Sadb (Sive) married, first, Mac Niad the Ithian, and her son Lugaid "The Eberian line at this time ran thus- (1) Dergthine ; (2) Derg ; (3) Mogh Niad ; (4) Eogan Mor I. or Mogh Nuadath . (.5) Oiioll 01am ; (0] Eogan Mor II. Fiacha Ferraara of the Hue of Ereaion, son of Aengus Tuir- mech (Arc! Kigh, 384 B.C.I had a son Ohld Eraun. His descendants were c.illed Erneatis, though (juite disiinet from the Mrvolcie tribe of that name. These afterwards took tlie name of Dal Fiatach in Ulster, and a branch of them tliat settled in Munster took the name of Clanna Uegaid. The latter had been driven from Ulster by the Clanna llury when Duach was Ard Righ. Duach, of the hne of Eber, was the foster son of Degaid (the grandson of Olild Eian'n), who was the chief of the Dal Fiatach. When they v.'cre expelled Duacn save them lands in Munster and Degaid became king of Munster on Duach's death and his clan were thenceforth called the Clanna Degaid. " An. Clomnac, Murphy, S. J., oS. Flis^N MAC CUMHAIL, 95 mac Conn became High King. On Mac Niad's death Sadb mar- ried Olioll Olum, She bore him nine sons, of whom we need only mention three — Eogan Moi, Cormac Cas, and Cian, The position of the Eberians in Munster was strengthened and secured by the marriage of OUoll with Conn's daughter, '' by which means they {i.e., the Eberiaus in Munster) have gotten themselves that selected and choice name much used by the Irish poets at the time of their commendations and praises, Sit Sai-oG, which is as much in English as the issue of Sadb '' After the battle of Magh Leana, Conn, having slain or van- quished his enemies, reigned peaceablvand quietly, with great increase and plenty of all good things amongst his subjects throughout the kingdom, so that all in general had no wants until the king's brothers sent privy message to Tibraide Tireach, son of Mai, who was slain by Conn's father, whereupon Tibraide, with a willing heart, came up to Tara accompanied with certain other malefactors, assaulted the king unawares, and wilfully killed him in the hundredth year of his age as he was making preparations towards the great feast of Tara (A.D. 173). He was succeeded by his son-in-law Conaire, who, after reigning eight years, was slain by Neimid king of the Erneans of Munster. Saraid had borne Conaire three sons, the three Cairbres — Cairbre Muse, Cairbre Baoiscaein, and Cairbre Riada. Conn, Art, Conn la, Crina, three sons and Main = Piacaid, Saraid = Conaire, Sadb = (1st) Mac Niad, three daughters Cairbre Muse, Lugaid mac Conn, Cairbre Baoiscaein, Sadb = (2nd) Olioll Olura Cairbre Iliada i I Eogan Mor, Cormac Cas, Cian, Fiacaid Maoil-lethan I Tadg, ex quo Dal Cag, O'Carrolls of Ely. O'Moaohers of Ilcerron, (J'Catliasaigh of Magh Breagh. O'Connors of Glengi^^en. Barony of Keenaght, Olioll Olum left the kingship of Munster to Cormac Cas, and on his death to Fiacha Maoil-lethan, and then to their descendants in alternate rule. The Dalriada of North Antrim 96 EARLY IRISH HISTORY and of Scotland, descended from Cairbre Riada. i.e , Uio^ 1(^ax)a, of the long forearm. Bede says • — " The Scot or Gael under the leadcirship of Reuda, proceeding from Hibernia, by the sword or amicably, won for themselves a settlement amongst the Picts.' A. second settlement of the Dalriada was made under the sons of Ere three hundred years afterwards. Argyle is = Airer Gaeidheal — the district of the Gael, or Airthear Gaedhil, the Eastern Gael, which we prefer, A place may be found here for saying something about the genealogy of the Gael, on which Hyde has a valuable and in- teresting chapter in the "Literature " These pedigrees of the Gael go back to one or other of the four sponymi — the uncle, the two brothers, or the nephew The pedigrees of the Ithians seem to meet m Lugaid mac Conn, the grandson of Conn, his mother being Sadb. The Eberians converge on Oholl Glum and spring from Eogan Mor, Cormac Cas, and Cian, the grandsons also of Conn, their mother being Sadb. In the line of Eremon are found pedigrees which meet con- siderably before, the Birth of Christ. The Dalriada of Alba jom the O'Neills as much as 430 years B.C., and the O'Cave- naghs in a more remote period m the reign of Ugaine Mor (630 B.C.). The main points of convergence, however, are in Cairbre of the LifFey (258 A.D.) the great grandson of Conn, and Niall of the Nine Hostages (879 A.D.) seventh in descent from Conn. The Irians converge on Conall Cearnach and Fergus Mac Roigh, the heroes of the Red Branch, and were generally called the Clanna Rury, from Ruidhraighe, who was Ard Righ 288 B.C. Subject to reservations for interpolations and such like infirmities in individual cases these pedigrees may be taken as fairly authentic from the points of convergence indicated." The truth or falsehood of these pedigrees is, however, of little importance in comparison to the evil they did in con- junction with other causes in keeping the people divided into four clans or factions, attached to each of which were numerous sub-divisions. The Gael remained a clansman when he ought to have been a patriot, and Erin continued to be a " trembling '" See Hyde, " Literature," p. 60. FINN MAC CUMHAIL. 97 sod" when it ought to have become a homogeneous and har- monious nation. Of the three sons of Conn, Connla and Crinna were murdered by their uncles, Eocaid Finn and Fiacaid Luighde ; and Art, known as Aenfer [the Single One (left)], succeeded his father as High King. In the twenty-first year of his reign (186) a great battle was fought at Ceannfeabhrat, near Kilmallock, in Lime- rick, between the Eremonians of Munster on the one side, and the Darini (Ithian) and the Erneans on the other. The three Cairbres and the sons of Olioll Olum led the former against Neimid, son of Srobceann, King of the Erneans, and Lugaid mac Conn, chief, and Dadera, wizard, of the Darini.^^ The Eremonians were victorious. Eogan, the son of Olioll, slew Dadera the wizard. Cairbre Riogfada slew Neimid in revenge for his father, and Cairbre Muse wounded Lugaid mac Conn in the thigh, so that he was lame ever afterwards. Lugaid fled with his friends to Britain, and aided by the King of Britain in the year 195 a.d. returned to Erin to claim the High Kingship. He landed in Galway, and a fierce battle was fought at Magh Mucrirmhe, near Athenry, about twelve miles east of Galway. Victory declared for Lugaid. Art Aenfer was slain by Lugaid Laga, and seven of the sons of Olioll Olum fell fighting. Lugaid then marched to Tara and took possession of the High Kingship, which he held for thirty years, when he fell by the spear of an assassin. Towards the close of his reign Cormac mac Art, the grand- son of Conn, disputed his right and drove him from Tara. On the death of Lugaid mac Conn, he was succeeded by Fergus " of the Black Teeth" (226). Cormac then fought a decisive battle at Crinna, near Stackailen Bridge, on the Boyne. Fer- gus and his two brothers, Fergus the Long-haired and Fergus the Fiery of the Crooked Teeth, fell by the hand of the re- nowned champion Lugaid Laga, the brother of Olioll Olum. Cormac was also assisted by the forces of Tadg, the son of Cian, the son of Olioll Olum, who then ruled in Ely. Cormac rewarded the followers of Tadg (the Cianachta) with the fertile lands lying between the Liffey and Dromiskin in Louth. He reigned for forty years and fought as many battles " The Four Masters have ■ojiai "OAtnne, the druid or wizard of the Darini. Tighernach has -otioch X)4ijine, Darini's buffoon. Stokes, Rev. Celt., xvii. i. H 98 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. as his grandfather Conn, in Ulster, Connacht, Munster, and Leinster. Tigbcrnach mentions " the great fleet of Cormac, son of Art, over the sea plain for the space of three years." So we may infer that his warlike operations were not confined to his own country.^^ A celebrated event of this time was the blinding of Cormac by Aengus Gaibuaibteach. The oldest version of the story is to be read in the introduction to the Book of Aicill. Cellach, the king's son, had abducted the daughter of Sorar, who was a kinsman of Aengus. Aengus went afterwards as champion of his territory to avenge a tribal wrong into Luighne, Sligo. He entered a woman's house there and drank the milk in spite of her. " 'Twould be fitter for you," said she, " to avenge the daughter of Sorar your kins- man on Cellach than to take my victuals by force." No book mentions that he did any harm to the woman, but he fared forth to Tara, which he reached after sunset. Now it was a " geis " to bring a warrior's arms into Tara after sunset in addition to the arms in it. So Aengus took the ornamental spear of Cormac down from the rack and made a stroke of it at Cellach and killed him. And the edge of it grazed one of Cormac's eyes and destroyed it. Now it was a " geis " for a king with a blemish to be at Tara, so Cormac was sent to Aicill, hard by, to be cured, and the kingship was given to his son Cairbre-Liflfechair, and in every difficult case he used to go to consult Cormac, and Cormac used to say, " My son, that thou mayest know," and explain the exemptions. In this way, it is said, the Book of Aicill on crimes and torts was mainly com- posed, to which we shall refer hereafter, as well as to his court at Tara. Legend also says that he composed for the instruc- tion of Cairbre the " Teaching of a King " (Ce^s^vfj Uioj), " which book contains as goodly precepts and moral documents IS Aristotle and Cato did ever write." The instruction is by way of question and answer. For instance, Cairbre asks him, " O grandson of Conn, how shall I distinguish the character 19 The migrations and out settlements of the Gael in Erin in Christian times are very remarkable. The descendants of Cian, the third son of Olioll Olum, for instance, occupied Ely (South King's County and North Tipperary) ; Ciannachta Breagh, above-mentioned ; the tribeland of the O'Conor's at Gfea- given in Londonderry ; the two Galengas in Meatb and Connacht ; and the two Luighnes — Lune in Meatb and Layny in Sligo. FINN MAC CTJMHAIL. 99 of women ? " * '•' I know them," answers Cormac, " But I cannot describe them. Their counsel is foolish, they are forgetful of love, most headstrong in their desires, fond of folly, prone to enter rashly into engagements, given to swearing, proud to be asked in marriage, tenacious of enmity, cheerless at the banquet, rejectors of reconciliation, prone to strife, of much garrulity. Until evil be good, until hell be heaven, until the sun hides its light, until the stars of heaven fall, women will remain as we have stated. Woe to him, my son, who desires or serves a bad woman. Woe to everyone who has got a bad wife." -^ Cormac also collected, the legend says, the chroniclers of Erin at Tara, and ordered them to write the Chronicles of Erin in one book, which was called the Psaltair of Tara. In that book were written the general exploits of the kings of Erin and of the synchronous kings and emperors of the world, and of the kings of the provinces, etc. There is a Psaltair of Tara, which is referred to by Cuan Lochain (+1024') and has perished injuria ternporis, but it was not compiled in Cormac's time, as Ogham was the only writing then known and used. The year after he was wounded he died at Cleiteach, near Aicill, on the Boyne. " The bone of a salmon stuck in his throat ; or it was the elves that destroyed him after he was betrayed by Moelceann, the wizard, since Cormac did not be- lieve in him." ^^ In the time of Cormac flourished Finn MacCumhall,^^ (MacCool) the most renowned of the Gael in legend and romance with the exception of Cuchulainn. The story of Finn's parentage is told in a tale entitled " The Cause of the Battle of Cnucha." In order to give our readers an idea of the austere simplicity of its style, as well as for the interesting »> Ano. Law. III. 82. 21 Our fair readers will readily perceive that this acrid effusion proceeded from one who had no real knowledge of the " ministering aii;:el," and could not have been the teaching of a wise and experienced monarch like Cormac. We ehould attribute it to some sour old monk v,-ho had disappointments in early hfe, and was run down in condition towards the end ot Lent. 22 Tighernach, Rev. Celt., xvii.-20. 2^pAnn, genitive, peine, a noun of multitude. Fianna were bands of militia. Fennidhe was the individual Fenian, and is not connected with Finn. 100 EARLY IBI8H HISTORY. views of society it presents, we shall give it sliehtly abridged in a literal translation oi the original : — When Catliaoir Mor was in the kingship of Tara, and Conn Ccd Cathach, in Kells, in the rigdamna's laiid,^he liad a celebrated wizard, Nuada, of the Tuatha Dathi, in Bregia. The wiaard was soliciting land at Leinster, from Cathaoir, for he knew that it was in Leinster his successorship would be. Cathaoir gave him his choice of land. The laud the wizard chose was Almu (the Hill of Allen in Kildare). She that was wife to Nuada was Almu, daughter of Becan. Nuada had a distinguished son, to wit, Tadg. Rairin, daughter of Dond- duma, was his wife. A celebrated wizard also was Tadg. Death came to Nuada ; and he left his dun as it was to his son, and it is Tadg that was wizard to Cathaoir in the place of his father. Rairin bore a daughter to Tadg, i.e., Murni Muncaim (of the fair neck) her name. The maiden grew up in great beauty, so that the sons of the kings and mighty lords of Erin were wont to be courting her. Cumal, son of Trenmor, commander of the Fianna of Erin, was Conn's righthand man. He was also, like everyone else, asking for the maiden. [Tadg, the son of] Nuada, gave him a refusal, for he knew that it was on account of him (Cumal) that he would have to leave Almu. The same woman was mother to Cumal and to Conn's father, to wit, Feidlimid Rechtaide. Cumal comes, however, and takes Murni in spite of him, in elope- ment with him, since she was not given to him before. Tadg comes to Conn, and tells him how he has been outraged by Cumal, and began to stir him up, and to reproach him. Conn sends word to Cumal, and tells him to quit Erin or give the girl back to Tadg. Cumal said that he would not give her ; that he would give anything if it was not the woman. Conn sent his soldiers, and tJigrend, the King of Luaigni, and Daire Derc, and his son Aed, who was afterwards called Goll, to attack Cumal. Cumal musters his forces against them, and the battle of Cnucha is fought between them, and Ciiraal is slain in it, and his people are slaughtered. Cumal fell by Goll, the son of Morna. Luchet wo\inded Goll in the eye, so that he destroyed his eye, and hence it is that " Goll " (blind of one eye) attached to him. Goll killed Luchet. It is for that reason, moreover, that the blood feud (tich bunaid) was between the sons of Morna and Finn. Daire (Derc) liad two names, Daire and Morna. Murni went after that to Conn, since her father rejected her, and did not let her come to him because she was pregnant ; and he said to his people to burn her, and yet he dare not destroy her for fear of Conn.^. The girl was asking Conn ^ Rt^damna means royal material, the persons eligible for kingship. Here it probably means Tanist, who had a separate establishment at Kells. ''^ Hennessy cites from L.L. : — " Ba bes itossaig naeh ingen dognid bais dar fenna urnaidm do breothad." It was the custom at first to burn any woman who did lust in violation of her compact. This was the law with the Teutons also. Murni's father, in his auger, evidently thought that she was a consenting party to the abductioa. FIKN MAC CUMHAIL i ,S(J1, ■what she would do. Said Conn, " Go to Fiacal, the son of Concend, to Temair Marci, and let thy delivery be there (for Cumal's sister was Fiacal's wife)." Connla, Conn's gillie, went with her to protect her until they came to Fiacal's house. Welcome was given to her there, and 'twas a good thing she came. She was brought to bed there, and bore a son, and Demni was given as a name to him. The boy was reared by them after, until he was able to spoil everyone that was a foe to him. He then proclaimed battle or single combat against Tadg, or that full eric for his father be given to him. Tadg said he would give him an award (of judges). The award was given, and this is the award that was given to him, to wit, that Almu should be ceded to him, for ever, and Tadg to leave it. It was done so. Finn went afterwards to Almu, and lived there, and the dun was his home (arua bunaid) while he lived.^. Finn had another " dun " at Magh Ella (Moyelly), in the King's County.27 After the Gaile(5m of Leinster had been placed under tribute by Tuathal, as we have stated, the Eremonians became masters of the province. The chief families of Leinster — O'Connor Falghi, O'Cavanagh, O'Toole, O'Byrne, Mac Gilla Patrick, O'Dun, O'Dempsey, O'Dwyer, O'Ryan, and all the septs that trace their origin to them — were descended from Labraid Loingseach. The O'Nolans were descended from his brother Cobthach. All these Eremonians could not have been intro- duced without displacing and ousting the old occupiers out of most, if not all, of their territory, and this could not have been accomplished without a numerous and well organised militia. ^^FothaCatha Cnucha, Castleknock, near Dublin (LebAti tiA bui-otte, p. 47) Revue Celtique II., 86, and translation by Hennessy, which we have generally followed. ^ There are two hills in Kildare with similar names. One is Knockaillinn (Cnoc AillBAnn), so called, it is supposed, from the ail or stone, which was placed on the mound of the rath. It is five or six miles south of Newbridge, in Kildare ; is 600 feet high, and on its summit is the largest of the Irish raths. The top of the hill is surrounded by a mighty rampart of earth, 400 yards in diameter, that encloses over twenty acres. Some think it was on this hill that Finn's dun was situated. About eight or nine miles north of this, and five miles north of Kildare, is another hill — the HiU of Allen (Cnoc ^ImAine, nom. case, xMrhu or AlniA. On this hill there :ire no traces of any dun or rampart, and the top is only half an acre in extent. Both occur in a line quoted by Four Masters, A D., 904. tiAc lionipA Cuoc xMiiiAine Aguf ^illeAtin cen occa — Sorrowful to me the hills of Almhuin (Allen) and Ailleanu without soldier.^, Russell, in his interesting article on Knock Aillinn, suggests that the two hills, Ailhnn and Almhuin, got confounded at an early period. — Finn's " Dun " was known from far back times as Almhuin lliogha, lethan, mor Laighean — The kinglv. great, broad Allen of Leinster. — Russell, T. O. " Beauties and Antiiiuities of Ireiaad."— p. 118. 102,. , , _ ; ; KAJILT IRISH HISTORY. It was probably accomplished gradually and on the same con- ditions as the plantation of the Eremonians in Connacht was effected. The new settlers in Connacht, we are told in the Book of Rights, went under the same rent or tribute that was payable by their predecessors in occupation, and we have seen that Cormac, after the massacre of the maidens at Tara, exacted the " boroma " with an increase.^ This militia was called Fiann or Fianna, and it was pro- bably by their aid that Cathaoir Mor took possession of Tara and the High Kingship, In 122 B.C. Cathaoir was slain by Conn^ and Crimthann, the son of Niadcort, was placed by him in the chieftaincy of Leinster to the exclusion of the line of Cathaoir, to which Baoisgne, who then commanded the Fianna, belonged. They were called the Clanna Baoisgne, Cumhal, the grandson of Baoisgne, determined, at the head of the Fianna, to restore the race of Cathaoir to power. He formed an alliance with the men of Munster and gave battle to Conn at Cnucha, where he was slain by Goll mac Morna, commander of Fianna of Connacht — the Clanna Morna — and his army utterly routed, as the tale relates. When Finn grew up, he also, like Baoisgne and Cumhal, became commander of the Clanna Baoisgne, and «' there was strife and variance between him and Cormac." They made up their quarrel, apparently, and Cormac gave Finn his daughter Grainne in marriage, and the first part of his nuptial reign was peaceful. War, however, soon broke out between Finn and Grainne, According to the story told in an old text, " When Finn went to woo Grainne she told him she would take no bride-price from him but a pair of every wild animal in Erin, to be given to her in one drive until they were at the north of Tara." Caoilte of the Swift Foot accomplished this. Grainne then married Finn, but retained her hatred of him. She had, however, already fixed her love on Diarmuid O'Duibhne, of the curly, dusk}'- black hair, with the love spot (bAll relate) that no heart could resist. In the gloss on the ^Book of Rights. — "The Hy Maine were permitted by Duach, King of Connacht, to subdue the Firvolce, who paid the tribute of an enslaved people. The former, therefore, were obliged to pay the same tribute, though they were con3idered noble as being of the race of Conn of the Hundred Battles."— O'Z). Maini, chief of the new Plantation, was the fourth in descent from Colla da Crioch. tcAbAnnA ^coA\yz.-0' Donovan, p. 10(i. FINN MAC CUMHAIL. 103 Amra Columcille Grainne is quoted as saying, referring, no doubt, to Diarmuid : — There is a man For a long look from whom I would be thankful, For whom I would give tlie whole world, The whole, the whole, though it be deception.^ She eloped with Diarmuid, and the pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne by Finn, is the most famous and popular romance in the Ossianic cycle of our literature. The statements contained in Keating as to the organization of the Fianna of Erin are unsupported by trustworthy evidence, and are in a large part incredible. They were presumably derived from romance writers of the Ossianic cycle or from traditions which were probably derived from the same source. We find in the Egerton MS., a volume of the fifteenth century in the British museum, edited and translated by S. H. O'Grady in the "Silva," an enumeration and description of Finn's people. " Their strength was 130 warriors, each having 27 warriors, every one bound, as was the way with Cuchulainn, to conditions which were that they should not accept damages for an insult, should not refuse anyone money or food, and one man should not fly from nine foes." No eric was to be given or taken where a Fennidhe was concerned. No man was to be taken until he was a prime poet, versed in the twelve books of poetry ! No man was taken ®" Ocuf 5fAnne cecinic." \:i\, •ouine pt^if m&x> bmne temm •oiut5e|ic A|tA cibiuiTO in tiibit n'huile, n'huite, r'huite cit) -oiubenc The text edited by Dr. Stokes gives the last line thus : — " A meic rriAitie, ci-o xnubeur," which he renders : " O, Son of Mary, though it be a privation." We think the " Son of Mary," is the exclamation of a horrified monk, which crept from the margin into the text. Grainne had not heard of the " Son of Mary." Dr. Stokes rendors -Diabetic, privation. It may mean also deception or fraud. See Windisch, sub-voce. Some of the texts, e.g., that given by Kuno Meyer, have ur -oicic giiAinne -pui pionn, instead of cecinic. This must mean, we think, not said to Fionn as he renders it, but against Fionn. This is the oldest reference to Diarmuid and Grainne in our texts. The oldest text of the tale, according to M. D'Arbois, is of the date 1736. The redaction of S. H. O'Grady is partly from a text of 1780 and partly from one of 1842-3. "Amia Choluimbchille/' ed. W. Stokes, Rev. Celt., 20 p 1.56. 104 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. until in the orround a larfjc hole was made, and he was put into it with a shield and a forearm length of a hazel stick. Then nine men at nine furrows distance were to hurl at the same time two spears at him. If he was wounded he was rejected and so forth ! The man who had the Fianna with him was the seventh King of Erin. The privileges of Finn are described in another tract (cited in Oss. Soc. Trans, vol. 1, p. 43). He was entitled to a cantred in every province, a town- land in every cantred, and a house in every townland, and to have a hound reared in any house. He was entitled to quar- ter the seven battalions on the country, from Samhaim to Bealtaine (November to May), and they were to enjoy hunt- ing and fishing, and to use all ripe and edible fruits from Bealtaino to Samhain. No one was to dare to give his daughter in marriage without asking three times if there was a Fennidhe ready to marry her, and if there was to him should she be given. No person could take a salmon, a fawn, or any smaller game, even if he found them dead, unless one of the Fianna. ^° These are, as Nutt observes, " fancy pictures traced by bards whose vision of the distant past was undisturbed by any real know- ledge." ^^ Keating gives the following interesting particulars, handed down by tradition to his time (c. 1644) : — " During the whole day, that is from morning till night, they ate but one meal, of which they were wont to partake towards evening. About noon it was their custom to send whatever game they had killed in the morning by their attendants to some ap- pointed hill where there should be a convenience of wood and moorland. There they used to light immense fires, into which they put a large quantity of round sandstones. They next dug two pits in the yellow clay of the moor, and, having set part of the venison upon the spits to be roasted before the fire, they bound up the remainder with su^raus in bundles of sedge, which they placed to be cooked in one of the pits they had previously dug. There they set round them the stones that had been heated in the fire, and kept heaping them on the bundles of meat until they had made them seethe freely, and the meat had been thoroughly cooked." In the evening the Fianna used to gather round the second of the pits, " and ^''Coin'seAcc SAT)t> injcAn 6054111 CA15. — Oss. Soc, vol. i., p. 41. ^^ Ossian and the Ossianic literature, p. 35. FINN MAC CUMHAIL. 105 there every man stripped himself to his skin, tied his tunic round his waist, and then set to dressing his hair and cleansing his limbs. They then began to supple their thews and muscles by gentle exercise, loosening them by friction until they had relieved themselves from all sense of stiffness and fatigue. When they had accomplished this they sat down and ate their meal." Their beds were of brushwood, laid next to the ground, over this was laid moss, and fresh rushes were spread on top. These were the Three beddings of the Fiann, " Tri Cuillcedha na Fiann." Every Fennidhe took a military oath on his arms of valour to the ri-Feinnedh, or commander, before whom was borne to battle the standard known as " Gal greine," or sun- burst.^- Finn was assassinated by Aichleach and the sons of Uir- greann, of the Luigni of Tara, at Ath Brea, on the Boyne where he had retired in his old age to pass the remainder of his life in tranquility. It was by the aid of the Luigni, of Tara, that Conn defeated Cathaoir Mor, who was supported by the Clanna Baoisgne, and the murder of Finn was, doubtless, an incident in the blood feud which revived in all its bitterness when Cormac's daughter dishonoured and betrayed the King of the Fianna. Finn left amongst other children a daughter Sam- hair, married to Cormac Cas, King of Munster, to whom she bore Mogh Corb, his successor. This union cemented an old alliance between the Clanna Baoisgne and the men of Munster. Finn left also a son, Oisin, who succeeded him in the leader- ship of the Fianna of Leinster. They were in favour of the claims of the lineal descendants of Cathaoir Mor and opposed to the dynasty reigning in that province. Cairbre Lifi'echair becameArd Righ in A.D. 268, and supported the reigning King. In 271 he fought three battles against the men of Munster in defence of the rights of Leinster ; in 272 he fought four battles against the men of Munster in defence of the rights of Leinster. Cairbre was defending the rights of the monarch in opposition to the rival claims of the line of Cathaoir Mor, aided by the men of Munster. In the year after the death of Finn (284 A.D.) the decisive battle was fought at Gabra (Gowra), near the hill of Skreen, 32 Keating (O'Mahony), p. 346, and Oss. Soc. vols., p. 41. 106 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. which is close to Tara. Oisin commanded the Clanna Baoisgne, and the Munster men fought under their King, Mogh Corb. The allied forces took the offensive boldly. The attack was, no doubt, sudden. It was an effort to succeed by surprise, a counter-stroke in defensive warfare, which, if successful, would have made them masters of Tara and of the High Kingship. The men of Erin were led by Cairbre. It was the duty of the High King of the Gael not only to command in person, but to light in the forefront of the battle, which, no doubt, ex- plains why so many Kings perished by the sword. He was aided by the Clanna Morna, who were commanded by Aed Caem, the son oi Garaidh Glunduff, the son of GoU Mac Morna, and the last Firvolcic King of Connact. According to ona account, Cairbre and Oscar, the son of Oisin, met in single combat, tightiug on horseback, and Oscar fell to the spear ol Cairbre, who, in turn, received from Oscar a mortal wound from which he soon expired. Another version is that, return- ing victorious and wounded after the fight with Oscar, he was set on by Simeon, one of the Fotharthaigh, who had been expelled into Leinster, and despatched with a single blow. The carnage on both sides was terrible. Before the monarch fell, a poem in the Book of Leinster says, the dead were more numerous than the living on the field ; and in after times, poetic tradition had it that Oisin and Caoilte alone survived of the famous Fianna of Leinster, and lived until the coming of St. Patrick. He met them in their old age, and his conver- sation with them, the Agallamh na Senorach [The Talk with the Old Men] is the longest and most interesting tale in the Ossianic Cycle.^^ S3 Irische Tuxte, III, 141, and Silva Gaedelica, [ 107 ] CHAPTER VIII. GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. AFTER the battle of Gabhra (284), the most important event was the invasion of Ulster by the three Collas. Three hundred years had now elapsed since the Tain, and during that time the power of the Clanna Rury had been declining, and the hour was now approaching when they would be obliged to fight, not for conquest, but for defending their capital. Cairbre Liffechair had two sons, Fiacha Sraibtaine and Eocaid Doimhlen. Fiacha succeeded him, but whether he •was the elder son or not we cannot say. Eocaid Doimhlen left three sons, Colla Uais the Noble, Colla Meann the Stam- merer, and Colla da Crioch. After Fiacha had held the sovereignty for thirty-seven years, the Collas rose in rebellion against him, and slew him at the battle of Dubhcomar, near the confluence of the Boyne and the Blackwater (322 A.D.) Colla Uais then became High King, and reigned four years, when he was dethroned and expelled from the Kingdom into Alba, by Tireach, the son of Fiacha Sraibtaine, who then as- cended the throne ; shortly afterwards Muiredach and his cousins made up their quarrel, and the Collas returned from Alba. A large army was mustered for the invasion of Ulster, com- posed of the forces of the High King, of the King of Connacht, and of a body of soldiers from Alba. A fierce battle was fought (332 A.D.) at Carn-acha-leath-dheirg, near Carrickmacross, in Farney, and the three Collas, having routed the men of Ulster, " seized Emania and burned it, and the Ulstermen did not dwell there since." Fergus Fogha, the King, was slain, and the Clanna Rury driven eastward into little Ulster — Ulidia. the present counties of Down and Antrim. The western boundary of Little Ulster was the course of the Lower Bann, Lough Neagh, and Gleann Righe, now the valley of the Newry River. Through this valley the Ulidians constructed a great rampart, now commonly called the *' Dane's Cast." It extends from Lisgoole, near Scarva, in Down, to near Meigh and Slieve 108 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. Gullion, in Armagh, a distance, as the " Cast " runs of over twenty miles. This earthwork, which consisted of a fosse or ditch, and a rampart on either side, was not in one continuous line, but in separate sections, that stretched from one sheet of water, or one morass, to another, and may be roughly described as running parallel to the Newry Canal and the Great Northern Railway in that place. The line of the fosse and rampart can still be traced at various points for the whole distance. " At one point the fosse is still eight feet deep, the width from top to top of the ramparts is forty feet, and the height of the rampart, above the level of the field, is four feet, and the width from out to out of the ram- parts is fifty-four feet." It was supported by numerous forts or raths on the east side. At the southern end the rampart trended to the east. Here, at Fathom, there was a strong rath or fort, which, with the earthwork, commanded the passes from the South, the pass at Forkhill, and the famous Moyry Pass. These are the passes whic h in olden times were defended by Cuchulainn. The northern end was defended by an equally strong fort at Lisnagoole.^ The territory of the Collas is said to have once extended in the northern part of Ulster, from the Bann to Donegal, but the portion effectively occupied was comprised in Armagh.. Monaghan, and Louth, and was afterwards known as Oriel (Oip5iaUa). This wall appears to have been a very effective defensive work. Muiredach did not attempt to force the southern passes. He fell in battle, fighting against the Ulidians, at Port Righe, which was, probably, the ancient name of Beuburb, on the Blackwater. He was killed, says Tighernach, by Caelbhadh, King of Ulad, chief of the Clanna Rury. Some say Caelbhadh marched to Tara after his victory, and was saluted as King. Tighernach, however, does not acknowledge him, or others who are supposed to have enjoyed short reigns, to have been High King at all. But his having been partially acknowledged as such has its meaning in our history, it tells of a vigorous effort made by the irians to recover the territory from which » A detailed account of the " Great Wall of Ulidia," or " Dane's Cast," with R Map, is given in the Ulster Journal of Archa;ology, vol. III., pp. J9 and 65. GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. 109 by Miiiredach's aid they had recently been expelled by the three Collas. The year after his victory at Port Righe, Caelbhadh was slain by Eocaid Muighmheadhon (Mweevaon), the son of Muiredach. Eocaid was King of Connacht at that time, and then reigned at Tara for eight years. He married Mong Finn (of the fair hair), daughter of Fidach, as his " one wife." She was sixth in descent from Oilioll Olum, King of Munster, and bore him four sons, who introduce us as it were into modern history. They obtained the sovereignty of Con- nacht, and from them the Kings and chiefs of that province descended. Brian, the eldest, who is said to have left twenty- four sons, was the ancestor of Hy Briuin, of Connacht, who are not to be confounded with the O'Briens of Thomond, who were Eberians of the family of Brian Boru. the son of Kennedy. The Hy Briuin included the O'Connors of Connacht ; the O'Rourkes of Breffney ; the O'Reillys of Cavan ; The MacDer- mots, MacDonoughs, and O'Flaherties. The second son was Fiachra, who occupied one territory in the north of Connacht by the River Moy, now known as Tir- reragh (C1t^ piAclip^), and another territory in the south of Connacht, comprised within the present diocese of Kilmac- duagh. It was known as Hy Fiachrach Aidhne. The Northern branch included the powerful Clan of the O'Dowdas. The Southern branch included the Ui Clerigh and the Ui Edhin (O'Heine) descended from Glereacli^, Chieftain of the Ui Fiach- rach of Aidhne, who was seventh in descent from Guairi Aidhne King of Connacht ; the Kiikellies ; and it included also the O'Shaughnessys. The third son was Fergus, about whom we do not find anything to mention. The fourth son was Oilioll from whom Tirerill in Sligo is named. In this way the occu- pation of Connacht by the line of Eremon, supplemented as it was somewhat later on, as we have mentioned, by the intro- duction of the descendants of Colla da Crioch into Hy Many, was completely effected. The most famous of the sons of Eocaid was not born in lawful wedlock. Niall of the Nine Hostacres, Eocaid's fifth son, was born to him from Carinna, a 2 Clereach had two sons, Maolfabhail, chieftain of Aidhne, c. 887, the elder from whom are the Ui Clenij, and Edhin, the second son, from whom the Ui Edhin descend. Edhin's daughter, Mor, was the first wife of Brian Born, to whom she bore Murchadd, Concobar, and Flan, who were slaia at Cloutarf.— O'Donovan •• Hy Fiachrach," 392, 398. 110 EARLY nilSH HISTORY. Saxon, during the lifetime of Mong Finn, his "one wife." She was probably a captive, the aditionelle, of the Ard Righ, as we have already stated, and may have been of noble birth, like the ancilla of Xanthias the Phocean. Polygamy was not known to the Gael. We are unable to accept the views of Dr. Stokes,^ who says : " But polygamy existed, and hence, Patrick, like St. Paul, requires for the bishopric of Leinster a husband of one wife (fir oen setche)." This, of course, refers not to two wives at the same time, but to a man taking a second wife after the death of his first wife. Such a man was ineligible for episcopal orders. The injunction that the "twain" shall be one flesh was rigorously applied in the case of orders, and a man contracting a second marriage was regarded as carry- ing part of the flesh of his first wife into the second nuptials, and was classed as a " bigamist." It was for this reason that in our statute a man " that hath married two wives or one widow " was excluded from the benefit of the clergy, as this privilege was originally confined to persons who being in the minor might proceed to the higher orders of deacon, priest and bishop. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that such a connection as Carinna's was regarded as mere concubinage, ex- cept by the lawful wife.'^ There was no distinction made between the children whom we should classify as illegitimate and the legitimate children as regards inheritance and suc- cession, and Niall became in fact Ard Righ at Tara, and the ancestor of nearly all the High Kings of Erin down to the time of Brian Boru. Some thought that Carinna should be called a Briton rather than a Saxon. O'Flaherty refers to this, and says : — Those who considered that the Saxons had not then come to Britain think Carinna should be called a Briton instead of a Saxon in the old muniments, relying on the hypothesis that she was sprung from Britain, which the Saxons afterwards settled in. But there is ample testimonj' that the Saxons about this very time, in conjunction with the Picts and the Scots, made many raids into Britain long before they had established fixed settlements there. • Trip. Life, clxviii. * Stephen, Criminal Law, I. 461 — Sir FitzJames Stephen calls it a strange rule. He was evidently not aware that bigamists as above defined, were ineligible for holy orders. GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL. Ill He refers to Ammianus Marcellinus, and quotes lines from Claudian contained in the following passage, which refers to Theodosius the elder, the grandfather of the Emperor Honorius. In oG7 A.D, Theodosius the elder had repelled an invasion or inroad of the Picts and Scots, who had penetrated as far as the city, "which was anciently called London, but is now known as Augusta." The passage is contained in the pane- gyric on the 4th Consulship of Honorius, written in a.d, 898:— Ille (i.e., Theodosius) Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis Qui medios Libyae sub casside pertulit sestus Terribilis Mauro, debellatorque Britanni Litoris, ac pariter Boreaa vastator et Austri. Quid rigor aeternus coeli, quid sidera prosunt Ignotumque fretum 1 Maduerunt Saxone f uso Orcades ; incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis lerna.* — De Quart Consul Honor 26-33. As there is a conflict of modern opinion about Carinna, and as the details we are about to give are useful in other ways, we shall examine this point more fully. We have not found it stated in any text before Keating that Carinna Cas-dubh was a daughter of the King of Britain. O'Curry says she was a Scottish Princess (M. & C. ii., 147), and Atkinson, in the preface to the Book of Leinster, refers to her as a " Captive Scottish Princess." The evidence before Keating, on the other ^"Ile (i.e., Theodosius) pitched his camp amid Caledonian hoar frosts, and, wearing the helmet, endm-ed the heats of Central Africa. A terror to the Mauri, he crushed the foe on the British shore, and spread devastation north and south alike. What unchanging extremes of climate, what season of the year was of use ? What profited seas unknown ? The Saxons were routed, and the Orkneys were dripping [with gore]. Thule [probably here the Shetlauds] was warm with the blood of the Picts. Icy Erin wept for the heaps (of slaiu)." Glacialis lerne, icy Erne should probably be understood, as the context suggests, as the Hebrides, of which Ptolemy specifies two, which he attaches to Erin in his 2nd chapter. Claudian, a native of Egypt, probably of Alexandria, who had received the education of a Greek, as Gibbon tells us, no doubt took his geography from Ptolemy, and balanced the heat of Central Africa with the glacial rigours of the north. This view is, we think, sustained by the following lines in the same passage: — " Scotumque vago mucroue sequutus Fregit hyperboreas remis audacibus undas." " And pursuing the Scot with the Sword everywhere (vago) with daring o.ars he broke through the Hyperborean waves." " Vago " must mean, we fancy, chasing them through the islands. De Tert Consul Honorii 55. Ogygia, p. 377. 112 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. hand, is very persuasive. Tighernach not only declares his own view that she was of Saxon origin, but vouches in proof an old duau : — Nial Mor, the son of the Saxon, Cairne her name as I have collected, Five sons of Eocaid Muigraeadhoin, Not trifling is what I have certified!' In the Book of Ballymote (365a) and in the Yellow Book of Lecan (188a) and in Rawlinson (502b) it is expressly stated that Carinna was a Saxon.^ The last mentioned text states — " Carinna Cas-dubh, daughter of Sachal Bolb of the Saxons, was the mother of Niall." Later references to texts contain- ing a similar statement will be found in S. H. O'Grady's " Silva Gaedeiica," in the tale "Echtra MacEchac Muigmedoin,'' and in ii. 498. It is permissible to suggest that there may be some con- founding of Carinna with Ciarnait, the daughter of the Pictish chieftain, who was brought against her will by three Ulster men into captivity. She was the loveliest of women, and Cormac Mac Art sent to demand her, and she was taken to his house. She was with him in amorous fellowship, and the measure of his love for her was great. Then Ethne Ollamda, the daughter of Cathaoir Mor, his " one wife," heard of her being with him. She said they could not be with him to- gether. Cormac was obliged to give Ciarnait into the power of Ethne, who put a slave's task upon her, putting her to grind corn, to wit, to grind nine or ten bushels of corn with a quern every day. Cormac sent for a millwright across the sea, and had a mill made to save Ciarnait.^ So in the " Echtra '' it is stated that Carinna was an object of spite to the queen (Mongfinn) and treated with great harshness by her, and this was the harshness — that she should pull up from the well half the water for Tara, and afterwards, when she became enceinte, the whole of it. Her position was that of a bond- maid. These stories, if true, go a long way to prove, in the 6 Rev. Celt., xvii, 32. The next entry in Tighernach is " Patricias captivus in Hiberniam ductus est." 7 Otia Mersiana ii., 84. SEgerton 17«2, edited and translated by Kuno Meyer, Otia Mersiaua ii., 76. GLASTONBURY OF THE GAEL, 118 absence of direct evidence to the contrary, that there was no recognized legal polygamy in pre-Christian Erin.'-^ After a reign of eight years, Eocaid died a natural death at Tara. He was succeeded by Mong Finn's brother, Crimthann, the son of Fidach, of the line of Eber, sixth in descent from Olioll Olum. No information has reached us as to how or why he came to be High King. The only suggestion we can offer is that the sons of Eocaid were too young, and that he was chosen as a regent under the title of King. He was not King or Tanist of both or either of the Munsters, nor did he come in by force of arms. Certain it is that no one of the line of Eber became High King from his reign till the year 1002 (Brian Boru) ; and no one of the line of Eber had been High King for 32 reigns before, since the time of Duach Dalta Degaid (162 B.C.). It is also highly probable that Crimthann shared in the expeditions which took place before his accession in A.D. 866. These expeditions, as well as those of Niall and Dathi, form so important and interesting part of our story, that we deem it necessary to deal with the subject at some length. In the first half of the fourth century, after the abdication of Diocletian, the Roman Empire was rent by civil dissensions. Candidates for the imperial purple sprang up in every quarter, and in the course of these contests Britain was denuded of imperial troops. This was the opportunity of the Picts, the Scots, the Attacotti, and the Saxons. Ammianus Marcellinus, "an old soldier and a Greek," as he tells us, "who never deceived by silence or misrepresentation," wrote his history probably between the years 380 and 390. He was, therefore, the contemporary of Crimthann. He writes : A.D. 360. — The affairs of Britain became troubled in consequence of the incursions of the Picts and Scots, who, breaking the peace ^^ to which they had agreed, were phxndering the districts on their borders, and keeping in constant alarm the provinces (i.e., of Britain), exhausted 8 It i3 a ciirioxis circumstance that Cariuna, the mother of Niall, from whom descended a long line of Kings of Erin slioiild be a Saxon, whilst Arietta, the mother of William the Conqueror, from whom descended a long line of English Kings, was, in all probability, an Ethnic Celt of Brittany or Normandy. 10 " Rupta quiete condicta." This implies previous hostilities. — Amm. Marccl. XX. cap. i. 114 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. by former disasters. Caesar (i.e., Julian the Apostate), who was winter- ing at Paris, having his mind divided by various cares, feared to go to the aid of liis subjects across the Channel (as we have related Coustans to have done) least he should leave the Gauls without a governor," while the Allmanni were still full of fierce warlike inclinations. A.D. 364. — The Picts, Scots, Saxons, and Attacotti harassed the Britains with incessant invasions. A.D. 368. — Valentinian (the Emperor) having left Amiens, and being on his way to Treves, then the capital of the Western Prefecture, re- ceived the disastrous intelligence that Britain was reduced by the ravages of the united barbarians to the lowest extremity of distress, that Nectarides, the Count of the sea coast, had been slain in battle, and that the Duke Fullofandes had been taken prisoner by the enemy in an ambuscade. Jovinus applied for the aid of a powerful army. Last of all, on account of the many formidable reports, Theodosius (the Elder) was appointed to proceed to Britain, and ordered to make great haste. At that time the Picts, the Attacotti, a very warlike people, and the Scots were all roving over different parts of the country, and commit ting great ravages. We shall return to this subject when we have carried our narrative down to the coming of St. Patrick. It is said that Crimthann was poisoned by his sister Mong Finn. The story is told in the Leabhar Breac. Crimthann went to Scotland. In his absence his nephews and Niall rose in rebellion and seized the sovereignty. He returned with a large force of Scots, and pitched his camp near the river Moy, in Tirawley. Mong Finn pretended to be a peace- maker, and invited Crimthann to a feast to meet her sons at a place near the Moy. When they had made an end of the entertainment, Mong Finn put into her brother's hand a poisoned cup. "Twill not drink," he said, " until thou first shall have drunk." She drank, and Crimthann after her. Subsequently she died on Samhain's very eve (the eve of the banquet) Now came Crimthann from the northward, progressing towards his own natural countr}' (that of the men of Muns- ter) until he gained Sliahh Suide in Righ, or the Mountain of the King's Sitting, and there he died. Fidach, his father, his mother, and his nurse, came to the spot where he perished. There they gave way to piteotis grief, and all three died on the very .spot. If the case was no stronger than this against her, Mong Finn is entitled to our verdict of acquittal, and we shall have the less hesitation in giving it, as the use of poison is unknown " Julian was proclaimed Emperor at Paris in the year 360 a.d. He uie') with all my might, behold, the splendour of the sun fell npon me and at o«ice removed the weight from me and I believe that 1 was aided by Christ, my Lord, and His spirit was then crying out for me, and I hope it will be thus in the day of trial (die pressurae). And further, I was seined by many (spirits). On that first night, then, that I remained with them I heard the divine voice, " You will be with them for two months." And so it was. On the 60 night the Lord delivered me from their hands. On our route too He provided for us food and fire and dry weather every day until on the tenth day we all arrived. As I stated before, we had made a journey of 28 days through the desert ; and on the night we arrived we had indeed no food left. 28 Heliam vocarem. We su<(ge?t " EXfftffov " — Have mercy. This is in- dicated by the context and by the following dectum Patricii. Ecclesia Scotorum immo Romanorum ; ut Christeani ita ut Romani sitis ut decantabitur vobiscum oportet omni hora orationis vox ilia laudabilis " Curie lession Christe lession." ' Omnis Ecclesia quae sequitur me cantet ' Curie lession Christe lession, Deo gratias.' The Church of the Scots now is the Church of the Romans ; as you are Christian that you may be likewise Roman, it is needful that you should sing at every hour of prayer that laudable chant Kvpte kXhiaov yptoTt k\iii(7ov. Every Church that follows me will sing Kvpu kXUwov Xpiare £Xf.r]Tor, Thanks to God, ordinary pronunciation now is Kvou Xucrdv or Kvpu \t]£aoy. The Gaelic pronunciation of " lession " is " lessin." We are unable to accept Bury's version " Church of the Scots now of the Romans in order that you may be Christians as well as Romans it behoves that there should be chanted in your churches, etc." The plural " satis " excludes this. St. Patrick, p. 229, and see Academy, Aug., 188S, p. 89. Dicta Patricii.— Ana.\ecta. Bollandiana I. 585.— Rolls scr. IV. 301. JIultos adhuo capturam dedi. We think multis animis = daemonibusis the only reading that will make sense. Ferguson aays the confession here refers to " a continuing spiritual captivity. " THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 143 When St. Patrick arrived at Marseilles, Cassiarn was build- ing, or had just built, the Monastery of St. Victor, which was destined to be afterwards one of the wealthiest and most celebrated in France. It was built over the " Confession " or tomb of the Soldier Martyr, St. Victor, who had suffered for the faith during the Diocletian persecution on the 22nd of July 803, on which day the feast of St. Mary Magdalen is now celebrated therein. He was a native of Marseilles. His body was dismembered, and with the bodies of others who suffered at the same time, thrown by the executioners into the sea. His townsmen gathered the remains from the beach and placed them in the crypts, over which the monastery was built, near the cubiculum, or cell of Mary Magdalen. Lazarus and Mary and Martha were, according to the tradition of the church in Provence, driven from Palestine after the Ascension of our Lord and fled to Marseilles, and were the pioneers of Christianity there. These crypts were originally natural caves and passages in a limestone hill near the harbour. When Caesar besieged the town in 49 B.C., on this hill it was that the celebrated Druid's grove was situated, which struck such awe into his soldiers that to dissipate their terror he took up an axe and dealt the first blows to a venerable oak.^^ The truth of the tradition was assailed by Launay and his school in the I7th century. It has been ably defended by many writers, amongst others by the Bishop of Angers, then professor at the Sorbonne, who, in the course of his lecture on " The First Apostles of Gaul," made the following admirable observations, which we have endeavoured to apply to our own traditions, and deem it not superfluous to quote in this place : They have violated the rules of sound criticism. If they had confined themselves to saying that amongst the legends of the first apostles of Gaul, composed after the lapse of many centuries and grounded on popular tradition, there were some which mixed up with ^ Gregory of Tours, Multis tniraculis ccleJ/eritmtm. De gloria Marty rum. Lib. I. Ruinart Acta Mattyrum (Ed. 1853) p. 333. Notice sur les Crypts de VAbbaye Saint Victor pres. Marseilles. 1864. A very interesting notice by an anonymous writer, with a plan of the Crypts ; only 40 copies printed. Faillon M., M onutnents inedits siir rapostolat de Sair.tc Marie Madeleine en Provence. 144- EARLY IRISH HISTORY. an incontestable body of facts, inexact details and apocryphal traits added thereto by the popular imagination and the simplicity of writers, they would have kept witliiu tlie bounds of calm and impartial discussion. If this principle had been accepted the way would have been clearly marked out for a methodical search for truth. To study those old legends without bias towards praise or censure, as so much primitive tradition, often enlarged and embellished with a view to edification, to examine with care their origin or their value, to extract the historical element which is often shut up in them under the veil of poetry, to strip the principal fact of accessory circumstances subse- quently worked in, such is the task a sound criticism has to perform. iJut there is rashness, to say the least of it, in refusing all belief to these legendary narratives, in rejecting absolutely the " ensemble " as well as the details, the body of facts as well as the foreign additions. It carries no small authority, what a church by unbroken tradition testifies as to the name, the life, and the works of its founder.^ The truth of this tradition and, what concerns us more nearly, the great evangelizing work done by the Monastery of St. Victor, are attested by the Bull or Privilegium of Pope Benedict IX. After being completely destroyed by the Saracens in the 9th century, the structure was rebuilt and re- dedicated in 1040. " The rededication," says Rufla, " was one of the most illustrious that history records." The Pope performed the ceremony of rededicating the two churches, the uppei church dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, and the lower church, in which were the confession of St. Victor and the relics of the martyrs, and many religious treasures. The Counts of Provence, the Viscounts of Marseilles, the Archbishops of Aries, Valence, Aix, and Embrun, and some twenty suffragan bishops took part in the function. Numerous abbots and religious, in all nearly ten thousand persons, were assembled. It was on this occasion that the Privilegium or Bull was issued, from which we take the following abridged extract : — With the same care we determined to confirm this monastery, founded near Marseilles in the time of Antoninus Pius, and afterwards built by the blessed abbot Cassian and consecrated at his request by the most blessed Leo, Bishop of Rome * * * which was augmented with many honours and charters by emperors and kings, and enriched with the relics of the holy martyrs Victor and his companions and of 28 Freppel C. E., Bishop of Angers : Irenes et I'iloquence Chretienns dans la Gaule pendant les deux premiers siecles. Cour3 d' eloquence sacr^e fait k la Sorbonne pendant lanD-je 18(j0-1861, p. 46. THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 145 Lazarus raiser! from the dead, and of the iniuimerable martyrs, con- fessors, and virgins, as is testified in many volumes of sacred litera- ture-' It was from this monastery that Cassian first shone forth to pro- mulgate iverywhere in Western pctris the monastic rule for the perfect and regular way of monastic life ; and this monastery in the love of Christ its spouse zvas so persevering in its mission that its voice went forth into every la.nd and its teaching like a bright lamp, spreal the light to the ends of the earth.'' ^" Cassian was probably born in Lesser Scythia, in some trading station of the Marsellaise in that territory, near the mouths of the Danube. He was educated at Bethlehem, and afterwards went to Egypt, where he spent seven years visiting anchorites and cenobites, from the mouth of the Nile to the first cataract. He received deacon's orders from St. John Chrysostom, and was ordained priest by Pope Innocent I. Leaving Rome, he arrived in Marseilles about the year 410, the year in which St. Honoratus founded the celebrated monastery at Lerins, and built his monastery, which shortly reckoned 5,000 monks attached to the parent house and its dependencies. It was called the "gate of paradise," ^^ and is perhaps referred to in the dictum of our Saint, who may have been inwardly contrasting its peaceful life there with his strenuous militancy. "From the world" says the Dictum, "you have retired into Paradise." (De Saeculo requisisstis ad paradissum).^- There were two classes of monks, of which Ruffi gives an interesting description. The first were the Cenobites. These led a life in common under the Abbot, or Prior. Amongst these were monarchi ad succurendum, persons of the first quality, struck with a dangerous illness, who put on the sackcloth of penitence to gain the spiritual aid of the monks, by becoming members of the " Corps " of the Monastery. If they recovered, 29 Hum, Histoire de Marseille, vol. II,, 25. ^ Nam et in occidius partibus a.l moaachorum profectum et recjularera traniitem Cassianus liinc primus emicuifc, a.l promulganJum circumquaqurt Moaachorum legem, quoilque monasterium ita ia amore CUristi spon-^i ambiens periuravit ut in omnem terram sonus ejus exiret, et in fines orbis terrae ejus doctrina et lucernafulgens lucerot. Privil. Bcned., ix. ann. MXL., printed by Faillon, M. Abbe, Monuments inedits siir Vapostolat Je Saint« Marie Madeleine en Provence et sur les autres apotres, etc., 1848, Vol. II., p. G35. 21 Ruffi, "Ce monastere etait appele la parte de Paradis," Vol. II., p. 114. ^ Tri-p. Life Pi-.S., 103. Requi>sistis = reces-iisti^, qu being often used fore. L 148 t EARLY IRISH HISTORY. they wore oblicfGd to wear the habit and live according to monastic discipline. The second class were the Anchorites ; these shut themselves up in cells, huts, caunes or recluseries, which the Abbot of St. Victor had got built in the neighbour- hood. They did not make much ditference between the cells and the huts, both boiug hermitages, composed of several (cellules) small cells. The monks who wishod to live in strict solitude retired to the cells. Those who lived in the huts had a superior over them, and met together every Saturday and Sunday for the " office " in the church of the Hermitage. The Reclusi (inclusi) lived more retired, for they took a vow never to leave their cells, where they had a little garden and a little oratory to celebrate Mass. They could only communicate with seculars through a window, through which they heard confessions — even those of women. After they were enclosed, the seal of the Abbot was placed on the door of the cell, which was opened only in case of dangerous illness. Even then the incluse was not allowed to leave the cell.^^ The latter form of life was much encouraged by Cassian. Addressing certain holy brothers in a.d. 428, he writes : " You, by your instructions, have stirred up monks, not only before all, to seek the common life of the coenobia, but even to thirst eagerly for the sublime life of the anchorite." The conferences were arranged with such care " that they are suited to both modes of life, whereby you have made not only the countries of the West, but even the islands, to flouiis'i with great crowds of brethren." s* It was these islands, no doubt the Stoechades and others, that our saint visited in the Tyrrhene Sea. St. Honoratus, too, the friend of Cassian, " honoured," as he says in the pre- face to the 18th conference, "in his name and in his works," received him, doubtless, with open arms. All flocked to Honoratus, says his biographer, S. Hilarius, " for what country, what nation is there that has not citizens in his monastery ? " ^5 It was a school of Theology and Christian Philosophy, as well as an asylum for literature and art. Cassian advised his monks 33 Ruffi, vol. 2, p. 135. ^ Cassian, Prcjace to iSth Conference. '■'' Omnes undique ad ilium, confluebant. Etenim qu^e adliuc terra qus ratio in Monasterco illius Gives non habet ?— S. Hilar. Vita S. Honor. C. 175, S. Honoratus died in 428. THE COMING OP ST. PATRICK. 147 to avoid biobops — that is, to remain laymen. The Monastery of St. Victor did not make any provision for studies preparatory to the priesthood. There can be little doubt that our apostle made his theological studies " in the nursery of bishops and saints." St. Honoratus became the metropolitan of Aries (Arelatensis) and died a.d. 428, The island is still called after him — L'Isle de S. Honorat. This was the tradition of the Irish Church. Tirachan says " He was in one of the islands, which is called Aralanensis (i.e., Sancti Honorati Arelatensis), 30 years, as Bishop Uitan testified to me." St. Lupos, a disciple of St. Germanus, was at this time a student at Lerins. He was soon after chosen by Troyes for its bishop, and accompanied St. Germanus to Britain in 429. St. Germanus became Bishop of Auxerre in 418, and immediately founded there an establish- ment, which became one of the most celebrated abbeys in France of the Middle Ages.^^ ^ Erat hautem in una ex insulis quae dicitur aralanensis, annis XXX. , mihi testante Ultano episcopo. The letter numerals are of course, as frequently happens, erroneous. Trip. Life, R.S., 302. The Scholiast on Fiaco refers to the island of /l/a«i5«sis as the place where St. Patrick p-ot the staff of Jesus Se^ T,^p. Ltfe. 420. [ 148 CHAPTER X. THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. — IT. THE tradition of the Irish Church is that our Saint studied under Germanus. This is corroborated by the testimony of Hericus (834-883), who was a monk in his monastery. Referring to the disciples of St. Germanus, he says : — Since the glory of the fatlier shines in the training of the children, of the many sons in Christ whom St. Germanus is believed to have had as disciples in religion, let it suffice to make mention here, very briefly, of one most famous — Patrick, the Apostle all by himself {pecitliaris), of the Hibernian region, as the record of his work proves. Subject to that most holy discipleship for eighteen years, he drank in no little knowledge in Holy Scripture from the stream of so great a well-spring. Germanus sent him by Segetius, his priest, to Celestine, Pope of Rome, approved] of by whose judgment, supported by whose authority, and strengthened by whose blessing, he went on his way to Ireland.^ The Scholiast on Fiacc says :— " Germanus, abbot of the city called Altiodorus {i.e., Autissiodorum, Auxerre). It is with him that Patrick read, and Burgundy is the name of the province in which that city stands. In the south in Italy that province used to be, but it is more correct to say it is in the Gauls." 2 The geography of Burgundy is complex. There was at one timeaCisjuran Burgundy, the capital of which was Aries. "in Italy in the South." There was a Transjuran Burgundy * Et quoii'am gloria patris in suorum clarescit motleramine filiorum, muUos qiios in Christo Hlios in religione creditur habuisse dis?ij.ulos, unius tantuin ejusdemque famossissimi castigata breviiate suffjciet inseri mentionem. Patrifius ut gestorura ejus series prodit Hibernicae peculiaris apostolus regionis sanctis- simo ei discipulatui octodecira addictus annis non mediocrem e tanti vena foutis in Scripturis ccelestibus hansit eruditionem . . . ad Sanctum Coelestinum urbis I\om:\2 papam per Segetiuui presbytcrum suum eum direxit . . . Cujus Judicio ajjprobatus auctoritate fultus, benedictione denique roboratus Hiberni^ partes expetiit.— ^c/c S5. Boll, vol. 34, p. 270, ed. 186S, July 31st. It is right to state that in an earlier life by Constantius about A.D. 488 no mention is made of St. Patrick, but this negative evidence is not of much weight. Eighteen (Octodecira) years is a mistake ; probably scribal. 2 See Irish Tract also, which is given with translation in " Moran's Essays," p. 248. THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 149 nortli of this. And later there was the province of Burq'undy in the Kingdom of France, in the north of which was situated Auxerre, 107 miles S.E. of Paris. The Scholiast has also a Scholium on "La German andes in descairt Letlia (with Germanus in the south, in the southern part of Letha), which is important: — "Letha, i.e., Latium, which is also called Italy. Howbeit Germanus was in the Gauls, as Beda says ; Lethaig, (Letevians) that is in latitudine, in the South of Gaul, by the Tyrrhene Sea."^ This seems to imply that the Lethaig, or Letavia and Italia, were each south of the Gauls by the Tyrrhene Sea, in his view. The Cymri, in their dialect called Brittany Llydaw, which Geoffrey of Monmouth rendered in Latin, Letavia. It means " litorale " (coast-land), and it may be connected with " litus." It was, no doubt, originally co-extensive with Armorica, though, at a later period, after the immigration of the Britons the name was usually applied in a restricted sense. It is to be further observed that the name of the river Lys, on which Taruanna stood, was Letia, which is nearer in sound to Letha than either Latium or Letavia. The author of the first part of Fiacc's Hymn in the eighth century intends to follow the Confession, and, no doubt, was icquainted with the Life by Muirchu. He says : — " Gennair Patraice innemthur, ised adfet hiscelaib," (Patrick was born in Nemthur, 'tis this he tells us in his books). These books were the Confession and the Epistle, to Coroticus, which are styled the Libri Patricii in our texts. Adfet used to be translated "as is told," but the true meaning is "as he says," which corresponds to Muirchu's " ut ipse ait." This Nemthur appears in most if not in all the subsequent lives. We suggest that "genair in Nemthur " = ')2a«tis est ad Taherniam. Thur or Tor would thus represent Taber, and Kem would represent niam, the word being arranged Nemthur to meet the exigencies of the metre. We are not, however, dependent on linguistic considerations such as these alone to prove that " Tabernia" represents Taruanna. No higher authority on this point could be cited than M. Desjardins, the 3 Trip. Life, p. 418. Kellesch, Spvachen Ersch., 8. 143. Jndogermanische Forschungen, iv., 85 (Thurnespen). 150 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. author of the " Geoc^raphy of Roman Gaul," and the " Geonraphy of Gaul after the Table of Peutinger," a mac^nifi- cont edition of which ho edited (1874). In the last-mentioned work he gives (1) a summary or abstract of the names that appear in the Table of Peutinger, and (2) an abstract of the transformations or variants these names underwent during the Middle Ages, as he found them written " in ancient authors and inscriptions and on medals." — (p. xvii.) In the Geography of Roman Gaul he tells us (ii. 489) " The Morini, rendered less barbarous, no doubt, by the inter- course the Portus Iccius (Boulogne) procured them, must have had at a remote epoch ' a centre ' at Tarvanna (Therouanne) which became their ' chef lieu de cite under the Romans.' In the Historical Introduction and the Geography, according to the Table of Peutinger (86), he gives the transformations or variants of the name Tarvanna, i.e., Therouanne on the Lys. The variants of the name he states thus, Teruenna, Taverna, Teruentia." 'Now Taverna = Ts.heina, or Tabernia, the word we find in the text of the Confession. It is also = Tauerna, which we have suggested was the Gaelic pronuncia- tion of Tabernia. And this brings us back to the linguistic point from which we started — to uoj; AttAnn, the fenced town or buttery of the river Lys. The Scholiast on Fiacc finds it necessary to tell his readers where Nemthur is situate, " In Nemthor, that is a city which is in North Britain — namely, Ail Cluade(Rock of Clyde)." There is no evidence whatever that Ail Cluade, now Dumbarton, was ever known as Nem-Thor. It was known as "Oun-tDpicAin, i.e., the Fort of the Britons of Strathclyde. There were neither decurions, Christians in thousands, or priests there at the end of the fourth century. The following extract from the Edin- burgh Review accurately represents the latest and best opinion on the Roman occupation of Scotland : — In 124 Hadrian, who loved strong frontiers, fortified the isthmus between the Tyne and Solway, and declared the Roman advance to be ended. Twenty years later Antoninus Pius built a second wall across the isthmus between the Forth and the Clyde,* still surviving in broken fragments. But the Roman occupation of Scotland was limited, it was ■* Ail Cluade is at this northern wall, which runs north of, and near to, the river Clyde. See Havertield's map, Britarmia (1900). THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK, 151 purely military. It hardly lasted forty years. Recent investigations into the inscriptions, coins, and other remains of Roman origin found in Scotland show that all the land north of the Cheviots was lost to Rome before the end of the second century. From henceforward the Roman frontier was Hadrian's Wall, with outlying forts at one or two places like Birens and Rochester, commanding the easiest passes into Caledonia. The land immediately south of the wall as far as the hills extend was a purely military district. Throughout Cumberland, Westmore land and Lancashire, on the west coast, and the North and West Ridings on the east coast, we meet no traces of orderly civil life, of towns or villas, of trade or commerce, in Roman days. The Italian city system did not spread in Britain, Its characteristic was a self-govern- ing municipality. There was a senate, elected magistrature, and a body of electing towns-people, Avho all enjoyed the rights of Roman citizens ; there was besides a dependent territory, which might be fifty miles across. Towns of this kind bore the title of Colonia or Muni- cipium, and were freely planted at various epochs in the western provinces of the empire. They appear in every province where the higher civilisations of Rome found. entrance. They mark its advent, they assist in its expansion. Britain could boast of only five — Verulamium, just outside St. Albans; Camulodunum, now Colchester 3 Lincoln, York, and Glesum, now Gloucester.* We have now exhausted the space at our disposal for this part of our subject, and we fear that in addition we have exhausted the patience of our readers. We regret that we can- not notice in detail the views of Cardinal Moran, Lanigan, Stokes, Todd, Cashel Hoey, Malone, Olden, Ban-y, Morris, Bury, Archbishop Healy, and many others ; but we are con- strained to abstain from controversy. There are three tests our readers can apply to each sug- gested birthplace: (1) Were there several thousand adult Christians with many priests there ? (2) Were there decurions there ? (3) Would an ordinary voyage from Erin to it take three days ? St. Patrick does not tell us how long he was in the islands of the Tyrrhene Sea. After a few years (he says) I was again amongst the Britons with my relatives, who received me as a son, and in all sincerity entreated me that even now, after such great sufierings as I had endured, I would ' " Roman Britain," Edinburgh Review, vol. 189 (1809), p, 36f». Seo hIso Mr. Haverfield's map, and succinct account of Roman Britain in Poole's " Historical Atlas," plate xv. (18^6, etc). The views in both are in substantial agreement. 152 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. never leave them, and tliere even in the very bosom of the i.lght I saw .1 man namr'd Victoi'icu.-i coming as it were from Hibernia with innumerable letters, and he gave me one of them. And I read the beginning of the letter containing " The voice of the Irish," and while I was reading aloud the beginning of the letter, I myself thought, indeed, in my mind that I heard the voice of those who were near the wood of Foclat, which is close by the Western Sea. And they cried out : '• "We entreat thee, holy youth, tliat thou come and walk still (adkuc) amongst us." And I was deeply moved ia heart, and could read no further, and so I awoke. Tlie words in the text are ad hue ambulas inter nos. The meaning attached to ad hue here is important. It repre- sents continuing action in a context like the present, and means " still." We suggest that our saint knew the voice of the children by the wood of Foclat because he heard it before near Killala in Mayo, where he took ship for France. This supports the view we have already presented. Victorious, the name of the man who came with the letters, was also, as we have seen, the name of the apostle of the Morini who suffered a,t Amiens in A.D. 303, and now announced his name to St. Patrick to support the petition of the children. In the Con- fession the Saint speaks only of Victorious once, viz., at this place. He does not mention Victor at all. In the Armagh text of Muirchu, Victor is the name given to the angel who frequently visited the saint. The Brussels text, however, has both Victorious and Victor. Victor and Victorious came to be regarded as one angel, and from the time of Tirechan Victor was, according to the tradition of the Church, the Guardian Angel of our apostle. The Scholiast to Fiacc goes further and says, what we do not find stated elsewhere, that St. Victor " was the common angel of the Scottic race. As Michael was the angel of the race of the Hebrews,^ so Victor was of the Scots. Hence he took care of them through Patrick." A more difficult question to answer is who and where were the Britons amongst whom were the relatives of the saint. Loth fixes the commencement of the emigration of the Britons into Brittany between 430 and 440 a.d." ^ Le Moyne de la Broderie fixes the date of the establishment of the im mi sf rants « Trip. Life, 415, refers to Daniel, x. 21, xii., 1, also p. 425. » Rev. Celt, xxii. (1901) 84. TJIE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 153 at460 A.D.,^ which corresponds with the date assigned by Lobinau, 458 A.D.^ These immigrants cannot be the Britons referred to. There were, however, Britons further north, a remnant, probably, of the Britanni who passed into Britain, and have left traces on the Continent from the Elbe to the Channel. In the time of Pliny they were mentioned as a tribe of, or at least, as adjacent to, the Morini, and there is still a hamlet near Etaples called Bretagne.^^ The editors of the Delphin edition of Pliny say in a note : " The Britons certainly occupied the territory in which are now the towns of Etaples, Montreuil, Hesdin, and Ponthieu, to the river Somme ; and if credit is to be given to the author of the "Libellus Provinciarum Romanarum " were part of the Morini," 1^ They were thus placed very close to the Letia(Lys) the great trade route on which Taruanna was situated. The scholiast on Fiacc represents the saint as going from Ail Cluade with his father " on a journey to the Britons of Armuire Letha," i.e., " co Bretnaib Ledach," for there were relatives of theirs there at that time. The Letia would be adequately represented in Gaelic by "Letha." Letavia as a name for Brittany did not then exist, and there seems to be no reason why the word should not be applied to the Britons near the river Letia.^' The scholiast, after stating that the saint was born at Ail Cluade, says that he was captured whilst with his relatives in Armuire Letha, in France.^^ Our view is that he was born in this territory. The old Roman Breviary describes him as " genere Brito." The Breviary of Rheims, " In maritimo Britannise territorio." The Breviary of Rouen, " In Britannia Gallicana." Now, the only Britannia Gallicana that existed at the time of his birth was that above mentioned. The beginning of the fifth century witnessed the birth of a formidable heresy, all the more dangerous because • Histoire deBretagne (1895), t. I. 2(9. » Histoire de Bretagne, t. I.-l. I. 1. (1707). 1" Rogetde Belloquet, Ethnogenie Celtique, types Gaulois, p. 79 note (I86I). ^^ Pliay, " Deinde Meuapii, llorini (Therouanne), Oroinan'saci, juncti pago <5ui Gessoriacus (Boulogne), vocatur, Britanni, Ambiani (Amiens), Beliovasci " (Beauvais), N.H. IV. c. 31. The Britanni occupy, seemingly, a central position between Therouanne, Boulogne, Amiens and Beauvais. ^'■^ For Letia see Valesius Notitia Galliarum sub voce IS Trip. Life, A13. 154 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. it was intellectual, having its origin in a perplexed and obscure philosophy. Pelagius, the founder of it, was. probably, born in Britain, of Scottic parents. St. Augustine, Orosius, and Prosper call him a " Briton." St. Jerome, without directly naming him, refers to him as most stupid, weighed down with Scottic porridge.^* And, again, as follows : — "And Grunnius {i.e., Rufinus) himself being mute, he barks by the dog Albinus {i.e., Pelagius), tall and big-boned, whose kick is worse than his bite, for he has parentage from the Scottic race from the neighbourhood of the Britons. Like (another) Cerberus, according to the fables of the poets, he must be struck down with a spiritual club that he may be silent with an eternal silence, like his master Pluto {i.e., Rufinus, who was then dead)." ^^ It is not easy to find out here where the rhetoric ends and the facts begin. It was fortunate for the Church that all our saints had not the same command of language as that illustrious scholar. St. Augustine, who knew Pelagius per- sonally, presents a different estimate, and writes — " Pelagius whilst staying at Rome was held in great honour, and was loved by Paulinus of Nola as a servant of God, and I not only did love him but do love him, though now with a desire that he may be delivered from sentiments adverse to the grace of God." The principal errors of the Pelagians were the denial of the necessity for grace and the denial of the transmission of sin from the Fall of Adam. It was to refute these views that " Stolidissimus et Scottorum pultibus prregravatu3. *5 Ipseque mutus latrat per Albinuin canem, grendem et corpnlentum, et qui calcibus macjis possit scevire quam deQtibiis ; habet enim progeniem Scoticae gentis de Britaunoruin vLcinia ; qui juxta fabulas pootarum, instar Corberi spirituali porcutiendus est clava, ut aeterno cum suo magistro Plutoae ailentio conticescat. Verum hoc alias. — Migne 24, 758. Orosiua says ha was a maa " largis humeria, crasso collo, et praegrandi vultu.' ■ Todd misses the vis consiquentiae here. Life St. Patrick I!)0. It is to be found in the allusion to " hoofs " ! (Calcibus) ! The vis comica ia ambushed with Attic sparkle in " hoofs." Its proper pow'r to hurt each creature feals, Bulls aim their horiis, and Asses lift their heels. 'Tis a boar's talent not to kick but hug, And no man wonders he's not stung by Pug. THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 155 St. Augustine wrote many works, commencing with one on " Forgiveness of Sins and Baptism," in 412 — an important date, as we shall see hereafter. This controversy led up a few years later to semi- Pelagianism, in which Cassian became, or was supposed to be, involved, owing to some expressions in his 13th Conference, which are somewhat ambiguous, and may, at the worst, have represented a passing phase of thought. He was certainly regarded as orthodox in 430, as in that year, on an appeal from Kome, he wrote the De Incarnatione to refute the Nestorians, and would in all probability have found no difficulty in accept- ing the doctrine settled at the Council of Orange in 529, which condemned semi-Pelagianism, whilst declaring that predesti- nation to evil was not to be taught. The semi-Pelagians believed in the doctrine of the fall of man and acknowledged the necessity of real grace to man's restoration. They even admitted that this grace must be " prevenient " to such acts of will as resulted in Christian good works. But some of them thought — and herein consisted the error called semi-Pelagian — that nature unaided could take the first step towards its recovery by desiring to be healed through faith in Christ. The denial of the necessity of initial grace opened a door to Pelagianism, and endangered the doctrine of the Redemption which lay at the very root of Christianity. This explanation is necessary to enable our readers to understand the views we shall present as to the Confession of St. Patrick, who must have been familiar with the details of this controversy. In the third decade of the fifth century the Pelagian move- ment had spread widely, had developed a particularly dangerous energy in Wales, and threatened to move Westwards to taint the beginnings of the faith in Ireland, where the Church was still in its infancy. The situation was grave, and manifestly called for energetic action on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities at Rome. Celestine was then Pope (422-432). Leo the Great was then Archdeacon. Palladius was then a deacon. Prosper has the following entry in his Chronicle : — 429 A.D. — Agricola, a Pelagian, the son of Severianus, a Pelagian bishop, corrupted the British Church by the publication of his dogmas ; but on the action of the deacon Palladius, Pope Coelestine sent 156 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. Gcrruanus, the bishop of Auxerre, as his representative ; and, dislodg- ing the heretics, put the Britons on the straight path of the Catholic Faith." Prosper went on a mission to Pope Cclestine in 4?>1, and was afterwards secretary to Leo the Great. The last entry in his Chronicle is under the date 455. The deacon Palladius, he tells us further, " was sent to the Scots believing in Christ,^^ the first bishop (who was sent)." This entry is under date 431, the year in which the GEcumenical Council was held at Ephesus. We see from these entries that Rome was very attentive, at that time, to what was passing in the Western end of the world. According to Constantius, a monk of Lyons, who wrote a life of Germ anus within about 40 years after his death, Germanus and Lupus were selected at a synod of the bishops of Gaul, which is not inconsistent with the statement of Prosper. Constantius adds that the Britons came in crowds every day to hear the apostolic bishops, and the divine word was spread abroad, not only in the churches, but in the streets, in the fields, and in the bye-ways, so that the Catholics were everywhere confirmed in the faith, and having been led astray recognised the way of amendment. ^^ From this some writers have very reasonably inferred that Germanus and Lupus addressed the people in a vernacular ^^ Agricola Pelagianus Severiani episcopi Pelagiani filius, ecclesias Brittaniae dogmatis sui insinuatione (publication) corrurapit, sed ad insinuationem ? [actionem] Palladii diaconi papa Calestinus Germanum Autissiodoienaem epis- copum vice sua mittit et deturbatis hereticis Britannos ad Catholicam fidem dirigiti Insinuatio, then, meant putting on the register and publishing, Mommsen T. Chron. Min. Mon. Germ torn, ix. page 472. Wilhelm Levison has written an interesting article on " Bischof Germanus von Auxere," in the 29th vol. of the Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft fur altere deutsche Geschichtskunde — (1903). Referring to Zimmer he observes " Desen ausfuhrungen bei allem scharfsinn bjsweilen durch ein ubermass von hypothesen beeintrachtigt sind." And of Pflug Harting, who wrote against the authenticity of the Confession [Neue Heidelberger Jarhbusher iii. 71J he says : "Was Pflug Hartung gegen die Echteit der Coufessio und Epistola vorgebracht hat scheint mir nicht genugend zu deren Vervverfung." " Ad Scotos in Christum credentes ordinatus a papa Celestino Palladia? primus episcopus mittitur. — Mommsen: Chron, Min. i. 473. '8 T't cum quotidie irruents frequentia stiparentur diviuus sermo non solum in ©cclesiis verum etiam per trivia, per rura, per devia diftundebatur ufc passim et fide Catholici firmar'-ntur et depravati viam correctionis agnoscerent. — Vita, 19, 23 Stubbs' Ccncil., p 17. THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 157 tongue. This conclusion is warranted, if the testimony of Constantius on this point can be relied on. The words of Prosper deserve close examination. Palladius was sent " to the believers " after the Council at Ephesus had condemned Pelagius. He was the first bishop sent to them. Does this mean that he was to be bishop of the Irish, that he was sent " as their bishop ? " Prosper docs not say so, and we venture to think that this was not likely. That Palladius should have been sent, not only to the Scots, but to the western regions infected with the Pelagian heresy, to declare authori- tatively " a latere," what was decided at the Council and what were the final views of Rome, is what we should have ex- pected. His mission, we should say, was primarily to the clergy. Would Rome have sent him to the unbelieving Scots to convert them ? Would it have sent a missionary to talk to them in Latin when it had ready to its hand a tried and trusted man who could talk to the Gaels in Gaelic ? We shall now lay before our readers the substance of the state- ments made by Malbrancq, in his history of the Morini, on this point. The Rev. James Malbrancq was born at St. Omer in 1579, was received into the Society of Jesus in 1599, and died at Tour- nay in 1653. " Malbrancq," says M. Denoyers, a high authority on ecclesiastical antiquities, in an article on the ancient diocese of Therouanne, " devoted his life to the study of the Morini, visited the ecclesiastical establishments in the province, and never fails to indicate the authority of the sources to be con- sulted." ^^ There existed in his time an ancient muniment which has since been lost — the Chronicon Morinense — which contained an abridged narrative of the ecclesiastical events and the lives of the bishops of the diocese of Therouanne, taken from the original documents preserved in the archives. It was kept in the chapter-house of the bishopric of Ypres, to which it had been carried by the canons of Therouanne, who took refuge in that town after the destruction of the capital of the Morini in 1553 by the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Malbrancq had before him the Life by Frobus, and asserts in the 26th chapter of the De Morinis, that St. Patrick belonged for some years to the diocese of Therouanne, as " the MSS., and the »» Societe d'Histoire de France. Annuaire for 1863, p. 627. 15S EARLY IRISH HISTORY. Catalosfiics of the Bishops of this diocese, and the Life of St. Aruulph, of Soissons, testify." -^ In the Catalogue of the Bishops — and this is the all- important fact — -he found the name of St. Patrick not included in the direct line, but inserted at the side in the Catalogue." He was an adlatus, or assistant bishop, and so properly placed at the side (adlatus), and not in the direct line of the bishops. " He was not wedded to the Church (of the Morini)," adds Malbrancq, " since he was already betrothed to the Church over the Sea (of Erin)." "^ He was placed by Germanus amongst the Morini, because his assistance was required there at the time, and he could easily pass over thence to the Trish, when the time was ripe for missionary action there. A recent writer of great authority on the Registers of Therouanne, observes — " On the authority of the Catalogue, the most ancient and authentic, of the bishops of the Morini, it must be admitted that there was no duly constituted bishop (titulaire, a technical word) before Antimond (501 A.D.?) and we cannot regard as sutiragans (a technical word) the holy bishops missionary and regionary from the third to the sixth century, who evangelized large parts of this vast country of the Morini. St. Lie ven, for instance, landed there from Ireland, and suffered martyrdom in 647, on his way to Flanders and Brabant. As to St. Patrick, consecratedbishop by Pope Celestine a short time before his mission to Ireland in 432, he may have traversed the Morini, and evangelized it on his way, but it was not with the titulus (title) of suffragan bishop. See the Dissertation of Malbrancq, De Morinis, I., 622-624.2^ This we have already referred to. The learned Abbe thus adopts and corroborates, with some necessary technical qualifications, the statements of Malbrancq. ^ Patricium quern etsi ut suum suspiciat et viadicet Hibernia, Morinos tamen etiain aliquot aunis posse amplecti, et MSS. et Episcoporum hujus Dioaceseos Catalog!, et S. Araulphi Sues.-ioaeasis vita abunde testantur. — Malbrancq De Morinis torn. 1., c. 26, pp. 168-171. Tornaei Xerviorum, 1639. 21 Patricius ad Morinos quidem accessit episcopus sed non earn sibi despon- savit ecclesiam, cum transmarina addicta esset in sponsam ; idcirco Catalogl Episcoporum Moriuensium non eum recta includunt seriese d ad latus adseiscunt episcopum. — Ibid. 22 Bled O., Abb6. — Registeres des eveciues de Therouanne p. 7, v. 35. (1902). THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. 159 It is to this period, thfc exact length of which cannot be stated, perhaps a year or two only, that, in our opinion the part of the epistle to Coroticus which is genuine must be assigned. Coroticus was probably a robber chief over a predatory people on the border of the Morini who were at least nominally Christians, and the fellow-citizens (Roman) of our saint. In one of his forays at Easter time, when the baptisms took place at that period, he carried off numbers of the newly-baptised, and our saint appealed, not so much to him, as to such faith as existed in his lawless fellow-citizens. Most of the present text of the epistle is, in our opinion, a later addition. We cannot, however,'pursue the matter further here.^ When Germanus arrived at Boulogne with Lupus in 429 bis first thought was to take our apostle with them. But on coDsidering the matter with Lupus, they decided that he should remain there for some time longer until the Pelagian troubles had been disposed of. This is Malbrancq's view which appears to be very reasonable. We cannot conceive it possible that the priests at Therouanne would falsify their records by inserting the name of St. Patrick. The statement in the life of St. Arnulph, though entitled to some weight, is of secondary importance, as it probably represents only a tradition. Malbrancq has it that St. Patrick was consecrated by Pope Celestine bishop for the Irish, and that his ordination and mis.sion, in conjunction with the work of Germanus in Britain, was part of the campaign against Pelagianism in the West. If his view be right, Palladius was not appointed bishop for the Irish. There could not be two co-ordinate bishops for one diocese, and at that time, if we remember rightly, a bishop could not desert his espoused church, even to become bishop of Rome itself. Muirchu says Palladius did not wish " to spend time in a land which was not his own." This, we make no doubt is quite true. Muirchu says he was sent to convert the Irish, but being wild and rough they did not easily receive his teaching, so he crossed the first sea on his way home and died among the Britons.-* ^ The Patrician Docameats will be the subject of the next chapter. 2* Neque et ipse voluit transigere tempus in terra non sua, sed reversus ad eum qui misit ilium. Revertente vero eo hinc et primo mari transito coeptoque terrarum itinere in Britonum finibus vita functus — Muirchu. Analec. BoU., I. 553. Insulam sub Crumali rigore positam. — Trip. Life, R.S., ■-'72. 160 KARI-Y IRISH HISTORY. There can be very little doubt, if bis life bad been spared, he would have used his best endeavours to compose matters there, and the Pelagian trouble might not have broken out afresh, requiring a second visit from Germanus thirteen years later. Malbrancq's views found no acceptance with the Bollandist editor, Papebroche. He had constructed a wonderful ehrono- taxis — an arrangement of the life by years, giving time and place for everything. Malbrancq's views did not agree with that chronotaxis, consequently his views were wrong. The Catalogue of the bishops was, it was suggested, suppositious ; and the life of Arnulpb, according to the copy in his posses- sion, said nothing about St. Patrick. But there was a life a few miles oft' at Ypres that did so refer to St. Patrick, and the Catalogue of the bishops was there for all men to see ; and Malbrancq, who published the De Morinis in 1629, was alive, at Tournay, within easy reach of Antwerp, where the publica- tion of th.Q Acta Sanctorum commenced in 1643, and he lived For ten years longer. Papebroche playfully suggests that in his anxiety to exalt the name of his native land he disregarded the lawful claims of his neighbours. Surely then was the time to bring him to trial and compel him to prove his inno- cence. Papebroche forebore from doing so. He adds, how- ever, in mitigation of Malbrancq's lapse from virtue : " If Malbrancq had read my chronotaxis he would have omitted his twenty-sixth chapter."-^ We are of opinion that the perusal of that Wahres Guriosum would have had no such result. Further, we submit that St. Patrick is the unnamed bishop referred to in the following extract from Prosper, which is found in the " Contra Collatorem," a treatise written by Prosper against the semi-Pelagianism imputed to Cassian. Wherefore also the Poutifi" Celestine (+ Ap. 28th, 432), of vener- able memory, commanded Celestius (a disciple of Pelagius)to be driven from the border.s of all Italy . . , and with no less zealous care he delivered the Brittanias fi'om the same disease, when he drove from that secluded place on the Ocean some enemies of grace who were settling » Acta SS. vjii., 526 (Ed. 1865). THE COMING OF ST. PATRICK. IGl in the soil of their origin, and by ordaining a bishop for the Scots, wliilst he lal^oured to keep the Roman Island Catholic, made also the barbarous island Christian.* This work consists of an examinatiori of the IStli Collation of Cassian, a discourse of the Abbot Chaeremon on the Protec- tion of God, At the conclusion Prosper expresses a hope that the doctrines therein may be condemned by Pope Sixtus (432- 440) as they had been condemned by Celostine, his predecessor. From this it is clear that it was written after the death of Pope Celestine and during the Pontificate of Sixtus, i.e., between 432 and 440, and there is nothing except conjecture to fix on any particular year within these limits. Prosper says it is twenty years and more (et amplius) since the fight began, that is since 412, when St. Augustine published the '' De Peccatorum Meritis " his first anti-Pelagian treatise. On this ground Holder, Egger, and Hacuck suggest 433 or 434 as the date of publication of Prosper's Contra Col- latorem, ^^ whilst Zimmer says 437. If the bishop ordained was Palladius, Prosper would have named him as he did on two other occasions in his Chronicon. If Palladius was sent to convert the unbelieving Irish, he failed, and Prosper would not have ventured to make a statement notoriously contrary to the facts, which was certain to be challenged at once by vigilant adversaries. The statement, moreover, it should be added, is found in the 21st chapter, inserted apparently at the last moment, as the work is summarised, and virtually concluded, in the 19th.^ Before this the news of the conversion of Laeghaire had reached Prosper. The bishop then who was sent " to the Scots " (ad Scotos) is different from the bishop sent " for the Scots" (Scotis)and the ^ Unde et venerabilis memoritB Poatifex Celestinus Ccelestium totius Italiae finihus jiissit extrudi nee vero segniori cura ab hoc eodem morbo Brit- tatiias liberavit, quando quosdam inimicos gratia;, solum suib originis occupantes, etiam ab illo secreto exclusit Oceani ; et ordinate Sc 'tis episcopo, dum Roraanam insulam studet servare Catholicam fecit etiani barbaram Christianam. — Prosper Tiro. " Contra Collatorem." — Migne, Tom. 51, p. 271. ^ The Collatio was a conference or discourse on spiritual matters amons^st religious by way of qiie^-tion and answer, " by which method doubts were dispelled and truth made clear." — Migne 51, p. 673c ^ Neucs Archiv. (Rctrer). Real. Encyclopedie i^Hacuck). Celtic Church (Zimmer). 162 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. latter was none other than St. Patrick. Palladius was sent to the "believers," St, Patrick mainly for the " unbelievers." Some writers have considered that the effect of the evi- dence we have adduced as to the Roman Mission is greatly weakened if not outweighed by the fact that no mention is made of it in the Confession. This arises, in our judgment, from an incomplete understanding of its object and scope. It is not and does not profess to be a biography. The continued thread of the narrative is not in externals. These are dis- jointed, unconnected, and incomplete, suggesting throughout that something must have been lost or omitted. And so we are not surprised to find, as we shall see in our next chapter, that attempts were made at an early period to supply in some measure these supposed omissions, and additions were made to the original text which is to be found, we think, in the Book of Armagh and nowhere else. The Confession is in truth a profession and a testimony — a profession of faith in the necessity for grace from the very beginning to the very end of life ; and a testimony borne after a long and chequered career to its supernatural efficacy. It is primarily a record of inward experiences, and, for its length, the most profoundly spiritual writing in the literature of the Church after the time of St. Paul. External events, giving time and place, are used merely as a framework m which are set the inward occurrences " The Lord," he says, " took care of me, before I knew Him and before I had wisdom. Wherefore I cannot, and it is not expedient that I should, keep silent as to the favours which were so many and the grace which was so great (tanta beneficia et tantam gratiam), which He vouchsafed to bestow on me in the land of my captivity." And then he had the vision in the night time and took flight and left the man with whom he had been for six years, and " he went in the strength of the Lord, who directed his way for good." And so when men and dogs were starving in the wilderness he lifted up his voice in prayer, and his prayer was heard by the God of love, who fed His prophet from the mouths of the ravens, and con- veyed unseen supplies to the widow's cruse. And, again, in the night time he was seized by evil spirits, and he cried for mercy to the God of Pity, and the sun burst forth, and the evil spirits wen 'jhased back into the darkness. So after many THE COMTNO OF ST. PATRICK. 163 y^ars he wont again arnonpr his own people, and he wavered, perhaps, between a life of contemplative and easy piety on the one hand, and the strenuous and perilous life of " a servant laborious and serviceable to Christ " on the other. Victoricus then came to him with the letter beginning " The voice of the Irish," and he thought he heard voices which ho recognised from the Wood of Foclat appealing to him to walk still amongst them. He did not accept this vision as a com- mand, but as a grace — as a call to sacrifice, but as a sure sign and token of God's benediction upon him ; and he concludes with the ever memorable words, " I beg that no one may ever say if I have ever done or proved the truth of anything successfully [secundum ? ] however little, that I, ignorant as I am, have done it. But judge ye, and let it be believed most truly, that it was the grace of God. And this is my confession before I die." -^ The interest in this text is mainly spiritual. The canvas is otherwise tame enough. There is little light and shade. It lacks the deceptive charm of contrasted colours. The world loves the story of the prodigal son, and is anxious in particular to have a minute and detailed account of his doings while he was prodigal. This interest is happily absent from the life of our apostle. Pornographic perfumes have at all times a sickening odour, even when employed for pious uses. Saints with a past are manifestations of God's mercy ; saints without a past are manifestations of His grace. Our apostle was a child of grace, and his confession is inspired throughout with its holy influence. He did not, it is true, formulate prin- ciples or define and lay down doctrines. His was the practical wisdom to know when mysteries should be left mysterious. He did not regard grace as an unseen force to be distributed in volts or measured by foot-pounds. Grace was to him as a whispering wind, blowing softly on the withered foliage of the soul, and filling the leaves again with the freshness and the beauty of the spring time. 29 Precor . . ut nemo unquam dicat quod mea ignorentia si aliquid pusil- lum egi vol demonstaverim secundum ; sed arbitramini et verissime credatur quod doDum Dei fuisset. Et hac est confessio mea antequam morior. i 1(^4 J CHAPTER XL THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. THE Confession deals ver}' briefly with what happened after the arrival of our Apostle in Erin. Our readers will be glad to have tho narrative as nearly in his own words as our translation can make it. We also give the Latin text, as the ipsissima verla of the Saint are of the highest importance : — [Translation.] But it would be long (he says) to relate all my labour in details, or even in part. Briefly, I may say, that the most pitiful (piissimus) God often rescued me from being enslaved, and from twelve perils by which my life was endangered, besides many snares, and things that I cannot hnd words to express ; nor will I try the patience of my readers. But God is my Creator, who knows all things before they come to pass. For 1 am greatly indebted to God, who has given me such grace that many peoples (cuaca) should be born again to God through me, and that ever^'where clergy should be ordained for people newly coming to the faith, whom the Lord took to himself (sumpsit) from the ends of the earth, as He had promised by His prophets — " To thee the heathen will come and say, our fathers made false idols, and there is no profit in them." . . . Whence, then, has it come to pass that in Ireland they who never had any knowledge of God, but always hitherto worshipped idols ^ and unclean things have lately become a people of the Lord and are called Sons of God. The sons and daughters of the Scottic chieftains are seen to be monks and virgins of Christ (Filii Scotorum et filiae regulorum monachi et virgines Christi videntur) I call God to witness, on my soul, that I do not lie, neither [do I write] that there may be an importunity (occasio) on you, nor do I hope for honour from any man, for honour that is not yet seen but that the heart believes in sufficeth ; but I see now that I am exalted by the Lord above measure in this world, and I am not worthy nor such that He should bestow this upon me, for I know that poverty and suffering are more becoming than riches and luxury. For Christ the Lord was poor for us. Now I, poor and miserable, even though I should wish for riches, have them not, neither do I judge myself in that I daily anticipate being murdered or trapped or reduced to slavery, or some misfortune overtaking me. ^ The idols here r-eferred to were not anthropomorphic, but representations of the euD and moon, etc., as we ubali show in the next chapter. THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 165 Now I beg of those who believe and fear God, whosoever sh.iU deign to look into and receive this writing which Patrick the sinner and unlearned truly has written in Ireland that no one may ever say if I have done or proved the truth of anything siiccessfully (secundum)- however little that I, ignorant as I am, have done it. But judge ye and let it be believed most truly that it was the grace of God (donum Dei). And this is my Confession before I die. [Colophon.] Thus far the book that Patrick wrote with his own hand. On the l7th day of March Patrick was translated to heaven. Longum est hautem to turn per singula enarrare laborem meum vel per partes. Breviter dicam qualiter piisinius Deus de servitute saepe (me) liberavit et de periculis duodecira quibus periclitata est anima mea praeter insidias multas et quae verbis exprimere non valeo, nee injuriam, legentibus, faciam. Sed Deum auctorem (habeo) qui novit omnia etiara antequam fiant quia valde debitor sum Deo qui mihi tantam gratiam donavit ut populi multi per me in Deum renascerentur et ut clerici ubique illis ordinarentur ad plebem nuper venientem ad credulitatem quam sumpsit Dominus ab extremis terrse sicut olim promiserat per prophetas suos"Ad te gentes venient et dicent falsa comparaverunt patres nostri idola et non est in eis utilitas. Unde autem Hiberione qui nunquam notitiam Dei habuerunt nisi idola et immunda usqiie semper coluerunt quo modo nuper facta est plebs Domini et filii Dei nuncupantur. Filii Scotorum et filise regu- lorum monachi et virgines Christi esse videntur. . . . Ecce testem Deum invoco in animam meam quia non mentior, neque ut sit occasio vobis neque ut honorem spero ab aliquo viro. Sufficit enim honor qui nondum videtur sed corde creditur. Sed video jam in prtesenti sseculo me supra modum, exaltatum a Domino. Et non eram dignus neque talis ut hoc mihi praestaret ; dum scio melius convenit paupertas et calamitas quam diviti«j et delicioe. Sed et Christus Dominus pauper fuit pro nobis. Ego vero miser et iufelix etsi opes voluero jam non habeo neque me ipsum judico quia quotidie spero aut internecionem aut circumveniri aut redigi in servitutem sive occasio cujuslibet (fieri). Sed precor credentibus et timentibus Deum quicunque dignatus fuerit inspicere vel recipere banc scripturam quam Patricius peccator indoctus scilicet Hiberione conscripsit ut nemo unqu.im dicat quod mea ignorantia si aliquid pusillum egi vel demonstraverim secundum, sed arbitramini et piissime credatur quod donum Dei fuisset. Et hsec est confessio mea antequam morior.' [The Colophon follows.] Hucusque volumen quod Patricius manu conscripsit sua. Septiraa decima Martii die translatus est Patricius ad coelos. 2 Secundum is used adverbially. Whilo his " om Dei placitum A with z in margin." The Armagh text in the facsimile MS. and the Rolls series does not contain Deiplacitum. » A facsimile of the Armagh text is given by Gilbert, Part II. Appendix III., which it is useful to refer to. 166 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. The Colophon is in the same handwriting as the rest of the text and as the heading, wliioh was written, as we shall see, by Fcrdomnach, and is continuous with it. It is difficult to say whether it originated with him or whether he found it in a text from which he copied it, The heading, which is in these words, "Incipiunt Libri Sancti Patricii Episcopi " [Here begin the Books of St. Patrick, bishop], seems to indicate that there were two Books before him in one " binding," not using the word binding in the modern sense. The word Liber, as the word Book in mediaeval times, was applied to what we should now term a tract or a pamphlet as well as to a " volume." The *' Books " here mentioned were, EG doubt, those mentioned in the Tripartite Life and elsewhere —the Confession and the Epistle now usually called the Epistle to Coroticus. In the Cotton and Fell (2) MSS. the Epistle is introduced merely with the words " Explicit Liber primus incipit secundus." [The first Book ends (^' e., the Confessio), the second Book begins (i-e., the Epistle to Coroticus). ] Now the Epistle to Coroticus is not copied into the Book of Armagh; but it would be straining the effect and import of the Colophon too far to assume that it was omitted because it was not in the handwriting of the saint. Why, then, was it omitted v Ferdomnach's work, as we shall see, was done under the supervision and direction of Torbach, the successor of the saint in the See of Armagh. Its omission was thus the deliberate act of the Irish Church as represented by its head, and not merely the individual choice of the learned scribe. We think it was omitted because the text before them was not, in their opinion, genuine. We cannot for one moment believe that the text of the Epistle was not before them, or that, having it before them, and believing it to be the genuine script of the saint, or a genuine copy thereof, they would have omitted or neglected to have it inscribed. The Bollandists took their copy from a codex in the Monastery of St. Vedast. at Noialle, near Arras. They state that it was joined on to the Confession in the Cordex without any distinc- tive title. This want they supplied, and placed at the head of the Epistle the title, "Epistle of St. Patrick to the Christian subjects of Coroticus." They observe that this Epistle was not written to Coroticus himself, but refers to THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 167 another letter written and sent to be delivered to him, which was lost."* The following passage in the Epistle to Coroticus appears to be an extract from that letter : — It is the custom of the Roman and Gallic Christians to send holy and suitable men to the Franks and to the other nations with so many thousands of solidi (say 8/- each) to redeem baptised captives ; you (i.e., Coroticus) so often slay them, and sell them to a foreign nation that knows not God. You deliver members of Christ as it were into a brothel (quasi in Inpannr tradis membra Christi). What hope have you in God, or he who is of one mind with you, or becomes a partner with you by words of courtly approbation ? (Qui te communicat verbis adulationif.) This, it will be observed, is addressed directly to Coroticus. The genuine letter, which we call letter to distinguish it from the Epistle, as the Bollandists state, is lost. We pause here to ask : is this language applicable to the supposed Coroticus, of Alclyde, or to Kerdigan, the son of Cynedda ? Stokes observes on this: — The passage proves that it (i.e., the letter) must have been written while theFrank-i were Pagans, i.e., before A.D. 495, and before they had crossed the Rhine and settled in Gaul, i.e., before 428 A.D.^ If the latter date could be approximately fixed, say, before 432, with certainty, it would be most important ; but we have made no independent investigation on this point. The Epistle states, apparently in reference to the genuine letter and an extract from it : — With my own hand I (i.e., the saint), have written and composed these words and handed them to the soldiers (militibus the Roman soldiers) to be sent for the fellow-citizens of Coroticus. I will not say my fellow-citizens and the fellow-citizens of the Roman saints, but of demons, on account of their evil deeds . . . allies of the Scots and apostate Picts, who are bloody (sanguilentos sar.guinare ?) with the * Boll. Acta SS, 17th March, vol. XL. 534 (Ed. ISG8;. We are not aware whethei- thcve are an Explicit and Incipitinthe Vedast M.S. If so, they are not given. Professor Burj' thinks " the scril e was hurried, and that in writing the Confession he 'scamped' his work for the same reason which inipelica him to omit copying the Letter." — " Lite of Patrick ! " p. 227. * Trip. Life, latroduction p. 1, c. i, referring to Ferguson Patrician Docu. Cients 101. 168 F.K-RJjY IRISH HISTORT. blood of the innocent Christians whom I have begotten innumerably to God, and confirmed in Christ.® (i.e., gave them the Holy Eucharist). The Epistlo continues : — On the day after they were anointed neophytes while (the chrism) was shining on their foreheads they were cruelly slain by the above- juentioned, and I sent a letter by a holy priest whom I had taught from infancy, with clerics, asking as a favour that they might grant us some of the plunder, or of the baptized captives they have taken, but they laughed at them. The neophytes at that time were usually baptized together in numbers at Easter, anointed with chrism on the forehead, and clothed with white garments. This letter, as well as the letter to Coroticus, has been lost. We now come to the appeal to the Christian fellow-citizens ol Coroticus. The Epistle says : — I, therefore, earnestly beseech (you), who are holy and humble in heart, not to court the favour of (adulari), such persons (r.e., the raiders), nor to take food or drink with them, nor to take their alms, until they rigorously do penance with tears. I earnestly entreat every servant of God as he has been eager in the past to be now the bearer of this letter, and that it be not withheld from anyone, but rather read before all the people, even in the presence of Coroticus.'' This clearly implies that the letter was to be read before people who understood Latin — who were the Roman fellow- citizens of the robbers, under the command of the robber chioj, Coroticus. Would the people at Alclyde understand it ? Outside the Epistle, Coroticus is an " etymological " per- sonage. There is a fable of a conflict of St. Patrick with a ^ Mauu mea scripsi atque coudiJi verba ista danda et traleuJa militibus mittenda Corotoci non dico civibus meis atque civibiis sanctorum Romanoruin sed civibus deraouiorum ob mala opera ipsorum {riitt host Hi zn inorte vivuni ?) Socii Scotorum et Pictorum apostatarum. White gives r.eque instead of atqxie, atqiie is, we hold, the. true reading. We understand " civil " here to mean fellow-citizens. " The robbers by order of Coroticus" are nowhere called subjects (subditi) nor is he called King or Prince. The words " invidet iniraicus per tirannidem Coroticus " mean by the tyranny or cruelty of Coroticus, and do not imply that he was a tytannus or ruler. I'.inumerutn, innumerably. The adjective is used adverbially like " verum "' and *' secundum." The text is corrupt here ; we have not attempted to trans- late it. Confirmed is technical, and means here gave them the Holy Eucharist. ■^ Qu.Tso plurimum ut quicunque famulus Dei ut promptus fuerit ut sit gerulus litterarum harum ut nequaquam subtrahatur sed magis potius legatur coram cuactia plebibus et presente ipso Corotico. THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 169 certain Coirthech (supposed by some to be Coroticus), King of Aloo, supposed to be Alclyde. It is found in the Brussels Codex, but not in the book of Armagh. The saint, for grave reasons, and under circumstances we cannot detail here, turned this monarch into a little fox (vulpecula.) ! ^ The alternative Coroticus is Kerdigan, the son of Cynedda, the eponymus of Cardiganshire. It would require the genius of Ivloliere to describe adequately the linguistic transformation by which Kerdigan became Coroticus. As regards St. Patrick, there is a certain parallelism between the Epistle and the Confession. The compiler of the patchwork epistle had the text of the Confession before him, and we iudge that the parallelism is due to imitation on the part of a compiler and copyist. The language which he puts into the mouth of the saint is partly untrue, partly incredible, ind generally out of keeping with his character. For instance, the saint is made to say — " To them it is a disgrace that we have been born in Ireland." The idea belongs to a later century, when the Sect of the Scots was " Eliminated," and the explanation offered for this untruth — viz., that he identifies himself with his converts, is not satisfactory. The saint would never have said that he was horn in Erin. Again, "I was free born. According to the flesh, I was born to a father who was a decurio.^ For I sold my nobility for the good of others (I do not blush for that, or regret it.) In fine, I am a servant in Christ (given over) to a foreign nation, etc., etc. . . And if my own friends do not acknowledge me, a prophet hath no honour in bis own country." But his friends pressed him to stay with them, as he tells us in the Confession ; and he would not describe the office of decurio, which men fled to escape from, as " nobility," nor speak of selling or bartering it. His conception of his mission was spiritual, and not contractual, and very far removed indeed from the juristic formala of Do ut Des. 8 The fable is to be found conveniently in Trip. Life, 498. The Brussels MS. has " vel fecule," Probus vulpecula, Stokes. Trip. Life (248) says induce fiririAic. ** Decurione patre nascor. " Diaconus " is the word in the Confession instead of "Decurio." With contraction both words would be nearly ahke. Whether contracted or not the word would probably bo faded and })artly illegible by the time of Ferdomuaoh. The context in the Conieision shoivs clearly that Decurio is right. 170 EATILY TRTSn HTSTORY- We cannot, however, pursue this matter further, and must refer our readers to the Epistle itself. We have already said that there was probably a Letter to Coroticus, written while the saint was assistant-bishop among the Morini, and we see no reason to dissent from the judgment of the early Church in excluding the existing script from their Canon of Patrician documents. We do not propose here to give details as to the missionary labours of our apostle. Our readers will find an exhaustive account of the legends and traditions respecting them in the recently published work of Archbishop Healy. The reliable traditions of the Church concerning them will be found in the " Selections " of Muirchu, cautiously supplemented from the Tirechan text, the Liber Angueli and the " Additamenta " (a further " selection " which we may assign to Ferdomnach.) '^ These, with the Confession and Dicta Fatricii, constitute the Documenta Patriciana in the Book of Armagh. This is a small vellum quarto, now in Trinity college, Dublin, 7| inches in height, 5f in breadth, 2^ in thickness. It now contains 221 leaves. The first leaf of the Book is missing, but is supplied from a MS. that was formerly in the " Scots Cloister " in Wurzburg-on-the-Main, in Bavaria, where there is a cathedral dedicated to St. Killian, and which MS. is now in the Royal Library at Brussels. The writing is generally in double columns (rarely in three), and all appears to be in the hand of the same scribe, Ferdomnach, who invites the reader to pray for him, Pro Ferdomnacho ores, a request which his invalu- able labour entitles him to have duteously performed by his countrymen. The Rev. Charles Graves, afterwards Bishop of Limerick, " by a most recondite and elegant demonstration," established that the writer's name was Ferdomnach, who finished the Gospel, according to St. Matthew, on the 20'Ji of September, as a note at folio 36 testifies. Another note at folio 52 states that Ferdomnach wrote the book, "dictante " Torbach, the Co-arb of St. Patrick. Torbach died in 807, having held the See of Armagh for only one year. Ferdom- nach died in 845. The plan of our work does not allow us to enter into »" See Hogan, s. 2, " Ann. Bo'.l ," Vol. ii., 213. THE PATRICIAN DOCUMENTS. 171 particulars in matters of this kind ; but the service rendered by Bishop Graves, in fixing the date of the Book of Armagh, is so valuable that we must make an exception. We owe it to him to give, and we are sure our readers will receive with grateful pleasure, a brief exposition of some details. According to Gaelic usage, the name of the scribe was written in the Book of Armagh in not less than eight places — viz., at the end of the Confession, of Matthew, Mark, Luke, the Apocalypse, Acts, Life of St. Martin, and Epistles of Sulpicius Severus to Eusebius. These entries, however, except that at the end of St. Martin, had been erased and were undecipherable. The entry at the end of St. Martin's Life was, with great difficulty, ascertained to be Pro Ferdomnacho ores. No motive, as far as we can discover, can be assigned for these erasures, unless they were made to make it appear from the Colophon at the end of the Confession, " Thus far, the Book which Patrick wrote with his own hand," that the codex (or most of it) was written by the Saint himself, which Edward Lluydd states, was the commonly received belief in his time. Now there were two Ferdomnachs, both scribes. One died in 727, the other in 845. The latter is described by the Four Masters as a man of knowledge and a choice scribe of Ardmacha (844 A.D. 'Pe4|\'DorhnAe e^sn^tt) "] fcj\it»nit) cojAi'Oe A\mA X\)&Ca -oeCe). The penmanship of the Book of Armagh is of the most consummate excellence. The whole of the writing is remarkable for its distinctness and uniformity. All the letters are elegantly shaped, and many of the initials are executed with great artistic skill. The last verses of St. John's Gospel (fol, lOSa) may be especially referred to, as exhibiting a specimen of penmanship which no scrivener of the present day could attempt to rival." The erasure at the end of St. Matthew (fol. 52b) enabled the learned bishop to decide that the second Ferdomnach was the scribe whose name appeared in the Book. It consisted of four short lines in a semi-Greek character, the svritingin which was partly revived by the use of a weak solution of gallic acid in spirits of wine. It read as follows :— * * * ach hunc * * * m**'^e dictante * * * ach herede Pat ricii scripsit " Bishop Uravei, Froc, Ry. Ir. Ao., iii., 324, Paper read Nov. 9th, 18tG. 172 EARLY IRISH nrSTORY. Dr. Graves found that the bishop referred to was Torbach, who sat for oug year, according to the Catalogues of the Psalter of Cashel, given by Colgan, and the Leabhar Breac, and who died on the 16th of July, 807. He restored the text thus : — TEXT RESTORED. TRANSLATED. F domnach hunc Lib Ferdomnach this Book E rum ***e dictante . . . e dictating R Torbach herede Pat Torbach, successor of ricii scripsit ^^ Patrick, wrote He did not restore the three letters before the " E." We suggest that "ipse" was the word, and translate: "Ferdom- nach this book himself, Torbach, co-arb of Patrick directing, wrote." Ferdomnach ipse scripsit is a Gaolicism we have noted elsewhere ='peApT»orhn4c if eri-oe "oo f 0)11015. It must be remembered that the documents copied into the Book, at least the Patrician documents, were ancient texts, partly illegible from age at the date of the Book. The date of the Book of Armagh turns on the meaning to be attached to the word " dictante." K it means " at the dictation of" Torbach, as some will have it, the Book must have been written in the lifetime of that bishop, not later than 807. If dictante means " by the order of " Torbach, as others construe it, then the Book may have been written at any time during the life of Ferdomnach, who died in 845. We think that the true meaning of " dictante " here and in similar contexts is " planning and superintending the work," and that the first part of the Book, at any rate, in which the " Patrician Docu- ments " are found, was written during the lifetime of Bishop Torbach, who was himself an eminent scribe.^^ About that time the co-arbs of Armagh caused a diligent search to be made for everything that could be ascertained about the saint. " Here begin," says Ferdomnach in the Additamenta, " a few things in addition to be narrated in their proper places which ^- Co-arb (CAiTiAubxi) = Coheres, i.e, joint heir with Patrick. The Roman jurists had not reached the legal conception of a corporation Sole, and the Donations to the Church of Pvonie were alwiiys to St. Peter, the reigning Pope, and his successor, who were co-heirs with St. Peter. This mav be the origin of it. " Dictare operam signiTicare videtur praesse opexariis, iisque normam tra lere, atque ordiuem structionis. Ducange, sub voce. THE patrtomn documents. 173 Lave boen discovered in later times by the research (curiosi- tate) and zeal of holiness [diligentia sanctitatis] of the coarbs, which are collected, etc., to the honour and praise of the Lord, and in loving memory of Patrick, even to the present day."^* The importance of this statement cannot be overrated, It proves what, indeed, there is sufficient evidence to establish independently, that the documents inserted in the Book of Armagh were carefully selected after a diligent search by the early church. And, in our judgment, nothing not found in the Book of Armagh should be allowed "canonicity" in rela- tion to his life. The Patrician Documents were contained in the codex [folios 1-24, b. 1] in the following order: — (1) Muirchu's Selections ; (2) Dicta Patricii ; (3) Tirechan's Text ; (4) Ad- ditamenta, i.e. Selections in the hand of Ferdomnach, and probably made by him ; (5) The Index Hibernicus, in Fer- domnach's smallest hand, which contains notes or catchwords, which represent to some extent (Stokes says in the main) " that portion of the Tripartite Life, which is not embraced in Muirchu's memoir, and Tirechan's notes " ; ^^ (6) Muirchu's Preface and the Table of Contents [out of place] of Part I. of his Selections ; (7) The Liber Angueli ; (8) The Confession. The correspondence between the Index Hibernicus and the Tripartite, which Stokes points out, is very important. It brings such parts of the latter as are clearly referred to — very close to, if not within — the canon of tradition, which the church thought worthy of preserving after a selective process of criticism. This canon of tradition should be received with great respect, but yet not as an inspired word. It must be subjected to the tests usually applied to evidence of this class, and patiently sifted to ascertain, as far as possible, the elements of historical truth it contains. Muirchu wrote under the superintendence and direction of Aedh, bishop of Sletty.^^ His preface indicates the nature of " [Additanienta ad Collectanea TirechaniJ, Incipiiint alia pauca seroitinis temporibus inveuta suisque locis narranda curiositate heredum diligentiaque sanctitatis, quae in honorem et laudera Domini atque in amabilem Patricii memoriam usque in hodiernum diem congregantur. " These additions seem gathered by Ferdomnach, the scribe of ' The Book of Armagh," from other ancient Lives of St. Patrick." — Trip. Life, 33-i. Stokes. 15 Trip. Li/e. 348. ^^ Dictante Asduo Slebtien sis civitatis episcopo. ( + 6'J8). 174 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. the work he porfbrmed. We give the text in pj^rt and a translation of it tTo which we invite particular attention, as much turns on its correctness. It differs altogether, as will be perceived, from that usually accepted. Since many, ray lord Aidus, have essayed to arrange a narrative and tliat (utique istam, a Gallicism) according to what their fathers and those who were Ministers of tlie Word from the beginning related to them, but owing to the great difficulty of the task of arranging a narrative and divergent opinions and very various views of very many persons, have never reached one .sure tract of history. Quoniam quidem, mi domine Aido, multi conati sunt ordinare narrationem utique istam secundum quod patres eorum et qui ministri initio fuerunt serraonis tradiderunt illis, sed propter difficillimuin nar rationis opus, diversasque opiniones et plurimorum plurimas suspiciones nunquam ad unum certumque historiae tramitem pervenerunt. But not to appear to make a small matter into a big a fair, in obedience to the command of Your Holintss and episcopal authority, I too, shall undertake to tell, piece by piece, selectively (carptini) and with difficulty, a few of the many incidents in the life of St. Patrick which have been set forth with little skill from texts of iincertain authorship, with frail recollection and obscure meaning, hut with the most dutiful a faction of love. Sed ne magnum de parvo videar fingere pauca haec de multis Sancti Patricii gestis parva peritia incertis auctoribus, memoria labili, attrito sensu, vili sermone, sed affectu piissimo caritatis, etiam sancti- tatis tu9B et auctoritatis imperio obediens cai'ptim gravatimque explicare aggrediar. The part in italics is thus translated by Todd :— But lest I should seem to make a small matter great with little skill from uncertain authors with frail memory, with obliterated meaning, and barbarous language, but with a most pious intention, obeying the command of thy belovedness and sanctity and authority, I will now attempt, out of many acts of St. Patrick, to explain these gathered here and there with difficulty. Barry translates thus : — But lest 1 should seem to make much of little I shall undertake to tell bi'iefly and gravely these few from among the many deeds of St. Patrick, with slender skill, doubtful authors, forgetful memory, obscure text and mean speech, but with most loving attection in obedience to the behest of your Holiness and authority." *' Barry, Prologue by Muirchu, xv. Bury has an interesting article in Hermathena (xxviii., 172) on the tradi- tion of Muirchu's text. He says (p. 206), as regards the plac« wh^^re Pallaaus died. " We may, therefore, I think, coiijectiue with much probabiUty that Muirchu wrote 5n■' Jocelyn, c. 97, abridged. [ 1S5 ] CHAPTER XII. THE RELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFOllE SA.INT PATRICK. THE relig-iou of the Gael before the advent of Christianity can, in its general outlines, be ascertained with a reasonable degree of certainty. The evolution of their religious con- ceptions followed a normal course, and by comparing what we know of them with our knowledge of other branches of the Aryan family, we can fix, with precision, the stage at which it had arrived. The religion of the Celestial Fire, or light, pre. dominated ; the sun and the moon were the principal objects of worship. But beside and below this cultus were survivals from the animistic period ; sometimes referred to as poly- demonism. This consisted in a belief in the existence of spirits, or demons, animating, or watching over everything, and that everything could be controlled or influenced by verbal formulas, incantations, or magical practices known only to the wizards. These wizards became fortune-tellers, obtaining information from the demons theycontroUed; and, being observers of the heavens, and having power over the elements — wind, rain, and mist — they became in due course astrologers. It was the superstitions connected with polydemonism that the Church found everywhere the most difficult to eradicate. The Church admitted the existence of evil spirits, their intelligence, activity, and implacable hatred of mankind. Speaking of the cultus of stones, in the valley of Lebroust, in the centre of the Pyrenees, a writer, quoted by Bertrand, stated, in 1877 :— These enchanted (sacrees) stones are most frequently found near spriiif^s, and are boulders or blocks of unhewn granite ... In vain do the priests fight against them in the pulpit. They liave not suc- ceeded in extirpating them from all hearts. In vain do they get these vestiges of persistent paganism secretly destroyed, particularly those near which young men and girls keep tryst. When the inhabitants catch the destroyers at work, they assemble, and prevent them. If the work has been accomplished unknown to them, they gather up the broken pieces and replace them, and continue the cultus. It is 186 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. necessary to remove the pieces to a distance, and scatter them. Sometimes a cross is placed on the spot to appropriate to religion the respect in which it was held.^ Was the Lia Fail sent away for this reason f We shall see. The Gael were approaching polytheism, or, possibly, even monotheism, but had not reached either. There were no temples or man-shaped idols among them such as are found in abundance everj^-where else in Europe. None have been found above ground or underground at Usnach, Tara, Tlachtga, Tailltin, Cruachan, or elsewhere in Erin, except at Magh Slecht. St. Patrick tells us in the Confession, as we have seen, that the Irish had no knowledge of God, but worshipped idols and unclean things (idula et immunda). What were these idula ? Were they man-shaped ? We submit they were not. There are two entries in Cormac's glossary which throw much light on this point. We quote them here in full : Idol, i.e., ab idolo, (iSog in the Greek, forma in the Latin, unde dicitur idolum , that is the forms and representations of the idols or the elements {iiandulaf which the heathen used to make formerly. Indelba, i.e., the names of the altars of these idols, because they were wont to make {dofornetesf on them the figures (delba) of every- thing (or of the elements)* they adored, verbi gratia figura solis (figure of the sun). This is further illustrated by the following story told by Keating : — There was a priest in Tir Conell in the time of Colum Cille who built or erected a church of splendid stone and erected an altar with glass in it, and put shapes of the sun and moon in it, in that church ; ^ and shortly after that came a weakness and a swoon upon that priest, and a demon came to him after that and took him with him in the air, and after a while they came near Colum Cille, overhead him. He caught sight (of them) and stretched out the sign of the holy cross over- head in the air. So with that the priest fell down from above. And accordingly the priest dedicated the church to Colum Cille for his help from the hands of the demon, and became a monk himself and spent a good life from that out.^ * Bertrand, La lieUijion des Gaulois, p. 46. * Nandula — creatures. Stokes, ' Dofornetes — carvo. Stokes. * Cormac's glossary. Stokes 94, 95, compiled 890, A.D. (c). ' Delba in uile no adratis (no nandula odortaes). The uilc not translated by Stokes is important, as it would include the sun and moon which, hcnvever, the Gael would then classify as " dula." ^Stokes gives text and translation. Rev. Cdt., xx., 428. "Do bi SASAfc df Ciii ConeLl ad — Ibidem. THE RELIGION OF THE GAEL BEFORE SAINT PATRICK.— II, 209 evil arts. Two of those wizards often declared that a foreign worship, destined to exercise great power, together with a certain hurtful teaching, would be introduced from over sea from afar ; a religion which would be taught by few, received by many, and honoured by all, and would overthrow king- doms. They pointed out the bringer of this teaching in a sort of verse, often repeated by them, especially two or three years before the coming of the Saint, which can be expressed more clearly in Gaelic than in Latin : — CiepA CAitchetin C4|t mtii|i meificenn, A b|iAch colchenti, a cVi]tAtin ciiomchenn, A miAf iti Aitichiu|i A ri^e Pt'TS^t'^^c A mumceji utLe Amet^, Amen. Axehead will come over a furious (?) sea, His mantle (chasuble) liead-holed, hi.s staff crook -headed, JTis paten (altar) in the east of the house, All his people shall answer Amon, Amen. When these things come to pass, our Kingdom, which is heathen, will not stand.13 " Axehead," refers to the form of the tonsure which, we may observe, cannot have been the Druidical tonsure, if there was such, as in that case it would not have been distinctive. To describe it roughly, the Gaelic tonsure was half a circle, extending from a line drawn from ear to ear at the back, but confined to the top of the head, the circular part lying front- wise, having a fringe of hair all around it, A good deal has been written on the form of the Celtic, or, as we prefer to call it, Gaelic tonsure. In oui judgment, Bishop Dowden is perfectly right in his conten- tion that the front part of the head was not completely shaved, as some urge, but that there was a fringe of hair left to mark the outline of the semi-circle. "It is plain," he observes, " that if the whole of the hair on the front of the head was shaved off there would be nothing resembling a ^^ Muirchu gives Af^cipnt as the Latin equivalent for tailclieun, and this is usually translated adzehead ; we suggest that axehead is the better meaning, having regard to the form of the tonsure, which, assuming that there was a frontal fringe, would correspond fairly enough with the shape of an axe, but would not correspond at all with the shaps of an aike. Ascia, an axe for hewing wood ; a carpentei'fi axe. — Lewis and bhort, sub voc*- Trip. Life,2'Ji. 210 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. corooia of hair." ^^ We add further, that in that case their would be nothinj^ resembling an axehead, whereas with the fringe tho resemblance of the shorn crown to an axehead is striking. The bishop adds : — " The p.'issage in Abbot Ceolfrid's letter to Naiton, King of the Picts (A.D. 710), preserved by Bede, seems very distinctly to say tliat viewed in front there seemed to be a crown, but that when you looked at the back of the head you discovered that what you thought you saw was cut short, was not a real and complete crown." The words in Bede we translate : — *' Which (tonsure) to look at on the surface of the forehead is seen to present the appearance of a crown, but when you arrrive at the back of the neck examining it you will find what you thought was a crown is cut short." -'^ We understand this to mean that the circle is not com- pleted ; it is roughly a semi-circle instead of a whole circle. Ceolfrid says the complete circle was necessary to represent the crown. But this is not so. The Grown of Thorns, which the tonsure symbolized, is represented by Correggio. in the " Ecce Homo," as an incomplete circle, and is* not widely different from the Gaelic tonsure. Another passage in the same letter is even more decisive. Ceolfrid tells us that when Adamnan visited him he said to him : — " I beseech you, holy brother, who believest that thou art going to the crown of a life that has no end why, in a fashion contrary to your belief, you bear the form of a crown that has an end." ^^ This can only mean that the coronal circle did not go round, but was ended before the circle was complete. So much for the form of the Gaelic tonsure. Another aspect of the question will engage our attention later on. We do not propose to enter here into the " Pelagian contro- versey" raised by Zimmer. All scholars are now of one mind that his assumptions are bold to the verge of rashness, and his inferences hasty and ill-considered. In addition to what we have already written we shall confine ourselves to quoting the ^^ Celtic Church in Scotland. Dowden, J., Bishop of Edinburgh, p. 242. 2" "Quae (tonsura) aspectu in froutis quidem superficie corouae videtur speciem praeferre ; sed ubi ad cervicem coiisiderando perveueris decurtatem earn quam te videre putebus invenies coronam." — Bode, V. 21. '^^ Obseero, sancte frater qui ad coronam te vitae quae terminum neeciat teudero crcdi-;, quid contrario tuae fidei habitu terminatam in capite coronao maginem portaa ? THE RELIGION OF THE GAE7. BEFOnE SAINT PATRICK.— -II. 211 following passage from Professor Bury. Referring to " The Celtic Church in Great Britain and Ireland," he observes : — "The most striking part of the sketch 13 the new theory of Patrick, whose Confession, once waived aside by the author as spurious, ia, alon:< with the missive to Coroticus, emphatically admitted as authentic. It is impossible here to criticise the theory which is worked out with seduc- tive ingenuity, or I should have to raise the whole Patrician question ; but I may just say that Professor Zimmer's theory seems to me to have two radical defects. It does not account for the facts, and it is not based on an adequate study of the sources." ^^ The Church had not as yet defined its teachings on the points involved, and there were many phases of Pelagianism before it crystallised into the formal heresy we have already given in out- line. It is possible, nay, probable, that some of the views held by Pelagius, or which were attributed to him by adversaries with a keen ^air for heresy, or by followers who were, so to say, more royal than the king, had reached and were disturbing the little Church in Erin. The fact that Palladius was sent to the believers indicates that Rome thought there was at least a case for inquiry, possibly danger ahead against which it would be prudent to take precautions. And further, consider- ations of this kind may have entered into the motives which induced our Apostle in his old age to write his profession and testimony. We shall not, however, pursue the matter further. An essay on the aberrations of a great scholar in a field of knowledge which he had not made adequately his own would be distasteful writing and unprofitable reading. '■ning Hist Rev XlX. (1893>, 534, and see Articles by Dr. M'Carthy, Ecc. Rec. XiV., and Malone Eccl. Rec. XII. [ 212 3 CHAPTER XIV THE SENCHUS MOR AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. IN olden time, before the rise of Chancery and Equity, the laws of England were divided into two branches — the Com- mon Law and the Statute Law. The Common Law was the common custom of the realm, handed down by tradition from immemorial time, and reposing securely in the breasts of the judges. In the same way the tribal customs in Erin were the common law for each tribe, and remained un- written until after the reception of the faith. Afterwards some parts of this customary law were reduced to writing — those parts, as it appears to us, which from their great detail and enumeration of minute particulars, could not be entrusted safely to the keeping of the most tenacious memory. This, however, was not done officially. There was no codification of the customs, no digest, no work — official or non-official — giving a completed view, even in outline, of the civil and criminal jurisprudence of the country. Spenser, in his View of the State of Ireland (1595), describes the Brehon Laws as " a rule of right, umvritten, hut delivered by tradition from one to another, in which oftentimes there appeareth a great share of equity in determining the right between party and party ; but in many things repugning both to God and man — e.g., compensation for murder — the eric fine, by which vile law many murders amongst them are made up and smothered." ^ " The original Brehon Text," observes Rickey, one of the editors, "consists altogether of curt and proverbial expressions which rarely attempt the completeness of a sentence, and are strung together without any attempt at logical or grammatical connexion. The words are written without stop or accent, continuously, without break. A Brehon judge, reading a pas- ^ The Brehons delivered judgment from commentaries and maxims {\\o\'cc.iX>\\) T pAfAigib) Stokes' Coria. Ulons, Fasach, VG. THE SENCHUS MOR AND THE TKIDAL STSTE:.!. 213 sage for the first time, would fjud it difficult to understand it. The customary rules, to be found in the text, rarely atford re- liable information. They are intended to serve as catchwords, to assist the memory, to recall what had been previously com- municated, generally in a rhythmical form, always in language condensed and antiquated. They assume the character of abrupt and sententious proverbs, the drift of which can only be vaguely guessed at. Collections of such sayings are to bo found scattered through the Brehon Law Tracts." ^ There is no treatise on any part of the customary law pur- porting on the face of it to be written by a Brehon, stating, as was usual in such case, the name of the author and the placo and cause of writing. There is a legend that all those customs were submitted to St. Patrick, and that they were then purified and reduced to writing. No such body of laws has reached us, and there is no sound reason for believing that any such ever came into existence. The texts which have reached us are known as the Brehon Law Tracts, and all the important ones have, wo believe, been published in the five volumes of the Ancient Laius of Ireland, issued in the Rolls Series. These tracts may be divided into two parts. The first part is contained in vols, i., ii., iii, (1-79) of the Rolls Series, and comprises (1) The Law of Distress ; (2) Hostage, Sureties ; (3) Fosterage ; (4) Saer Stock ; (5) Daer Stock ; (G) Social Con- nexions ; and (7) The Corns Bescna. These constitute the Senchus Mor (Shanahus More) or great old tradition, and are preceded by some marvellous prefaces in which we are told by one editor that Cormac MacNessa was Ard Righ of Erin, and by another that in the reign of Cormac MacCuelennain " there was an opportunity for establishing legislative authority, or the enactment of laws." Distress is a legal term with which we are familiar in the law of landlord and tenant. It means the seizure and detention of goods and chattels. Procedure to enforce a demand commenced, according to Gaelic custom, with the seizure and detention of the defendant's goods. The object of this was to compel him to satisfy tho claim, or else to go voluntarily before the brehon to ^Ancient Lan:\ "Vol. iv., p. x. — and see L'histoire traditionille de xii- tables Melanges, Chapploton, 1903, par E. Lambert. 214 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. have the matter in dispute decided according to the tribal custom. Public opinion, and, probably, if necessar}', the "stronc; hand " ' compelled the defendant to abide by and perform the award of the brehon, but there was no recognized machinery for legally enforcing it. There ^vas no sheritf nor sheriff's bailift'to execute the decree. In the case of a person belonging to the inferior grades the text of the law provided that notice should precede every distress. When a claim was made against a chieftain or a bishop, " fasting on " the chieftain or bishop was the first step in the procedure. If the chieftain refused to cede to fasting he was to pay double the thing for which he was " fasted upon." He might, however, " give a pledge to fasting," and have the case tried. If a pledge was offered, and the fasting continued notwith- standing, the claim was lost altogether. This custom of fasting on a debtor existed in recent times, and probably still exists, in the Native States in India. In Hindu Law it is called " Sitting Dharna." " Dharna," observes Maine, " according to the better opinion, is equivalent to the Roman * Capio,' i.e., seizing or distraining." It would thus be equivalent to the Gaelic At-gAti-xMl (Distress) gAb-im, being equivalent to cop-io, and fasting would, in reality, be a form of distraining.* It is erroneously stated in the Preface (vol. ii., p. xl.) that in the case of a debtor who had no property, if he was of the chieftain grade, he could, after one day's notice, be arrested, unless he could get a native to become surety for his remaining in the territory until the case was tried. In the case of an absconding debtor, the " fine " was liable after notice. Kings could not be distrained in person out of regard for the dignity of their office, but their stewards might be distrained in their stead. Fosterage — the giving and taking of children for nurture — was a custom widely diffused amongst Aryan communities, and occupied a position of great importance in the tribal system of Erin. It was a social tie of the most binding character, uniting tribesmen of different grades, and men of different tribes and septs in the warmest and most enduring affection. It was of two kinds — fosterage for affection and fosterage for " ' II serait lynche," D'Arbois. * Maine, Early HisL 038. THE SENCHUS MOR AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 215 reward. The tract contains minute regulations regarding the duties, liabilities, and rights, attaching to both kinds. We shall refer only to the provisions regarding education. The sons of an ogaire, the lower grade of a fiaith, or noble, were taught the herding and care of lambs, calves, kids, and young pigs ; kiln-drying, and the combing of wool, and wood- cutting. The daughters were taught the use of the quern, the sieve, and the kneading-trough. The sons of an aire-desa, a noble of high rank, were taught swimming, shooting, horse- manship, chess-playing, and horn playing — their music. The daughters were taught needle-work, cutting-out, and embroi- dering. " A king's sons shall have horses in times of races." A horse was to be supplied from the time the child attained seven years, and horsemanship taught. It was not taught to the Feine-grades, which mean here the grades under the grade of Fiaith. The Fosterage continued till the " age of selection," i.e., marriageable age, which was thirteen for girls and seventeen for boys. We shall refer to the tracts dealing with saer stock and daer stock in our next chapter. The second division of the Tracts comprises :— (1) The Book of Aicill ; (2) The Taking of Lawful Possession ; (3) Judgments of Co-tenancy ; (4) Bee Judgments ; (5) Right of Water; (6) Precincts; (7) Of the Judgment of every Crime ; (8) The Land is Forfeited for Crimes ; (9) Divisions of Land ; (10) Divisions of the Tribe ; (11) Crith Gablac ; (12) Sequel to Crith Gablac ; (13) Of Successions ; (14) Small Primer ; (15) Heptads ; (16) Judgments on Pledge Interests ; (17) Con- firmation of Right and Law ; (18) Of the Removal of Covenants. Of these Tracts, the most important for our purpose would be the Crith Gablac and Sequel, which purport to deal with the grades of society, if they were at all reliable. This is, unfortunately, not so. The grades of society, says the author of the Tracts, are seven in number, like the seven ecclesiastical orders, " for it is proper that for every order in the church there should be a corresponding order among the people." We adopt in regard to it the views of Richey, who says : — The Crith Gablac may be fairly characterised as the faulastic production of an antiquarian lawyer of a strong ecclesiastical bias, 216 EAPwLY IRISH HISTORY. cotupo'^ed at a date at which tlie tribe sj'stcm was breaking up, and tho condition of the people, moral and nviterial, had much deteriorated. The work is of the highest value as an antiquarian treatise rather on account of the general principles which it assumes, and the incidental statements it contains than from the accuracy of its classifications or the truth of its minute details, and any deductions founded upon a belief in its historical value must lead to conclusions involving the too common error of sub tituting an iuuiginary for the actual condition of the people. ^ Of tliG other texts we have enumerated we shall only refer to the Book oi: Aicill, which occupies the whole of Vol. III. of the Brehon Law Tracts, except 79 pages, and is the most important of them. It commences : — " The place of this book is Aicill, near Tava, and the time is the time of Cairbre Liftechair, son of Cormac, and the cause of its having been composed is the blinding of Cormac " (details as to which we have already given). " And Cairbre used to go to Cormac to Aicill about every difficult case, and Cormac used to say, ' My son, that thou mayst know, and explain the exemptions.' " It is a treatise on the criminal law and on the law of Torts. It contains such provisions as that every judge was punishable for neglect, and that the " cat was exempt for eating the food in the kitchen if it was negligently kept, but not exempt if the food was taken from the security of a house or vessel."^ Strangely enough, though it was composed in part at least by Cormac (227-266), and added to by Cenfaelad, who was wounded at the battle of Magh Rath (642), it is not included in the Senchus Mor. To this we must now return, and place before our readers the legend concerning it, which is duly chronicled in the first volume of the Brehon Law Tracts. According to this legend Nuada Derg, the brother of King Laoghaire, at his instigation, killed one of St. Patrick's people, '' that he might discover whether the saint would grant for- giveness for it." Then the saint was angered and raised up his bands towards the Lord and remained in the attitude of prayer with his hands crossed. And there came a great shaking and an earthquake at the place, and darkness came upon the sun and there was an eclipse, and they say that the gate of hell was then opened and that Tara was being over- turned, and then it was that Tara became inclined. And tho ' Richey, Anc. Laws, III., ccvii • -A mic 4^14 peif eji "i wa blAfi. THE SENCHUS MOR AND THE TRIDAL SYSTEM. 217 Lord ordered him to lower his hands and to obtain judg. ment for his servant that had been killed, and told him that he would get his choice of the Brehons in Erin ; and he consented to do this as God had ordered him. He chose Dabthac Mac Ua Lugair, and this was grievous to Dubthac, and he said : " It is irksome to me to be in this cause between God and man, for if I say that this crime is not to be atoned for by eric fine it will be bad for thy eWc {i.e., the honour price that he would be entitled to, as we shall see, for the killing of his servant), and thou wilt not deem it " If I say that eric fine is to be paid and that (if it is not paid ?) it is to be avenged, it would not be good in the sight of God. For what tliou hast brought with thee into Erin is the judgment of the Gospel, and what it contains is perfect forgive- ness of every evil by each neighbour to the other. What was in Erin before then was the judgment of the law, i.e., retalia- tion ; a foot for a foot, an eye for an eye, life for life " (when the eric fine was not paid). Dubthac afterwards delivered a metrical judgment, in which he said : — Yea, every living person that inflicts death (maliciously) Whose misdeeds are judged shall suffer death. He who lets a criminal escape is himself a culprit. It is evil to kill by a foul deed. I pronounce the judgment of death. Nuada is adjudged to Heaven {i.e., his soul). The commentator adds— It was thus the two laws were fulfilled. The culprit was put to death for his crime, and his soul was pardoned {i.e., on his baptism), After this sentence the saint requested the men of Erin to come to one place to hold a conference with him, and the Gospel was preached to them. " And they bowed down in utter obedience to the will of God and Patrick. Then Laoghaire said, ' It is necessary for you, men of Erin, that every other ' We have translated the text according to our view of the laAV. As it stands translated iu Vol. I. we are unable to imlerstand it. When the eric fino was not paid, the talio, which was suspended only on condition of the fine being paid, revived. Tlie Church elssvrhere fought against this, took the culpriD into sanctuary, arranged the fine or weregiid, and in the last resort delivered him into slavery on condition that his life should be spared. It is a highly important test wheu properly understood. 218 EARLY IRISH HISTOlir. law should be settled and arranged by U3 as well as this.' ' It is bettor to do so,' said Patrick. It was then that all the professors of the sciences in Erin were assembled, and each of them exhibited his art before Patrick, in the presence of every chief in Erin. It was then that Dubthach was ordered to exhibit the judgments and all tlie poetry of Erin, and every law which prevailed among the men of Erin, through the law of nature, and the law of the prophets (or seers), and in the judgments of the island of Erin, and in the poets." What did not clash with the Word of God in the written law and in the New Testament, and with the consciences of the believers, was confirmed in the laws of the Brehons by Patrick and by the ecclesiastics, and by the chieftains of Erin, for the law of nature had been quite right, except the faith and its obligations, and the harmony of the Church and the people. And this is the Senchus Mor. The entry in the Four Masters referring to these events is A.D. 438. " The tenth year of Laoghaire : The Sevchus and Feinechus of Erin were purified and written." The commentary states that the Senchus was completed in the ninth year after the coming of Patrick (432 A.D.) The authors were, according to the legend, and as stated inCormac's Glossary : — Laoghaire, Core, Daire the Firm, three Kings , Patrick, Benin, and Cairnech the Just, three saints; Rossa, Dubthach, and Fergus with goodness, three sages of poetry, of literature, and of the language of the Feini. They were the nine props of the Senchus Mov.^ Such is the Legend. This was, we are told, the Cain Patrick, and no human Brehon of the Gael is able to abrogate anything that is found in the Senchus Mor. The text states it contained four laws: (1) Fosterage (2) Saer stock (3) Daer stock (4) Social relationship, and also the binding of all by verbal contract, for the world would be in a state of confusion if verbal contracts were not binding. There are, it states, three periods at which the world dies: the period of a plague, of a general war, and of the dissolution of verbal contracts. There are three things which are paid, viz. : Tenths, first-fruits, and alms, which prevent the period of a plague, and the suspension of amity between a king and the country, and the occurrence of a general war. These tenths and first fruits are more specifically dealt with in the tract called Corns Bescna, which appears to have been ^ Cor. Gloss., Noes. p. 122. THE SENCHUS MOR AXD THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 219 written by the author of the legend, or to have been in part copied from it. The right of a church from its people, it states, are tithes, first fruits, and firstlings. What are firstlings ? Every first birth of every human couple, every male child of the first lawful wife, and every male animal of small or lactiferous animals. First fruits are the first of the gathering of any new produce, whether small or great, and every first calf, and every first lamb that is brought forth in the year— every tenth afterwards, with a lot between seven {i.e., to set aside the three worst of the ten, and cast lots between the remain- ing seven, according to the commentary), with her lawful share of each family inheritance to the Church, and every tenth plant of the plants of the earth, and of cattle every year. All this is part of the Senchus Mor. We are asked to believe that all this was ordained by the chieftains of Erin within six years after the arrival of the saint. We refuse to believe it, though we admit that it would be very desirable that so extensive a claim should, if rightfully established, be placed under the segis of our apostle and the kings and chieftains of the country. We refrain from saying anything about Dubthac's judgment. If there is anyone so constituted mentally as to believe that King Laoghaire allowed his brother to be executed for killing the charioteer of a foreign missionary at his request, no argument of ours would be likely to change his opinion. The legend, as we have seen, says nothing about the law of distress, which is now the largest part of the text of the Senchus Mov, nor of the Book of Aicill, which is the most important, and, seemingly, the oldest of these Law Tracts. The oldest text of the Senchus Mor is a fragment which may be fixed at 1350 A.D. The residue of the text is one or two centuries later than Cormac's Glossary, which is ascribed by Stokes to the 10th century. The legend is not mentioned in the Patrician documents — neither in the Book of Armagh, nor in the Tripartite Life. There is no doubt, however, that the Senchus and the other texts contain much that was old, very old, when they were written, and, taking the indications to be found in them, scattered, confused, and often contradictory, as they are, and supplementing them from other sources of information, we feel justified in presenting the following views to our readers : — It is not our purpose to open up here the question of the origin of property in land, or to go very deeply into the question 220 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. of TriKal Customs. It is, however, necessary to say sometbinc; about the latter. Seebohm bas made a special study of Tribal Custom. He bas examined the Bargundian and Visigothic laws, tbe laws of the Salic and Ripuariau Franks, tbe earliest Nurse and Scandinavian laws, and the laws of Scotland. In particular, be bas made a close and minute examination of tbe tribal system in Wales, recognising, as he tells us, " the value of a substantial knowledge of one tribal system as a key to unlock the riddles of others." ^ In Cymru (Wales) tbe social unit was a group of kindred called a " gwele," wbicb word is represented in tbe Extents by " lectus," and wbicb Seebobm understands to mean a " bed." Tbe child was received into tbe "gwele" on the oatb of tbe mother in tbe cburcb wbere tbe burial-place of ber people was. She placed ber rigbt hand on tbe altar, and ber left band on tbe bead of ber child. Tbe child was tben formally received as of kin. Until the age of fourteen the youtbful Cymro was to be at bis father's platter, wbo up to that time was to be responsible for bim in everything. Tbe fatber tben took, tbe boy to tbe lord or cbief to commend bim to bis cbarge, and tben tbe youtb became bis man, and be was to answer every claim bimself tbencefortb, and to receive from tbe chief bis da, i.e., an allotment of cattle, witb tbe rigbt of joining in the co-plougbing of tbe waste lands. He became a full tribesman in bis own right by " kin and descent." The gift of cattle was apparently a binding of tbe relation between tbe youtb and his cbief. It is, perhaps, permissible to suggest that tbe giving of cows, wbicb we shall meet witb presently, in tbe Gaelic system, may have bad its origin in a similar usage. Tbe gwele into wbicb tbe young tribesman entered in due course was a family group of four generations, the landed rights of wbicb were vested in tbe great grandfatber as its cbief of kindred (penceneadb).^" During tbe life-time of tbe cbief of tbe " gwele," tbe sbares of bis sons, i.e., tbe sbares of maintenance Avbicb tbey were entitled by custom to get out of the undivided land, stock, etc., were called, Seebohm tbinks, " gavells." Tbey are described as 9 Tribal Custom in Wales, vol. i. (1895). Triba.1 Custom in Anylo-Saxon Law 1902. ^° Seobohm Wales, 64. Anylo-Saxon Law, 22. THE SENCHUS MOll AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 221 'gavell" (apparently /arm) in the Extents. On the chiefs death the sons became chiefs of these gavells or sub-gavells, but the " gwele " did not then break up. When the two brothers (if only sons) died, their sons would be entitled to take equally, per capita, undivided shares, i.e., if one brother left three sons and the other six, each would take one-ninth. When these nine were all dead, their sons (second cousins) would be entitled to take, in the same way, per cajnta. divided shares,^^ and the " gwele" was then broken up. Females were entitled to portions, which they took out of the " gwele " on marriage, and at the time of the Cymric Codes, the date of which is disputed (probably of the 12th or 13th century, embodying archaic usage), the orphaned sons of a deceased member were allowed to take the place of their father in the arrange- ment we have described. A family group, somewhat wider, of seven, or in some cases nine, generations was collec- tively responsible in the case of homicide — a crime likely to cause a blood feud between kindreds. The members of the contributory group paid the death fine (galanas) in unequal proportions, and, in turn, when one of their group was killed, the death fine was divided amongst them in the same proportions.^^ Within the kindred there was no death line for homicide. The murderer, if it was a case of murder, was too near in blood to be slain. He was driven out, became a " kin-wrecked " man, and fled like an outlaw to find shelter where he could. The payment of the death fine was thus a matter, not between individuals, but between the two dndreds. This outline will make the Gaelic system more .ntelligible. It is unnecessary, however, to go into further detail. What we have given has been taken from Seebohm's authorita- tive works. At the reception of the Faith in Erin, society was in the cribal stage of evolution. As under the Cymric custom, the tribal unit appears to have been, not the individual, nor yet the immediate family, but a group of kindred. Within this group there was social solidarity, and, with some excep- tions, the members of it were connected by ties of blood. This group was called define, a word which was also used sometimes " }Vid€s, 33. ^- Anylo-Saxon Law, 29. 222 EARLY IRISH HISTORV. for the immediate family. It was divided into four hearths or grades of kindred : — 1. Geil Fine — Father, son, grandson, brother ... 4 2. De.rb Fine — Grandfather, paternal uncle, nephew, first cousin ... ... ... 4 3. Gar Fine — Great-grandfather, great-uncle, great-nephew, second cousin ... ... 4 4. Ind Fine — Great-great-grandfather, great- great-uncle, great-great-nephew, third cousin ... ... ... ... 4 Chieftain (probably) ... ... ... 1 Total 17 The subject of the Four Hearths is obscure, but the fore- going is the explanation given by M. D'Arbois, and Seebohtn observes that " viewed in the light of other tribal systems, it seems to be nearer to the mark than the various other attempts to make intelligible what, after all, are very obscure passages in the Brehon Law Tracts. The sixteen persons making uj) the four divisions of the fine or kindred must be taken, 1 think, as representing classes of relations and not individuals, e.g., under the head ' first cousin ' must be included all first cousins, and so on throughout." In the Brehon Tracts the number of this group is stated to be seventeen persons, and Seebohm adds : " He himself (the chieftain) would form the seventeenth person on the list." The Four Hearths, comprising in this way the sixteen grades nearest of kin to the criminal, were liable to the four hearths of the man killed in the cases where eric was payable, and the^7ie received in the same proportionas it paid. The shares Df the various grades were unequal, but fixed in definite pro- portions whether eric was received or paid by them. This was as between one fine and another. As between the culprit and the other members of his fine, in the case of homicide of non-necessity, i.e., " where the death was intentional and not deserved by the injured party." — (III., 697.) — the murderer and his property were given up for it in the first instance, but the liability of the fine remained if this proved insufficient. In cases of necessary homicide, i.e., by misadventure, and so excusable, all the fine contributed proportionally, the THE SENCHUS MOR AND THE TPJBAL SYSTEM. 223 culprit not more than his defined quota. In cases other than homicide, the culprit paid all in the first instance, and the person injured received all the compensation. The eric fine was composed of two elements: — I. — Corp dire or Body fine proper, which was the same for all classes — seven cunihals or twenty-one cows, to which was added one cumhal for compensation (aithgen). Total = Seven cumhals. II. — Eneclann (face price), usually called hono7ir price, i.e., payment for insult, which was not confined to homicide and varied according to rank. These two, with some exceptional additions, made up the eric. Enech-lann varied according to rank, and was a most important element in tribal custom. Besides entering into the eric fine, it regulated the value of the tribesman's oath, his guarantee, his pledge and his evidence. It was the honour price of the person injured or slain that had to be paid, Seebohm states ^3 that in the case of homicide it was the honour price of the slayer, not " the honour price of the slain that was to be paid, i.e., the higher the rank of the slayer the greater the payment to the kindred of the person slain." He founds this view very naturally on the following passage, which he quotes from the translation of the Book of Aicill, p. 99 : — " The double of his own honour price is due of each ... for secret murder." On referring to the Gaelic text, however, it appears to be faulty at this point. The word eneclann does not occur. The words are -oibl^t) a Iaid t)tiT)ein. The words should pro. bably be TDiblAt) Uin eneclAinm, i.e., the double of the full honour price of the person slain. That this is so is shown in the Book of Aicill (p. 497). In the case of a chieftain or saer tribesman refusing to attend, or going away from a hosting, he incurred both a smaet fine and honour price fine. And it is provided " that whenever it is a smaet fine that is paid, it shall be paid according to the rank of the person who pays it. And whenever honour price is paid, it shall be paid accord- ing to the rank of the person to whom it is paid." ^^ '^ Trib. C-ust. in A.S. Law, c. IV. and p. 81. ^^Anc. Law. Ill, 99. 224 EARLY IRISH IIISTOUY. Homicide, undoubtedly, was not an exception to this rule. If a king or a bishop was killed by a daer tribesman (ceile), would the honour price of the latter be accepted by the fine of the former ? Surely not. If the tribesman was satirized or insulted, if his protection was violated, if he was robbed, or his wife or daughter was abducted, his honour price was the measure of the damages ho was entitled to. So the honour price of the man slain was, we make no doubt, the measure of the damages to which the fine were entitled. The system of eric fine found no favour with the Angevin, or English lawyers, who came to Erin. There were no hangings and quarterings, and above all no forfeitures. Spenser thought, as we have seen, that the system led to the commission and screening of murder. This, however, may well be doubted. The fine who had to pay the eric were, no doubt, a very vigilant police to prevent such outrages, and punish the culprit when they deemed it fit to do so. Tlie eric was only a settlement of the quarrel between fi.ne and fine ; it did not apply to inter- tribal homicide, and our texts are singularly free from records of assassinations, poisoning, and other malicious homicides. The talio is found in nearly every civilization at a particular stage. It was, no doubt, a step in advance. It involved an inquiry before a judge in most cases. It ordered men to put some curb on their passions, and observe some proportion between the injury and the punishment. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was better than that human life should be taken, often on suspicion, for every trifling insult. By it, however, the tribes were led into keeping a sort of debtor and creditor account of acts of violence, and when this went on for a few generations, the blood feud (fich bunaed) was firmly established, and revenge became a pious and a public duty. In putting an end to this, the system of eric fines was in its turn useful, and found a place in due time in every system where the talio once prevailed. We do not, of course, suggest that it was as good as the system of criminal jurisprudence which exists to-day amongst civilised nations. But we venture to think if the choice were offered to an enlightened jurist to-day to decide between the eric system and the barbarous system of death penalties for petty theft, which was the Draconian Law of England in Spenser's time and THE SENCHUS MOR AND THE TRIBAL SYSTEM. 225 until the beginning of the last century, he would, for a community circumstanced as the Gael then were, give his preference to the eric system. After explaining the meaning of the terms used to indicate the honour price, we shall now give a list of " honour prices " of the various rauks in the community, compiled with great industry and care by Seebohm, from the Brehon Law Tracts, as accurately as the confused and often contradictory nature of the material permitted. The cumhal. or bondmaid, was the highest barter unit in Erin. How this came to be so we cannot say. Ridgeway says, " in Homer the cow is the principal barter unit, but the slave is occasionally employed as a higher unit."^^ It is tempting to suggest that there was a foreign trade in slaves, to account for it, but we distrust tempting suggestions, especially those which we make ourselves, and prefer to wait for better knowledge on this point. At the time we speak of, the cumhal was used merely as a unit of account, and was reckoned at three great milch cows or plough-oxen, which are said to have been valued at twenty-four screpalls. The screpall, again, was equal to three silver pennies, each of which weighed eight grains of wheat, so that the innginn was nearly equal to the silver penny of Ehzabeth's time. Honour Price List.^*^ Flaith {Cow Kent Receivers). Cumhals. RiTuaith ... ... ... ... 7 AireForgaill, 15Seds,nOSeds, or ... ... 6 „ Tuisi, 20 „ „ ... ... 4 „ Ard, 15 „ „ ... ... 3 „ Desa, 10 „ „ 2 Cow Rent Payers. Bo Aire, 5 Seds or ... ... 1 Og Aire, 3 Seds of Cow' Kind „ ... ... 1 Medboth Man, Adairt Heifer ,, ... Colpach Heifer. (The lowest grade (two years' old) „ ... (thice years' oldg. in the/ree community). In our nest chapter we shall consider the status of the tribal occupier, and the way in which his rights were dealt with at the time of the confiscations and evictions in the six counties of Ulster. "Ridgeway'a Metallic Currency, 30, 33. ^« The Sed here may be taken to be a Ri sed, and equal to a milch cow or plough-ox. All the estimates and statements should be received with great reserve. —Seebohm, Cust. in A. S. Law, p. 91. By cow rent we mean rent paid for cows like the rent of the modern " dairyman " in Ireland. [ 22G ] CHAPTER XV. THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AN'D SIR JOHN DAVIS. THE tribal district was at first, as a matter of fact, and after- wards in theory, considered to be the property of the tribe, and the enjoyment of it by the tribal units was in early times of a simple and easily intelligible character. Specific portions of it were marked off for each fine or family group for a dwelling and curtilage, and some " board-land " was set apart for the chieftain for his life. The remainder consisted of arable, pasture, and waste land. The pasture and waste were used in common, each group being allowed to place so many cows, horses, sheep, etc., upon it. We suggest that the arable land was farmed, as in mediaeval times, by a system of fallows in this way : Let us suppose a fallow in alternate years. A field of, say, one hundred acres, was tilled by a certain number of groups one year. Their shares in the field were measured, and were then assigned to each group by drawing lots, as is still the custom in the country when a field of old pasture is turned up and let out in half acres for potato planting. The next year that field remained in fallow. In the third year the groups did not go back to their old portions, but drew lots again for their plots in the field. In the interests of good husbandry this system was better than a mere tenancy at will. Every tribesman joined in the field of one hundred acres was interested in having every plot in it properly tilled, as it might fall to his own lot on the next division. More- over, there could be no "jerrymandering" ; everything was fair, open, and above board. C^sar says of the Germans — " They do not apply themselves much to agriculture, and their diet consists principally of milk, cheese, and flesh meat. Nor has anyone a fixed measure of tillage land (agri) and boundary marks for himself, but the magistrates and chieftains assign k) the family groups related in blood who have come together, the amount of tillage land they think proper, where they think THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 227 proper, and compel them to change to another (place or plot) the ensuing year. They give many reasons for this. (1) That they may not be tempted by uninterrupted use to exchange the pursuit of war for agriculture. (2) That they may not be eager to acquire large estates, and the weaker (tribesmen) be turned out of their holdings by the more powerful. (3) That they may not build houses carefully constructed to avoid heat and cold. (4) That there may be no greed for wealth which gives birth to faction and discord. (5) That they may keep the mass of the people contented when each man sees that his property is as large as that of the most powerful." Again, of the Suevi, he says more brie% — " There is no tilled field amongst them in private or separate ownership, nor do they continue in one plot (loco) more than one year tilling it." ^ So Horace says of the Getae : — " Nee cultura (tillage) placet longior annua," OcZ. iii., 24, and Tacitus: " Arva per annos mutant." — Germ. 26. Caesar says, as regards the Suevi : — " Men of huge frames " (immani corporis magnitudine, like the Gael), that they changed from place to place every year for dwellings (incolendi causa) as well as for fallows, as we suggest. The mensal lands were at first attached to the chieftainship, and passed in succession from chief to chief. But after a time, whether by appropriation of these mensal lands or othewise, the chiefs and more powerful amongst them encroached on the public ownership, and class distinctions were developed in the way Caesar (writing the views of a Roman Democrat about latifundia) points out. As regards Ireland, this matter is exceedingly obscure, and we find no intelligible and reliable information in our texts enabling us to speak with confidence until we reach the period of tlie confiscations in Ulster. For this reason we shall not attempt to follow conjecturally the various stages of the growth and development of the organisa- ^ Africulturse non student, majorque pars eorum victus in lacte, caseo carne consistit. Neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines habet proprios, sed magistratus et principes in annos singulos gentibus coynationihusque homifium qui turn una coierunt quantum, et quo loco visum est agri attribuunt atque anno post alio trausire cogunt. Ejus rei multas afferuut causas ; ne assidua consuetudine capti studium belli gerendi agricultural commutent, ne latos fines parare studeant potentioresque humiliores possessionibus expellant ; no accuratius ad frigora atque aestus vitandos aidificeut, ne qua oriatur pecunije cupiditas qua ex re factiones dissensionesque nascuntur, ut animi aequitate plebem contineant cum suas quisque opes cum potentissimis a3quari vident. — Bell. Gall, vi., 22. The similarity between the Gael and Nordic Germans in religion, social customs, and skulls, is striking and suggeativo. 228 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. tion of society, and shall deal very briefly with the intermediate period. The Gael, like the Germans, did not apply themselves much to agriculture. The principal wealth of the tribe consisted in herds and flocks — in cows, pigs, sheep and horses. The tribal units had a right to pasture a certain number of horses, cows and sheep on the common pasture lands, and to place a certain number of swine in the common woods ; having regard to the number of the population there was enough and to spare for everybody. The only pasture laud, held in severalty, was certain " board land " assigned to the chief. Long before the time of the Brehon law tracts, many changes had taken place. Society had become divided sharply into free and unfree classes. To begin at the bottom, there was a large body of slaves, tho probable number of whom there is no means of estimating. Next in order probably came a class of persons called fuidirs. They are supposed by some to have been non-tribesmen — strangers from another tribe, or foreigners who came to reside on a chieftain's land. After three or four generations, like the Cymric Attiids, they probably became recognised as freemen. In the fourth generation, it is said, they perhaps became daer botach, half free, and in the fifth, sencleithe. This is what might be ex- pected from the analogy of other systems ; but we are not in a position to speak with any certainty on details, as the accounts we have, and the meanings assigned to the terms midbod fuidir, daer botach and sencleithe are not uniform. Next in the ascending scale came the cow-rent payers. These stood below the Flaiths. In the Senchus Mor there is, as we have seen, a treatise on saer stock and on daer stock. This mode of occupation is referred to in the translation as " saer stock tenure and daer stock tenure." The texts, however, refer to the letting and hiring of stock exclusively, and are silent as to the letting of land. In the case of " saer stock," the letting was without security, and so it was called " saer," i.e., a free letting. In the case of " daer stock," the letting was with security, and the hirers were called " daer," i.e., unfree hirers, or giallna. The chief could compel the tribesmen to take a certain quantity of stock without security (f^xeti-jiAc). On the receipt of saer stock the tribesman was bound to yield homage, and at the end of three years to give a sed, i.e., a cow, in addition, or to pay an equivalent in food, rent, etc., and also to do some THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOUN DAVIS. 229 labour at the erection of the dun (fort) and the reaping of the harvest; he was bound also to go on military service. No one was bound to take daer-stoch even from his own chief tain, or king. It was a matter of contract. Tlhe saer-tenant could not separate from his chieftain, unless the latter was indigent and so required his stock back. Nor could the chieftain require his stock back unless the tribesman became indigent and the security of the stock was placed in danger. The food rent was free to the successor of the chief (flaith) for the chief is not competent to forgive the food rent so as to bind his successor (113). Saer stock or daer stock from an external chief might be returned or claimed back at any time. As regards daer stock it could not be received without the consent of the tribe, which shows that the ownership of the tribe land was in the tribe and not in the ri, flaith or bo-aire individually. The stock is received either with or without the knowledge of the Jine by the tribesman (ceile) ; for if it was unknown to them [that he did so], they could impugn his contracts ; but if it was with their know- ledge though the stock be ever so great it is fastened upon them, (page 222). From the ri-tuaith to the Bo-aire and ogaire the various grades of society were bound together by the nexus of stock- taking. At each step the inferior takes stock from, and pays food-rents to, the higher. When the Brehons came to the Ard-ri they were puzzled. Honour-price was fixed, as we have seen, by rank, and rank was estimated and delimitated by stock-taking. From whom did the Ard-ri take stock? Four times seven curahals to the King of Erin without opposition, for which (being without opposition) he received stock from the King of the Romans, or it was by the co-arb of Patrick the stock was given to the King of Erin ; but whichever of them is supposed to give stock to the King of Erin, it is not to show giallna hiring in him, but to show honour price. (225). The sketch we have just given shows tliat the tribe and every member of it had definite rights in the tribal land, that the land belonged to the tribe, and that nothing could be further from the real facta of tlie case than the pretence that the chieftain or ricjh was a kind of owner in fee-simple or 230 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. allodial owner, of the tribal lands, and that the tribesmen T^ere tenants at will on his estate and liable to be evicted by him or by anj'one, the Crown not excepted, claiming through him. We shall now consider how the tribal occupier's rights were dealt with at the time of the confiscations and evictions in the six counties of Ulster. On the accession of James I, in 1603 the Irish policy adopted by the Government in the first instance was to " settle " the various " countries," and establish freeholders. This was in effect a return to the enlightened policy of Henry VIIL, who had stood out tenaciously against the project of confiscation and plantation, which his hungry courtiers, demoralized by the plunder of the churches and monasteries in England, urged persistently upon him. This wise policy was not, however, maintained. If the English courtiers had sharp appetites, the Scottish crew who followed in the wake of the Stuart were famished. And the monarch then, or a little later on, was borrowing money at ten per cent, for the public service. The Exchequer being empty, the courtiers should look elsewhere to gratify their cravings. Appointed Solicitor-General in 1603, and Attorney-General in 1606, Sir John Davis held office until 1619, and it was during his time, and, to a large extent, by his actions and instrumentality, that the policy of forfeiture, confiscation, and eviction was substituted for the policy of conciliation and the conversion of the tribal occupiers into freeholders. The various phases of the policy appear in the correspondence between Davis and Salisbury, from which wo^make extracts. The italics are ours. In April, 1604, Davis wrote to Salisbury :— He {i.e., the Earl of Tyrone), seeks to secure that, by an order from the Slate, all the tenants who formerly thvelt in his country, but are now tied into the Pale and other places to avoid his extreme cutting and extortion, should be returned unto him by compulsion ; albeit these tenants had i-ather be strangled than returned unto him. I hope to see in the next Parliament an Act passed in this land that shall enjoin every great lord to make such certain and durable estates to his tenants as would be good for themselves, good for their tenants, and good for the Commonwealth, It does not stand with reason of State or policy that Tyrone should have such interest m the bodies of the King's Bubjects ; for it was this usurpation upon the bodies and persons of men that made hira able to make war upon the State of Eugiand, and make his barbarous followers THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 231 think they had no other king, beccauso their lives and tlieir goods depended upon his will. In England, " Tenants at will " enabled Warwick and the great lords in the Barons' wars to raise so great a multitude of men. Whereas, at this day (tenancies at wili being replaced by fixed estates), if any of these great lords of England should have a mind to stand upon their guard — well, they may have some of their household servants or retainers, or some few light-brained, factious gentlemen to follow them. But as for their tenants — these fellows will not hazard the losing of their sheep, their oxen, and their corn, and the undoing of themselves, their wives, and their children, for the love of the best landlord that is in England.^ Cliicbester was appointed Deputy, and, in the phrase of the period, " came to the sword," in Dublin, on February Snl, 1605. lie was, it would appear, instructed to pursue the policy recommended by Davis. Soon after his appointment, he issued a proclamation which had been prepared beforehand, and which bears date March 11th, 1604. This highly important proclamation states that the Deputy had received Letters Patent from the King, in which, after signifying his desire to establish the commonwealth and the realm (of Ireland), he took particular notice of two mischiefs there. The first was the renewing of claims and challenges concerning private injuries and public offences during the late rebellion. This he reme- died by granting a full amnesty up to the 20th March in the first year of his reign. The second mischief, which concerns us more nearly here, was " the continuance of such oppressions and exactions as had been usurped by divers chief lords of countries, on the bodies, lands, and goods of the tenants and freeholders of the same, whereby the said tenants and inhabitants were enforced wholly to depend on the will of their said lords, being deprived by reason of their ignorance and the remote places wherein they dwelt, of that benefit of the Common Laws and royal protection which his other subjects enjoyed to their unspeakable comfort." The Lords and gentlemen of countries were, in remedy of this, forbidden to imprison for debt, trespass, or private displeasure, or to levy any fine without lawful warrant of the ordinary Minister of Justice. As regards the lands situate in these countries, the proclama- tion states that the lords who had received Letters Patent of territories from the Crown, under colour of the general Avords in the Patents, " claim and challenge to themselves the interest ' /r. €al., J, go and 100, condensed. 232 EAllLY niLSU HISTORY. and possession of such lands as divers ancient freeholders and their ancestors had been lawfully seized of, within the said terri- tories, by course of inheritance, beyond the time of memory ; the said lords and gentlemen alleging sometimes that the said free- holders were but tenants-at-will ; and sometimes that they have forfeited all the said lands by the late rebellion, whereas, in truth, the most part of the said freeholders were driven into rebellion by the said lords and gentlemen themselves, and yet were never attainted for the same ; but having received his Majesty's gracious pardon for their said defection, so as then they stood as clear and upright in the law as any other loyal subjects." The mischief was remedied by declaring that according to the true intent and meaning of the Patents, the general words did not affect the interests of the freeholders, and the lords were strictly enjoined to allow them to enjoy the same -without extorting cuttings or exactions. There were also, the proclamation states, on divers scopes and extents of land, persons who had no certain estate nor place of habitation, and the lords were enjoined so to dispose of their lands, as to receive certain rents and duties, and forbear from the use and usurpation of cuttings and cosherings.^ It is not at all likely that the condition of the general body of tribal occupiers was at all benefited by this proclamation. In the summer of 1616, Davis accompanied the Lord Deputy (Chichester), the Chancellor and others, in a visitation they made in the counties of Monaghan, Fermanagh and Cavan, with the view of settling these countries, and making freeholders. In a letter to Salisbury he gives a very full account of the state of Fermanagh (Maguire's country), which shows that the tribal arrangements we have described, though impaired by the usurpations of the chieftains, were still in the main preserved. "We found Fermanagh," he wrote, "to be divided into seven baronies, containing each 7h ballybetaghs of land, in all 51i bally, bctaghs of land, chargeable with Maguire's rent and other contributions of the country. In addition there were free lands, (1) Terraon or church lands, (2) Mensal lands of Maguire, (3) Privileged lands of Chroniclers, Rhymers and Gallowglasses. This amounted to about two ballybetaghs. - The contention was that the attainder inchided the inferior tenants, whilst the new Patents did not expressly mention their interests, and that consequently their interests were not resuscitated, and that the new patentees took the land dis- charged from them. THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 2S3 " Maguire's mensal lands lay in several baronies, and did not ex- ceed four ballybetaghs. They were free from charges of the country, because they yielded a large proportion of butter and meal and other provisions for Maguire's table. Besides these food rents (from the Mensal lands), Maguire had about 240 beeves yearly paid unto him out of the seven baronies, and about his castle at Enniskillen he had about a half ballybetagh, which he manured (tilled) with his own churls. . . . There are many gentlemen who claim estate of free- hold in that country by a more ancient title than Maguire himself doth to the chief rie." ^ The area of Fermanagh is 289,228 statute acres, of which at least 115,000 are arable, Joyce gives the usual acreage of the ballybetagh in tabular form : — 1 Tricha, ced, or luath equal 30 Ballybetaghs.^ 1 Ballybetagh „ 12 Sesrachs (or plough lands). 1 Sesrach „ 120 Ir. acres.* A ballybetagh or townland was sufficient to maintain " 300 cows without one touching another ; " it contained 3,600 statute acres. We may supplement this description by a reference to Sir Toby Caulfield's account of the Earl of Tyrone's estate, over which he was appointed receiver after the flight of the Earl. This valuable document shows (1*^) That no certain portion of land was let by the Earl to any of his tenants, as they are called ; (2'^) that the rents received by the Earl were received partly in money, partly in victuals, oats, butter, pigs, sheep, etc. ; (3°) that the money-rents were chargeable on the cows that were milch or in calf that grazed on his lands, at the rate of twelve pence the quarter the year ; the cows to be numbered at May and Hallowtide. The amounts of the rent for the years ending Hallow- tide, 1608, 1609, 1610, were £2,102, £2,862, and £2,847 respectively. We understand these to be rents from the demesne lands of the Earl, stated to be in the counties of ^Fermanagh, at the close of the sixteenth century, consisted of a certain number of b;illybotaghs, each of which contained four quarters, and each quarter four tates (a name peculiar to Cavan and Monaglian). Thus each ballybetagh contained sixteen tales, each tate being estimated at 60 tV Irish acres. The tate continuing in local use was stereotyped there as a townland containing on the average 184 statute acres. The ballybetagh, according to this, was = 184 x 16 = 2,944 statute acres. — Reeves' Proc. Uy. Ir. Ac, vii., 477. In the survey made for the Plantation, according to Hill (107) these tates are set down as thirty acres Irish or thereabouts, and the undertakers got them at this estimate, *Soc.Ir , 1.40, 11.372. 234 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. T^^rone, Armagh, and Coleraine. Sir Toby was appointed to take charge of such lands and territories as belonged to the traitor in Tyrone, Coleraine, and Armagh. Allowing the then value of money to have been over fifteen times as much as at present, the rental was moderate for his demesne lands alone.* The food rents of Maguire's mensal lands were contained in a parchment roll in the possession of O'Brislan, a chronicler and principal brehon of that country. O'Brislan was summoned ; he said the roll had been destroyed by the English, but the Lord Chancellor " did minister an oath unto him. The old man, fetching a deep sigh, confessed that he knew where the roll was, but said that it was dearer to him than his life, and that he would never produce it unless the Lord Chancellor would take a like oath to return it. The Lord Chancellor, smiling, gave his hand and word, and thereupon the old brehon drew the roll out of his bosom. " When it was translated, we perceived how many porks, how many vessels of butter, and how many measures of meal and other such gross duties did arise unto Maguire out of his mensal lands. In time of peace he did exact no more ; marry, in time of war he made himself owner of all, cutting, i.e., exacting, what he listed, and imposing as many honaghts or hired soldiers upon them as he had occasion to use. In the late war he hired them out of Connact and Breifne O'Reilly, as his own people were inclined to be scholars and husbandmen rather than kerne." " We called unto us the inhabitants of every barony severally, and had present several of the clerks or scholars of the country, who knew all the septs and families, and all their branches, and the dignity of one sept above another, and what families or persons were the chiefs of every sept, and who next, and who were of the third rank and so forth till they descended to the most inferior man of all the baronies. Moreover, they took upon them to tell what quantity of land every man ought to have by the custom of their country, which is of the nature of gavel kind, whereby as their septs or families did multiply their possessions have been from time to time sub-divided and broken into many such parcels as almost every acre of land hath a several owner, which termeth himself a lord and his portion of land his country, notwithstanding that Maguire him- self had a chiofry over all the country and some demesnes » Ir. Col., III., 532. THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 235 that did pass to him only, that carried that title. So was there a chief of every sept, tvho had certain services, duties or demesnes that ever passed to the tanist of that sept, and never was subject to division." All these details they took down, descending to such as possessed two tuaths. There they stayed, as they knew that " the purpose was to establish free- holders fit to serve on juries, and less than two tuaths would not make a 403. freehold per annum ultra reprisalim, and, therefore, were not of competent ability for that service, yet the number of freeholders named in this country was above WO." This report, made out in this way, was handed to the Deputy, who called the principal inhabitants into the camp, and told them that he came on purpose to understand the state of every particular man in that country, to the end that he might establish and settle the same. His lordship's speech and good demonstration to the people gave them great con- tentment. " Touching the inferior gentlemen and inhabitants it was not certainly known to the State in Dublin whether they were only tenants at will to the chief lords (whereof the uncertain cuttings which the lords used upon them might be an argument), or whether they were freeholders yielding of right to their chief lord certain rents and services, as many of them do allege, affirming that Irish cutting was an usurpation and a wrong." I -236 ] CHAPTER XV.— (Continued.) THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. DAVIS was thus at first fully in agreement with, and an energetic advocate of, the policy wc have indicated, and his views were, no doubt, fully shared by the Deputy Chichester. It was probably with the view of bringing more prominently into relief the precarious character of the possession of the inferior occupier of the soil that the Deputy obtained from the judges the following Resolution^ as to the legal character of what was called the Irish custom of gavelkind : — First it is to be known, reports Davis,^ that in every Irish territory there was a lord and chieftain and a tanist, who was his successor apparent. And of every Irish sept or lineage there was also a chief who was called a Cennfinny or Cajiut Coynationis. All the possession within the Irish territories (before the common law of England was established in this realm as it now is) ran always either in course of tanistry or in course of gavelkind. Every seigniory or chiefry, with the portion of land which passed with it, went without partition to the tanist, who always came in by election or the strong hand, and not by descent, but all the inferior tenancies were partible between the males in gavelkind. Yet the estate which the lord had in the chiefry or which the inferior tenants had in gavelkind was not an estate of inheritance but a temporary or transitory possession ; for as the next heir of the lord or chieftain was not to inherit the chiefry, but the oldest and worthiest of the sept, as is shown before (F. 78) in the case of tanistry, who was often removed and expelled by another who was more active and strong than he, so the lands of the nature of gavelkind were not partible amongst the next heirs male of him who died seized, but amongst all the males of his sept in this manner. The Cennfinny, or chief of the sept (who was commonly the most ancient of the sept), made all the partitions at his discretion, and after the death of any tenant who had a competent portion of land, assembled all the sept, and having thrown all their possessions into hotchpot made a new partition of all, in which partition he did not assign to the son of him who died the portion which his father had, but he allotted to each of the sept, according to his seniority, the better or greater portion. . . Also, by this custom, bastards had their portion with the legitimates, wives ■ It is reported by Davis himself in Law French. We give it translated and abridged. ■^ Hill 3, Jacobi, 1606. THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 287 were excluded of dower, and daughters were not inheritable although their fathers had died without male issue. By the custom of Kant the lands were partible among the male heirs, bastards were not admitted, wives were entitled to dower, females in default of males inherited. The Irish custom was agreeable in several of these points to the custom of gavelkind, which was in use in N. Wales, which was reproved and reformed by the Statute of Rutland made 12 E. I., and utterly abolished by the Statute 34 H. VIII., c. 28. For these reasons, and because all the Irish countries and the inhabitants were from thenceforward to be governed by the rules of the common law of England, it was resolved and determined by all the judges that the Irish custom of gavelkind was void in law, not only for the inconvenience and unreasonableness of it, but because it was a mere personal custom and could not alter the descent of inheritance. And all the lands of these Irish countries were adjudged to descend according to the course of the common law. This resolution was not, our readers will understand, a decision or judgment of a court in a case pending before it, but rather an opinion of the judges, which was registered amongst the Acts of Council.^ The proviso was added that if any of the mere Irish possessed and enjoyed any portion of land by the custom of gavelkind up to the commencement of the king's reign such person should not be disturbed in his possessions, but should be continued and established in it, but that afterwards all lands should be adjudged to descend according to the Common Law.* The word gavelkind does not occur in the Brehon Law tracts, nor any word like it, nor is there any trace to be found in them of the "hotchpot custom " mentioned in the resolu- tion; nor is there any evidence to be found outside the resolution to support the statements as to it therein contained. Hallam, Gardiner, and other careful and reliable historians were naturally misled by this report of Davis. The resolution, which was, probably, satisfactory to the Deputy, was based, so far as it had any basis, on the knowledge which the English lawyers and judges had of the custom of Kent, and, more particularly, of the custom in N. "Wales, which is referred to in the resolution. Hallam refers to the " exact similarity " of the ' The Council Book is not known to exist at the present time. * Qavelkind. The name implies that it was originally a tenure, by " gavel," i.e., the payment of renter other fixed services other than military. This agrees with the identification of it with Socage, kind = geoynd, kind or species. The application of the Kentish word to the Welsh and Irish system of sticcession led to the notion that the word was of Celtic origin, an alleged Irish gabhail-eine from gabkaU taking, and cine tribe or sept, appears with the rendering gavelkind in O'Reilly's Dictionary. (Murray's Die, mb. voce.) 238 \5ARLY IRISH HISTORY. custom of Irish gavelkind " to the rule of succession kid down in the ancient laws of Wales," and adds, " It seems impossible to conceive that these partitions wore renewed on every death of one of the sept. But they are asserted to have taken place so frequently as to produce a continued change of possession." In after times the custom of gavelkind was not only legalised but maile compulsory in the case of the estates of Catholics by the statute 2 Anne, unless the eldest son conformed to Pro- testantism within a limited time after the death, in which case the estate went to him in course of primogeniture. Another case, known as "the case of Tanistry," came before the Dublin court afterwards and is reported by Davis. It may be conveniently referred to here. The lawyers of that day misunderstood by tanist, the chieftain or lord of a country. The true meaning in Gaelic is second, i.e., next to succeed. The case was an ejectment on the title to recover O'Callaghan's country in Cork. The general issue was pleaded and a special verdict found. The plaintiff claimed through a tanist, i.e., chieftain, who was elected according to the Irish custom, which was found in the special verdict, to be as follows : — '* That when any person died seized of the lands claimed then such lands ought to descend, and have time out of mind descended to the oldest and most worthy of the blood and name (seniori et dignissimo viro sanguinis et cognominis), of the person so dying seized, and that the daughters of such person were not inherit- able." The judges held (1) That this custom was unreasonable and void, ah initio ; (2) That it was void for uncertainty ; it could not be reduced to certainty by any trial or proof, for the dignity {i.e., worth) of a man lieth in the opinion of the multi- tude, which is the most uncertain thing in the world. Again, " the estate was uncertain. The Tanist hath not an estate of inheritance in his natural capacity, because the oldest and most worthy doth not take as heir, for the most worthy comes in by election, and not as heir, and the tanist hath not an inheritance by succession in a politic capacity because he is not incorporate by the common law as a person, etc., and if he hath only an sstate for life it cannot descend, and so he hath no estate whereof the law can take notice." This decision is not in conflict with the view we have pre- sented that the ownership of the Tribal land was in the tribe who gave an estate for life only to the chieftain in the mensal lands. THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 230 Legally, it stands on a different footin,:^ from the resolution in the case of gavelkind. Here the court had seisin of a duly- constituted cause, and declared a judgment which bound not only in the particular case, but was entitled to be followed in the administration of the law in every subsequent case of the same kind until it was reversed. The Resolution, on the contrary, lacking all these essentials, was nothing more than the private opinion of jurists formed without argument of counsel, and possibly with a view to political requirements without taking evidence, and probably on assumptions derived from the custom of Kent and the Cymric Codes — in fact, on those views which Davis says, as we shall see presently, that both he and the Chief Justice found on exact inquiry to be wholly erroneous. In the summer of 1606 the judges went on circuit in (Jlster, and afterwards Davis, who was then serjeant-at-law, went with the Chief Justice, Sir James Ley, to Waterford, Wexford, and Wicklow.^ On his return he wrote to Salisbury (November 11th): — On our return we undei-stood that not many days before the Earl of Tyrone had, in a violent manner, taken a great distress of cattlo from O'Cahan (who hath married his bastard daughter), and pretended to be lord of all that country that beareth the name of Colraine (Deny). I mention this to you, not in respect of the riot, but to make an overture to you of good advantage which I confess I understood not before I made my last journey into Ulster. I thought without question, and so it was generally conceived by us ail, that the Earl of Tyrone had been entirely seized in possession and demesne of all the country of Tirone, being in length sixty miles and in breadth nearly thirty, and thai no man had one foot of freehold in that country but hi7n self, 'except the bishop and farmers of the abbey lands. . . But now on our last northern journey we made so exact an inquiry of the estates and possessions of the Irishery that it appeared unto us (i.e., the Chief Justice and himself) that the chief lords of every country had a seigniory consisting of certain rents and duties, and had, withal, some special demesne, and that the tenants or inferior inhabitants ivere not tenants-at-ivill, as the lords pretended, but freeholders, and had as good and large an estate in their tenancies as the lords in their seigniories, and that the uncertain cuttings and exactions were a mere usurpation and a wrong, and were taken de facto and not de jure when the lords made war one upon the other, or joined together in rebellion against the Crown. This we found to be universally and infallibly true in all the Irish countries in ivhich we held assizes this last summer : — namely, in the several countries of McMahon, Magyre, O'Reilly in Ulster, and in the countries of the »//•. Cai. XL, 19. 240 EARLY IRISH HISTORY, Birnes {O^Birnes) and Cavanagh in Leinster. The suggestion is that these inferior freeholds were vested in the Crown by the Act of Attainder of Shane O'Neil {II. Eliz), and not regranled in the Queen's subsequent Patent to the Earl, and that I should be directed to prefer informations of intrusion against the occupiers of these lands with a view to a Plan- tation. The villainy of this overture is appalling. Even if Davis was right in point of law, which we have no doubt he was not, a more dishonourable suggestion, considering the pardon and proclamation ° and public declarations of the Deputy already mentioned, was never made by a law officer to a monarch. This was before the flight of the Earls, which took place on the 14th September, 1607J Ministers in London did not fall in with the overture of Davis ; but no evidence is now forthcoming as to what reply was made to him. Possibly the matter was under consideration when the situation was completely changed by the flight of the Earls. We shall see presently how Davis changed his plans and fashioned his legal opinions to suit altered circumstances. The Earls fled on the 14th September, 1607, and about ten • See the "words of the Proclamation, ante. ' By the 11th Eliz., C. li. S. 1. (the attainder of Shane O'Neill), it was enacted that Shane O'Neill should forfeit to her Majesty his lands and goods, and that his blood should be corrupt and disabled for ever. S. 2, made the use of the name O'Neill treason. S. 4 provided that whereas divers of the lords and captains of Ulster, as the aepts of the O'Neills of Clandeboy, etc., the O'Hanlons, MacMahons, MacGuin- nesses, etc., had been at the commandment of Shane O'Neill in his traitorous war, it was enacted that her Majesty should hold and possess, in the right of the Crown, the County of Tyrone, of Clandeboy, etc., and all the lands and tenements belong- ing or appertaining to any of the persons aforesaid, or to their kinsmen or adherents, in any of the countries, or territories, before speciliod. It is reasonably plain here that the only persons whose lands were escheated wore Shane O'Neill's and the other persona named and their kinsmen and adherents, whatever construction might be put upon the words " kinsmen and adherents." Possibly in a penal statute they would be held void for uncertainty. After the Pardon, new Letters Patent were granted to the Lords of Countries, and Davis' proposition was to evict the under-tenants, and vest their interest a-s freeholders in the Crown, and then transfer these free- holds to Scotch and English planters, until which transfer the Crown would be under-tenant apparently to the Lords of Countries. Nowadays, we have no doubt the pardon, proclamation, and new Letters Patent would be held to re-establish all the interests. But we are far from saying that Davis did not take a sound working view of the question, as things stood in his time. The judges were then '* remoy- ables." And Irish judges holding office during the King's pleasure would be slow to incur the displeasure of the King's Attorney-General for Ireland. By the 12th Eliz., C. IV., S.I., it was provided that upon the offer of any "the pretended lords, gentlemen, or freeholders of the Irishrie, or degenerated men of English name holding their lands by Irish custom, and not by tenure, according to her Majesty's laws," the Lord Deputy might accept a surrender of their lands, and grant their lands to them by Letters Patent to hold of the Queen. By the 2nd Sec. — The rights of all persona in the surrendered lands are saved in the fullest and most exphcit manaer. THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 241 days before Christmas ho went to Lifford to prosecute the Earls and their adherents on charges of high treason, "The jury," he wrote, "were twenty-three gentlemen of the best quality and distinction in the county (Donegal), Sir Cahir O'Dogherty, who, next to the Earl of Tyrconnell, has the largest territory there, being foreman. Of the twenty-three jurors, thirteen were of the Irish nation and only ten English, in order that there might be no exception of partiality in com- pounding the jury. The Bills were read publicly in English and Irish, though that were needless and not usual in taking of indictments. It was explained that an indictment was an accusation and not a conviction." ^ The flight of the Earls, if not explained, was persuasive 'prima facie evidence, and was, no doubt, pressed home forcibly by Davis. The King's Proclamation (November 15th, 1607) states : " We do profess that the only ground and motive of their high contempt in these men's departure hath been the private knowledge and terror of their own guiltiness " (p. GS). There were, however, other reasons for the flight. The earls fled, not because they meditated rebellion, which, under the circum- stances, would have been sheer madness, but because neither ' A copy of the indictment subscribed " a true bill," with the names of the grand jurors attached, was sent by Da'.-is to Salisbury (/r. Cal. II., 556). Amongst the thirteen Irish we find, besides Sir Cahir O'Doherty, the names of Donal M'Sweeny, of Fanad, and Donough M'Sweeny, of Banagh ; .John ua Clcrigh (Kil- barron Castle), and Lowry (Lugaid ?) ua Clerigh, (of Balljclerigh). Of the two latter, to whose kindred the writer belongs, we are in a position to say that they were treated as mere tenauts-at-will, squatters, " having no English name or surnanio," and expelled from Donegal. The project of Plantation of the six counties of Ulster provided that " the swordsmen were to be transplanted into such other parts of the kingdom as by means of the waste lands therein were fittest for to receive them — namely, into Connacht and some parts of Munster, where they are to be disiicrsod and not planted together in one place ; and such swordsmen as have not followers or cattle of their own to be disjjosed of in his Majesty's service." — G. Hill, Piant. of Ulster, 96. All the " kindred" Clerigh who answered the description of swordsmen — we give this as a single instance to illustrate the procedure — were with their families evicted. They were allowed to take their cattle with them and went, driving them before them, to the borders of Limerick. There is, at the present day, in the barony of Kihiamanagh, a district called Foily Cleary (Clery's Rock), and we have no doubt they were transplanted into this district, wliich was then a mountainous waste. The " scholars " remained behind in their beloved Donegal, and touk refuge in the mountains. The Chief of the Four Masters was known before joining one or both the Orders (first and third) of St. Francis (without, however, taking Orders) as Tadg an t-Sleibe (Tadg of the Mountains). The author cannot speak here from immediate family traditions, as his father died when he was an infant. But when he was a boy, nearly fifty years ago, he heard these particulars from a worthy priest of his name and kindred, who saitl he had tiiem from his grandfather. The final " g " of Clerig is aspirated, as in the Norih. In Munster the final " g " is not aspirated, bub oronounced hard. R 242 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. their liberty nor their lives were safe iu Ireland. Even after their flight they were not safe from the poison or the dagger of the hired assassin. The evidence of this has recently come to light from the archives of Venice, and is to be found in the Calender of State Papers. On May the 25th, Sir Henry Wotton, the English Ambassa- dor in Venice, wrote to the Cabinet. After referring to the assassination of Henry IV. (May 14th, IGIO), he observed : — I recollect that among the other oflficers whom her majesty sent to Ireland was Colonel N orris, a very brave gentleman. He desired to end the business as soon as possible, and, as it was impossible to come to a pitched battle with the Irish, whose habit is to strike and then fly into the dense forests, where they are safe, he thought the only way to liuish up the matter quickly was to find some Irish and to offer them a reward if they would kill Tyrone, and so end the business. This was a good, just and laudable plan to secure tlifi slaying of so great a rebel. But it was a notable fact that for all that he offered the greatest rewards he never could find a man who would slay the Earl. . . . There is not the smallest doubt that if the Colonel who promised ten thousand pounds sterling, and even more, to the man who should kill the Earl and escape had had authority to promise paradise on death the Earl would most assuredly not escape.^ It would be difficult, if not impossible, for the assassin to escape unless he used poison. At the time of the flight of the Earls Sir Henry Wotton was the English ambassador at Venice. The fugitives pro- ceeded through Flanders, Lorraine and Switzerland, by the St. Gothard pass to Milan. Wotton promptly conveyed the intelligence to King James, and soon after, under the signature Ottamo Baldi, wrote the letter of the 24th April, IGOS^o. In this he informs the King that an Italian, a Lombard, of middle age, well clothed and well fashioned, came to him four da3''s previously and delivered to him a credential ticket which he encloses, and proposed on behalf of an unnamed person of spirit and understanding for such a business, to assassinate O'Neill. No names were to be asked until the proposal was accepted, which made Wotton "troubled and cautious." However he writes : — Next I told him that though the thing he proposed might, no doubt, be done very justly (the parties standing iu actual proclauned rebellion), yet it was somewhat questionable whether it might be done honourably, 9 Oalendar of State Papers from Archives o/ Venice. Vol. XL— 193, 68 (1904). w/risA Calendar. Vol. II.— 657 (I608-1U10), (1904). THE TRIBAL OCCUPIEK AND SIR JOHN DAVIS. 213 yonr majesty having not hitherto (for aught come to knowledge,) proceeded to the open proscription of them to destruction abroad, neither was it a course so familiar and frequent with us as in other states. I was ready to speak forward when he interrupted me, methought somewhat eagerly, sajing that the gentleman who had sent him knew not taiite distintioni. The sum and substance was this that if he might but be assured it would be well taken by your Majesty tho thing should be done. And then for his conscience that would do it let his Majesty leave it to him {Sua Maj. lasci far a lui), just iu the style, as I must confess, of a fellow that were fit for the purpose. I replied that since the point which he only or most required to know was how acceptable it would be, I would take the liberty to tell him mine own conceit that services of this kind unto princes were commonly most obligatory {i.e. obliging), when done without their knowledge, I understand you {Intendo vos, signoria) said he smilingly. I answered that he might peradventure understand me so (too ?) far, and therefore with his leave I would explain that what I had said I meant not directly of your Majesty but of the general rules and aj0Fection of other princes in like cases. The stranger refused to give his name, but left a note which Wotton received. It indicated : — How he might hear from me addressing my letters to one in Mantua, his friend, without any superscription. As for my part, 1 have left him to the motions of his own will, and as your Majesty shall be further pleased to command me I will proceed in it, Venice, 24th of April, 1608. Nothing farther is known at present about this nefarious business. No person was ever brought to trial for the alleged high treason. The whole proceeding was, in fact, a lever de rideau for the confiscation of the estates of the inhabitants in the various countries of the six counties,^^ and elsewhere, and for the pretence that the inferior tenants had no estate at all in their holdings, but were mere tenants-at-will or squatters. If they were free- holders their freeholds would not be destroyed by the treason of the lords of the countries. After the finding of the Bill the plan of confiscation, eviction, and plantation was considered and settled in all its parts, the king himself giving his gracious attention to the distribution of the plunder in equitable pro- portions between his Scotch and English subjects. The Deputy and the Attorney-General were to receive large grants as a matter of course. Davis got 5,-500 acres, and Chichester the whole barony of Inisho wen, the town of Dungannon, and a " The Six Counties were Armagh, Tyrone, Deny, Donegal, Fermanagh and Cavao. 244 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. vast tract of land near Belfast, the last-mentioned, thouj^h not within the six counties, being, no doubt, confiscated land They were duly appointed, with others, Commissioners of Plan- tation for Ulster. Davis gives an account of their proceedings in a letter dated Sept. 24.th, ICIO, which should be read in conjunction with his letter printed above in italics to under- stand rightly the iniquity of his proceedings : — "We began at Cavan, where (as it falleth out on all matters of import- ance) we found the first access and entry into the business the most difficult, for the inhabitants of this county bordering upon Meath, and having many acquaintances and alliances with the gentletuen of the English Pale, called themselves freeholders and pretended that they had estates of inheritance in their lands, which their chief lords could not forfeit by their attainder, lohereas, in truth, they nc'er had any estates according to the rules of the common laic, but only a scrambling and transitory 'possession, as all other Irish natives within the kingdom. When the proclamation was published touching their removal (which was done in the Puhlic Session House, the Lord Deputy and the Com- missioners being present), a lawyer of the Pale, retained by the inhabitants, endeavoured to maintain that they had estates of iuherit- tance, and in their name desired two things — first, that they might be admitted to traverse the offices that had been found of those lords ; secondly, that they might have the benefit of a proclamation made about five years since whereby their persons, lands, and goods were received into his Majesty's protection. To this, by my Lord Deputy's commandment, I made answer that it was manifest that they had no estate of inheritance, either in their chief ries or in their tenancies, for the chiefry never descended to the eldest son of the chieftain, but the strongest of the sept ever entered into it ; neither had they any certain estates in their tenancies, though they seemed to run in a course of gavelkind, for the chief of the sept, once in two or three years, shuffled and changed their possessions by making a new partition amongst them, wherein the bastards had always their portions as well as the legitimate, and therefore the custom hath been adjudged void inlaw by the opinion of all the judges in the kingdom. Hereunto two other arguments were added to prove that they had no estates of inheritance. One, that they never esteemed lawful matrimony to the end that they might have lawful heirs ; the other, that they never built any houses or planted any orchards or gardens or took any care of their posterities, as they would have done if they had had estates descendible to lawful heirs. These reasons answered both their petitions, for if they had no estate in law they could show no title, and without showing a title no man may be admitted to traverse an office ; and, again, if they had no estate in the land which they possessed, the proclamation which received their lands into his Majesty's protection does not give them any better estate than they had before. Other arguments were used to show that his Majesty might justly dispose of those lands, as he has now done, in law, in conscience, and in honour, wherewith they seemed not unsatisfied in reason though in passion they remained ill-contented, being grieved THE TRIBAL OCCUPIER AND SIR JOHN' DAVIS. 245 to leave their possessions to strangers which their septs had so long after the Irish manner enjoyed. Howbeit, the Lord Deputy mixed threats with entreaty, precibusque minas regaliter addit, and they promised to give way to the undertakers. Untruths, it is said, are serviceable and highly prized — dans la haute politiqueP On a lower plane, within the sphere of domestic politics, we disbelieve utterly in the utility of the mensonge utile. Official lying is at all times detestable, and is at best but a sorry substitute for intelligent and capable statesmanship. A day of reckoning comes sooner or later, followed in inexorable sequence by stern retribution. And surely fraud never comes in a more maddening guise than when the forms of justice are prostituted by its ministers to further unworthy policy and secure for themselves dishonour, able gains. The delirium and deplorable massacre of 1641 was the outcome of this deplorable chicanery.^^ '• " If honesty will do, let us be honest ; if duplicity is necessary, let us bo rogues." — Frederick the Great. '^ It would be a safe conjecture that the number of those slain in cold blood at the beginning of the rebellion could hardly have much exceeded four or five thousand, while about twice that number may have perished from ill-treatment, G-virdner, Vol X, '69. Lecky, Vol. II, 153. [ 246 ] CHAPTER XVI. THE LIA FAIL— THE STONE OF DESTINY. AT the reception of the Faith the social organisation of Erin was, as we have seen, in the tribal stage of evolution. The line of Eremon had emerged from being primus inter pares, and was then predominant. It held Tara and Ailech, ruled in Connacht and in Leinster, and made alliance by marriage with Munster and Little Ulster. Everything seemed to point to th'; speedy fusion of the clans into a nation and the rise of a monarch or an imperator. A statesman like Louis XL, or Bismarck, would, undoubtedly, have effected the transformation. The physical conditions were eminently favourable for the establish- ment of a strong central government. The country was not divided by mountain ranges or other natural barriers intc cantons, like Greece or Switzerland. Rivers, flowing south, north, east, and west, diverged, as it were, from a central point, and, unlike rivers, such as the Loire and the Rhone, flowed with an easy current, in a full channel. This was the result partly of the moderate elevation of the central plain (the area between Dublin and Gal way not exceeding a height of 250 feet above the level of the sea), and partly of the existence of large areas of peat bogs and forests. These bogs acted as sponges, retaining the rainfall and distributing it gradually into the river beds, and prevented the excessive and disastrous floodings to which other river basins, such as that of the Loire, were subject. Nature had thus prepared safe and commodious high- ways for internal communication. The coast was provided with excellent harbours and landing places, which w^ere, as we have seen, frequented by traders and dealers from foreign parts. During the first millennium of our era, according to the best guess we can make, the population never exceeded 850,000, which we would distribute roughly, thus— 200,000 to Munster, i.e., the two Munsters, 200,000 to Ulster, i.e., the tvvo Ulsters, and 150,000 each to Leinster, Meath, and Connacht^ ^ The peat bogs occupy 1,772,450 acres, nearly one-ninth of the entire area of the country. They are antiseptic, and, unlike the fens and morasses in other lands, are not iojurious to health, but rather the reverse. No malaria is found in THE LIA FAIL— THE STONE OF DESTINY. 247 Within this central plain stood two famous hills — Uisneach and Tara, Uisneach was near the true centre of Erin, about nine miles west of Mullingar. It was, according to the legends, the oldest capital, if we may so call it. Afterwards Tara was preferred, and was selected by the Gael for the residence of the Ard-Kigh. Tara stood on the summit of a grassy slope, 500 feet over the sea level, 200 above the surrounding plain, 26 miles N.W. of Dublin, and 51 miles S.E. of Navan, which is situated at the confluence of the Blackwater and the Boyne. It was on this hill that the high kings were inaugurated. In all the tribal elections of importance in Erin an inauguration stone was in common use. In other respects the ceremony varied in details.^ This custom prevailed commonly among the Nordic nations. The kings of Sweden were inaugurated on the "great stone," still seen on the grave of Odin, near Upsala. " Seven stone seats for the emperor and his electors mark the spot where the Lahn joins the Rhine at Lahnstein." The Anglo-Saxon kings were crowned on the " King's Stone," near the Thames. The Lord of the Isles was inaugurated on such a stone. In Spenser's View of Ireland we find (p. 11)— Endox — Do they not use any ceremony at the election 1 Iren — They used to place him that shall be their captaine upon a stone always reserved for that purpose, and placed commonly upon a hill, on some of which I have seen formed and engraven a foot, which they say was the measure of their first captaine's foot, whereon he, standing, connection with them. As fuel they may become at some future time a valuable national asset. Reckoning them, however, for the present as waste lands, the total of such in Ireland is less in proportion than the w.iste lands of Great Britain. There is no reason to believe that at the time we speak of the forests prevented intercommunication. Large clearances are described in our texts from the remotest period. Fynes Moryson, who was Secretary to the Lord Deputy Mountjoy (1599-1603) says in his description of Ireland : — " In time of peace the Irish transport (export) good quantity of corn ; yet they may not transport it without license lest upon any sudden rebellion the King's forces and his good subjects should want corn. Ulster and the western parts of Munstcr yield vast woods. But I confess myself to have been deceived in the common fame that all Ireland is woody, having found in my long joui'ney from Armagh to Kinsale few or no woods by the way, excepting the great woods of Offaly, and some low, shrubby places which they call glens. — History II., 370. 2 At the inauguration of the O'Dowda. — The privilege of first drinking at the banquet was given by O'Dowda to O'Caemhain, and he was not to drink until he first presented it to the fie, i.e , MacFirbis. The weapons, battle dress, and steed of O'Dowda after his nomination were given to O'Caemhain, and the weapons and battle dress of O'Caemhain to Mac Firbis. It was not lawful ever to nominate — that is, proclaim — O'Dowda until O'Caemhain and Mac Firbis pronounced the name and until Mac Firbis held the wand over the head of O'Dowda. After O'Caemhain and Mac Firbis every cleric and coarb and every chief of a district pronounced the u&me—O'Doivda. Hy Fiachra, 440. ^8 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. takes an oatli to preserve all the ancint former customs of the countrj' inviolable and to deliver up the possession peaceably to his Tanist, and then hath a wand delivei*ed to him by some whose proper office that is ; after which, descending from the stone, he turneth himself round thrice forward and thrice backward.^ The legendary foundation of the High Kingship is traced back to the Firvolce. Slainge, the eldest brother, who took possession of the country from the Boyne to the meeting of the three rivers near Waterford, " was elected king over them by his four brothers and the Firvolce in general." * It was this entry, probably, that led Thierry to state that "there was in Erin a king superior to all the rest, who was called the great king, or the king of the country, and who was chosen by a general assembly of the chiefs of the different provinces, but this elective president of the national confederation swore to the whole nation the same oath which the chiefs of the tribes swore to their respec- tive tribes, that of inviolably observing the ancient laws and hereditary customs."^ The statement that the Ard Righ was chosen by popular election of some sorb by the provincial kings and under-kings and by the " estates of the realm " is found also in other writers. Within the historic period, unfortunately, no such mode of election is recorded in our texts. From Laeghaire to Maelseachlann (429-1022) there were thirty-nine high kings, all of whom, except Brian Boru, were of the line of Eremon, and all, except OlioU Moll (a nephew) were descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages. NialPs son, Crimthan, and his descendants number 16, Eogan and his descendants 13, Conal and his descendants 7, Laeghaire 1, and Cairbre 1 ^— total 38. How were these High Kings chosen ? The succession to the High Kingship in Erin was not hereditary, but selective. The Ard Righ was chosen from the royal stock, and the eligible candidates were styled rig-domna, i.e., Toy sA material. A successor was sometimes chosen in the life- time of the reigning monarch. He was styled a Tanist (C-AtiAifce) = second, i.e., next to succeed. The following genealogical table, which we have compiled partly from one carefully pre- pared with dates by M. D'Arbois, and partly from Reeves' ' And see O'Doaovan's Hy Fiachra, 458, for interesting details, and Reeves Adamnan, 198. * F. M., 3266 A.M. ° Norman Conqvcst, II., 123. ? A list of the High Kings, with dates, will be found in the Appendix. THE LIA FAIL — THE STONE OF DESTINY. 249 Adamnan, will be found useful in examining the course of selective succession of the kings for two centuries, and also for the pedigree and relationships of Saint Columba.^ ■t 1 a ^ j3 2' »* OS to O 05 s Q so -3 Q An examination of this table of High Kings proves that the succession was not hereditary, but selective from the royal stock, and establishes, in our judgment, that where the ' Etv. Celt. XXII., p. 361, and Reeves' Adamnan, 251. 250 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. succession was peaceable, after the time of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the selection was made by the tribesmen, who are commonly referred to as the Ui Neill. There is no trace of federal election. The man who became chieftain of the Ui Neill took possession of Tara and the hostages, and the provincial kings had to submit to his authority. This was when the succession was peaceable. When there were rival candidates in the held the provincial kings had a very effective voice in the selection by joining forces with one or other of the rivals. But, as we have seen, up till the time of Brian Boru, no man outside the royal stock of the Ui Neill succeeded in reaching the High Kingship. " Maelseachlan ( + 1022) was the last King of Ireland of Irish blood that had a crown ; yet there were seven kings after without crown before the coming in of the English." These were Righ-go-fresahhraidh, i.e., kings with opposition, or, rather, under protest. " They were reputed to be absolute monarchies in this manner : If he were of Leah Cuin, or Con's halfe in Deale {i.e., in quantity, or extent), and had one province of Lsahmoye, or Moah's halfe in Deale at his com- mand, he was counted to be of sufficient power to be King of Taragh, or Ireland ; but if the party were of Leahmoye, if he could not command all Leahmoye and Taragh with the loppe {i.e., the belt of country) hereunto belonging, and the province of Ulster or Connaught (if not both) he would not be sufficient to be king of all. Dermot McMoylenemoe could command, Leahmoye, Meath, and Connaught and Ulster, therefore by the judgment of all he was reputed sufficient monarch of the whole." ^ These are the observations, in all probability, of MacGeoghan himself, and not of the annalist, and must be understood to apply only to the period of the High Kings^ *' with opposition," out of which, under favourable circum- stances, a central hereditary monarchy would, probably, have finally emerged. We shall now examine the table of kings in some detail. Eocaid Muighmedoin left eight sons, who had issue, who became divided into the Northern Ui Neill (Eogan, Conall Cairbre, and Enda Find) ; and the Southern Ui Neill (Laeghaire, Crimthann, Fiachra, and Maine).'^ On the death of Crimthann, ' iMui'pliy, S.J., Annals nf Clonmacnoise, 176 and 171. * Eocaid was, as already stated, succeeded by his brother-in-law, Crimthann, gon of Fidach, of the royal family of Munster. THE LIA FAIL— THE STONE OF DESTINY. 251 Niall, though the youngest son of Eocaid, and not born of the " one wife," but of a Saxon woman, succeeded peaceably. There is no mention of a feis or convention of provincial kings at the time, and it may, we think, be assumed that the election was by the Clanna Neill alone. He was succeeded peaceably by Dathi, son of his uncle, Fiachra. Again, there is no mention of any feis or convention. He was succeeded peaceably by Laeghaire. There was no feis or convention then, but in the 26th year of his reign Laeghaire celebrated the feis at Tara. Ho was succeeded peaceably by Olioll Moll, a son of Dathi. There was no feis or convention then, but Olioll held afterwards one, or, some say two, celebrations of the feis at Tara. After he had reigned twenty years Lugaid, the son of Laeghaire, claimed the throne, and formed a league with Fergus Cearbheal, son of Conal Crimthann, of the Northern Ui Neill, Muirchertach Mor Mac Erca, son of Muiredach, son of Eogan, of the Northern Ui Neill, and with Fiachra, son of the king of Dal-Aradia.^^ A fierce battle was fought (478 A.D.) at Ocha, in Meath. Olioll was defeated and slain, and the supremacy of the Ui Neill was firmly established.^^ The King of Dal-Aradia was rewarded with territories on the east and the west of the River Bann. Lugaid then mounted the throne, and, after a reign of twenty -five years, was killed by lightning. He was succeeded peaceably by Muirchertach Mor Mac Erca, the grandson of Eogan. After a reign of twenty-four years Muirchertach was assassinated by Sen, daughter of Sighe, in revenge for her father, whom he had slain. He was succeeded peaceably by Tuathal Maelgarbh, grandson of Cairbre, son of Niall. In his reign was fought the battle of Sligo (537) by Fergus and Domhnall, the sons of Muirchertach, and by Ainmire, the son of Sedna, and Anmidh, the son of Duach, and the Northern Ui Neill, against the Hy Fiachrach, in which the latter were routed, and Eogan Bel, who had been ^° Ann. Ul-!t., F.M., A.D, 47 S, who add that Crimthann, King of Leinster, joined the League. 1^ The battle of Eiblin gained by Muirchertach, son of Ere, the battle of Magh Ailbe (Kildare) gained over Leinster, and the battle of Aidne over Connact, and the battles of Altahain and Cenneach over Leinster, and the plundering of Clia (Idroue Carlow) Tigernach. t)o bejic siaIIa Ua neilt La jiaIIa tnoije tnuiriAn CeAnn cacIax). He bore away tlie hostages of the Hy Neill and the hostages of the Plains of Munster. 252 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. King of Connact for thirty-five years, was si ain.^^ The victors in this battle were the warriors whom St. Columba is said by some, erroneously^ as we hope to show, to have incited to fight the battle of Cul Dreimhne, a few miles north of Sligo, in 555. Fergus and Domhnall succeeded to the throne in 558 A.D. The battles of Ocha and Sligo were disastrous events, from a political point of view — victories gained by the Ui Neill over their near kinsmen of Connact, cutting off vigorous and spreading branches from the parent stock, dividing the race of Eremon into hostile camps and placing grave if not insur- mountable difficulties in the way of fusing the Gael into a nation. In addition to the tribal vote there was, in Pagan times, an electoral voice of decisive weight heard at the inauguration of the new king. We refer, of course, to the famous Lia Fail or Stone of Destiny. According to the legend the Dedannans brought with them to Erin the sword and spear of Lug, the cauldron of the Dagda, and — most precious of all the treasures — the Enchanted Stone of the Sun, the Lia Fail}^ Hence the island was in after times called Tunis Fail. The stone used to shout under the King of Erin, saith the old duan quoted by Keating, i.e., if he was the rightful king. It was prophesied that the Scots should hold sway wherever the stone should be found : Ni fallat fatum, Scotiquocumque locorum Invenient lapidem regnare tenentur ibidem. What has become of the Stone of Destiny ? One tradition is that it was taken to Scotland, that the Gaelic King there might be inaugurated upon it. The time of its removal cannot be exactly fixed. It was certainly after the death of Diarmaid mac Cerbhael, who died in 565 A.D. The view in the Ogygia, (p. 45), therefore seems plausible — that it was sent by Aedh Finliath, Ard-righ (861 to 877), to his father-in-law, Kenneth mac Alpin, when he defeated the Picts, A.D. 844.^* He was " Tuathal was assassinated (53S) and peaceably succeeded by Diarmaid, son of Cerrbeoil, son of Crimthann, son of Niall. The assassin, Maelmor, was the son of the mother of Diarmaid. {Tirjcrnach.) " Dolmens III., 1160— " There can be no doubt Fal was a sun-god." " Flann of the monastery, if e cec 1115 foS^b p-^e scoimoe -oe gAexjelib. In the seventh year of his reign Kenneth is said in the Scottish chronicle to have transferred relics of St. Columba to a church he had built near Scone. Thig was probably the final carrying out of the arrangement by which the supremacy of lona was transferred in Erin to Kells, and in Scotland to Dunkeld.— 5*eM,e, I.. 310. THE LIA FAIL — THE STONE OF DESTINY. 2,53 the King of the Dal-riada of Alba, and after his victory united the territory of the Picts to his own, and marching to Scone, near Perth, was inaugurated there as the King " who possessed the kingdom of Scone of the Gael.'' There is at this day (O'FIaherty writes) in the royal throne at Westminster a stone called Jacob's Stone. On this the kings of Ireland formerly took the omens of their investiture. There is an old tradition that it was called " fatal," because the princes used to try their fate on it. If it would make a noise under the king who sat on it, it was an infallible sign of his accession ; if it was silent, it excluded him from any hope. Since the Incarnation of our blessed Lord it has produced no such oracle ; and you can see in Eusebius' Book the delusive oracles that were silenced. The time that it came to the Scots of Britain from Erin cannot be ascertained ; but if I may be allowed to conjecture, it was in the time of Kenneth, who conquered and subjected to the empire of the Scots the Pictisli nation, and deposited that scone in the abbey at Scone, in the country of the Picts, when he transferred his palace, and it very probably was transmitted by Aed Finliath, the son-in-law of Kenneth, who was afterwards King of Ireland, as an auspicious omen.^^ There is no reason to think that any of the northern Ui Neiil went to Tara to be inaugurated after the time of Diar- maid, nor is there any evidence, so far as we are aware, that the stone was ever taken to Aileach for the coronation, and it would, we think, have been good policy on the part of the northern branch to disfranchise this supposititious elector altogether by sending him to reside permanently at Scone. Many, however, including Petrie, thought that the Stone of Destiny remained in Ireland, and was stiil in Tara of the Kings. He thought the pillar stone known as the Bod Ferguis was the Lia Fa 11. 16 He relied mainly as his strongest proof on a poem by Kinetb O'Hartigau, 985 A.D., who says: — The stone on which are my two heels From it is called Inis Fail. It was at the side of the Mound of the Hostages that the celebrated 1' Ogyi/ia (Hely), 67. 1^ The following passage, an '■' inset " is found in the Irish Abridgment of the "Expugnatio Hibaruiie," translated from a fragment of a fifteenth century vellum by Whitley Stokes. Eag. Hi.'Uow- ing statement about Olaf, the White, who was, undoubtedly, the Oalf who came to Erin in 853, tenjyears before the death of Maelseachlainu : — " AnlatF. the White (Oleif ?) was the name of a host-king. He was the son of King Ingi;dd /.he son of Helgi, the son of Helge, the son of Anlaf (Oleif's Sonar), the son of Godfred, the son of Halfdan, Whiteleg, the King of the Upland (E. Norway) folk. AnlafiF, the White, harried in the West in wrecking cruises, and won Dyfiin (Dublin) anl Dublin shire — (Dydiu shire) — and made himself kimi over it. Ho took to wife Aud, or Ead, the Deep Wealthy, the daughter of Cetilflatneh, the son of Beorn Buna, lord of NorwaJ^ Thor-slan, the Red, was the name of their son. Anlaff fell in Ireland (fell a Irlande) in battle, but Aud and Thor-slan went to the Southrpys (Hebrides). — Veiriusson, Orijines Islandicce, Lundnanibok, 11-14, Vol. I., 76, •1905.) X 274 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. described to us by chroniclers, and our modern research corroborates the tcbtiniony; as tawny-haired, fiercely blue-ej'ed barbarians." ^' It seems probable, we think, that they were ditferent tribes, nominally at least subject to the King of Lochlann. We can thus more easily understand their ready submission to Olal: Beg MacUe says, as we have seen, that they had black ships.^^ " One of the captains was a red-haired maiden." Saxo-gram- maticus tells us they used black tents for concealment.^* And they probably wore black armour of some kind. Glun-iarraiun, iron-knee, and Glun-dubh, black-knee, seem to refer to some black iron defensive armour, and so, probably, were called the " Black Foreigners.'' This shire land, over which Olaf made himself king, was, no doubt, in part at least, what in after time came to be known as Fingal. It extended as far north as the Delvin rivulet, a little south of the Nannie water, and inland, in theory at least, as far as the salmon swam up, in accordance with Norse law — i.e., to the Salmon Leap, Lixlot, now Leixlip. The rent of this portion Olaf no doubt received, and this is probably what is meant by our annalists. He most assuredly did not get rent from the High King, or the provincial Kings of Erin. There never was a conquest and occupation of a large part of Erin like the Danish occupation of England. Besides Dublin and Dublin-shire, they built and held forts, with some territory adjoining, at Limerick, Cork, and Waterford, and occupied some places along the coast. Elsewhere there was no permanent occupation. The Gaelic name of the place where now is Dublin was Ath Cliath — the Ford with the Hurdle Bridge. The Scandinavians called it " Dyflin," a corruption of the Gaelic name for that inlet at the confluence of the Poddle and the Liffey which formed a harbour where ships were moored, and which the Gael called " Dubhlinn," or black pool, from the dark colour given to the water by the bog which extends under the river.^^ 12 Ripley, W., Races of Europe I., 68 and 314. Loch in Gaelic frequently means fiords, or arms of the sea, e.g., Foyle, Swilly, Belfast, Carmen, (Wexford), Lurgan (Galway). Whatever may be the true meaning of Viking, it is highly probable the Gael understood it to mean the men of the Fiords — Lochlannach. " War of the Gael, p. 225 and 41. "For the tenta were dusky in colour and muffled in a sort of pitchy covering that they might not catch the eye of anyone who came neir. Sasorammaticas, V. 167. The captain was the famous In^en Uuax). 1* Haliday. — The Scandinavian Kinydom of Dublin, 23. THE NORTHMEN. 275 The termination of the names of three of the provinces is Norse, the Norse, "ster" ( = 3tadr', place) being added to the Gaelic name. as Mumhan-ster, Munster; Ulad-ster, Ulster; Leighin-ater, Leinster ; Connact-ster (Kunnakster, Connact) was not retained by the Anglo-Normans, or Angevins. But these names were never used by the Gael when speaking their own tongue, and it must not be supposed that they indicate conquest or occupa- tion of these provinces by the Northmen. Feordr is a frith or bay, while a small crescent-formed inlet is called a vlk. There were five Norse fiord names in Erin — Wexford, (L. Carmen) Waterford, (L. Dacaich, or Port Lairge), Carlingford (Snamh £idhneach),Strangford (L. Cuan), and Ulrick's fiord (L. Larne). " There are," writes Joyce, " little more than a dozen places in Ireland at the present day bearing Danish names, and these are nearly all on or near the East coast Worsae (p. 71) gives a table of 1,373 Danish and Norwegian names in the middle and northern counties of England.", He adds, *' This appears to me to afford a complete answer to the statement that we sometimes see made — that the Danes conquered the country, and that their chiefs ruled over it as sovereigns." After the coming of Olaf, from 853 to 875, there were the usual periodical raids and plunderings such as we have described. After this came what are known as the forty years' rest, during which time there came no fresh reinforcements from the north. The Norsemen in Erin during this time raided and made hostings like the native chieftains, won and lost battles, but made no additions to their territory. They appear to have been gradually taking their place among the tribes of the Gael, and there were alliances and intermarriages from time to time between them. During all this time the High King exercised his sovereign rights as usual — enforced the paymeats of rent or tribute and exacted the delivery of hostages, as the following summary will clearly show : — In 802 Aodh Oirnidhe, Ard-Righ, went with a large army into Meath and divided it into two parts bet\yeen the sons of Domhnall, viz., Conchobar and Ailill. They were the sons of the last Ard-Righ. Ailill was slain in battle by Conchobar the following year. In 805 he divided Leinster between the two Muiredachs. 839 — The plundering of Feara Ceal and Dealbhna-Eathra (a 27G EARLY IRISH HISTORY. large part of the King's County) by Niall Caille, the High King. Feidlimidh, King of Alunster, plundered Meath and Bveagh, and he rested at Tara after having in one day taken the hostages of Connact. 840 — An army was led by Feidlimidh to Carman (Wex- ford) and by Niall Caille to Maghochtar (N. Kildare) to meet him. A battle ensued, and Niall " bore away the crozier of the devout Feidlimidh by the battle of swords." Feidlimidh was abbot or bishop of Cashel according to O'Donovan. The same year a battle was gained by Maolruanaedh, the father of King Maelseachlainn, over Diarmaid, son of Conchobar, and Diarmaid was slain. 844— The plundering of Donnchadh, son of Follamhan, and of Flann, son of Maelruanaedh, by Maelseachlainn, son of Maelruanaidh. The plundering of the Terraon of Ciaran(i.e., Clonmacnoise) by Feidlimidh, King of Munster ; but Ciaran pursued him, as he thought, and gave him a thrust of his crozier, and he received an internal wound, so that he was not well until his death. He died in 845. The annalists {F. M. and Ulst.) add, to our amazement, that he was the best scribe and anchorite of his time. Does the word "anchorite," taken in connection with his crozier, imply that the devout Feid- limidh was a bishop in Orders, as distinguished from a secular bishop (if we may use the phrase), claiming to be bishop or abbot in right of his crown of Munster without ecclesiastical status ? IS 852 — Maelseachlainn proceeded to Munster as far as Ineoiu na n-deisi (near Clonmel), and enforced hostages and submis- sion from them, for they had given him opposition at the instigation of the foreigners. 854 — He went again to Cashel and carried off the hostages of Munster. 857 — He went into Munster and stayed ten nights at Neim (the Blackwater) and plundered it southwards to the sea after defeating their kings at Carn Lugh-dach. He carried off their hostages from Gowra Road to the Bull of Dursey Island nnd from the Old Head of Kinsale to East Arra of the Arran Isles. '^ P. M. 84D A.D.— " The reader must bear in mind that Feidlimidh wa3 alibot or bishop of Cas.hel in right of his crown of Manator." We doubt this. Macgeoghan writes of " hia great irregularity and great desire of spoyle." THE NORTHMEN. 277 858 — He led a hosting of Mnnster, Leinster, and Connact and the Southern Ui Neill, into the North. Aedh Finnliath attacked his camp at night, and destroyed many in the middle of the camp, but was finally defeated, with great loss, for Maelseachlainn and his army manfully defended the camp against the people of the North. Aedh then formed a league with the foreigners. This was not, however, the first occasion on which the Gael made alliance with them. As far back as 849 Cinaedh, King of Cianachta Breagh, turned against Maelseachlainn at the instigation of the foreigners, so that he wasted the Ui Neill, both churches and districts, from the Shannon to the sea. The following year he was drowned in the Nanny, which flows through Ceannacta Breagh, by Mael- seachlainn and Tighernach, with the approval of the good men of Erin, and of the coarb of St. Patrick especially. Aedh Finnliath then rose out against Maelseachlainn at the instiga- tion of Cinaedh's brother and successor in the chieftainry. 859 — There was a great hosting by Olaf and Ivar and Cerbhall, King of Ossory, who was then in alliance with them into Meath. Maelseachlainn then held a royal meeting at Rahugh, in Westmeath, and the coarbs of Patrick and Finnian used their influence to establish peace and concord between the men of Erin. Cearbhall joined Leth Chuinn, and Mael- gualach tendered his allegiance and was stoned to death by the foreigners. 860 — Aedh Finnliath and Flann, son of Conang and Olaf and the foreigners, raided Meath, and Cearbhall, King of Ossory, came to the aid of the High King. In the followins; year, 861, when, he had become High King, the foi'eigners, rifled New Grange, Knowth, Dowth, and the Great Mound at Drogheda. Lorcan, King of Meath, was with them thereat, and was blinded by Aedh the following year.^'^ The reign of this Cearbhall, as King of the Norsemen of A-thcliath, is not mentioned in our annals, but Todd and Haliday are of opinion that the reconciliation we mentioned was only temporary, and that there is good evidence that either in alliance with, or elected by, the Ncrse of Dublin, he became King there about 872, and reigned until 888. His death in that year seems to have inspired the Gael with the " Thret Frag, 151- 27S EARLY IRISH HISTORY. hope of obtaining possession of Ath Cliath by the expulsion of the Northmen. Flann, the High King, joining his forces to those of the King of Connact and aided by the ecclesiastical authorities, attacked them, but was routed in a battle in which fell the King of Connact, the bishop of Kildare, the abbot of Killdalkey, and many others.^* *' Many of the learned in Erin composed praise poems on Cearbhall, the King of Ossory, in which they commemorated every victory he had won, and Aengua, the high, wise abbot, the Coarb of Clonfert Molua (Kyle), at the foot of Slieve Bloom, most of all. O'Donovan observes that it is highly probable that the accounts which were so laudatory of the King of Ossory were baaed on these poems, which were preserved in the monastery there. In the Landnama-boc we find the following reference to Cearbhall (Carroll) : "Afterwards Eg- wind (Eg- wind-e) took to wife in Ireland Riforta ( ), the daughter of Cear-ral. She gave birth to a boy in the Southreys (Hebrides, Sodor), and put him to fosterage there. Two winters later they went back to the island (Sodor) to see the boy, and saw a boy there with fair eyes, but there was no flesh on him, for he was starved, and so they called the boy Helge, the Lean. He was afterwards put into fosterage in Ireland. Eg-wind was called the Ostman, or Eastman, because he came west over the sea out of Sweden in th^ east. Helge was brought up in Ireland." And also, " at the time Iceland was settled from Norway, Adrianus was Pope of Rome . . . Cearrall (Cearbhall) King at Dublin." "Before Iceland was settled by the Northmen, there were there those people whom the Northmen called Papas. They were Christian men, and people think that they must have been from the West of the Sea because there were found after them Irish books aud bells and croziers (baglar), and yet more things by which it might be perceived that they were West men." — Are'* (f 1148), Landnama boo, Vegfusson, ubi. tup., 13, 14 and 145. [ 279 ] CHAPTER XIX A WINTER CIRCUIT. BEFORE we reach the period of the forty years' rest (875- 915), we find entries in our annals relating to the Gaill- Gael, who are sometimes referred to as the apostate Irish who had renounced their baptism. The word usually means the Gael over sea, — the " sea-divided Gael," the inhabitants of Argyle(Airer-gaedela) of Galloway (Gall-gaedhela), the Hebrides, Cantire, and other places. The Gaill-Gael, however, we now speak of were different ; they were resident in Erin. They are referred to in the Annals of Ulster and of the Four Masters, but it is nowhere stated that they had lapsed into paganism. Aedh Finnliath gained a great victory over Gaill-Gael at Glenn Foichle (Glenelly, near Strabane), in 855. Bishop Reeves was of opinion — and we think rightly — that these Avere foreign mercenaries.^ It is clear, however, from the Three Fragments of Annals that the Gaill-Gael were located in Munster and other parts of Erin. The first of these Fragments, which relates chiefly to the Ui Neill, was composed in the North ; the other two " evidently belong to Ossory or Leix, and were compiled in some monastery there ; but nothing is known of the age or nature of the MSS. from which Dubhthach Mac Firbisigh copied these Fragments." The author of the Third Fragment states that Maelseachlainn [858] made a great host- ing against the Munster men, and against Cearbhall, King oi Ossory, his brother-in-law, and defeated them in a pitched battle at Carn Lughdhach, near Gowran, in Kilkenny.^ He continues : — " Though Maelseachlainn had not come on this expedition to take the kingdom of Munster for himself, he ought to have come to kill all the Gaill-Gael who were killed ^ FourMaslers, 1154. The Ciiiel Eogain and Muirchertach Ua Neill sent par sons over sea to hire, and they did hire the ships of Gaill-l.Tael of Ara- (Arran, Ceantire, the Isle of Man, and the borders of Alba in general. 2 O'Donovan, Three Fragments, 2 and 139. This hosting, and the battle of Carn Lughdhach, are mentioned in the Annals oj Ulster and the Four Maiters. 280 EARLY IRISH HISTORY. thero, for they were a people who had renounced their baptism, and they were usually called Northmen, for they had the customs of the Northmen, and had been fostered by them ; and though the original Northmen were bad to the churches, they were by far worse in whatever part of Erin they used to be." In the same year (858) a victory was gained by Cearbhall over theGaill-Gael of Aradh Tire (Barony of Arra, Tipperary."^) He gives an instance of their sacrilegious spoliations under the date of 854 :— "In this year many forsook their Christian baptism, and joined the Lochlanns, and they plundered Armagh, and carried away all its valuables ; but some of them did penance, and came to make restitution (venerunt ad satisfactionem)."* Forsook their baptism may mean here merely that they were recreant and untrue to it, especially in not going afterwards and making restitution. There were, no doubt, many Gael taken captives, and, when young, brouglit up as pagans, and there may have been indi- vidual cases of persons renouncing the Faith, and there were, also, no doubt, mercenaries who had been brought up as pagans ; but in the absence of all mention of a class of apostate native-born Gael in Erin by our Annalists it is safe to assume that no such class ever came into existence. The forty years' rest corresponds very nearly with the reign of Flann Sinna, the son of Maelseachlainn (877-915). For this period we shall give only a few illustrative details. In 888 the Northmen raided Kildare, and carried off fourteen score cap- tives to their ships. In 890, led by Gluniarn, they raided Armagh, and carried off 710 persons into captivity. In 895 (F.M.) they were on L. Neagh, and carried off the " Etach Padraig," i.e., Patrick's raiment (or crozier ? ) ^ In 895 they were defeated by the men of Louth and Ulidia, with the loss of 800 men. In this battle fell Olaf, the son of Ivar, and Gluntradna, the son of Gluniarn. In 901 the North men were expelled from Ath Cliath, by Cearbhall, the son of Murigen, and the Leinster men and the men of Bregia, and ^ A victory was gained by Cearbhall, Lord of Ossoiy, and by Ivar in the terri- tory of Aradh Tire over the Oinel-Fiachach (barony of Moycashel, Westmeath), and the Gaill-Gael of Leath Chuinn. — Four Masters, 856 A.D. * Three Fragments, 127. ^ O'Donovan says it was, probably, a garment preserved in some old chapel near L. Neagh. We suggest that it was a crozier like the " Etach Mochaoi," which was a pastoral staff, and called eice