Part 16

This, therefore, was also St. Patrick's teaching to the Irish; and in and after his time, not a single raiding expedition goes forth from Ireland. Kuno Meyer has shown that the military organisation of the Fiana still existed to some degree in early Christian Ireland; but it gradually disappears, and in the seventh century the Irish kings cease to dwell, surrounded by their fighting men, in great permanent encampments like Tara and Ailinn. In the eighth century, we hear the testimony of Bede, that the Irish are "a harmless nation, ever most friendly to the English."

Another change that came about, not suddenly, but gradually during this period, is the extinction of the old lines of racial demarcation in Ireland. The Church did not recognise these boundaries. Many noted ecclesiastics belonged to the old plebeian tribes.

In this connection, we may note one feature of the Irish secular law, not traceable to the influence of Christianity. The word _soer_, used as a noun, has two special meanings; it means a freeman and it means a craftsman. The contrary term _doer_ means unfree--in the sense of serfdom rather than of slavery; there is a distinct term for "slave," viz., _mugh_. The plebeian communities are called _doerthuatha_. The inference, therefore, is that a skilled craftsman of unfree race became by virtue of his craft a freeman.

Let us now take a cursory view of the course of political events during the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries, or rather, from the battle of Ocha, which secured the monarchy for the descendants of Niall in 483, till the coming of the Norsemen in 793.

We have seen that the effect of the battle of Ocha was to exclude the Connacht branches of the monarchical family from the succession. The successful princes were a grandson and a great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages; and these two princes, one of the Southern, the other of the Northern Ui Neill, became the next two kings of Ireland.

To understand this event more clearly, it is necessary to take a view of the Irish law of succession or inheritance. Under this law, a man's heirs were a family group called the _derbfine_ or true family. At the head of this group was the great-grandfather of its youngest members, whether he happened to be dead or alive. The _derbfine_ consisted of this family head, his sons, grandsons and great-grandsons--four generations. When the fifth generation came forward, the _derbfine_ subdivided itself, forming a new set of similar groups, the head of each being one of the sons of the man who was head of the older group.

When a man died, all the living members of the _derbfine_ to which he belonged became his heirs, and the inheritance, if capable of division, was divided among them in proportions fixed by law. Thus, if the deceased belonged to the third generation of the four which formed the _derbfine_, his heirs comprised all his grandfather's living descendants--_i.e._ his own children, his brothers and their children, and his uncles and their children and grandchildren. In each case, the _derbfine_ or group of heirs was ascertained by counting back to the great-grandfather of the youngest member and comprised all his descendants.

Kingship was not divisible, though it was a heritable property. When a man became king, then all male members of his _derbfine_ became potential heirs to the kingship. Each member became capable of succession. For a man who thus came into the line of succession, there was a legal name--he was called _rigdamna_, "king-material," or in homely phrase, "the makings of a king." When a vacancy occurred, it was filled up by election from among those in this way qualified.

A glance at the genealogical tree (p. 193) will show how this law of succession influenced the action of the principals in the battle of Ocha. Muirchertach, king of Ailech, as the annals show, was the most active and daring of the Irish princes in his time. But neither his father nor his grandfather had held the high-kingship. If he himself failed to secure it, then the whole branch of the Northern Ui Néill ceased to have any lawful claim to the monarchy. He did not belong to the same _derbfine_ as the reigning monarch Ailill Molt, but he was eligible to the monarchy because his great-grandfather, Niall, had held it. It was therefore his interest, and that of his kinsfolk in the north-west, to strike in, cut out the Connacht branch, and secure the potential succession for himself and his posterity. Not relying on his own power to effect this, he came to an understanding with Luguid, king of the Southern Ui Néill, who belonged to his own _derbfine_. From the sequel, we may judge that the price of Luguid's adhesion was immediate succession to the monarchy. He became king of Ireland after the battle of Ocha, and Muirchertach became king of Ireland after him.

It is evident that this law of succession, a part of the ordinary law of inheritance, was, from the point of view of the public peace, a bad law. There were always branches of the ruling lines which, like the Northern Ui Néill in this instance, were on the point of falling outside of the group of eligibles; and the chiefs of these branches were always under the temptation to use violent measures, if they felt themselves strong enough, to retain the legal qualification in their own line.

In 534, Muirchertach died and was succeeded peacefully by Tuathal Maelgarb, another great-grandson of Niall. Contemporary with him, there was another of Niall's great-grandsons, Diarmait, whose father and grandfather had not reigned, and whose line therefore was in danger of exclusion from the monarchy. In 544, Tuathal was assassinated by a foster-brother of Diarmait, and Diarmait secured the monarchy. He is the last of the great-grandsons of Niall of whom we hear, and consequently the family of Niall ceases in his time to preserve its legal unity. From his death in 565 until the year 734, though the power and prestige acquired by the Ui Néill enabled them to keep the high-kingship among themselves, there is no regularity of succession. The Ui Néill held a number of small kingdoms in Meath and western Ulster, and whatever king of them showed himself to be the strongest is recognised as king of Ireland.

The Northern Ui Néill, occupying a compact territory side by side, continued to hold together in political unity until the seventh century, their chief king being at one time of the line of Conall Gulban, at another time of the line of Eogan. In 563 they conquered from the Picts a belt of territory on the western side of the Bann, between Loch Neagh and the sea. This territory came into the possession of a branch of Eogan's line, represented in later times by the family of O'Catháin (O'Kane). In 615, we see the first appearance of a break in the unity of the Northern Ui Néill. Mael Chobo, of the line of Conall, was then their king and king of Ireland. He was overthrown in battle by Suibne Menn, king of Cenél Eogain, who then became king of Ireland. Thenceforward, Cenél Conaill and Cenél Eogain become rival powers in the North. Their rivalry lasted, with intervals, for a thousand years, until the battle of Kinsale in 1601, where it was a contributary cause of the final overthrow of both their houses. Cenél Eogain, from the position of its territory, held the advantage, and gradually extended its power eastward and southward over Ulster. Cenél Conaill on the other hand, holding the natural fastness of the Donegal Highlands, was never forced to take a permanently subordinate position.

Most modern writers on Irish history have accepted as historical the romantic story of the cursing of Tara and its desertion during the reign of Diarmait. There is not a word about it in the ancient annals, though our earliest known chronicler wrote within half a century of the supposed event. A son of Diarmait, Aed Sláne, became king of Ireland, and died in 604, within the chronicler's time of writing which ends in 610. Aed Sláne shared the high-kingship with Colmán, king of the Northern Ui Néill, and the chronicle says expressly that "they ruled Tara in equal power." As late as the year 780, Tara was neither an accursed nor a deserted place, for in that year an ecclesiastical synod was held "in the town of Tara" (_in oppido Temro_). The extant stories of the cursing of Tara are all writings of the Middle Irish period, written centuries later than the supposed event. They tell us that the trouble began with the outlawry of Aedh Guaire, king of Ui Maine, who refused to submit to a quite unprecedented exercise of authority on the part of the monarch Diarmait. I have not been able to find this Aedh Guaire's name either in the annals or in the genealogy of Ui Maine, or anywhere except in this story. Aedh Guaire sought sanctuary. Diarmait violated the sanctuary. Twelve saints, called "the twelve apostles of Ireland," thereupon laid siege to Tara with fastings and curses, and Tara ceased to be the home of the monarchy. The annals show that some of these saints were dead at the time and others of them were still in their childhood. These so-called historical tales are seldom troubled about anachronisms. The celebrated "Colloquy with the Ancients" brings St. Patrick and Oisin into conversation with the same Diarmait. Apart from anachronisms, the story of the cursing has other features which should suffice to warn any reader from taking it for serious history.

The desertion of Tara does not stand alone, and can be explained without resort to imaginative tales of a later age. Cruachain, the ancient seat of the Connacht kings, and Ailinn, the ancient seat of the Leinster kings, were also abandoned during this period. It was military kings who ruled from these strongholds, surrounded by strong permanent military forces. My first visit to Tara convinced me that what we see there is the remains of a great military encampment. So it appeared or was known to the tenth-century poet Cinaed Ua h-Artacáin, whose poem on Tara begins with the words _Temair Breg_, _baile na fian_, "Tara of Bregia, home of the warrior-bands." When the booty and captives of Britain and Gaul ceased to tempt and recompense a professional soldiery, and when the old fighting castes became gradually merged in the general population, military organisation died out in Ireland, not to reappear until the introduction of the Galloglasses in the thirteenth century. That is one reason why Tara was deserted.

There is another and perhaps more cogent reason. Diarmait left his son, Colmán the Little, king over Midhe proper, _i.e._ Westmeath and most of King's County and County Longford; and another son, Aedh Sláne, before mentioned, king over Bregia, _i.e._ County Meath and parts of Louth and Dublin counties. This is a further instance of that process, described in a former lecture, of creating mean lords. From these two kings sprang two distinct dynasties. Colmán's line, Clann Cholmáin, dominated the western territory; Aed Sláne's line, Síol Aeda Sláne, the eastern territory. The process of appropriation was continued in detail by their descendants. "Clann Cholmáin," says an ancient genealogist, "were distributed throughout Midhe so as to possess the lordship of every tuath and perpetual sovereignty over them." In like manner, an old genealogical poem relates the distribution of Aedh Sláne's descendants in lordship over various territories of Bregia.

The annals show that, between these two families so closely related, a fierce and bloody feud broke out, with continual reprisals, lasting for many years. Tara was in the possession of Aed Sláne's line. After the year 734, the kings of this line were excluded from the high-kingship, but nevertheless continued to hold undisputed authority over all Bregia, including Tara, until the close of the tenth century, when their dynasty was suppressed by the high-king Mael Sechnaill, who was also the chief of Clann Cholmáin. These facts quite sufficiently explain why, after 734, no king of Ireland could occupy Tara without an army.

The political affairs of southern Ireland during this period are remarkably tranquil and undiversified. In Munster, there was probably more abiding peace than in any equal extent of country in western Europe. The kings of Cashel appear to have steadily consolidated their authority and to have been content to do so without seeking to extend it beyond the bounds fixed in the fifth century. In the Book of Rights, the tributes payable to the king of Cashel far exceed those to which any of the other six principal kings in Ireland laid claim. There is an allegory related in the genealogies which indicates that at one time the supremacy of Cashel was challenged by the Eoghanacht kings of West Munster. This may have particular reference to one of these, Aedh Bennán, who died in 619, and who seems to have grouped under his own authority the western states in opposition to the king of Cashel. It is doubtful whether this ambition outlived him. His daughter, Mór Mhumhan ("Mór of Munster," as she is called), figures in ancient story. She became the wife of Fínghen, king of Cashel, and the ancestress of the most numerous family in Ireland, the O'Sullivans.

The most powerful of the kings of Cashel during this period was Cathal, who died in 742. The annals indicate that he held virtually equal authority with the contemporary high-kings. One of the prerogatives of the high-king was to preside over the Assembly of Taillte ("Teltown," near Navan). In 733, Cathal seems to have attempted to preside over this assembly, in the absence of the high-king Flaithbertach, who was engaged at the time in a losing struggle to preserve his own authority in the north-west. Cathal's attempt to preside over the high-king's assembly was forcibly prevented by Domhnall, king of Midhe. In 734, Cathal appears to have secured the adherence or submission of the king of Ossory in an effort to extend his power over Leinster; and a fierce battle ensued, in which the king of Ossory was killed and the king of Cashel escaped alive. In 737, a convention was held between Cathal and the high-king, Aedh Allán, at Terryglass in Ormond, and apparently an agreement was made between them securing the claim of the church of Armagh to revenue from all Ireland. In 738, Cathal again invaded Leinster and exacted hostages and a heavy contribution from the king of Naas. In view of all this, the name of Cathal was afterwards included by some southern writers in the list of monarchs of Ireland.

In Leinster, a factor against peace was the ancient claim of the high-kings to tribute from the Leinster kings. The origin of this tribute, called the Bóramha or "kine-counting," is explained by two different stories. Possibly it originated in the conquest of northern Leinster. The tribute was seldom conceded but to main force. To exact it at least once in a reign was a point of honour, a test of the monarch's authority; and an invasion of Leinster for that purpose is an almost regular item in the annals under the first or second year of each high-king.

The irregular succession to the monarchy ends in the year 734. In that year the high-king Flaithbertach, who was king of Tír Conaill, was compelled to abdicate by Aedh Allán, king of Cenél Eogain, who then became high-king. Flaithbertach retired into religious life at Armagh where he died thirty-one years later. From the year 734 until 1022, except for two interruptions, the succession to the high kingship was reserved to two dynasties, one at the head of the Northern Ui Néill, the other at the head of the Southern Ui Néill, to the kings of Ailech and Midhe; and these succeeded each other in the monarchy in regular alternation. There is no record of any express constitutional pact to secure the succession in this manner, but the alternation was a well recognised fact; and on this fact the medieval reconstructors of Irish history for the prehistoric period modelled part of their work--so that we read of an alternate sovereignty over Munster in remote antiquity, and of another alternate sovereignty, in which the Eoghanacht and the Dalcassians were the partners, at a later period; and the history of the monarchy is projected back to the first arrival of the Gaels in Ireland, by a device already alluded to, that is, by selecting names in turn out of the pedigrees of the principal dynasties.

It is not my purpose in these lectures to give a complete scheme of Irish history, allotting to each set of facts its due proportion of the discourse. My aim is rather to supplement what appears defective and correct what appears misleading in the treatment of early Irish history as the public has been accustomed to it. In regard of the great activity of religion and learning during the period between St. Patrick and the Norsemen, I shall not attempt to give even in summary what has been so eloquently described in detail by others, for example, by Archbishop Healy in his valuable work on "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," and, in the continental and missionary aspect, by Margaret Stokes. We have noted that the Irish civilisation of this period stands out so brightly from what are called the Dark Ages that it has commanded the special attention of an eminent historian of the Roman Empire, and evoked the resources of German scholarship. When I see the eulogist of Anglo-Norman feudalism in Ireland sitting in judgment upon the political institutions of a people which he has never studied and does not at all understand, I call to mind the estimate formed by "the ancient philosophers of Ireland" about Victorius of Aquitaine--that he was deserving of compassion rather than of ridicule. A barbarous people in "the tribal stage"--every item culled out that might suggest comparison with the head-hunters of New Guinea and the Hottentot--and beside this and in the midst of it schools everywhere, not schools but universities--books everywhere, "the countless multitude of the books of Éire,"--yes, we can still use the scrapings of our Irish vellum as a cure for the foreign snake-bite--and on the other hand, the pomp and circumstance of Feudalism, with its archiepiscopal viceroys, its incastellations and its subinfeudations, its charters and its statutes, its registers and its inquisitions, but during four centuries not one school of note, not even one, and one abortive university, no literature except the melancholy records of anti-national statecraft, and whatever learning there was for the most part suborned to the purposes of a dominating officialdom, just as in our own day we have seen the highest achievements of science and invention suborned to the service of the war departments.

As regards the actual scope of Irish learning, at that period, our data are not sufficient to determine it. I do not know whether anyone has yet attempted to draw up a complete conspectus of the Latin literature that has been preserved in MSS. copied by Irish scribes, and of Latin authors quoted in ancient Irish books. In my opinion, the formation of a sane estimate of the Latin learning of that age, in the case of Ireland as of other countries, has been hindered by what I will call the intellectual snobbery of the Renaissance--an attitude of mind in which scholars think to dignify themselves by despising everything in Latin that was not written in the time of the first twelve Caesars. It should not be ignored that for centuries after the fall of the Western Empire, though Latin existed among the common people only in the form of broken and breaking dialects, the Latin of the grammarians continued to be the language of thought and of education throughout the western half of Europe, and remained for the educated a truly living language. If it did not retain its classical elegance, it still had an unbroken vital tradition. Above all, the later Latin writings contain the contemporary record of the most progressive section of the human race in those times. I have often thought that I should like to see our universities break away from that sentiment of intellectual snobbery and open up opportunities for their students to become familiar with the late Latin literature. There can be no doubt that it was this late Latin literature that was chiefly read in the ancient Christian schools of Ireland, and properly so, for its content was of more vital interest to their teachers and scholars than the matter of producing elegant yet artificial imitations of the Latin classics. In that later Latin and through its medium, Western Christendom was joined in an international common-wealth of mind. The Irish schools were familiar with works written in Spain like those of Orosius and St. Isidore, or in Gaul like those of St. Jerome and Victorius. Perhaps the intimacy and frequency of this intellectual intercourse is best illustrated in a letter written by the celebrated Alcuin no doubt from the palace school of Charlemagne, to Colgu, a professor in Clonmacnois, just before the ravages of the Norsemen began. "The writer complains that for some time past he was not deemed worthy to receive any of those letters 'so precious in my sight from your fatherhood,' but he daily feels the benefit of his absent father's prayers." Here we have clear testimony that, for personal correspondence, there existed a way of sending letters from Ireland to the Rhineland and receiving replies, approaching as near to a regular postal service as we could expect to find in that age. The sequence of the letter shows that the medium of this correspondence was merchant shipping engaged in trade between the two countries. Alcuin adds "that he sends by the same messenger an alms of fifty sicles of silver from the bounty of King Charles (_i.e._ Charlemagne) and fifty more from his own resources for the brotherhood. He also sends a quantity of olive oil ... and asks that it may be distributed amongst the Bishops in God's honour for sacramental purposes."